RIP: Community Linux (1991-2007)

[karellen]

the original article is here: http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5306151939.html
and here some responses: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/what-is-the-linux-community/
what are your thoughts? is this a major concern (for you at least) or merely a normal evolutionary step for linux?

[Quillz]

I think this was evolutionary. Linux was certainly heading in this direction, but I don't think it will matter much. As long as everything remains FOSS, I doubt we will really see much difference on the surface.

[karellen]

I see progress....a normal step for an os if it wants larger user base and, implicitly, more and better hardware support. which is what we all want, don't we?

[cunawarit]

I think this is good news for Linux all around. There are two approaches, the first is the Free Software Foundation approach where you rant, rant, rant, attack anyone who wants to make money, upset all your potential corporate users and Linux gets enjoyed by a small nerdy, militant community.

The second approach is to make Linux popular.

[23meg]

The article deliberately mixes up the separate notions of the inclusion of non-Free components, corporate governance of the Linux Foundation (which the author seems to think has a binding effect on the direction of "Linux" in general) and internal problems of some distributions in an effort to reach a seemingly predecided conclusion: that "Community Linux", whatever that is, is dead.

Wait a moment; do we cease being a community the instant we decide to allow a proprietary bit as a compromise? Do we cease being a community because we're supported by a few rich folks who abide by our principles, for their own good as well as ours? Are Debian and Fedora no longer communities because they're having internal problems? No; it's just that stringing these together helps the author look as if he has a comprehensive backing of his prophecy.


There are two approaches, the first is the Free Software Foundation approach where you rant, rant, rant, attack anyone who wants to make money, upset all your potential corporate users and Linux gets enjoyed by a small nerdy, militant community.

That the FSF attacks anyone who wants to make money, that it defends Free software being confined to a certain niche, that it represents a bunch of "idealist hackers" in the author's terms, are common misconceptions. Sure, there are problems with the FSF approach, and the combination of the FSF mentality and the dominant corporate mentality is doomed to produce confrontation, but the history of the software we're using today isn't an all nice and happy one; it's through both confrontation and compromises that it reached where it is.


The second approach is to make Linux popular.

I'm against the artificial dichotomy of "idealism or popularity". People have been idealistic on many fronts, and yet resorted to many compromises as well, and that's how it's going to continue. We're not suddenly going to see a huge boom of popularity just because we accepted a few proprietary bits or made a few big buck deals, nor are we going to sink completely because the "idealist", "hippie" FSF insisted on "enforcing" their principles.

[karellen]

I think this is good news for Linux all around. There are two approaches, the first is the Free Software Foundation approach where you rant, rant, rant, attack anyone who wants to make money, upset all your potential corporate users and Linux gets enjoyed by a small nerdy, militant community.

The second approach is to make Linux popular.

agree with you, I'd want to see much, much more people using and enjoying linux, not just the tech-savvy

[Somenoob]

Including proprietary drivers and other closed software, isn't really that big of a deal. Most(if not all) of it are not even critical OS components. Maybe there will come proper & free replacements.

[karellen]

The article deliberately mixes up the separate notions of the inclusion of non-Free components, corporate governance of the Linux Foundation (which the author seems to think has a binding effect on the direction of "Linux" in general) and internal problems of some distributions in an effort to reach a seemingly predecided conclusion: that "Community Linux", whatever that is, is dead.

Wait a moment; do we cease being a community the instant we decide to allow a proprietary bit as a compromise? Do we cease being a community because we're supported by a few rich folks who abide by our principles, for their own good as well as ours? Are Debian and Fedora no longer communities because they're having internal problems? No; it's just that stringing these together helps the author look as if he has a comprehensive backing of his prophecy.



That the FSF attacks anyone who wants to make money, that it defends Free software being confined to a certain niche, that it represents a bunch of "idealist hackers" in the author's terms, are common misconceptions. Sure, there are problems with the FSF approach, and the combination of the FSF mentality and the dominant corporate mentality is doomed to produce confrontation, but the history of the software we're using today isn't an all nice and happy one; it's through both confrontation and compromises that it reached where it is.



I'm against the artificial dichotomy of "idealism or popularity". People have been idealistic on many fronts, and yet resorted to many compromises as well, and that's how it's going to continue. We're not suddenly going to see a huge boom of popularity just because we accepted a few proprietary bits or made a few big buck deals, nor are we going to sink completely because the "idealist", "hippie" FSF insisted on "enforcing" their principles.

that's why I posted the second link ;)

[OffHand]

Community Linux dead? I don't think so.... Just yesterday someone I know started up a new project.
Like 5 people immediately set up a link to the svn repositories. Why he was hacking the code we were svn-ing up and throwing up ideas which got discussed and implemented right away. Of course I realize this is only at a very small scale and insignificant , but it's just to illustrate Linux is still community based.

[Adamant1988]

Community Linux is not dead, it's just that the days of commercially supported Communities are coming is all. Look at Fedora, OpenSuSE, and Ubuntu. All high-profile community projects with corporations funding them. I don't have a problem with any of these distributions.

[cowlip]

Debian is key to Ubuntu, though. Suse and Fedora are offshoots of a commercial OS, while Ubuntu is basically thanks to 1000s of Debian developers.

Adamant, I think you're right about a that ; it's definitely no mistake that Ubuntu provides non-coders a lot of easy oppurtunities to get involved, like Rosetta, the MOTUs, bug reporting in Launchpad, etc..

[DoctorMO]

I think your problem is that you confuse the distributions with the software. Do you honestly think that the Linux kernel isn't a community? do you think it's now all powered by a business seeking to annoy their users?

No what's happened is that a lot of the programmers have been hired by redhat, intel, amd, novell, ibm etal. in order to continue to develop the community development. just because they get paid for their time now doesn't make it corporate.

When there are artificial barriers to entry for a programmer or other volunteer help where one much be in the employ of a company first. then I will say linux community has trouble. not before.

[Adamant1988]

Debian is key to Ubuntu, though. Suse and Fedora are offshoots of a commercial OS, while Ubuntu is basically thanks to 1000s of Debian developers.

Adamant, I think you're right about a that ; it's definitely no mistake that Ubuntu provides non-coders a lot of easy oppurtunities to get involved, like Rosetta, the MOTUs, bug reporting in Launchpad, etc..

Actually if you want to get technical, those Commercial OS's are off shoots of the community projects.

[cowlip]

but Canonical employs like 20 people compared to Novell and Red Hat's many employees (and has that rule on no upstream development) :P That's kind of what I meant

[rai4shu2]

Calling the community "dead" is pathetic and idiotic hyperbole. Ubuntu isn't suddenly a "commercial" distro simply because some blow hard journalist wannabe says so. The fact that this author says so proves he is just another troll, whoring his "skill" for attention.

Now, journalism is what IS truly dead, and this article proves it.

[Kalibur]

Now, journalism is what IS truly dead, and this article proves it.

Can argue with that:lolflag:

My idea of a community in general is people and organisations that work together to achieve certain goals or just helping each other get on through life. In Linux sense I think the problem is the community is no longer a community but a universe - so naturally it will break down into smaller chunks or communities to serve the different visions that may develop from the different community members/parties - just as we have different human communities and cultures. So I think we need open minds and flexibility for some members would like to set up different communities to serve their visions.

[karellen]

Calling the community "dead" is pathetic and idiotic hyperbole. Ubuntu isn't suddenly a "commercial" distro simply because some blow hard journalist wannabe says so. The fact that this author says so proves he is just another troll, whoring his "skill" for attention.

Now, journalism is what IS truly dead, and this article proves it.

:lolflag: indeed, his conclusions are very exaggerated

[daynah]

Ubuntu would not survive had it not had all of these awesome programs that people, the community, made for it. No matter how much money MarkS/Canonical threw at it.

Thing is, right now, it's surviving, and living without the propritary drivers coming with it. Adding the proprietary drivers was a move to make Ubuntu -thrive-. It could have done fine without it, and maybe in the far future, the average peep would have caught on (or maybe Ubuntu would have died a quiet death, we can't read the future), but Canonical wants to make it thrive, make it a truely dangerous beast to any corporation that's still selling software (pfft how last millenium), and actually make it useful for every single human on this comfy little rock floating in the abis.

Even with the propritary drivers, though, if it didn't have all of those wonderful community programs, Ubuntu would be a goner.

Community isn't dead at all. It's just getting the backing of a few corporations.

[EdThaSlayer]

Strange that he said the communities of Linux were R.I.P. I google up "Linux forums" and find tons of communities. This guy probably remembers the old times when community was a group of hackers who understood everything till the last bit.

[Tomosaur]

A misleading article if ever there was one. It's not like Linux is suddenly some big commercial sell out - the open source approach is still alive and well (and getting very much stronger, I might add). Freedom is still highly valued (the GPL is still probably the biggest open-source licence available, and a new draft has just been released). Times have changed, and Linux has done a great job of adapting to meet new demands and suchlike. I see the integration of propietary technology not as a bad thing, but as a choice. I don't HAVE to use propietary stuff if I don't want to. If I want to watch a flash movie, then yes, I need a flash player. There's nothing stopping me, or anyone for that matter, creating a new, open, and free web media format. MP3 appears to be suffering a bit of a decline at the moment, while I've noticed an increase in the use of free formats. Allowing propietary formats to work on Linux is not something we should avoid, but we SHOULD avoid making Linux dependent on these formats. Let people abstain from using them if they wish, but don't intentionally stop people from using them if they want to. I am personally against propietary formats, and I dislike the usage of them in websites, causing broken media etc. It's not my desire to stop companies trying their hand though. If they want to make a propietary format, that's their choice. In the same sense, I shouldn't be forced to adopt their own internal standards if I don't want to, which is still something we have yet to see. Governmental documents should be open, because I believe in government transparency and democracy, aswell as the government not shelling out with my taxes for propietary stuff. Personal documents, well, you can do whatever the hell you like with those. I prefer the open formats, but if you send me a propietary document and I can't open it, well then, you just don't get a response, it's as simple as that.

[justin whitaker]

I can't believe that everyone is getting so worked up over something that SVN wrote.

Looking back over his writing, has he ever said anything that did not careen towards the alarmist on one end, or the sycophantic on the other?

[Mateo]

I agree with 23meg mostly. it sounded like an author whining because some distributions don't agree with him on a few issues. i really have no sympathy for "open source only" people. if you don't like non open-source software, fine, don't use it. but stop trying to prevent other people from using it.

[daynah]

I hate link baiters.

[Brunellus]

"the community" gets overplayed.

At the end of the day, "the community" is the set of all people and organizations who have the means to achieve their ends. In the early days of Linux, that set included only those people who were interested in the project for its own sake.

As the project has gotten bigger, more successful, and more important (commercially), it's only natural that those entities who feel that they have a bigger stake in the project's future have stepped up and started to take a role in governance.

Linux is already past the stage where all of its users are possible contributors to the project.

[MattSMiddleton]

It almost seems to me like he's saying "O no! People are making money off of Linux, the community is dead!" which doesn't make any sense to me. In fact, I think that unless people start making money off of Linux it will never be successful. So I really think that this whole article is an over reaction to the natural growth of Linux.

[bash]

The distros might be made by coorparations, but I wouldn't have survived long in the Linux world, if not for the great support and help you get here.

And I highly doubt that all the posters here are secretly employed corporate monkeys, hired to pretend that there is a community. Or are you?

[23meg]

I can't believe that everyone is getting so worked up over something that SVN wrote.

Looking back over his writing, has he ever said anything that did not careen towards the alarmist on one end, or the sycophantic on the other?

I don't remember reading anything else he wrote, maybe because the actual personalities behind articles of this sort fail to make a lasting trace in my mind, but I thought he deserved to read the comments here so I sent him an email with a link to this thread.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Doesnt look like the linux community is going anywhere to me :D

[prizrak]

RIght away, Ubuntu did not start off as a community distro. Mark created Canonical explicitly to create Ubuntu. Just because people contribute to it outside of Canonical does not make it a community distro.

[Brunellus]

RIght away, Ubuntu did not start off as a community distro. Mark created Canonical explicitly to create Ubuntu. Just because people contribute to it outside of Canonical does not make it a community distro.
"community" is is a continuum. There are the very closed projects: RHEL, SLED, Linspire. There are semi-community projects: Fedora, Ubuntu. There are full-bore Community projects: Debian. And there are even single-maintainer projects--Slackware.

[prizrak]

"community" is is a continuum. There are the very closed projects: RHEL, SLED, Linspire. There are semi-community projects: Fedora, Ubuntu. There are full-bore Community projects: Debian. And there are even single-maintainer projects--Slackware.

I think my wording might have been not 100% what I was trying to say. I agree with you btw. My response was mostly to the article where the author says that Ubuntu is governed by Canonical and Mark as opposed to the community. Considering that Ubuntu started off in Canonical and then became semi community I don't see it as an open project closing up but kind of the opposite. Not to mention that the kernel itself is basically governed by one man, doesn't make it any less community driven.

[justin whitaker]

I don't remember reading anything else he wrote, maybe because the actual personalities behind articles of this sort fail to make a lasting trace in my mind, but I thought he deserved to read the comments here so I sent him an email with a link to this thread.

Great! I would love to have him join in. We are, after all, a community. :)

Most of his articles are something like this:

Something is bad/good/'eh' and there fore this is the beginning/middle/end/apocalypse of the open source movement/distribution/community.

I don't mind someone out there trying to stir debate, but let's recognize it as such, and not give it more weight than it deserves.

[23meg]

Considering that Ubuntu started off in Canonical and then became semi community

Ubuntu didn't have a closed doors phase; it was always as open to community contribution as it is now.


Not to mention that the kernel itself is basically governed by one man, doesn't make it any less community driven.

In the same sense, the fact that Ubuntu is mainly governed by the Community Council and the Technical Board doesn't make it any less community driven if you ask me.