Campaign of Misinformation Directed at Linux

Discussion in 'News and Article Comments' started by Anti-Trend, Mar 9, 2005.

  1. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    According the Open Source Development Laboratories, enemies of the open source movement have been especially busy lately, spreading FUD* and misinformation in general about open source software -- especially GNU/Linux. They take the time to address each and every point that's been brought up recently, including “there aren't enough patches”, “there's too many patches”, “there's no enterprise-level support”, and my personal favorite, “nobody takes responsibility for it!”

    The brief article can be found here, courtesy of vnunet.
     
  2. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    :mad: :swear: :rolleyes:
     
  3. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    Don't tell me you're surprised, we even had one of these articles posted on this very site! :rolleyes:
     
  4. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    True. I'm taking an intro to computer science class next year, working almost exclusively with RedHat. Wonder if Linux will take over MS.
     
  5. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    I'd be happy with coexistence at this point. I'm not interested in indoctrinating the world into Linuxism, or firebombing MS headquarters in Redmond. I just wanted to see Linux taken seriously, as I do believe it's a superior product. Even if you don't like Linux or want to use it, who would it benefit to have no options for an OS outside of Microsoft? There are a lot of MS fanboys who would love to see Linux fail. The ironic thing is that if it does, they'll suffer right along with the Linux users. Linux (and OSS) gives MS at least a little incentive to compete, to innovate. If there's no catalyst for change, they have no reason to improve, to fix problems, to charge reasonable prices, or even to answer their phones.
     
  6. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    exactly!
     
  7. Fred

    Fred Moderator

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    One thing that bothers me is that most of the companies that don't like Linux have a lot of money and can pay people to find faults if they want to. Heck, for all I know, most of them might. Funny thing is, it doesn't take paying people to find security flaws with Windows.
     
  8. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    zzzzzzzzing
     
  9. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    As far as I'm concerned, finding (and fixing!) problems is a good thing. I'd rather find out about it through a security bulletin than by seeing "hacked by chinese!" on my homepage. :p
     
  10. Addis

    Addis The King

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    [ot]I'd hate to live in China. They have so tight web censoring. [/ot]
    just a shame theres not enough developers (aswell as hackers) for open source.
     
  11. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    If they're trying to point out that Linux has problems, I say duh. There is no perfect OS, and if you believe that a certain OS is the only faultless OS, it's just blind fanboyism.

    I use Windows at the moment because it's really what I've worked with and learned much of. I sorta know some stuff about Linux, but not to the point where I'm able to flip over. Much of what I see of the problem with Linux isn't so much the OS as the vendor support of good drivers. Not all companies are this way, but when it comes to ATi, they've got a ways to go...unless the new driver update fixes the major issues with performance. Yes, it's much harder to go to a new OS when you've been working with another OS for so long. That doesn't mean it's a bad OS at all.
     
  12. Fred

    Fred Moderator

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    Yeah, that's really my only problem with them at this point. It's a little bit of a pain in the butt that there isn't very much software support. But I like the rest of the OS enough that it's worth the trouble right now, and I'm sure as Linux gets more popular, there will be more foreign software.
     
  13. ProcalX

    ProcalX all grown up

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    hehe Gentoo64 :p
     
  14. Nic

    Nic Sleepy Head

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    I dont like the fact that you have to mount drives to use them that kinda confuzes me but im sure ill get used to I currently have linux on my laptop that I don't use so that I can get used to it.
     
  15. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    Some distro's will automount for you. Same with automatic NTFS support. SuSe 9.1 Pro doesn't appear to have it natively. I just need to do some command switches...which is one thing that people don't care to do. There's also the words "recompling the kernel" that can freak n00bs out. Linux is getting more user friendly, but much of what I see is with the installation part (not saying it's bad) first, then the actual useability. Linux being very customizeable is also it's weakness for getting new users and/or Windows defectors. It's the sheer variety that's a blessing and a curse.

    Linux distro's are light years ahead of where they were 4-5 years ago and people are getting into technology more, which is helping it. There's also specifically targeted distro's like Knoppix and Smoothwall Linux that have specific applications they're designed for.
     
  16. Addis

    Addis The King

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    Floppix and DSL are cool.
     
  17. ProcalX

    ProcalX all grown up

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    Whats Floppix Addis? - Please? noob.

    BigB, SuSe 9.1 Pro does automount for you, - works perfectly for me.
     
  18. Nic

    Nic Sleepy Head

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    Floppix is linux on 2 (ithink) floppy discs
     
  19. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    Automount can be done on any Linux distro -- the question is whether or not it's done by default. Really, Linux is Linux. Every Linux distro potentially has the same features, just not out-of-the-box. My OS has automount support, but I actually prefer to mount the removable drives manually. Since it simplifies things and I have more control over my system that way, it actually makes the system more productive for me to do it by hand. I guess I could just make a little script with a pretty icon that mounts my CDroms for me when I click it, but I prefer the shell. My wife prefers the system to just automount it for her, and throw a corresponding icon on her desk automatically. Linux/Unix is a very customizable platform, which can be daunting at first. But once you understand the core concepts, it's all pretty easy and transparent, and rather delightfully configurable. :good:
     
  20. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    Yeah, the automount does work, it's a matter of getting the NTFS reading to work properly. That's what I meant, but I guess it didn't quite come across as such. :rolleyes:
     

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