"Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique" and 21st C thoughts on a 20th C archetype
 

Before I commence I should note that this is not a trolling attempt [nor is it a trolling attempt by flagging that is not a trolling attempt]. I will attempt to explain myself.

I have been in this Linuxsphere for about 15 months now. I accept, in fact revel, in the fact that there is an ethical substrate to FOSS. Nevertheless, I am not a programmer and don't have a history with UNIX. I would be interested to see what others here have to say about this quote from Jaron Lanier:

- J. Lanier, "You Are Not A Gadget", 2010

Now, I'm not sure that Lanier has totally grokked something of importance here, being that many who use Linux do so not because it is the 'best' path to creativity, but because they are making ethical choices - in some cases, ethical compromises [and while I think he has understood this point to an extent, I don't think he's fully digested it]. And there are others who are using Linux because they just do not want to use Windows or Mac or because IBM jettisoned OS/2 or whatever. Lanier implies that Unix software is less capable than other software types [hint: proprietary] and does not push computing to its full capability.

Proprietary computing makes process more automated, more mainstream, easier and more marketable. But what one also has to note is that Lanier's book is written is 2010 - before Window 10 descended on the world and polarized a lot of Windows users. In fact my own flight from Windows was due to the fact that I refused to use W10 or Mac. Also, this was before the top 500 supercomputers in the world ran some variant of Linux or before Android became as huge as it is now.

So to what extent do people here accept Lanier's criticisms and think they are justified? Is *nix really just dusty old software and we're all just muddling along making the best of it on our desktops because we refuse to use proprietary? Do ethical choices mean partial deprivation and forced workarounds?

I can attempt to answer this to an extent myself - what can I not do in *nix that I can do in Windows? I can certainly play a lot fewer games in Linux and getting Skype to work is a pain in the derriere, but Skype voice calls have been problematic for as long as I can remember. I have had to learn a lot more in *nix and I have spent a lot more time on it, but the ends I have achieved have been roughly the same. And I have achieved greater satisfaction. However, there are plenty of big programs that don't run on *nix and have less capable FOSS alternatives.

So yes, I think being part of the *nix world does involve compromise, but is that such as bad thing? Is it all about what's ethically important to the user and are Windows/Mac users just too focused on the end result - or is the answer somewhere in between?

I would respond this way:

Give me an OS that's in use in a production environment that ISN'T a highly refined archaic design?

Windows 10/2016? NT kernel been around since the mid 90's, the file structure since the 80's.
MacOS? Based on BSD and highly related to Unix, has many of the same flaws that linux has. Being a closed ecosystem it's easier for Apple to make it look fancier and work better with the select hardware that's permitted to be used, but in the end, it's very much based on the same archaic underpinnings as linux more or less emulated.
Android? Linux kernel with a fork of java running on it.
IOS? I don't honestly know almost anything about it, so this might very well be a legacy-free OS. If so, it's the only one that I'd be aware of.

And as linux & BSD prove, being old doesn't mean being bad. Linux runs the internet, many of the issues with modern OS + legacy designs are being addressed (see Wayland) even if slowly, but why reinvent the wheel if there's nothing to be gained?

I don't buy it for one second. It's the same old anti-GNU/anti-Free/libre argument that has raged for over two decades. Closed source is better, free software is worse, open source only slightly better then free...yada yada yada.

Guns are based on very old designs, bow and arrow goes back thousands of years, automobiles modern carriages/chariots etc... It reminds me of the new/old argument that anything before my life/generation is old/bad and only things we create are good/wise/worth pursuing.

Let's move forward and history be damned.

Give me a *nix system any day of the week before I would use Windows or Apple.

I think Lanier's point is more about the effectiveness and capability of Unix rather than about its age. He mentions that Unix is politically motivated and that Lisp is far more interesting to him [I'm presuming Lisp was originally closed-source], therefore he seems to be saying that Unix's 'stuff' isn't as good as closed-sourced 'stuff'. In other words, politics puts certain restrictions on the code which makes it impossible to develop as powerful programs as in closed-source, which does not suffer under the same political paradigm. He seems to be more of a supporter of the 'cathedral' model, not because he's a raging capitalist, but because what is important to him is the code, what it can do, and pushing computing as far as it can go.

Nevertheless, there seem to be three arguments here: on the server side his argument seems completely wrong and unjustified. For the mobile market, it could go either way. For the desktop market he has a point: most people use Windows and Mac because it's easy and because it helps them attain their goals [and because they've been brainwashed]. So really I think his response would be "yes, NT is old too but the popular systems running it can do more".

Then there comes the question of stability and usage. Most home users treat their computers badly. They are computer abusers. And that, coupled with not-quite-ideal OS coding and buggy software means not only are they used to things going wrong with their Windows boxes, they expect it and can just roll their eyes and tut "technology" when Windows crashes. My Slackware installation has not put a foot wrong since install: if something awry were to happen it would be a rare cause for concern and remedy, not hitting the reset button [fun coincidence - some problems with systemd can ironically - and only - be solved by hitting the reset button]. For home users, what, how much and how easily the software can perform is the most important point, and they are willing to have a little bit of a glitchy system as a trade-off [and they don't really know any better].

EDIT: Here's an article by the same author from 2007 - "Long Live Closed-Sourced Software: There's a Reason the iPhone doesn't come with Linux" http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec...urce-software/:

Closed versus "open" is a very old and important debate that effects far more than computers.

For those in power, Catholicism should have never left the Latin only mass, and the Catholic bible should still be in Latin; under this mentality, very few people outside of the clergy actually understand what was going on during mass and what was written about in the bible.

Power loves closed government models, freedom lends towards "open government".

I am inherently untrusting of things that are closed and suspicious of things that are open until proven otherwise, but that is how i'm wired, so to speak. The more eyes that can view something the tendency towards that something to be benign or at least "safer". If Facebook, Twitter, Google, Windows, Apple etc.. were open source they would not get away with half the spying and shenanigans that they do, and if they were free/libre it would be close to nill.

Regarding home users, most use whatever is preinstalled on their computers; if Windows then they use Windows, if iOS then iOS etc... If you give them a computer with Linux installed, especially Ubuntu then they will use Ubuntu... :) Unless they wipe it and install Slackware or Debian...LOL.

Indeed. Not least because computers these days affect other things.

As Eric Raymond said, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

Reminds me of that news story about the college girl who bought a Dell Ubuntu laptop and blamed it for her degree failure.

The ideal is improbable... but fortunately not impossible.

About "ethical" vs "best":

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-...the-point.html

On the topic of Unix being bad, see The Unix Haters Handbook. It has a few nostalgic mentions of Lisp Machines, e.g.,

I agree with this. It's pretty much impossible to make some kind of giant creative leap while simultaneously making something usable for production, you'd have to maintain backwards compatibility all the time...

Drinking a Ice cold frosty Corona with lime and salt and Playing with my Antique. Listening to rock and roll after a hot day in the sun.
Can Watch Movies. What's not to like for free?

Hell. It will will even post on this forum.

Alrighty then.
That's Nice.
Hope you enjoy this Linux life style as much as I do. Time to go to the shop fridge and pop another cap.
PS. That is live shot by the way.

Brought to you in a round about way by my FreeBSD bro. Trihexagonal. Something this modern world, and modern cold operating systems, and outlooks seem to lack a lot of.

Oh yeah. Just to be clear. That box is parts manual and repair manual computer also. It applies to what I do to make my moola in the shop. Makes me not have to remember every procedure on the planet when I got to repair something.

etc.

author is very good with words, has some criticism and constructed a really good speech where he opposed one thing against another - admittedly, i fell for it reading your first quote, but now i see it clearly.

it seems people writing about operating systems always attract more attention than those coding them.

also, the wheel is really such an antiquated concept, we should get rid of it in favor of new, fresh ideas.

or: a human body that is older than 20 years is really just decaying, what a waste of resources to keep it going another 50 years!

PS: i have no idea what a lisp machine is.
this always interesting: what alternatives is bigmouth actually proposing?

Nice box and room setup [looks like something out of Fallout]. Good to see the old Winamp skin being utilised as well. Got me interested to have a look at BSD at some point.

This idea can be transferred to other sectors too, e.g. the band is generally given more recognition than the music producer or songwriter. People tend to see what's directly in front of them rather than the underpinnings.

I'd have to get back to you about that having read more of what he has to say. If you're curious, quite a bit of that book is available on Amazon as a preview.

People don't use Linux only for ethical reasons (though the concept of free community software is very nice!) or even to be safe on the Internet (although that's nice too). There are also a lot of people, especially those of my generation, who are inherently suspicious of technology and hate having to use systems that they don't understand. Linux (and Unix generally) has a nice, simple internal structure and loads of documentation to explain how it works. If anything goes wrong, you can usually find out a way to fix it from the inside.

I suspect that's partly because it's been around a long time.

It would be true that Linux is an antique system if it had remained the re-implementation of AT&T system V from 1983. Which it is not. "Some" further development and improvements have been made. Like loadable modules, udev and (eeerrrr do I dare to say this?) systemd.

Besides, that something has been developed or invented in history does not necessarily mean that it is outdated or obsolete. Look at the wheel for example, which is still in use here and there. Or, the asynchronous induction motor which was invented in 1885 and which design is still being used today in unmodified construction.

jlinkels

I started using Linux simply because Windows wasn't cutting it. I have no philosophical and political reasons for using open-source, except perhaps privacy. My idea is as time goes on, keep what is good from the past and add to it.