05.02.08
Selling a Proprietary GNU/Linux by Spitting in Its Pool of Life
Always remember where you came from
The story of Novell is a rather complicated one because the company mocks the very same product which it tries to sell. Novell uses GNU/Linux FUD to market itself, especially by boasting Microsoft’s software patent ‘protection’ as its advantage, added value, distinguisher (the classic decoy being "interoperability"). The same goes for Mono, which it controls even using copyrights.
It was rather disappointing to find industry leaders such as Wind River and MontaVista using similar techniques, only without patents or Microsoft.
Embedded Linux is the most hyped embedded operating system ever. It is promoted as inexpensive, high quality, high productivity, reliable, widely available, and well supported. It is none of these things, as two of its greatest proponents have recently pointed out. Wind River Systems and MontaVista Software, companies that each describe themselves as “the leader” in embedded Linux, have both initiated marketing campaigns touting the horrors of using embedded Linux.
In the January/February 2008 issue of Military Embedded Systems, Jim Ready, the founder and chief technology officer of MontaVista, says “a [develop-it-yourself] embedded Linux distribution [is] a significant investment (read ‘big bucks’) in time and money.” He estimates the three-year cost of a large scale embedded Linux deployment at $19,623,750.
I spoke to Jim Ready on the phone some months ago and I’m surprised he could 'pull a Palamida' or even 'pull a Black Duck' (or whatever company du jour spreads uncertainty about FOSS and GNU/Linux in the same way that anti-virus vendors exaggerate about the dangers of using Windows and overplay the potency of their security add-ons).
The article above continues however; it sheds light on what we might really be seeing here.
It’s more likely that Wind River and MontaVista are telling it as they see it–for marketing purposes. Marketing usually puts forward a problem (bad breath, headaches) that many potential customers will relate to, and then promises a solution. Why would Wind River and MontaVista put forward the problem of embedded Linux nightmares in marketing materials unless they think many potential customers have experienced those nightmares and need a solution?
“In this case, rather proprietary versions of (GNU/)Linux get on their high horses and badmouth their free (libre) equivalents…”In a Free software industry it’s important not to exclude competitors unless they threaten the freedom of the software. In this case, rather proprietary versions of (GNU/)Linux get on their high horses and badmouth their free (libre) equivalents — the very same source owing to which they were made possible in the first place. Neither shame nor sense of guilt?
In other semi-related news, the company which grew and thrived in a community of volunteers continues to get closer to its new and generous paymasters. We told the XenSource story several times before, e.g. here. Imagine the ’surprise’ accompanying news where this company’s CTO, Simon Crosby, hails the “Citrix-Microsoft alliance as increasing virtualization choice” (versus VMWare). It’s almost as though XenSource is now a tool of Microsoft, Citrix, Novell and the rest of that small alliance which wants Red Hat, Ubuntu, Oracle, Sun and VMWare toppled. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Logan said,
May 2, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Craping on their own food! That’s the new business strategy of companies with no integrity, no responsibility.
They are putting themselves as targets at a firing range.
They should be selling their crapware with embedded Windows and be done with it!
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 2, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Oh god; it your tastefull pissing-picture again…
See that you get your blog out of the gutter-level of pissing-jokes.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 2, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Feces, spit, piss; it seems that you people have an unhealthy fascination with bodily fluids and excrements. Charming. And says a lot about you.
Disgusting!
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 2, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I am almost convinced now that you are ‘eet’. You’re posting from the same ISP, you began using the same language, you post quite frequently, you know the past about this Web site and your name never ever appeared outside this Web site! You got unmasked again.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 3, 2008 at 5:20 am
All I can say is that you look very, very pitiful to me at the moment. Is the only way out that you see when you are desperate, to accuse me of not being who I am? I should be happy for you if this solves the the situation for you somehow. But my advise would be to rather take on a long overdue time-out in order to reflect what your aims with this blog were and where it has actually led you; to a position where even those who you claim to be fighting for (KDE and GNOME devs alike) regard you as a nuisance at best.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 3, 2008 at 5:38 am
This reminds me a bit of those middle-ages parodies where people constanty point a finger and say “she’s a with!”
As I don’t seem to have driven my point home the first time:
Reflect what kind of picture of yourself you draw, with your preference for dirty language and outright abuse. You are not being smart in that respect. You don’t sever your own cause, due to, it seems, personal shortcomings you are not well-suited for what you say you intend to do.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 3, 2008 at 5:39 am
Errata: Replace ‘with’ (oh, man…) with ‘witch’ in my last-but-one post.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 3, 2008 at 5:52 am
I find it all a tad surprising, that’s all. You never posted on the entire World Wide Web before:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Koswinkle&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Then again, at the start you claimed that you had read this site for a very long time. So let me see. You’ve read this site since the beginning and never left a comment. Now you say that you can’t help commenting; you’re spraying me and my messages with attacks. Did you have to read thousands of posts before lashing out like a motor (and for the first time with your full name)? I’m suspicious. Please explain how this is possible.
And by the way, if you disappear, then that might indicate you’ll nymshift (same ISP as ‘eet’) and hope never to give away more clues.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 3, 2008 at 6:20 am
I think, you are already preparing to discredit me.
If my ‘disappearance’, as you say, is a proof of me not being who I am, all you have got to do is block me from posting! I couldn’t do anything against it, and you could say ‘See, I’ve told you so!’
I hope you are not planning something that cheap.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 3, 2008 at 8:50 am
Let’s see again what we already know:
1. As soon as you started posting I suspected you were ‘eet’ and tested you by bringing that up, and not just because you both share the same ISP; sometimes I see IP addresses that are shared with ‘eet’ (exactly the same a, b, c, and d block) entering the site.
2. Whenever an ‘eet’ nym gets caught it never returns. Just *poof* it disappears and immediately afterwards a ‘brand-new’ troll shows up with a new name (typically the same ISP), sometimes promptly defending the previous ‘eet’ nym that got caught. Eventually it turns out that it’s just ‘eet’ nymshifting.
3. You tell me that you’ve read the site for a long time (since the start, IIRC, based on what you told me), but you never commented before. Now you comment like 10 times a day because “it gives you heartburn” (did you really read thousands of posts silently? Because you hare the site?). You started commenting immediately since the last ‘eet’ nym got caught and decided to ‘walk away’. Moreover, you never commented *anywhere else* before. You don’t exist anywhere on the Web. Not even your surname alone.
4. Your insults and posting style are sometimes very similar to that of ‘eet’, who by his own admission changed his names.
5. You seem similar with the subjects at hand (you even know the site’s history), yet you never told me who or what you are with. You are virtually (well, no, you are practically) inexistent on the Web.
I am not stupid.
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 3, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Basically, I don’t agree with you (strongly so) and thus I am someone you call ‘eet’? You are looking for a reason to discredit me, that’s what I read out of that, nothing more.
Very convenient for you if you now turn to a campaign against me instead of answering to my critique.
Well, this is hardly surprising; as Jeff Waugh wrote here, you would do the same to him for sure - if he wasn’t a household-name.
I cannot do anything if you suddenly decide to silence me or anything - but if I should now suddenly fall silent, everyone will know what happened, i.e. you will have silenced me.
Don’t do yourself a disservice and expose your own weakness by first denouncing and than silencing your critics.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 3, 2008 at 9:24 pm
eet,
I’m sure it’s you (as I’ve been from the very beginning), but I need to convince the readers** by showing this to them because they haven’t access to the same evidence (IPs, full conversations, language similarity, good knowledge of your past conversations under different names, et cetrea).
As I stated last week when you nymshifted, not even user registration can prevent your nymshifting and trolling here (can create new accounts), so I’m sure you’ll just change his name and return (as you have done several times before getting caught, about twice in April alone). In the mean time, it’s clear that time will continue to be wasted because of your abuse.
To quickly run down some facts:
__
**I have just receive the following message, which shows they can’t see the same evidence:
I have observed the conversation going on between Jeff Waugh, his friends and you. They have offered their views and, while I don’t agree with them, at least I respect them. Then there is this other person, Nikolas Koswinkle, Nikolas Kostenlos, eet, or whatever his name is. He seems to be obsessed and it seems you are right to have suspicions that he might be your longtime “minder” eet. Unless I have missed something, he hasn’t said anything about who he is or what he believes. He only offers insults and bald refutations (i.e. he says that you “don’t have proof”, but he doesn’t offer any proof himself.) In short, he hasn’t said a single thing that could be taken as constructive. I didn’t want to stoke the flames by posting this, but I wouldn’t blame you if you banned him or treated him as if he were eet. After all, PJ has banned people to keep things civil on Groklaw.
Just my 2 centimes worth …
M$ fails to deliver said,
May 4, 2008 at 10:38 am
@Nikolas Koswinkle : how much are you paid and by whom to post here?
Google said,
May 4, 2008 at 10:56 am
Microsoft withdraws proposal for Yahoo
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-03letter.mspx
Dan O'Brian said,
May 4, 2008 at 12:26 pm
M$ fails to deliver: I think the same question applies to you?
And as I theorized above, the same question applies to Roy
Of course, if he is being paid by Microsoft, I highly doubt he’d ever admit it.
Basically, I just find it odd that he appears out of nowhere immediately after the Microsoft-Novell deal is announced and goes around trying to turn the community against Novell and their engineers.
Seems highly suspicious to me.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 4, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Amusing, Dan, very amusing. I don’t see the tongue-in-cheek emoticon.
Just FYI, I was with SUSE for years (including mailing lists and newsgroups). It was running on my PCs at home and at work. I advocated Novell too, both in public and in person. Look back at the Internet archives and you’ll see. When the Novell/Microsoft deal got signed it took me time to digest it, but the most influential analysis of it came from Bruce Perens, who had me convinced that Novell would evolve as it has. It’s a leech to the Free software movement.
Dan O'Brian said,
May 4, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I also find it highly suspicious that he has obsessed this long over the MS-Novell deal to the exclusion of everything else (including trying to get a job), long after Bruce Perens and even Shane Coyle have long since moved on.
Everyone with any experience whatsoever with the Free Software community is by now fully aware of the Novell-MS deal and how “everyone” in that community hates Novell because of it.
The only motive I can come up with in continuing to bash Novell is to destroy them which helps Microsoft more than it helps the Free Software community.
They employ hundreds of Free Software developers - developers who were involved in the community long before working for Novell. If Novell falls, these developers are out of a job - any new job they get might not allow them to work full-time (if at all) on the development of Free Software, especially the projects they have their current expertise in.
Destroying Novell only serves to cripple the community, yet that is what Roy seems dedicated in doing.
You have to wonder… is Roy working for the very “evil empire” he tries to convince us he’s against?
A much better strategy, if he was serious about helping the F/LOSS community, would be to engange in conversation with the Novell execs and try to help them better understand the community they are trying to join so that they are a better asset to the community.
I highly doubt that Novell is in league with Microsoft - I think the far more likely explanation is that they just simply “don’t get it” (or at least not fully).
Help teach them to better meld with the community and you benefit both them and us. Alienate them, and you only help Microsoft.
Dan O'Brian said,
May 4, 2008 at 12:52 pm
No more a leech than Canonical - who contributes almost nothing back to the community; certainly far less than Novell contributes.
Novell contributes nearly as much as Red Hat - it’s disingenuous to call them a leech.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 4, 2008 at 1:52 pm
It’s almost a zero-sum game, Dan, and if Novell loses business, it’s likely to be picked up by other GNU/Linux distributors that pay nothing to Microsoft and can they employ (’inherit’) Novell’s workforce. Just watch what happened with some folks from Samba. They move to Red Hat.
Sidehow-Bob said,
May 4, 2008 at 4:11 pm
So you have banned him?
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 4, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Banned who? We don’t ban or censor, but one single disruptive poster has his messages flagged (or held back if they contain very bad language that puts it in the moderation queue automatically)..
Nikolas Koswinkle said,
May 6, 2008 at 2:01 am
Well, I couldn’t even see this website; I received only an error-message. Now I was obviously blocked, wasn’t I. I would call this censorship
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from a possible incarnation of known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 6, 2008 at 2:29 am
Maybe you stepped on ‘eets’ IP addresses again. We never delete comments, but only one pseudonymous man has his IPs listed separately for the abuses named herein. Have you not nymshifted again… yet?