Is Linux For Losers? (Forbes)

Posted Jun 17, 2005 14:27 UTC (Fri) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469) [Link]

I was really surprised to see a Daniel Lyons article that wasn't quite so flamish this time. The article definately states Theo's position on Linux in the type of words Theo would likely use.[0] Apparently they emailed Linus Torvalds who declined to comment except to say that Theo is a "difficult" man. I take this to mean fiercely opinionated, which is something I think many people would characterize Theo as.

Overall, the article goes really well until the last paragraph or two when it mentions some man with a doctorate (I personally don't give a damn what his qualifications are) saying he moved from Linux to OpenBSD after seeing a comment along the lines of "Does this belong here?" in the linux source code. He is quoted as saying that doesn't inspire confidence. IMO, it doesn't insprire fear either, or rather it shouldn't. That could simply be a comment meaning "Isn't there a better way to do this?" or "Is there a better place in the kernel for this code?"

[0] Note, I do not personally know Mr. de Raadt and I am basing that hypothesis entirely on third party sources. I hope you'll excuse me if this turns out to be false.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 14:50 UTC (Fri) by gallir (guest, #5735) [Link]

He is being coherent with what he said before.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 14:58 UTC (Fri) by whitemice (guest, #3748) [Link]

I moved from AIX to Linux many years ago, first starting with Linux at the 0.99a version. It was pretty scary THEN.

I only tried BSD recently, and my through - "OMG, this like where LINUX was ten years ago!". The installers, configuration, etc... were as primitive as AIX was back in the 3.2.1 days. These guys need a clue - your kernel can be PERFECT, but users use systems to solve problems - that is the point of systems existing.

I've never paid much attention to the BSDs or read anything by or about De Raadt, and after reading this I know I'll never try BSD again or pay any attention to him. Maybe he is a genius, but he comes across as an angry bitter self-righteous crank. And you are just a lucky person if you don't already have enough of those in your life.

And switching platforms because you saw a comment in the code? I doubt these guys have ever "kissed girls".

Posted Jun 17, 2005 15:01 UTC (Fri) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link]

What a flamer. I'm going with the "sour grapes" theory because The0's comments don't even make all that much sense. Perhaps, maybe, in a pinch, OpenBSD has "better" core code than Linux, but I don't think so. If you stripped Linux down to the unbelievably small amount of functionality of OpenBSD, you'd be left with, well, hardly anything, but it would be a mature core of tight, well-tested code. Linux's core code is as high or higher than OpenBSD's.

I hardly need to conjecture here, since we know from field testing that OpenBSD has serious problems. The team of 60 crack programmers has, in all those years of worshipping the Unix alter, not come up with all that many O(1) or even O(logN) algorithms. To wit:

• They have an O(N) bind()
• The have an O(N) fork()
• They have a seriously broken O-what-the-heck-is-that memory manager
• The have an O(1) accept()

As much as I would like to just take The0's word for things and switch to OpenBSD, the empirical evidence just doesn't agree with his flaming. If OpenBSD is so farking great, where are all the OpenBSD supercomputers? Government installations? Large corporate installations?

I think he is confusing lack of code with code quality. After all, it's certainly true that OpenBSD has no bugs in its InfiniBand stack. Zero bugs in zero lines of code is a good ratio, I suppose. Perhaps there is some slapdashery in the Linux IB stack, but I'd have to say that a working stack is better than none at all. The same is true for OpenBSD's support for Sparc64 SMP (none), Areca SATA controllers (none), and all manner of other hardware and peripherals (hardly any).

Call me practical, but I'll take Linux's actual hardware support over OpenBSD's non-existant but no doubt high-quality non-implementations. And I've been enjoying Linux SMP for nearly a decade before SMP started to sort of stagger along under OpenBSD.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 15:15 UTC (Fri) by kena (subscriber, #2735) [Link]

That, and I have to admit I kind of enjoyed the line, "BSD powers two of the best operating systems in the world -- Solaris from Sun..."

Ummmm... SunOS 4.1.4 was, unless I'm woo mistaken, the last BSD-based release. And that was in '94. It's been SysV since. No?

Posted Jun 17, 2005 15:33 UTC (Fri) by th0ma7 (guest, #24698) [Link]

I'm wondering when we will see a RT or numbering scheme discussion in the BSD world as interesting as the one we saw recently in the linux world... with has many people and opinions.

The strenght of linux is it's community. It keeps it alive and makes it grow. No wonder why BSD is not has popular with such a narrow mind.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 15:55 UTC (Fri) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link]

Dan Lyons has been on a roll for the last week or so. I'm sure the note I sent him last week was in his flamer file. When people write like that it is either fear or money talking. In his case I am sure it is both.

When you try to rationalize what he's saying you can't, neither can you put substance behind his "facts". I think it is a blessing to see how well Linux has done these last few years on it's own.

One could only imagine how much money Microsoft could have made had they ported their office suite to Linux before OpenOffice.org was viable?

Greed and fear will do in people like Dan Lyons and eventually Microsoft because in a community spirit of collaboration and free will giving, fear and greed don't naturally exist.

Just another reason why corporations and especially governments fear large benign organizations, because they grow unabated indefinitely.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 15:57 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Lyons did a good job since a bunchload of sites all over the world has
linked to the story over the last few days, but pisses off not just a few
volunteer coders at the time. If I was an OpenBSD developer I'd be pretty
angry with him, since they come off quite bad in the text. In reality
they are nice, of course, just like most people.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:02 UTC (Fri) by nathan (subscriber, #3559) [Link]

"I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?'"

If that's his attitude, Simon Lok should take a look at gcc's source -- he won't want to run bsd either, knowing it went through that. And if he can't even see the source code, he shouldn't use it either -- who knows what comments would be in it.

Note, I am not saying gcc is crap because of such comments, I'm saying any large complicated piece of code will have such comments.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:05 UTC (Fri) by darrint (guest, #673) [Link]

"Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft."

It's always helpful to setup up a strawman representing somebody else's motivation for doing something and then criticize it. Sweeping assertions of this kind are best.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:08 UTC (Fri) by oshogg (guest, #23126) [Link]

To put things in perspective, top 4 headlines at lwn.net's homepage read

Is Linux For Losers? (Forbes) [13]

Jeff Merkey rides again [25]

Thursday Security Updates

HP Ships Over 1 Million Linux Servers [3]

3 of these 4 refer to linux directly.

First headline says linux is for losers as it is insecure and what not.

Third headline says that there are security updates for three different linux distributions. OK. point in the first headline justified.

The 4th headline says that 1 million Linux (not *BSD) servers shipped by HP.

The point is that noone cares about an idealistic view of security, cleanliness of code etc. as long as it is "good enough". As long as the OS is above this "good enough" level, the relative difference of "goodness" of different OSes is a much minor issue compared to other considerations (such as wide variety of hardware support, other features for example).

Windows XP SP1 is an example of an OS which was not good enough. They are trying to get up to this level with SP2 and will probably need few iterations before they are anywhere close to this.

Linux is above this level in my experience and has stayed there consistently while providing multiple features that real-word users in all different segments care.

Osho

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:27 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

If you (hypothetically) have a child who has been in an abusive situation where the only bread she was ever given was stale and sometimes moldy, and now has escaped the abusive situation and now knows what it's like to eat fresh bread (and perhaps even make her own bread from scratch), do you think you would characterize the child's behavior as "the child only likes fresh bread because she was in an abusive situation and retains a hostility toward her former abuser?"

I don't think so. Good things are appreciated for their own virtues, not just in opposition to something else. Despite the fact that many Linux users do in fact hate Microsoft and their various policies, their affection for Linux is not necessarily linked to that animosity.

I myself started to appreciate and use Unix and Unix-like operating systems long before Windows ever existed. In addition, from 1986 to the present I have had a good portion of my daily computing experience dominated by Mac OS systems (Classic and X). Therefore, I consider myself fortunate and blessed that in the course of my daily work Windows and Microsoft are almost entirely irrelevant; they do not come into my consciousness. (When they do, there is almost inevitably a rise in my blood pressure, but that is another story...)

So I am an affectionate and daily user of GNU/Linux and Mac OS. I also happen to hate Microsoft. Does the latter cause the former? No--the former was in place long before Microsoft had become the Borg. There is no necessary connection.

I am sure that there are a few people that use GNU/Linux or Mac OS or the BSDs simply and only because they hate Microsoft. But moving to a new operating system just because of animosity toward your former vendor seems rather overpriced--one has to learn a new culture and new software, causing lots of downtime, just to satisfy a vengeful emotion. Few people could afford to do that if they're depending on their computing environment to support them in earning a living. Fortunately there are legions of reasons to use free software beyond animosity toward Microsoft, and they aren't hard to think of.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:39 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

What happened to Theo staying quiet about an OS he's never used?

I actually admire Theo and OpenBSD, regularly buy OpenBSD release CDs
even though I'm primarily using Debian, and I'm always happy when OpenBSD
code and ideas make it to the Linux world. But the BSD-bigot antipathy
toward Linux gets really old. (As does Linux-bigot antipathy toward
Microsoft.)

As for the testimonial at the end of this article.... back in the OpenBSD
2.8-3.0 days, I was part of a small company that had to switch from
OpenBSD to Linux because OpenBSD just wasn't as stable and reliable. It
surprised us all, but there's no arguing with crashes. And that means
more to me than comments in the code. I'm sure things are better now,
many years and releases later, but the fact remains that Linux has a much
larger userbase testing it than OpenBSD has.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 16:59 UTC (Fri) by Halmonster (guest, #4537) [Link]

Theo does not understand why Linux has the depth and breadth of community that it does. The reason is the GPL. By choosing the GPL, Linus ensured that a community could come together without worrying about their contributions being misappropriated by other entities (think Apple or Microsoft). The GPL is perhaps the greatest invention of the 20th century, and RMS totally deserves his Genius title.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 18:14 UTC (Fri) by mali (guest, #4553) [Link]

Theo de Raadt: I don't know. I have never run Linux.
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/06/09/2132233
"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is.

now that's an educated opinion if I ever saw one...

Posted Jun 17, 2005 18:41 UTC (Fri) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541) [Link]

Despite the real competition between Linux and the BSD family, there have rarely been outright hostilities between the two camps. It would be a shame if that were to change now.

Without reading the rest of the comments on this article, I just wanted to respond to this remark. Theo De Raadt has always been hostile. All you need to do is look at the email thread that he posts (posted?) on openbsd.org on how OpenBSD came to be born from NetBSD. The posting was apparent attempt to exhonerate himself. My reading of the entire thread is that it does just the opposite.

Theo needs to take a pill. OpenBSD and OpenSSH are great accomplishments, but nothing justifies is arrogance.

-Paul Iadonisi
 Senior System Administrator
 Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist
 Ever see a penguin fly?  --  Try Linux.
 GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets

Posted Jun 17, 2005 19:33 UTC (Fri) by segphault (guest, #27468) [Link]

Frankly, I'm not surprised by Theo's attitude. Ask Linus about the HURD and he will get just as hostile, belligerent and irrational. What bothers me more is the fact that Forbes will print such an unnecessarily incendiary article. My respect for a web publication diminishes when it becomes clear that they are more interested in getting page hits than providing informative articles. What Theo happens to think about Linux is certainly not news, it's the kind pablum that belongs in his personal blog.

I'll admit that I'm not impressed with many aspects of the Linux kernel, but I continue to use a GNU/Linux operating system because it meets my needs better than an operating system that is technologically 'superior' (like QNX Nuetrino for instance). The article is neglectful in that it does not adequately attempt to illuminate why Linux is so popular despite it's deficiencies.

Posted Jun 17, 2005 20:38 UTC (Fri) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link]

... has its good and bad aspects. In a sense, every OS sucks, and essentially all have their great features too. If your utter, overriding goal is security and solid engineering, OpenBSD is a very interesting option. If you have a job to do and want all the tools to do it to come bundled in one convenient package that *probably* won't drive you insane and is reasonably reliable, Linux might be a good choice. And so on.

I don't get why everybody seems to have to "pick a side," make a great fuss, etc. If there was a "One True OS" that met all of everybody's needs (including non-technical ones such as price, bleeding edge software, infrequent and well tested releases, quick security updates, good security updates, etc) I figure we'd all probably be using it by now. There isn't, largely because people's needs are different and many requirements are in fact contradictory.

Posted Jun 18, 2005 3:45 UTC (Sat) by Junior_Samples (guest, #26737) [Link]

Look at the big picture. Linux revenues are measured in the billions of dollars. In stark contrast, OpenBSD revenues are completely insignificant, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars at best--if you use creative accounting.

IBM alone employees thousands of professional engineers working on Linux and Linux applications. On the other hand, OpenBSD is niche within an niche, a hobby project for BSD aficionados.

There is no comparison. In the greater world beyond the hobbyist mailing lists, OpenBSD is nothing. That is the brutal truth behind The0's jealous rage.

Posted Jun 19, 2005 3:29 UTC (Sun) by Misterfixit (guest, #15748) [Link]

I hope we all remember that insidious flame wars over "whose code is better" are sometimes started subrosa by the Microsoft Corp's "X Office". "X Office" is the same group whose infamous flames put the quietus on many of the OS2/Warp help threads back in the "good old days". Those of you who remember "Team Warp" will remember that their virulent comments were designed to run off anyone who was an innocent, a naif, and return them to the every present Windows for Workgroups 3.11. CompuServe's archives are full to the brim of examples.

MS has long employed a group of covert on-line operatives who have a mastery of Maskirova, "damning by faint praise", innuendo, and rumor-mongering. It's all part of the MS Business Plan to rusticate potentially competing operating systems. The BeOS debacle and corporate sell-out has roots reaching far back into Microsoft's historical twisting of executives, employees, and clandestine control of other company's boards of directors and stock prices. The final iteration of BeOS got Redmond folks real nervous.

Remember folks that this is war ... corporate war ... where sometimes you drop atomic bombs and other times you sneak up behind the sentries and slit their throats. Tactics such as "carpet bombing", "poison the well", sow distrust and emphasise individual's contention with each other.

Read "The Prince" and you will understand Bill's ideation.

Move along now, citizens, there is nothing to see here.

Posted Jun 23, 2005 23:39 UTC (Thu) by cdmiller (subscriber, #2813) [Link]

I checked into using BSD on a new server some years ago, (NFS/SAMBA file services for a couple hundred workstations). It was an off the shelf DELL 4 CPU box with hardware raid, I didn't spec the server, it was already in house. Of the 3 BSD's, only one had the RAID controller support and that one didn't support SMP. Guess what, Linux went on that box and it worked very well. I think the Linux was RedHat 6.2. Don't talk the talk if your product can't walk the walk.

Posted Jun 22, 2006 13:48 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

Oh, and now Theo talks of love/hate relationships. Accidentally, it's not exactly like what's seen through the window.

I don't hate MS, it's just I don't use 'em either. Still the correspondense by e.g. deraadt@ is usually rather hate mail than love mail (I must say that one of the last messages I've seen on bugtraq was rather thoughtful and moderate though).

Think communities: where a newbie has more chance to get ls explained and not just being made laugh of, on #*bsd or Linux forum/ML/newsgroup?

...and then they weep...
http://lwn.net/Articles/176478/