Bullying the Penguin (Part 2): Assaulting the Architects

So, last time I had a little b*tch session about the ongoing flame wars that I feel are in danger of destroying the fabric of our community, and as the title suggested, I wasn’t quite finished. There was another issue that arose in the same week that became both overplayed and misdirected, or possibly over-directed, and in the end turned into an all out character assassination. While I agree with some of the concerns that sparked the free-for-all, I was disgusted at the lengths that people went to shame a person who is essentially one of the chief architects of our entire community.

So, for those of you who may not know what I’m talking about, Richard Stallman used a comedy routine at a recent conference that has been construed as sexist, and while it is a routine that he has rehashed throughout years, I have to agree that given the general ratio of male to female participants in the conference and the FOSS community in general, that it may have been poor taste. However, while there is no excuse for sexism of any kind, it in no way alters the fact that Richard Stallman is possibly one of the most important historical figures in the entire community, and the fact that some of the more fickle minded amongst us believe that because he may be sexist, or at the very least insensitive, means that he should somehow be excommunicated from the FOSS community all together is ludicrous at minimum and insulting at best.

Richard Stallman has dedicated his life and labour to the construction and maintenance of the community when, contrary to the heinous remarks that would suggest otherwise, a man of his considerable intellect could have easily made a fortune in the proprietary markets. Without his hard work, Linux itself may not have come into existence in its present form, as Stallman’s GNU components form an integral part of the system to the point that it is truly known as GNU/Linux. Stallman also laboured to create the GNU Public License (GLP) which has always been central in the licensing of Linux, its components and the software it runs as well as much of the software created in the FOSS community. In fact, it could be said that without Richard Stallman’s philosophies, labours and advocacy over the years, the entire community might be very different today if it was strong enough to survive at all. It is because of his hard work in conjunction with many other visionaries and geniuses like Linus Torvalds that we have all that we do today. So, is it fair for a few disenchanted and narrow-minded trouble makers to expect us to cut him loose and spit out unceremoniously because of some antiquated world views and unpopular eccentricities?

In the week immediately following his admittedly thoughtless and insensitive remarks, there were repeated calls for the community to disown Richard Stallman and repeated and unnecessary character assassinations on his eccentricities, all designed to undermine one of the most important and central historical figures of the entire movement. Richard Stallman’s historical, and quite frankly monumental contributions to the entire open source movement and the history of computers in general, combined with his life long dedication and defense of the movement more than qualify him for a lifetime achievement award and an unconditional life membership to the community. Some of those who have taken his alleged sexism and eccentricities as a reason for eternal censor and exile should study a little history. Many of those who claim a hero role in history were screwed up, absent minded or plain old S.O.B.s. They are not judged by their personal shortcomings, but instead for their contributions to the world in general. It is only just that Mr. Stallman be judged similarly as a historic figure who has made unparalleled contributions to the history of computers as a whole.

Basically, while I believe that we cannot simply give important figures a pass for everything they say or believe, and if Richard Stallman was indeed denigrating women or being sexist (I may never know for sure because I wasn’t at the conference in question), he should be held accountable and made to at minimum apologize, but there is absolutely no excuse for the nonsense that followed the event. Richard Stallman’s contributions of the past and present are immense and possibly central to everything that has happened since. Furthermore, they make the ongoing character assassinations, abuse and suggestions of conducting some kind of excommunication unforgivable and they are the fabrications of the shortsighted and narrow minded. Our community owes a lot to Mr. Stallman and for any in the community to treat him in the way that some have is unconscionable, especially as he is a man from another generation with vastly different world views. He needs to be held accountable, but not lynched, tared and feathered and run through the streets in shame.

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Bullying the Penguin (Part 1): Community Flame Wars

Lately, reading the Linux and open source community blogs, comments, message boards and forums is an exercise in humiliation and frustration. While there is ample room for the Mono debate and speculation on the motives of Redmond’s supposed open source awakening, after all, our communities are strengthened by debate, the crap that is currently being tossed around from all sides is not only shameful but embarrassingly immature. It would appear that any semblance of rational debate has been thrown out the window and the participants have resorted to grade school name calling and a series of childish antics that are not only embarrassing for the rest of us, but damaging to the community as a whole. While our beloved software is slowly gaining traction in the main stream, a bunch of thugs are very slowly dismantling our credibility in that same market.

Over the last few weeks, my frustration has been slowly building until yesterday while reading a popular community blog that claimed to submit proof of a conspiracy by another popular community blogger who stands at the opposite pole of the whole Redmond, Mono and Novell conspiracy trinity. Now this was an older thread from June, but after reading the comment string and subsequent posts on both sites, I was sufficiently annoyed that I should have left my aggregator and moved on to other things, but to my chagrin, I didn’t, and I went on reading other blogs and posts attacking some of the pillars of the FOSS community and counter posts attacking those who oppose them. Basically, I was lost in a never ending hell of pointless name-calling and childish antics that left me ready to toss my monitor out the window and relish the days I spent floating haplessly in the womb.

So, let me say first off that I am a staunch defender of the freedom of speech, and I will defend to death the right of people to say what they want and the right of others to disagree with them. However, when blogs, comments and forums disintegrate into personal attacks, spurious accusations and similar counter claims from the other side, it creates an air of intimidation and fear amongst everyone that if allowed to continue unchecked, will destroy the freedoms of others and irrevocably damage the community as a whole.

One of the most infuriating examples of this problem for me came in the June post I mentioned above which made some very serious accusations against another blogger with an opposing point of view on the Mono issue.  The comment pool rapidly deteriorated into a cesspool of accusations, attacks and counter attacks that showed how both sides were out of line and possessed very little concern for the actual issues involved.  In fact, both sides seemed to be encouraged to continue their childish bickering for over a month in a series of escalating comments and denials. Childish, you may ask? Yes. One of the two actually claims a knowledge of the law and cites their proof as having grown up in a family of lawyers… I grew up in a medical family and had a father who was a surgeon, but no rational person would claim that I would be qualified to comment on a surgical procedure, much less perform it. Basically, this amounts to childish posturing and senseless intimidation. I’ve heard the grade school children of my friends make those kind of statements and they are not what you would expect from a supposed authority in an adult community.  Even more to the point, this blogger continued the saga from his first post in June to the last comment posted by the blogger himself only a week ago. He intentionally carried on a flame war from within his comment section, inciting others while criticizing his opponent for being behind similar attacks elsewhere. His first post on the subject would have been enough, and even a follow up post would have been acceptable, but to go on inflaming others and continually escalating the affair for over a month in his own comments section is questionable at best.

His opponent was also responsible for committing some equally questionable actions that for me were just as heinous as his opponents. At one point he made a post claiming harassment and liable while turning off the comments and ratings system on his own site so that no one could comment or defend themselves on the matter. In my opinion, it calls into question the truthfulness of all the material on his site if he is afraid to allow any “real time” objections and disagreements to be aired after his posting. To cut off any route of rebuttal for your opponent is a cowardly and disrespectful thing to do when their motives and character are being called into question. At the end of it all, I was left asking myself how any of that entire saga contributed to the Mono issue beside the outright attempt by both sides to defame the other and make their position seem as tenable and underhanded as possible.  I know that it did nothing to advance the case of either side, and in fact, it may even have served to make a large part of the Linux and FOSS communities look like a bunch of petty, hateful and immature children without any real relevance to the software community.

One of the greatest achievements of Linux and FOSS in general, has been the communities that have formed around them. The mass of like minded individuals with a shared passion and differing opinions is the driving force behind the entire FOSS train. Their freedom to agree with and oppose differing philosophies, preferences and visions is what will allow it all to grow into the future and any obstacle to the free exchange of viewpoints should be weeded out and opposed at every turn. While heated exchanges are to be expected in any community, their is a line, that if pushed to hard could break into a damaging schism or create an environment of fear and intimidation that could kill the community and FOSS as a whole. Maybe I’ll be branded a paranoid crackpot, but as a student of history, I have seen this scene played out again and again, so I know how civilizations and communities die and fade away. Whether this has been an engineered conflict as has been speculated by some, or simply the result of some latent immaturity on the part of a small group of malcontents, I can see no reason why any issue that is of genuine concern to the community needs to be turned into a personal assault.

Please, I beg you all to not indulge this kind of nonsense and try to deal with the issues with the kind of dignity they deserve and leave the mudslinging and personal attacks to the celebrity gossip sites, because it will not only eventually destroy an otherwise vibrant community atmosphere, but we all eventually be painted with the same brush.

Pardus 2009: A Great Step To Freedom

As a kid, I had an extreme irrational hatred for tomatoes and anything that had touched or been within the proximity of them.  Without exception, I would not touch any food that had even a minuscule tomato component, and as a result, I missed out on a lot of great eating until I was about twelve years old.  No pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, or any other related foods were acceptable to my palate until, after a particularly wicked bout of peer pressure, I broke down and ate my first slice of pizza and immediately broke into a frenetic quest to make up for lost time, eating pizza and lasagna as much as I could and driving my mother nuts with my nightly (and constantly denied) requests for more.

I know what your thinking, “WTF is this guy running off about?”  Basically, I had a similar experience today with a great distro called Pardus 2009, which I decided to try on a whim after a number of glowing reviews from friends, acquaintances and a bunch of really positive forum discussions.  As a devout GNOME user who could never quite learn to like KDE, I was hesitant to waste the time downloading and installing Pardus.  After all, in my admittedly limited experience with KDE based distros, there were very few differences between them across the board… You know the old, “if you’ve seen one” routine.  However, something was nagging at the the back of my head, call it latent peer pressure from the bushel of positive reviews I had encountered in the last few weeks, or even an overwhelming sense of curiosity, but I went to the English version of the Pardus website[1] which, at the time was nothing more than a giant download link, and began the process of downloading one of the two main Pardus ISO’s[2].

After the download completed and I burned the 687 Mb ISO to disk, I restarted my system and followed the impressively simple and attractive graphical install which is readily accessible for any Linux newbie, all the wall to completion and booted my fresh Pardus 2009 install.  From the first boot to the final load of the KDE 4.2.4 desktop, I found myself saying “Wow!”  From top to bottom, this is easily the most unique and attractive KDE based distribution I have had the pleasure to run.  The developers of this distro have taken great pains to make it stand out in the crowd which, incidentally has always been one my main criticisms of the 4.x series of KDE desktops.  They all seemed to boot to the same Oxygen Plasma theme and some variation of the same Oxygen icon theme.  Not Pardus, however which allows you to choose from a number of preset styles and wallpapers while you perform a number of rather basic setup tasks through Kaptain. I was immediately impressed by the fresh take on the desktop including the Milky icon theme which I think is pretty sexy!

I know, I know… some of the purists out there will say screw the appearance, you can change it later (I have added my own wallpaper), what about the performance and stuff.  Well, if you like KDE, you are going to love Pardus as all of the basic setup options are available through the usual System Settings screen, and Konsole is readily available to perform any tasks you need and like in the command line.  While I like to perform all of my package management tasks and upgrades through the command line, I do like to try out whatever package management applications come with the distro to get a quick overview of the depth of the default repos.  The default Package Manager has a Synaptic like UI that is well laid out and extremely intuitive with a good selection of software, while obviously not as deep as the various Debian repos, is very well represented.  Performance wise, from my initial impressions of the last couple of days and using pure feel and intuition, I would say that it has been the best performing KDE desktop I’ve run on my system to date.  In the past, with the same basic effects enabled, KDE 4.x has run choppy during periods of heavy system load, but so far, I have not experienced any lags or choppy loads with Pardus 2009.  All my applications have opened quickly and smoothly, even in instances of heavy system usage.

So, if you haven’t figured it out, Pardus 2009 is my pizza to the KDE tomato.  Pardus is a great system with excellent load times, good performance and an extremely attractive interface.  It is easy to install and setup, and provides an extremely positive user experience.  Possibly most impressive for me, is that Pardus is now my default desktop which has never happened before.  This will mark the very first time that a KDE environment has replaced GNOME on my main system.  For me, Pardus 2009 is a highly recommendable system, and I strongly urge people to try it out for themselves.

Notes

[1] English Pardus site: http://www.pardus.org.tr/eng/

[2] There are two main ISOs to choose from.  The first is a basic Pardus 2009 which includes only English and Turkish installs and weighs in at 687 Mb.  The second is an International version which contains eleven additional languages and is only 9 Mb larger, weighing in at a mere 696 Mbs.

Excerpt on the Pardus 2009 release notes as laid out in Distrowatch.com:

“The international CD of Pardus 2009, containing 11 languages to choose from, is also available from FTP servers. This new release contains many bug fixes and enhancements. A new, shiny KDE 4 desktop environment, improved hardware support, latest releases of Pardus Manager tools, up-to-date software repository, and performance improvements are among the many new features of Pardus 2009. Pardus 2009 has also been improved graphically in every part of the distribution. All splash systems, from bootloader to login screen, have been revised. The latest version of Pardus contains up-to-date packages like KDE 4.2.4, Linux kernel 2.6.30.1, OpenOffice.org 3.1.0.6, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1, GIMP 2.6.6, K3b 1.66, X.Org 1.6.2 and Python 2.6.2.”

Storm Cloud Coming

I must admit to meeting Google‘s announcement regarding development of the Chrome OS with a mixed bag of emotions. On the one hand, I will admit to being impressed with Google’s attempts to challenge and dethrone Microsoft as the primary PC operating system, and its co-operation with and utilization of the open source community and Linux in the development of this new operating system. However, on the other hand, I am extremely apprehensive about this whole movement toward cloud computing that seems to form the basis of the Chrome OS and much of the development buzz of the last few years. In fact, after giving the whole thing some deep thought over the last few days, I am rather wary of this type of cloud dependant computing and agree with Richard Stallman‘s assessment that its “worse than stupidity…” [1] for a variety of reasons which I will try to explain a little further.

Admittedly, Google can be excused for being a staunch proponent for cloud computing as it is now and has always been a web based company. The vast majority of its applications and technologies have been web based and Google Apps is one of the more popular cloud based applications in existence today. As a matter of fact, it makes complete sense that Google would want to develop a platform to integrate with its Chrome browser and myriad of web applications.  It is also understandable that Google would want use its expertise in web development and Linux platforms to take its company into the future of cloud computing and move to capture this market before Microsoft has the opportunity to work its way in. However, even though Google can be used as a shining example of cloud computing for the masses, and some of their applications are a strong display of the advantages of cloud computing (lowered financial overhead, less administrative headaches, no versioning incompatibilities, ect) they have also provided many examples of the potential short falls inherent in the cloud computing environment, problems that continue to pop up even as development on their new operating system begins.

One of the major issues that myself and others far more relevant than myself have pointed out is the severe threat to reliability posed by the cloud environment. While the outsourcing of labours and responsibilities can be a big selling point, especially in terms of administration, it is also one the greatest draw backs when faced with application and Internet outages. Google has been one of the most publicly visible of the cloud providers to face some very serious outages, the most recent being the six hour outage of the Google App Engine on July 2nd [2]. In a business environment, this can cause some very serious financial shortfalls and peripheral losses even after one hour, and anyone in a position that is deadline dependant knows how disastrous a six hour outage can be. It is not so reassuring to see the haphazard apology offered in response to the problem,

“The team identified and fixed the underlying problem that caused the outage and service has now been restored to all applications. We apologize for the inconvenience and encourage anyone having technical difficulty to visit the System Status Dashboard or the Downtime Notify Group, which are both linked from the Google App Engine Community site.“[3]

Another area that poses problems for cloud computing is the security of the data saved on the provider’s servers and transmission of that data to and from those servers. This is a very real problem faced by any data on the Internet especially when you need to rely on an outside source to protect it. While it can be reassuring to simply assume that your documents are safe in the protection of a very large Internet company such as Google, there are no shortage of ways to intercept data in transmission and for every advancement in data protection there is an equal advancement in ways to steal or decrypt it. Any cloud user must have complete confidence in the provider of their services and their ability to protect their data.  Google has been called out on numerous occasions for its lack of security in its hugely popular Gmail application, even as recently as June 19th of this year.[4] This most recent complaint concerns the neglect on Google’s part to use the more secure version of the HTTP protocol to protect its users. Again, there is a fundamental lacking in the viability and safe implementation of the cloud environment. Anyone who has maintained a network can attest to the headaches of ensuring the security and integrity of the data on their network, but at least it is within your power to oversee and maintain whatever measures are necessary and know when they have been compromised.

In the world today, there are some other issues related to the international nature of the Internet and the effect that it can have on your corporate and personal privacy. There is a tendency to imagine the Internet as some kind of ethereal and almost transcendent thing that lacks any physical being. Unfortunately, this is not the reality of the web, in that there are very real servers in various countries around the world that may be used to store your data and applications in a cloud computing environment. Your cloud may not exist in your own country, but one with very different laws governing the information of the servers within their borders. As a citizen from another country, you have may have no recourse in any actions that maybe taken with your data. For example, as a Canadian, it has come to my attention on a number of occasions that my government does not allow public sector IT projects to use US based hosting services.  This is a direct result of the implications of the Patriot Act which allows various US agencies access to the data stored on US servers, even if it is the private data of a sovereign foreign state.[5] We might also wish to consider what may happen if your host’s services exist in a fundamentalist state with little or no regard for the protection of data or a users’ privacy. One might even loose access to their data overnight in some state crack down or other similar scenario. Whenever you store data in a country other than your own, one where you have no vote, no real recourse, there are a myriad of issue that may arise that could adversely affect your data, your privacy and possibly your personal safety.

The final area that I would like to consider, although there are many many more to explore, are the consequences of a sudden denial of service on the part of your cloud provider. There are a number of reasons that this can occur such as payment problems, violations of the Terms of Service (TOS), and contractual disagreements. Whatever the reason for a denial of service, the decision rests solely with the service provider and even if done without good reason, the potential for a loss of data and the denial of access to documents, email, financials and the like can have disastrous consequences for individuals and business alike. The time required to settle any such disagreements, no matter how long it may take, can be lengthy and painful for anyone caught in this circumstance. Most of the existing TOS’s that I have seen, currently state that the provider reserves the right to cut service and deny access to the user and their information at any time without warning. I would assume that this is a lawful action, especially when it comes to lack of payment or a violation of the TOS, but it is no less painful for a user or business.  There have already been some rather seedy examples of mistaken  denials of service toward innocent individuals without any warning that cut them off from their accounts, their applications and all of their data including private emails[6]  In the age of the computer as Personal Information Manager (PIM), such a denial can and has been stressful at the least and universally damaging if access to the material was not restored.

So, while there are many benefits to the cloud model of computing, there are also some very real problems that need to be addressed for the technology to be safe and reliable as it progresses into the future. For every positive, there still exists some very real and possibly disastrous negatives that all seem to orbit around the loss of control over your personal data and intellectual labours. Not surprising since this is one of the major issues presented by the Internet and most of its related technologies anyway.  Considering this, however, outsourcing the storage and control of your data only serves to increase the security and privacy threats posed to it.  And while these dangers are concern enough for anyone wishing to maintain control over their own personal data and intellectual labours, there have been some very important concerns raised over the present and theoretical pricing models for cloud computing which are also extremely disconcerting.  However, at the end of the day, having worked with applications such as Salesforce myself and having seen the havoc that outages and data tampering can create, having followed some the more public failures and shortcomings of the current cloud applications, and having followed some of the debates about the viability and value of cloud computing into the future, I am very wary of the potential threats posed to the ownership and security of our personal data if left to float in the clouds.
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Notes:

[1] Bobbie Johnson, (2008-06-29), “Cloud Computing is a Trap, Warns GNU Founder Richard Stallman,” The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman, (accessed July 11, 2009)

[2][3] Tom Krazit, (2009-07-02), “Google App Engine misfires,” CNET News, http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10278537-2.html, (accessed July 11, 2009)

[4] BBC Writers, (2009-06-19), “Google tackled on e-mail security,” BBC News – Technology, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8107556.stm, (accessed July 11, 2009)

[5] Bill Thompson, (2008-05-27), ” Storm warning for cloud computing,” BBC News – Technology, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7421099.stm, (accessed July 11, 2009)

[6] Chris Brogan, (2008-08-05), “When Google Owns You,” http://www.chrisbrogan.com/when-google-owns-you/, (accessed July 11, 2009)

Open Source Equality

So what is the appeal of open source software? Well, there may be as many answers to that question as there are users, but for me, there are a few central reasons that I have chosen Linux and Open Source applications and why I advocate for them over the more traditional proprietary alternatives.

One of the primary reasons that I am an advocate for open source software is a primarily ideological one.  Essentially, I am a firm believer in the concept of equality amongst individuals of all backgrounds.  While capitalist societies are founded upon the principal of inequality based primarily on an individual’s economic standing, it is my contention that in any society that is also meant to be democratic, we should at the very least offer all of our citizens the equality of opportunity that would make the competition for individual acquisition much more equitable from the start.  All citizens within a democratic society should be entitled to line up on the same starting line.  At present, this is not the case, and there can be no question that the children of a wealthy family are granted the pole position in life having access to far greater resources than those of lesser economic means whether it be in terms of education, sports or in this case technology.

So how does this relate to the question of open source versus proprietary software?  Well, for me its simple.  The acquisition of proprietary software and their related licenses can be, in many cases, cost prohibitive.  Once added to the cost of their basic hardware requirements, this cost can far beyond what the economically less advantaged can afford, and so their children must do without or compete for time on the few publicly accessible alternatives that limit usage and privacy.  As an alternative to the proprietary system, open source software is most often made available without cost or with a very minimal fee which lessens the economic burden of purchasing a computer in the first place, making the resources provided a child by a computer for more accessible by extension, whether it be in the home or in the expansion of public resources.

When looking at the individual family unit, the decreased cost of purchasing a computer with an open source operating system and related applications could bring far more computers into the homes of children who would traditionally not be afforded this opportunity.  Also, in relation to the organizations that provide public access to computers such as libraries and schools, the elimination of the excessive and extremely prohibitive licensing fees of the proprietary vendors will lead to an increase in the number of computers and applications that can be provided at little or no cost to members of the community that require access to publicly available electronic resources.  In both of these examples, it is easy to see the starting lines of the wealthy and poor coming closer together and so acting as a small but important factor in the levelling of opportunities among economically divergent groups in our communities.

These are just two areas where a wider social adoption of open source systems could conceivably benefit society as a whole, but there are other areas that might conceivably create an indirect benefit to the social fabric as whole.  If governments where to adopt more open source applications and systems into their bureaucracies, it might lower the operational overheads in many departments, freeing up more money for social programs and the funding of socially beneficial NGOs.  Even the commercial sector might benefit from the adoption of open source applications, cutting their overhead  and thus adding to their profits, or even better if not less likely, passing those savings on to their consumers.

At the end of the day, wider adoption of open source applications could be a boon to the social fabric of our communities, increasing the general equality of opportunity  among our children by providing greater access to the same basic technological resources among all sectors of our society whether it be in the home or in providers of public access.  Also, wider adoption into other sectors could be a boon for both the commercial and governmental sectors, as well as the consumers of both.

So, this is one aspect of my love, admiration and advocacy of the open source philosophy and technologies.  I would be lying if I said there were no other reasons for my love of my high quality Linux system and the excellent open source applications that I use everyday, but my advocacy for a wider social adoption of them is firmly based on my belief in the  social benefits that would result.  I also believe that the hard working and devoted developers of open source applications and all the other related contributers deserve my support in this endeavor.

And why write about it here?  Because I want to make you think about it, even if you don’t agree with the basic premise.

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