On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 09:26:58PM -0400, Khepri wrote:
> John Pugh wrote:
>
> "Given UNIX’s popularity for server workloads, Linux is a full
> participant in this marketplace. Linux has a following among UNIX
> aficionados and within the server community."
>
> Am I the only one scratching my head on this one?
Maybe. It makes sense to me.
>
> "In the past, there have been desktop innovations from small companies
> that outshone the best on Windows. A notable example was the Netscape
> Navigator web browser."
>
> Why use the failed Netscape project as an example instead of the
> successful Mozilla Project? I know he said 'in the past', but the
> Mozilla Suite goes back far enough I would think..it's still here,
> Netscape threw in the towel?
Note the word "companies". Notice how, at that point in his blog
entries, he's speaking within the context of proprietary commercial
competitors in what has become Microsoft's home turf: the desktop. It
was part of a build-up before contrasting the commercial efforts with
the circumstances of a credible challenge to Microsoft's "hegemony"
that, as it turns out, isn't centered around corporate innovations at
all. What he's saying, I think, is that Microsoft was the clear
commercial winner, but now that there's a noncommercial (free/open
source) challenge that isn't susceptible to the same pressures as past
competitor's in Microsoft's markets, Novell is positioning itself to
provide corporate support and to profit by that. The impression I get
is of a statement that companies like Novell and the growing corpus of
free/open source software can enjoy a symbiotic, mutually beneficial
relationship.
Now, that might all be a bunch of marketing hype, but it sounds a lot
better than what credit you seem willing to grant. He's pretty much
saying the right things in the right places, with just a touch of
obvious bias that's pretty much inescapably expected in a corporate CTO.
>
> Maybe take off the Unix glasses and just look at Linux from a GNU
> perspective...
Why would he do that? He's an Open Source business man, not a Free
Software businessman. Granted, the mission statements and the like of
the FSF sound great to me, up to a point, but to someone like the CTO of
Novell (or of Red Hat, for that matter, or Mandriva, or . . .) it
probably sounds more like fruity hippie crap that takes a good idea like
open source software development and runs with it.
. . . or maybe I'm reading too much into what you said. Maybe you're
just using "GNU perspective" for the handy pun, and pointing out that
the guy needs to settle into a new paradigm just a little more
comfortably. If that's the case, I think I agree, but then I think the
entire Novell enterprise comes off like the little brother that
desperately wants to fit in with the older kids in the already
established FLOSS social circles, so I'm not terribly surprised. He's
got something like Linux Newbie Syndrome, perhaps -- all the enthusiasm
and good intentions without the mature understanding of what he's really
sunk his teeth into, yet. It'll come, as long as we give him the time
and help the Linux Newbie when he needs it, how he can best be helped,
by showing him how to help himself.
In other words, I think we should be saying "Welcome to the club!" and
overlooking the occasional bit of clumsiness, keeping a seat warm,
rather than reacting like he's some kind of poseur trying to infiltrate
our secret society.
Hm. I think I strayed from the main point. I'm not sure whether I ever
got where I was originally going. Hopefully I said something useful in
there.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] "Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham
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