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38 Comments
- ishmal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11You should learn something new every day of your life. If you don't experience anything, then why exist?
IMHO, the main facet of "open" in Open Source is participation. When you use Open Source software, you pretty much accept it "as is," and you are taking part in a large and wonderful community. One of the aspects of OS is the many people who use their creativity to make something fresh and new. When you use it, you know that it is different. Would you visit all of the art museums in the city, if there was only a single style of art?
I find it amazing how many people want the benefits of Open Source software, but hate the fact that is isn't exactly what they want, and then damn the people who create it. - XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I so agree.
- borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12You need a RAGING clue
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Too bad cluefulness is something people can't buy. We live in a world where inferior products often 'win'. Marketing (brainwash) is the only factor that counts.
- FewClues, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7To those of us involved in Open Source (hacker or user) the problem is so obvious. What we need is a clever campaign to draw the clueless to the point of wanting a clue and knowing where to acquire it.
My 9 year old user name is an attempt to engage people in a meaningful dialog to hopefully move them toward this goal. - jacenat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Unfortunately, the clueless outnumber the clueful"
"Dumb people don’t realize they’re being dumb"
so what is exactly "news" on this? - bobcrotch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yes I agree too.
I'm sorry if you actually need to know something about what you're doing. I'm sorry that you can't type your problem into google and find the answer. I'm sorry that there isn't a Wizard to guide you through setting up a DNS server.
I support Open Source software because I support educated IT staff.
Edit: Not the button clicking master degree wielding *****. - lydgate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Completely agree, although the article isn't that well written. I think the main thing is literacy and independence -- anyone who is willing to read can figure out GNU/Linux. Asking people can be good, but RTFM is better. Read the manual, google, put some actual effort into it, once you've done that, you can ask someone on IRC, etc.
Many people can't be bothered to perform such basic problem-solving tasks, thinking their time is better spent elsewhere. So be it; and you can pay the clue-ful people to solve problems when you have them. In the end, the time that I spent learning Vim, or whatever, results in productivity that I believe is simply unmatchable by people unwilling to spend the time in the first place.
Sure, maybe I "waste" a few hours scripting something -- but how much time do you waste when your sole proprietary copy of an important piece of work gets corrupted? Whereas I have three rsynced, version-controlled repositories of my files in various countries, hourly snapshots on an external harddrive, as a result of my "wasted" time scripting the solution to a problem.
Oh, and it doesn't take an IT person or something; I'm doing a masters of philosophy in 18th century literature. Literacy, people, literacy. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4When I see these reports that make cost-benefit analysis and they say using MS will be cheaper in the long run as opposed to using open source solutions... I just wonder.
HOW THE HELL can paying hundreds to thousands of dollars for business software solutions be cheaper than free?! - bobcrotch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Meep the really funny thing about it is that I told you to edit the wrong file to begin with, it's /etc/resolv.conf
The HOSTS file is actual 'computing knowledge' which could be very um, well, I don't know how you would define that. But the TCP stack does look first to your hosts file for a static dns resolution. Not to nitpick but it is true. Your Windows or Mac machine both have HOSTS files if they the TCP stack installed.
It is somewhat arrogant to assume that all non-Linux users are idiots, it's a good thing that I don't. My point is that people are scared of Linux because you DO NEED to know what you're doing. You can't button click and google search your way through your job. Well, the google part is probably a half truth. The point is that Windows is very easy to use and there are a lot of under educated over paid people in positions that would be compromised by a difficult situation with out a GUI. Linux really isn't that hard, it really isn't. There is endless amounts of free documentation and if you were a student it would be no less tedious than the normal CS courses. In fact Linux and Unix are frequently taught in the lower divisions.
Point being is that people are scared of having to actually work and be smart. I would be too if I couldn't prove that I was actually worth the 60k a year that I was getting paid. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I disagree.
You're saying it's more expensive to purchase, implement, and maintain proprietary software solutions for businesses AND pay someone skilled to oversee it all. That, and we're not talking about any future upgrades yet, which may include new license purchases as the need calls for it.
That as opposed to simply implementing, maintaining, and upgrading software that is just as stable (in some cases more stable), secure, and free? All you're paying for is someone to maintain that (unless you're a hands-on type of person).
And you're wrong. I know Microsoft Certified people who are payed big bucks for the most menial tasks, and that is in the most literal sense. - kubudubudubuntu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Edit: Not the button clicking master degree wielding *****."
I'll second on that one... - kubudubudubuntu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@Meep3D: Tried asking on a forum? Or maybe IRC to get a streight awnser quickly,. if you are refering to a home setup with a dns running on the host or server and a router for lan,... then.... you havent searched enough for a better understanding of DNS.
- bobcrotch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6@Meep
nano (or your fav text editor) /etc/sources
It's really pretty easy.
(ya ya bash me for loving nano ;D ) - yoyar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It costs about the same to hire a Windoze expert as it does to hire a Linux expert. And generally, the Linux person can master Windoze in a snap. I never see Windoze experts pick up on Linux quickly, cause that command line is oh so scary. Boo!
- SniperSlap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I worked somewhere this summer where they are trying to switch from SCO to linux. Without SCO there to hold their hand and answer the one-shot banal questions, they were clueless, Unix in general confused them.
We shared development servers, and of course I was working with other people during development. If we had to communicate anything during development, I said "put it in /tmp". One guy looked at me and was like "oh whoa man, what are you doing, are you NUTS?" It didn't matter how I explained it to him, he just refused to do anything outside of his specialized throwback directory structure (leftover from the implementation of the SCO app). These solution-making-goons have no bloody clue what they're doing, they just steamroll towards their goal without understanding the environment they're working in.
Before I left, I sent him a link to FHS. He came and was all "gee, I didn't know that!"
I think part of the problem is that people take their position more seriously than their work and fail to understand when they're being told something they don't know.
The other part of the problem is that there is too much corporate IT in our world today. There is this saturation of ultra high level knowledge and terminology. The BAs are all trying to get in on the software production process with things like UML and model driven development.
As much as there was a swing to take control and costs away from IT, there ought to be a swing back the other way now. Too many computer illiterate people who while may hint at knowing a thing or two about computers, really haven't internalized a single damned thing and often get a career in IT long before they have a full understanding of it all. - b0rg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe I'm missing the point, but understanding the scope of a project, understanding the goal, and being able to use resources both inside and outside your organization to execute the project... is kinda what makes *anything* sink or swim.
An inexperienced manager without a good grasp of his team and his project is going to crater, whether it's an open-sourced or commercial application makes little difference. - b7illsmith, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5This is just a nasty hit piece against the Birmingham IT department. The author claims that Birmingham didn't seek outside help for their open source migration attempt. According to the accompanying story there were a few Linux players/supporters involved:
Eddie Bleasdale, the owner of open-source consultancy NetProject and an early_participant_in_the_project.
Mark Taylor, Open Source Consortium. Another early_participant_in_the_project.
Laurent Lachal, an open-source analyst with Ovum (offered support, not sure if it was accepted).
SocITM, a professional association for public-sector ICT professionals, also supported the project.
The migration didn't work, it's as simple as that.
At the bottom of the article is this:
"Tags: advocacy, switching"
Name calling and finger pointing isn't the best form of advocacy. - kubudubudubuntu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You are talking very generally about the subject, and "Open Source only takes pro-open source people seriously" wtf??
- yoyar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I work with either n00b or what I like to call dinosaurs. These are people who haven't learned anything new in a decade or more. They've achieved some sort of status in the company and so believe that they now know everything. Plus it is so easy for them to fool the execs who know so little as to think they know something. Easily the cluefull outnumber the clueless by at least 10 to 1.
Oh please let me point out the irony of Meep3D (see his loser comments above) who clearly is among the utterly clueless. He's calling LInux 'arcane' - only a totally clueless moron could make such a stupid and ignorant comment.
Enjoy your giant wizard button Meep3D. You obviously can't comprehend anything beyond what a monkey could operate. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's next to the "esc" key
[Announcement: For the humor impaired, the previous line was NOT a joke. Thank you.] - SniperSlap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use Linux, I need help sometimes still. Although I'm fairly good at figuring stuff out - I agree with you. In my earlier days, getting help was very difficult.
These days, the RTFM syndrome can be seen not just in Linux but in languages, standards and tools etc... Many technologies are dominated by what I can only assume are very antisocial or young and abrasive people. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The man is running Drupal, digg++
- str8jack3t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would tend to agree with the article save for my own experience. I have been plugging away at linux for over 6 years off and on. I am currently running Ubuntu, and have found that when it comes down to a Q and A session with linux experts, they, like the article, are arrogant as hell. As an end user who runs linux as a secure box between home and the outside world to a basic user who has a few questions, I have found that finding answers all boils down to the answer of RTFM.
It's too bad that the community seems dominated by the holier than thou. I remember not too long ago that linux seemed like such a great thing, a community of users who were interested in things out side the norm, beyond the keepers of the proprietary. But finding simple information became a pain. The difference, when you pay for support, they answer every lame, simple, and even (god forbid) ignorant question. I now trouble shoot problems for those I have introduced to linux and can say without a doubt, that the open source community, up until recently, have been the most closed community I have ever seen.
I can RTFM and even use google and the great halls of info they call the inter web. Things are getting better, but they have a long way to go. This has nothing to do with cluelessness, but more to do with reception of those with questions. Get off the high horse for a awhile, it takes baby steps for some folks. It's not bloody cluelessness. Change is tough some times. - cday, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ishmal: "...you are taking part in a large and wonderful community. One of the aspects of OS is the many people who use their creativity to make something fresh and new. When you use it, you know that it is different. Would you visit all of the art museums in the city, if there was only a single style of art?"
....................................................
That was VERY well said! I'm not a particularly clueful person, but I do know a well-stated truth when I see it. : ) - yoyar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Meep3D: You are an ass.
- SniperSlap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1PowerBuilder anyone?
There's some garbage that people based their whole career around. They didn't learn computers & programming so much as they just managed to swing a program and infect a helpless company with it. - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"It's the people who don't want to use Open Source that need to be listened to - after all its them that you want to use it."
No, it really isn't. - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@meep3d:
I used to have an editor for DOS called 'QEdit'. It blew emacs, vi, nano, and pico away, as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the non-self-documented for any text-mode text editing in Linux.
s'ok. I know 'save' and 'close' in Joe, and that's all I really need. - Meep3D, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Fwiw nano is great - I hate the whole Vi vs Emacs thing - its a text editor, get over it. The day I waste learning how to use it is a day I could do something I enjoy instead.
I've got 2 identical boxes running 2 lan's in a net cafe (home routers crap out constantly if you put load on them). My point was (in response to 'bobcrotch') that in Linux you need to know how to do something before you can do it. Its also platform specific knowlege, not computing specific knowlege, thats required.
The beauty of GUI's is discoverability. If you wan't to do something on a GUI system, even if you've never seen it before, it's fairly trivial to work it out. Provided your not a true idiot you can do virtually anything without requiring prior knowlege. And Linux is all about the prior knowlege. There is no way of knowing about /etc/hosts without being told/reading, same goes for xorg.conf.
Linux needs to be learned, it cannot just be used (unless its in a very limited capacity). Learning Linux is not learning about computers. Understanding the DNS system should be all thats required to configure a computer to use it. I don't think I have met a single Linux user who isn't a Linux enthusiast. I am predominantly a Windows user and I am not a Windows enthusiast - I can use it but I don't care about it. I have a job to do (Graphic Design, Web Design, PHP+XHTML+CSS, and occasional custom programming). I do not have the time or the inclination to learn Linux, I do not enjoy fiddling with an OS - I've done it to death.
I try Linux every now and then, to see how it is, but I always spend hours on google looking for HOWTO's for mundane problems that shouldn't be there in the first place. At one point in my life I would have considered it fun, but I don't any longer. I just get fed up. It's not that I can't - its that I dont want to.
People are not stupid if they can't use it. If your not interested in something and don't want to study for hours, and an alternative exists that doesn't require the same investment of time you are going to go for that. Its arrogant to assume that if people can't use Linux (that is they don't magically know things their is absolutley know way of knowing without extensive study) they are 'dumb lusers'. Sure Linux can do everything that Windows can, but to people time is worth more than money. - ArmedGeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@Fordi
You could try jed. http://www.jedsoft.org/jed/index.html
I used it until I switched to vim. - kubudubudubuntu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Damn i wish there wasnt such fast tmeout on editing posts here...
Meep, if with "and that the IP addresses resolved through it will be much more clean" you mean local dns caching, then theres tons of guides for it on google. - Meep3D, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1kubudubudubuntu I was being sarcastic. Linux people act like just because something is convoluted and difficult it is somehow superior to someone doing the exact same thing on an easy to use platform.
"I'm sorry if you actually need to know something about what you're doing. I'm sorry that you can't type your problem into google and find the answer. I'm sorry that there isn't a Wizard to guide you through setting up a DNS server."
There should be a freaking wizard to do something as mundane as setting a DNS server. But considering you need to sudo nano xorg.conf and then mess around for ages restarting X simply to get a screen res thats not in the normal list its not a surprise.
At the end of the day the screen will be the same res + quality if there is a nice GUI tool, its just the barrier for entry will be an order of magnitude lower. - kubudubudubuntu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Hiering "linux experts" costs alot more in the long run, seince they generally know alot more.
- Meep3D, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3You cannot bend people to meet your product; you must alter your product to fit the people.
Find out why people are not switching and address these issues. Simply moaning that Linux>* without actually looking in to if it is or not, and the 'Open source is better period' attitude is counterproductive.
Open Source only takes pro-open source people seriously. There is no point listening to them, they are preaching to the converted - It's the people who don't want to use Open Source that need to be listened to - after all its them that you want to use it. - Meep3D, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0deleted. oops. :)
- Meep3D, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Funny you should say that. I've got a Linux box that for some reason or another is unable to correctly fetch the DNS server settings from the router it's in front of. At the moment I have just set the DNS servers manually on the computers connected to it (I would get it in the neck for downtime). I know what the problem is, but since I am a 'button clicking *****' I am not familiar with the arcane and platform specific (not to mention entirely undiscoverable and difficult googling) settings required to fix this problem it's easier to just work around it. I will sit down and fix it one day when I have the time (and the downtime) but that day isn't today. If it was Windows or OSX I am sure I'd be able to figure out where the 'Enter DNS here' box was, but it isn't, so I can't.
Of course I will be happy with the fact that since it is much more difficult and convoluted the result will be a 'better quality' of DNS services, and that the IP addresses resolved through it will be much more clean, shiny and (just generally better). Go 'nix! - ivanmarsh, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1How do I mod your post as "funny"?
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