[Gllug] Financial Times - could Linux dethrone the software king?

[Bruce Richardson]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 12:11:55PM +0000, John wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-01-22 at 10:01, Chris Ball wrote:
> > >> On 2003-01-22, Peter Childs <blue.dragon at blueyonder.co.uk> said:
> > 
> >    > I love Microsoft statment that Linux is yet to face the Hacking
> >    > problem. Havn't they reliesed yet that bacuase its open source,
> >    > there is NOTHING to hack, no holes barred and therefore no point
> >    > in hacking it.
> > 
> > I assume you'll be sending your personal and corporate root passwords to
> > the list via separate cover, right?
> 
> Toungue-in-cheek reply.
> Wasn't it Richard M Stallman who was appalled when passwords were
> introduced on the system he was working on at MIT?

It was.  The original ITS system had no passwords and no file security.

> He believed all software should be free. Leading to the start of the
> free software movement.

In the example above, though, he was also arguing that there should be
no such thing as private data either.

The flaw in the free computing dream as envisioned at MIT is that it
required a community of peers.  It made no allowance for those without
highly developed technical computing skills, largely because such people
were held in complete contempt (little changes).

The arrogance of that vision was a big factor in shaping the
microcomputer revolution, which was carried forward by people that the
MIT snobs (and the architects of Unix, who came after them) wouldn't
consider talking to.  So the methods and knowledge accumulated at MIT
and similar places wasn't passed on and the PC business was the home of
crappy software and crappy methodology for a very long time.  Explains a
lot about Microsoft and most commercial and shareware software available
for PCs.

The irony there is that the MIT crowd saw themselves as liberating
computing from the snobbery and elitism of the high priests of the
mainframe.

-- 
Bruce

The ice-caps are melting, tra-la-la-la.  All the world is drowning,
tra-la-la-la-la.  -- Tiny Tim.
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