The Corpus Callosum

Blogging a Bit Less

Posted by Joseph j7uy5 on November 29, 2006
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I have not posted as much recently, compared to my usual.
 That’s because I’ve been messing with my computers, setting
them up to use Sabayon
instead of Suse.  Those of you who can about such things can
guess why that is.

One thing I’ve noticed.  If I don’t post very much, not as
many people visit.  

One thing I wanted to mention.  This is href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/">old
news, but apropos anyway:

style="font-weight: bold;">Ballmer: “Linux is a
cancer”

Contaminates
all other software with Hippie GPL rubbish
By Thomas C
Greene
2nd June 2001

Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said
that “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual
property sense to everything it touches,” during a commercial spot
masquerading as a media interview with the Chicago Sun-Times Friday.

Ballmer was trying to articulate his concern, whether real or imagined,
that limited recourse to the GNU GPL requires that all software be made
open source.

“The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software,
you have to make the rest of your software open source,” Ballmer
explained to an excessively credulous, un-named Sun-Times reporter who,
predictably, neglected to question this bold assertion…

This is nonsense, of course, clearly just more FUD.  

I really don’t know what the guy has against open-source software.

Let’s say you’ve created a business for yourself, selling apple pies to
the people in your neighborhood.  Then, someday, for whatever
reason, the people decide that they don’t want to pay you for your
apple pies any more.  So they get together, and decide that
one day per week, someone will make apple pies for everyone.
 They’ll take turns, so no one person gets stuck with all the
expenses.  What would happen?  You’d be out of a job.
 That is a bit harsh, but as they say, if you can’t stand the
heat, get out of the kitchen.  Business is like that.
 If you can’t offer anything of greater value for the money,
your business is at risk.  And who could be against the
collective baking of apple pies, anyway?

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Comments

  1. #1 Seth Anderson
    November 30, 2006

    I’m not sure I’d want a Microsoft branded pie. There’s dozens of jokes that ensue from that premise, but I’ll spare all of us….

  2. #2 Joseph j7uy5
    November 30, 2006

    For one, you’d have to pay a fee for every year that a molecule from that pie was still in your body.

  3. #3 Greg P
    November 30, 2006

    Sabayon: I wonder what they’re trying to say, when you consider the part about “whipped to incorporate a lot of air.”

  4. #4 Joseph j7uy5
    November 30, 2006

    The developers are Italian. Some of their metaphors don’t translate very well, and seem rather quirky in English. In their forums, the users are “hens” and the developers are “farmers.”

    I know what you mean, though, or at least I can guess. Sabayon has a lot of eye candy that probably is distasteful to command-line folks. On my slower machine (Athlon XP 2100; nvidia FX5500, 512MB, but with two 15in LCDs) I ended up disabling the weird effects. On the newer one, which is not a lot beefier, the performance is OK (Athlon XP 3200, nvidia FX5600, 1GB, but with one 19in LCD).

  5. #5 A Quiet Noise
    November 30, 2006

    One of the main reason I switched over to Apple a couple of years ago is that the pie was much tastier. Who said too many cooks spoil the brew?

  6. #6 iş ilanları
    July 6, 2011

    So they get together, and decide that one day per week, someone will make apple pies for everyone. They’ll take turns, so no one person gets stuck with all the expenses. What would happen? You’d be out of a job. That is a bit harsh, but as they say, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Business is like that. If you can’t offer anything of greater value for the money, your business is at risk. And who could be against the collective baking of apple pies, anyway?