Plato's Beard » 2006

The big names at LinuxWorld seem to be getting a bit defensive about their baby, as they hold forth on why Linux “succeeded” where BSD “failed”. This “success” is attributed to everything from the sex appeal of Linus Torvalds to the purported development model. BSD’s “failure” is, naturally, a failure on these fronts (and perhaps unrelated to the AT&T lawsuits and ensuing qaugmire?).

Any rhetorical adventure that includes Eric Raymond at the forefront is (to me) to be taken with a good dose of salt, and that is surely true of this discussion. The premature news of BSD’s demise is ill-substantiated by the points offered nor is it empirically evident. Perhaps anticipating the MacOS X (built around BSD and Mach) issue, one of the speakers notes:

“If Mac and Windows didn’t suck, people would’ve used them,” DiBona said.

Eh, wot? This while predicting that Linux desktops “will” be in the 15% range in 5 years. Any guesses on what the Windows and MacOS X shares of the desktop market is, today?

At least one of them had enough decency to address what Richard Stallman has correctly insisted on for years:

For Hohndel three key factors that fostered the rise of Linux: […] the GNU toolchain, without which none of Linux would have happened.

I think it was last week that InformationWeek gave us their take on the greatest software ever written:

So there you have it: The single Greatest Piece of Software Ever, with the broadest impact on the world, was BSD 4.3. Other Unixes were bigger commercial successes. But as the cumulative accomplishment of the BSD systems, 4.3 represented an unmatched peak of innovation. BSD 4.3 represents the single biggest theoretical undergirder of the Internet. Moreover, the passion that surrounds Linux and open source code is a direct offshoot of the ideas that created BSD: a love for the power of computing and a belief that it should be a freely available extension of man’s intellectual powers–a force that changes his place in the universe.

Raymond is a smart guy, but I think the above (last sentence) is much more inspiring and (in the long run) sustaining than Raymond’s “whatever compromise is necessary”. The latter is nothing more than a “corporate lite” approach while Stallman (with all his faults) offers a higher vision.

Just my 2 cents.

Plato's Beard » 2006 » August

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Couldn’t they get Karl Rove to once over these episodes before they play them out?

Craig Murray – The UK Terror plot: what’s really going on?

[…]

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year – like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes – which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t give is the truth.

The gentleman being “interrogated” had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for “Another 9/11”. The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

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