Breen Ouellette wrote:
Theo de Raadt wrote:
I will ask this honestly:
Why should we bleed our little hearts over a company who acted like
assholes towards us for years, and only changed their policy due to
public pressure?
Don't; just drop it and act like a man. "No, Theo needs an apology
because his feelings are hurt." Holy shit, you sound like my sister and
her bitch friends.
To make ourselves feel better? I think it is pointless. They still
did not apologize.
The comments made by Theo over the years have been very childish and
ignorant. I can't believe anybody would give him anything. He's just
like the prissy little baby you see who crys, bitches, and moans until
her mommy gives her her way. Then, she still acts like she deserves
more. That's not an opinion, that's fact. Just read any of his posts
where issues get a little heated.
First, you have to look at everyone's motive. OBSD wants everything
free, secure, and distributable, thats policy. Companies want closed
source and marketability, that's their policy. OBSD is not in business,
companies are, and for money as matter of fact. Companies see their
software/firmware as an asset. Exposing such assets could jeopardize
their market position and also expose their hardware assets. This point
is arguable, but that's what these companies believe.
So think about it this way, OBSD prides itself on being secure, that's
how it "leads" in its market. What would make the OS loose it's market
so to speak? Well, including blobs that make the OS vulnerable for one.
That is something Theo is not going to budge on. That's his policy. So
when Theo starts crying when companies don't open source, that is very
hypocritical behavior.
Picture this; you are teaching a dog to do a trick, roll-over. You tell
him to roll-over, but he just lays down, so you kick him and tell him
that he's "unfriendly" and don't give him a treat. What do you think he
is going to do the next time you tell him to roll-over? Jesus christ, he
is half way there, encourage him, give him a motive to follow through.
Additionally, how do you think the rest of the pack watching you kick
their own are going to act towards you?
I have to say, people definitely get back what they give. For instance,
I don't think I have ever heard a public outcry from the open source
community stating "we need money" other than the recent display from the
OBSD community. I have never heard the Jolitzs', Joy, Linus, etc. ever
say, we gave code away, but nobody paid us. Nobody else has money
problems except Theo, maybe it's the attitude?
I agree with Theo, and yet I agree with others who subscribe to the
'reward for good behaviour' line of thinking. I think the issue is one
of perspective, and the scale for rating companies over at
vendorwatch.org is too simple.
Obviously for the developers it is frustrating that they have to push
and push and push for years with no results, only to blow up and cause a
community outcry which finally gets the vendor to open up.
Why push and push? Why not support well the vendors that do share OSS
philosophies? Proudly support them and make it well known that OBSD runs
rock solid with these supported hardwares. It's not like OBSD supports a
majority of hardware anyway. I am perfectly happy being selective in my
hardware purchases in order to obtain supported hardware.
If Intel is not cooperating, and AMD is (according to vendor watch they
are "friendly"), then loudly support AMD. AMD will appreciate it and may
see it as an edge against their competitors. This is motive for them to
loudly support you back, in the media, fiscally, etc. One thing about
human behavior and companies in general is everyone wants to jump on the
bandwagon. Once you dig in and build some serious alliances, others will
take notice and want to join in. One must lead by example.
In the
meantime, Theo has been painted (again) as abrasive, whiny,
thick-headed, and who knows what else by the larger Open Source
community, thanks in large part to outlets like Slashdot which present a
snapshot which completely fails to report the scope of this ongoing
problem. And now that the docs are open again, there will be pressure on
the OpenBSD team to fix the errors in the Hifn code - for a product
which has been a source of frustration for quite a while. When one
thinks about it one should be able to sympathize with the developers a
little more than the companies which jerk them around.
People only get what they have given.
For the users who jumped on the bandwagon less than four weeks ago it
seems like a great victory. For the developers it's not so easy to set
aside the hassle they've gone through and pound on that code. A primary
motivation for the developers is, after all, to have fun working on code.
And still, if companies that do respond favourably after a public outcry
continue to get badmouthed after the fact, there won't be much incentive
for companies to open up in the future. We do need a way to recognize
that something positive came about after putting up with a lengthy
negative period.
There is no truer statement in this post.
What does 'Somewhat Friendly' mean, anyway? To turn the tables, if
OpenBSD was rated on the same system, would it be 'Friendly', 'Somewhat
Friendly', or 'Unfriendly'? And what relevance would that have? The
developers may not be a bunch of hand holding saps, and could be rated
as 'Hostile' on occasion, but that doesn't change the fact that OpenBSD
is a kick ass system governed by some very strong goals and philosophies.
I have to say Breen has a very accurate view on this situation and
presents a very honorable vendor grading system (mentioned below). The
system on vendorwatch.org seems so 3rd grade, "friendly", "unfriendly".
It's like, "This guy didn't apologize to us, so he can't be our friend."
Before I moved from FreeBSD to OBSD, I felt OBSD had an "unfriendly"
status. That is what kept me away from it for so long. However, I liked
the simplicity of the system and eventually installed it on all of my
servers. Ok, so why is OBSD labeled "unfriendly"? When we start digging
in, we start to see the reasons for it being labeled as such, however,
they are good reasons for some; completely free and distributable, etc.
So when we look beneath the labels and stereotypes, we see that they are
only relative. For instance, OBSD is friendly to me in looking for
simplicity, however, if I were a gamer and needed support for crazy
graphics hardware, obviously it would be unfriendly. That's what OBSD
needs to keep in perspective. If a company doesn't want to release docs,
fine, don't support their hardware. It doesn't give you a reason to go
bad mouthing them and publishing childish comments.
I think we need a more objective rating system. Here's a five point
system which is more useful: 'Supplies Hardware', 'Donates Money',
'Supplies Docs Freely', 'Works Well With Developers', and 'Listens To
Customers'. This is not necessarily the rating system we should use, but
it seems to me to be a step in the right direction.
A major issue is ensuring that this process works with developers which
working against them. Theo et al are busy working on OpenBSD and they
don't likely want to spend all their time complaining about vendors on
vendorwatch.org. However, their participation is necessary to ensure
that vendorwatch.org meets its mandate.
Hopefully the process can be improved. We turned around Hifn in under
four weeks (I expected it to take at least four months!) with a heated
mailing list discussion and some poorly organized free press. Think of
what we could do if we had a smoothly working process which put everyone
on the same page!
Breeno
Bottom line, some people see this as a problem, however, I believe it
will work itself out. Technology is moving faster, companies are getting
smaller, and competition is growing more fierce. I believe larger
companies will have a harder time surviving in markets with smaller and
more agile competitors. Consequently, these smaller competitors are the
ones that are smart enough to take advantage of the benefits of OSS.
Hell, I just may start up my own hardware company, outsource hardware
engineers, let the open source community develop software for me, then
sell my product with kick ass, highly robust, reviewed, and bug-free
software. I can sell my products cheaper than my competitors, (i.e. no
soft-dev operating costs), and still make enough to donate back to the
open source community to keep the ball rolling.
There is no reason for bitching and complaining, there are way too many
opportunities right in front of you.
-pachl
