[Wylug-discuss] Open Source attacks.

[Lee Evans]

I don't really know how to weigh in on this discussion

You seem to invite a balanced open discussion, but do so whilst making
statements such as

"I wonder if Microsoft is now funding teams to repeat the company line
on websites"

"is Windows becoming so bad"

Which seem to be uninformed, inaccurate and in the case of the former
verging on the ridiculous.

If you really think that Microsoft is -paying- people to go around posting
'opinion' - some of which as you have quite rightly identified is similarly
ridiculous and 'blinkered' I can't foresee a very open discussion forming.


I think by posting such a message to the wylug list you are essentially
guilty of the same crimes as the virulently pro-Microsoft chaps on the .Net
development boards that you've bumped in to - most members of this list are
not particularly open minded with regards Microsoft technology and the only
answers you're likely to get are similarly rooted in virulent / fervorous /
quasi-religious commitment to the opposing platform.

You may or may not be surprised that similar messages to yours appear on
various Microsoft based discussion boards and newsgroups on fairly regular
occasion - a .Net developer, windows admin or such like has come across a
need to engage with an open source technology and perhaps it's community and
finds them similarly threatened and fundamentally opposed to the individuals
usual proprietary technologies and environment. 

Looking at a couple of the previous posts:

Jim says - "there are enough people who just don't understand the
FreeSoftware/OpenSource development model to spout off."

I think Jim's uncovered the most accurate statement in this thread so far. I
would go so far as to say that the majority of people that I encounter in
the Windows community are fairly ignorant of the available open source
technologies and the benefits it can (not necessarily does) offer. However,
the converse is also true and the majority of people working primarily in
the OSS world are similarly ignorant of the benefits Windows may offer.

Unfortunately ignorance abounds in all walks of life and, often times, the
ignorant are quite happy to continue as-is and only get upset if you try to
show them change. I've generally found where that is the case that you can't
show them a better way and you're best to just leave them to it.

James says -
"I encounter this occasionally - people with whom you can't have
an educated discussion because they don't understand the rules of the
game"

but then goes on to say

"Those without a clue are the ones clinging to the MS way of doing things"

Which is exactly that which he decries in his first paragraph - an
opinionated statement based not on fact but on belief.


James - I too spent many years working as a Windows admin in the NT4 days,
but I can't understand why you think that knowledge gained to that point
became obsolete with the release of Windows 2000. Yes, some of what you had
learned become irrelevant and there was a lot of new stuff to learn - but
having been in the same position I can't understand why you thought that
"all your knowledge" was becoming obsolete.

The same is true today as we get to grips with Windows Server 2008. I can't
think of a technical discipline where we aren't required to keep our
knowledge current or where everything we have learned remains valid for any
particularly long period of time. I can't imagine many of the scripts or
config hacks I used on my Linux systems 10 years ago working or being even
remotely relevant today.

James - "It's not about the technologies used, but the results gained"

True enough - as somebody who enjoys working in both environments I'd love
to see further harmony, and I think that whilst people are still hung up on
technology vs technology rather than the results and mutual benefits that's
not going to happen. Thankfully that's a fairly sweeping statement and there
are plenty of people who are working in both communities to develop
understanding in both directions.



I appreciate that this is not a particularly direct answer to the original
question - "what is the threat to Microsoft and by extension their fanboys"
- but I really don't think you can answer that question specifically. The
answer is that there isn't really a threat to Microsoft nor their fanboys,
only a threat to the individuals sense of security in what they do. There
are plenty of people doing great work to integrate and work with both sides
of the ecosystem. It's simply a perceived threat by people who have
subscribed to one belief system from those who have subscribed to another.
James rightly draws religious references and you can easily find other
similar situations throughout the world - football team vs football team,
sport vs sport, car manufacturer vs car manufacturer.

Far more intelligent people than me have tried to answer, and I'm sure will
continue to do so, the fundamental question as to what drives people to so
enthusiastically defend such beliefs often in spite of overwhelming evidence
to contradict them.
 
Speaking for myself I freely admit to being both a Windows and Linux / Open
Source fan, and I don't feel threatened by either camp. I'm a competent .Net
developer, not so competent occasional open source developer and certified
Microsoft and Redhat engineer. The fact is that both technologies have their
advantages and disadvantages. I don't mind paying for software if it
delivers the results I need. Despite what many of you may think, Windows
isn't plain 'crap' and certainly isn't 'getting worse'. It's a far better
system than the alternative mish-mash of open source platforms and
applications for many things. Likewise, there are a number of situations
where I wouldn't swap a few trusted OSS apps for the world.

Regards

Lee



-----Original Message-----
From: wylug-discuss-bounces at wylug.org.uk
[mailto:wylug-discuss-bounces at wylug.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Holden
Sent: 09 April 2008 01:45
To: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Open Source attacks.

Hi Shaun,

It's down to an almost religious belief, plain and simple. As an
athiest, I encounter this occasionally - people with whom you can't have
an educated discussion because they don't understand the rules of the
game, for instance logic, scientific method etc.

A while ago (by "a while" I mean around 1999/2000), I had an epiphany.

I was a Windows expert. The creme-de-la-creme of desktop and server
support staff. I knew every registry tweak, every DLL conflict, I could
bring a Windows machine back from the dead with Voodoo and a DOS boot
disk.

Then, Windows 2000 appeared on the horizon.

I realised that all my knowledge and career was based on was a bunch of
stupid tweaks and hacks, and that everything I knew was about to be
obsoleted by the inevitable pointless progression in the Microsoft
world.

This upset me deeply and I quit the day job and went freelance, building
web thingies with open source tools, installing Samba servers and the
like, putting to use all the Linux skills I'd accumulated as more of a
curiosity over the years.

Life was good, except for the fact that freelancing was unpredictable
and I had a growing family.

I grabbed a full time job as an open source developer at an ISP and later
on a telecoms company.

Today, the horrid proprietary Windows world is a distant memory, and to
be honest, when I read or hear about the latest technologies (ie:
Vista), it all seems like some weird parallel universe where everybody
seems intent on doing everything the hard way.

These days, there seems to be people with a clue, and people without a
clue. Those without a clue are the ones clinging to the MS way of doing
things (after all, nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft), and
those who do have some sense of clue are doing things the open source
way.

This pervades into general life. The culture of openness or closedness
is everywhere.

I wanted to know the tide times at Sandsend in North Yorkshire this
weekend.

You can find the tide times at Whitby quite easily on the Internet, but
the tide times at Sandsend (which will largely be the same) are
available via the Internet on paper for 50p plus a SAE.

This in itself seems to embody the closed-mindedness of the Microsoft
world. It'd be far more productive for the community to offer the tide
times free of charge with the support of a single banner from a local
guest house.

The Microsoft world appears to me to be a pathetic penny racket like the
Sandsend tide tables mail-order service - devoid of any real value, and
fleecing sheep-like followers of their cash for products that have
viable (and indeed often superior) alternatives elsewhere.

It's not about the technologies used, but the results gained. Services
that I build are there to last, and the reason that's possible is that
nobody's about to pull the rug out from under them by means of any
scheduled obselescence or other forced upgrade paths. I need to rely on
this, and I can't do it in the Microsoft world.

The latest is not the best, change for changes sake is pointless. I'm
immnune to this backwards thinking by operating in the free software
community, thank goodness

Cheers,

James


On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 02:33:04PM +0100, Shaun Laughey wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I have a great little discussion starter here.
> 
> You all remember the "Get the facts" campaign by Microsoft trying to
> make out that Windows was cheaper and more secure than Linux?
> 
> Well I've been seeing those arguments used more and more recently by
> the "general public" or people posting comments on semi-technical
> sites such as the one below.
> 
> http://www.pcretailmag.com/news/29647/Gartner-claims-open-source-will-rule
> 
> I wonder if Microsoft is now funding teams to repeat the company line
> on websites or is Windows becoming so bad that people are obsessing
> about it and repeat the standard excuse for why it's so bad "It's not
> our fault we're so successful" much how smokers have excuses as to why
> they want to die horribly of cancer (spot the ex smoker) and kill all
> those around them despite all the evidence.
> 
> At the moment I'm porting a VB application to Ruby on Rails and the
> .NET sites can be quite virulently opposed to open source and linux in
> both their content and the comments.
> 
> So my question is what is the threat to Microsoft and by extension
> their fanboys? Surely OSS runs on Windows too?
> 
> If they were attacking Linux I'd understand but the attacks seem to be
> at Open Source Software.
> 
> Regards,
> Shaun Laughey.
> 
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