Loads of material for "Time Team"?

Are you flaimbaiting???

It's funny to see those same arguments which where there 10 years go still here, though most of them are proven wrong.

Open Source is no success? Today, when it is nearly impossible get a highend smartphone without any open source on it?

Today, when it is very hard to find a company or privat household in germany (or most likely anywhere) without running open source software in it.

Today, when we are getting near to the point where there are more linux kernels running on the world at any given time than windows kernels? (Think of dsl/wlan-routers in private homes, android phones, servers, N900s, (the first 4 mostly running 24/7) normal linux desktops *g*)

10 years ago people like you (to the OP and others with same opinions) told as that linux and open source will never have a hugh market share. And well they couldn't be more wrong.

And well on the commercial side:

Let's look at Apple/iPhone and Safari. Apple took kthml/kjs (a truly community based open source html renderer/javascript interpreter part of the KDE project) and made it into Webkit. Apple did this, because it enabled them to deliver a better product with less cost or in less time. Apple had and has developers working on Webkit (as has Nokia). The are paid for it. In fact the iPhone and Nokia customers pay them.

If open source enables companys to deliver better products at lower costs, than open source enables you to get better products at a lower price.

Or if you have a company or want to develop something for the fun of it: You can get a world class html renderer (Webkit) a lightweight and relible database engine (sqlite (which is in the iPhone for example)) (and lots of other components) and builds on that. Building something like Webkit from the grounds would cost you millions.

So yes, open source enables companys to do things they othersways never could affort to do. And thus enable products which wouldn't exist (at least in this quality) without it. So open source is very successfull.

I believe most IT companies are using open source either as software tools in house or as components in their products.

Yes, all those examples (iPhones, Routers and so on) are only partly based on open source. But still, some of their core features are based on it. And you can go and get the sources of it and build your on devices/software to use those components.

Open source is an enomours success on every level. :-)

And there are still valid reasons for closed source software. But the can happly coexist.

@DanielW: If by 'opensource' success, you're talking about the prevalent distribution and usage of opensource codes... then I completely agree. It's everywhere in the digital backrooms. They're pretty much the pillars of our digital society now, well except for those completely MS-run places.

But if its gauged by popularity or public's awareness of OSS and what it stands for? I'm betting the incremental increase is mainly represented by comsci students or those computer-geeks out there. Even the laymen who've heard of opensource may not know what it represents. They'll sing to the tune of "Free software" before you find the few gems that would say anything more beyond that.

Apple base a LOT of their offerings on opensource components (apache or bsd licenses?). Just take a look at OSX server. But do the users know about this? Is that important to the OSS movement?

OK, most users don't know. Most people know Firefox is free. But they understand it just as doesn't cost anything.

But des that really matter? More and more software is going open. More and more components of the software we use are free/open.

The average user knows that there is free (as in free beer) software like Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice. Some of them even now what FOSS is. That is as much as those users can get from open surce. (OK there is something more like getting in contact with the community get part of it without being a developer)

People with developoment skills well most of them know that there are lots of open source software which they can use, and modifiy or learn from them. Quite some of them understand FOSS on a higher level.

Some goals like getting software, software we all depend on freely avaible to everyone (or at least good alternatives), also free to change, distribute and get part of it, well that goal of FOSS will success further without everyone and his mother knowning what free software is all about.

And then there is Wikipedia. Not exactly open source. But based on the same "Free" idea with a similar copyleft licence. Wikipedia does a pretty good job at bringing the idea to the masses. Nearly everybody knows that there is Wikipedia. That he is free to edit it. They all may not know the exact terms on which ground he can distribute it or change it and so one, but well it helps alout to distribute the idea of Free content/free software/free knowledge.

Im very grateful to the Open Source community for all they bring, what would I do without Python on my N900?

It's funny you mention this, as Ive spent all day (UK time) supporting and integrating adapters between two data centres (for services running on Sun Solaris and Wintel) with .Net frameworks, MSMQ, and Tibco. The client is among the very largest of the US financial companies.

Unfortunately my mate is on the client's Unix team (outsourced), he received notice yesterday that the team was cutting down to bare bones. Today the Unix team was actually disbanded, with immediate effect, and he's trying to get into another team at work. It may be work rumours, but he believes that the Solaris servers will be going and he's been advised there will be a lot of opportunities coming along for .Net in the very near future.

I dont know anything outside where I work, but certainly from my own current experience doesn't really align. Not that Im arguing with you, I just thought Id mention it

Edit: I should also say, I have requested Firefox for my development machine but it's not on an approved list. Neither is Eclipse, nor who knows how many other open source projects. All US financial companies are maybe not the open source Utopia that we'd like

Ordinarily, I don't feed trolls, but the epic amounts of shite in this post gives me the need to speak out.

I am a professional Linux system administrator, and have been for 12 years. Yes, this means I get paid to do Linux at work. Not only that, but I work on the machines that were responsible for mapping the human genome and they are Linux clusters. Sure, we have Solaris, Mac and Windows within the institute, but far and away, the vast majority of our machines are Linux. So not only do I not do anything useful with the knowledge, it is also the primary source of income for my family.

At home, I have a data center rack with half a dozen 32- and 64-bit machines. Between bare metal and virtual machines, workstations, laptops, my N810 and servers, I have nearly two dozen machines running at home, doing most of the functions of an internet site, including firewalls, security servers, DNS, DHCP, wiki, network monitors, log server, DVR...Need I go on?

I am also a Debian/GNU Linux developer, a Linux User Group member and a podcaster, which means I also volunteer my time to make Linux better and to educate users.

You, sir, should stop making generalizations about Linux and Linux users, since it is obvious, based on your post, that you have nary a clue as to what you speak of.

Regards,
--vr

why is almost everyone off-topic? i was clearly talking about how maemo is so bad compared to android and how people are hiding behind the "open source" and "linux" labels with nothing much to prove. am i the only one who thinks that the application man. is full of ****?

Maemo is so bad compared to android...please expatiate

Open source actually works pretty much all the time. But you are spot on with the last sentence. A pragmatic approach is a must, and it is not without reason that Poppy is the most widely used Linux of all (as well as the most fascinating piece of software ever created ).