05.05.09
Is Jupiter Broadcasting’s Linux Action Show Anti-GNU/Linux?
Just “Linux” without the rest, except Mono maybe
Summary: Familiar talking points promote bashing of GNU/Linux
THIS subject is not exactly new, but it is something that we never wrote about before. Vicious attacks on Richard Stallman have already come* from the “Linux” [sic] Action Show (Jupiter Broadcasting), so it is clear that the mentality over there is a little different from some.
While we see no need to produce a link to the vicious attacks on Richard Stallman and other things in GNU/Linux, surprise surprise here comes another new attack.
One of our reader asks, “just who is doing the talking?”
Here is this video of the who was giving the talk. Our reader/informant asks, “what kind of fan opens a talk with ‘Linux Sucks’, trashes 64 bit Linux (a ‘question’ from the audience), trashes Gimp, and uptalks Mono?”
Speaking of Mono, here is a new post about it:
Re-spinning famous quotes: Linux and Cancer.
[...]
The strange thing is, replace just one word in the quote and it makes perfect sense to me:
Mono is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.
On goes our reader, connecting the talk also to “Linux Hater” (of whom Novell's de Icaza is a fan):
That whole blog seems to be designed to put people off. Imagine Novell trashing their own OS on their own website. In the referenced video the first speaker talks of lets not go at this from any sort of morality or open freeness or anything like that. But from ‘Linux sucks’.
You don’t fix issues with Open Office, you report them to the developers who fix them !!
I’m very disappointing in de Icaza that he would associate with stuff like this. See the latest from linuxhaters.blogspot.com. He links to a Novell blog post about Linux being ok for ‘fun and experiments’ but not for serious professional use. A lot of I like Linux except it lacks x-feature fud. They would of course pick the the most high end intensive application they could find.
“you will have problems. I think that Linux apps will be different and will have less functionality… but you should have free time”
Then they point to a “Linux Sucks” presentation, that recommends Mono…
The problem with this kind of ‘support’ is that while it is legitimate technical criticism, it will be taken up by the astroturfers to trash the platform. As in this case being referenced on a blog referenced by Linux Hater. Well, well, well; what do you know the Novell blog references the Linux Hater blog. And now we get a classic troll of the form of appealing to authority. As in you can believe my credentials but not me. As even me wouldn’t believe me.
“I’m a professional video editor… I would never try to use linux for professional video editing. There are two reasons for this”
[...]
“Apparently Linux is bad at some video and audio tasks”
This type of trashing is already being picked up by Internet publications like ECT, for example, which has just come up with the headline “Does Linux Suck?” These insulting headlines are being defended by self-procolaimed “Linux people” who trash the platform. █
________
* We would rather not link to examples, but they are easy to find. Ridiculing the very same person who is the genesis of what their show is about is a step too far. In fact, these people are some of the most offensive anti-Free software broadcasters I’ve come across recently and they also promote Novell/SUSE. That’s why I decided never to link them and their show, although I may have done this before.
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
agent.Provocateur said,
May 5, 2009 at 5:36 am
Assuming this is ‘Bryan Lunduke’, lets take this quote
http://lunduke.com/?p=429
“We’re only going to got at this from the pretty pragmatic point of view. And of course the whole point of this is that Linux sucks. Of course we all like Linux and that is why we are here. But lets try not think of this from any sort of morality or open freeness or anything like that. Lets just look at this from why does Linux sucks ..”
“How many people among you have had an issue with Open Office and you fixed it. One ,two, that’s pretty good, ok so two out of how many people, odds are for the rest of us Linux and Open Office suck”
Personally, I’ve never fixed an issue with any software. What I have done is contacted the developers directly and got a response within days. Usually difectly from the lead developer himself. And politley pointing me to the solution already addressed on the support forum. Something developer Lunduke doesn’t seem to be aware of – support forums that is ..
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Richard Stallman, whom these guys hate, does an excellent job shattering this myth in his public talks. People put forth this classic FUD about users not tweaking code and RMS stressed that the idea is that capable friends (programmers) or several companies who put money in a pot will invest in features/fixes which achieve exactly what resolves such an issue/need.
Just have a look at how Apache is run.
Doug said,
May 5, 2009 at 10:36 am
I posted this a while ago but it was rejected by the moderator, wonder why ?
- cut -
4. Doug – May 5th, 2009
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hey Bryan, the next time you have an issue with Open Office, have you considered contacting the support forum ?
“How many people among you have had an issue with Open Office and you fixed it. One ,two, that’s pretty good, ok so two out of how many people, odds are for the rest of us Linux and Open Office suck”
- paste -
http://lunduke.com/?p=429
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
That’s good to know. So they are censors, too.
So much for Free speech. I guess they don’t mind Stallman’s stance on censorship, either.
Bryan Lunduke Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Whoah there! There is only one (ONE) comment I have not approved on my blog in reference to this video. And that specific comment was nothing more than a series of roughly 5 cuss words strung together… and it was directed at another person who wrote a comment.
And, as much as I enjoy a good swear, that just didn’t seem cool. So I deleted it.
All other comments have been approved. If you have never posted to my blog before… it’s not instant. But I do moderate it to keep the spam down.
So, to Doug above. You, sir, are either having technical issues… or are outright lying. Not cool.
We, at Jupiter Broadcasting, are all about free speech. Anyone who has listened to us for more than a few minutes at a time will know that.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
No technical issues. I was sent a saved copy of this page after the comment had been submitted. I have it right here before me and I see:
bob bbyansa Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
poo poo head.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
C’mon, grow up. You give a bad name to the Linux Action Show.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 8th, 2009 at 3:15 am
How very mature, Bryan. Is that you spouting out this toilet language?
http://twitter.com/BryanLAS/status/1730525911
http://twitter.com/BryanLAS/status/1730530040
Lyle Howard Seave said,
May 5, 2009 at 11:12 am
I listened to one of their podcasts when Kevin Carmony was on and it sounded like fawning high school students lobing softball questions (not that the Lugradio was ever any different when interviewing the snakeoil salesman) while in awe of sitting with a grown up.
I tried it again another time and that was it for me.
There are lot of great Linux/free software shows like Linux Outlaws, TLLTS, LinuxVoid as well as many very average ones so I really saw no need to go revisit the ones that are awful. But thanks for letting me know that nothing has really changed.
Had this been about TLLTS gang I would have been disappointed and surprised. But with this podcast I am neither.
That line about fixing OO yourself is truly weak.
I have no problems with my BSD loving friends and embrace the free software and open source worlds and its differences but I have way too many things to do in life to waste it on the various Randall Schwartz and Linux Action haters who have a beef with the GPL and/or free software.
Gentoo User said,
May 5, 2009 at 12:36 pm
You’ll be happy to know I removed a link to your blog (aka The Den of Paranoia) that someone added to the Linux Action Show’s Wikipedia article, and instead linked directly to the referenced episode. As it was supporting a mention of an interview with a Novell executive it was obviously implicitly negative anyway, and in any case you no longer wish to be associated in any way with them.
No need to thank me.
NotZed said,
May 5, 2009 at 6:56 pm
What a bizarre presentation. Didn’t watch the video.
It can be summed up as `I don’t know what I’m talking about but I dictate that developers should just use x y z tools, and users should start paying for everything so developers can eat’.
Most of the comments read like an xbox thread vs ps3. Probably the same children making them.
Funny how it tows the M$ party line so closely though.
T.Face said,
May 7, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Boycott Novell seems like it is written by poo poo heads, who seem to have the stance of Richard Stallman, that being that computing should belong to programmers, and normal people should be only allowed to do batch processing, without any facetime in front of a keyboard or a display, having to consult a manual over 9000 pages big just to get cut and paste between applications understood.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Actually, I’m a happy KDE/Kate user. I promote liberty and I don’t agree with some of the stances of the FSF and Stallman. Please address my message, not preconceptions you may have about my personal life.
John Hamelink said,
May 7, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I think you’ve all missed the point of this presentation. I know for a fact that Bryan is a BIG linux fan, as is Chris, his counterpart in the Linux Action Show. The point of the title is to shock people into listening. If you watched the damn thing, you’d realise that it was all CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, he was trying to be as blunt and as plain as possible, in order to “hammer” in the point. Even when he plugs his laptop into the projector, it wouldn’t work without some tweaking – totally hammering home his point. Have you ever tried making pulseaudio work with mpd? Thing like that are his point. These things make linux LOOK like it sucks. There are many amazing things about linux (which is why I use it as my ONLY os – I wonder how many of you dual boot…), it’s just that there are some really annoying things that would drive many people AWAY from linux. These bugs are giving linux a bad name amongst new users.
My £0.02,
John.
Gentoo User Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Hi John. Welcome to the bottom of the FOSS advocacy barrel. Let me explain how things work around here. There is no such thing as constructive criticism, unless it’s sanctioned by them. There is no need to read or listen to anything, there is an “informant” or a “source” who has awesomely juicy information about one or more people who are apparently saying something non-positive about Linux, etc. Judgment has been passed, and it has been decided that they “hate” Stallman, as was established a few posts ago. That this is a “vicious attack”. For your enjoyment, there’s also a convenient group of hangers-on that will quickly point out that this is obviously totally correct, how they totally had a gut feeling that the Evil Big Corporation in question was in Microsoft’s pocket. It all makes sense now! Of course they’ll also vote your comments down so there’s the impression that consensus is strong with this one.
As the heat builds up and straws are grasped at, there’s claims of censorship, personal attacks, smears, questions about your sanity, suggestions that you are paid to present your opinion, how your website sucks, your spelling is subpar, you smell, etc. All while constantly repeating the “don’t shoot the messenger”, “were for freedom” and “don’t use guilt by association” lines.
See this for more great examples.
Welcome again, and enjoy your stay. Hopefully it will be brief.
Jack said,
May 7, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Don’t be a bunch of poo poo heads. Bryan was just giving linux some tough love. He and Chris love and use linux as their main boxes.
carl said,
May 7, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I agree 100% with the video. Linux sucks, yet I use it on 2 machines every day and rely on it for my business as an interactive developer/designer. I am not a simple word processing kind of guy or a hardcore dev, but have needs not met adequately by Linux.
Lunduke brings this up. The multimedia apps are hardly worth my time. GIMP is worthless to a designer. Photographers might find it useful, but someone trying to design large websites in an organized fashion and then pass that to another company using industry standard software will have a hard time. Lets not even get into the poor type tool or general user experience.
That for me is the biggest linux downfall for developers. They are hardcore devs and don’t really care how the user interacts, how the application looks and seemingly how it even works at times. I needs repeating, there are 5 video editors, 10 audio editors, 10 image editors. None of them are professionally polished. Take the efforts of 10 crappy apps and make one really good one. Simple as that.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
There are many who run their proprietary audio/video applications on GNU/Linux. Just pay Hollywood a visit any time.
Bryan Lunduke Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Great. So please provide carl with a list of Linux desktop applications he can use for the specific purposes he mentioned.
Ones that are both professional quality (ie FinalCut, Adobe Premier, etc.), fully supported on modern (and common) desktop Linux distros and also within a price range as to be reasonable (either to a consumer or to a professional) and competitive with other options.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Here is a list of some Free options. There are also non-Free ones, either usable with Wine or as native applications. To many people, the issue is ‘standards’ in the sense that some colleagues use brand names like Photoshop, with whom they must interact.
Bryan Lunduke Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
So, just to be clear here Roy. You are suggesting that the software listed on that link are options in this case?
Have you tried to use any of them for actual work? Not possible. They simply aren’t capable.
Please. If you are going to comment on a topic, be prepared (when asked) to respond with details on an area you have knowledge of.
I declare your sauce to be weak.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
If an ISV does not port an application to GNU/Linux, it is not the fault of GNU/Linux. Fortunately, however, Windows applications too can often run on Unix systems.
Johan said,
May 7, 2009 at 4:31 pm
This reeks of punditry a la Ann Coulter or Keith Olberman. It’s so completely made up by your own misconceptions it’s actually both amusing and disturbing at the same time. I respect Mr Lunduke for not taking the all to common view of “Linux is the most awesome thing ever, and if you don’t like then fuck off”, but rather trying to bring forward a discussion about it’s future, and the improvements to be made.
And about Mono, it’s great from a technical standpoint. Well designed, and quite easy to develop in. Also, if you ever heard Miguel de Icaza talk about software, and Mono in particular, you should know what a bright and capable guy he is. Mono rocks in a lot of ways. If there are ways in which you think Mono doesn’t rock, well then you can use that option you tout, and just remove it from your system.
About Stallman. He’s a brilliant man in a lot of ways but he lives in Emacs, and doesn’t use the internet very much, and that makes him unfit to make any decisions about most modern usecases involving a computer.
Thank you sir, and good night.
Doug said,
May 8, 2009 at 6:50 am
> So, to Doug above. You, sir, are either having technical issues… or are outright lying. Not cool, Bryan Lunduke
What motivation would I have in lying to Schestowitz about this. One of us is definitely telling untruths here. Other people can make their own minds up. But I can only present the actual text from *your* website immediately after posting. It contains absolutely no cuss words and makes a very reasonable observation. Some time later it disappeared. Some technical issue
- cut -
class=”commenter”> Doug – May 5th, 2009
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hey Bryan, the next time you have an issue with Open
Office, have you considered contacting the support forum ?
“How many people amoung you have had an issue with Open Office and
you fixed it. One ,two, that’s pretty good, ok so two out of how many
people, odds are for the rest of us Linux and Open Office suck”
-paste-
bcapph said,
May 8, 2009 at 8:17 am
Boycott Novell are poo poo heads.
Doug said,
May 8, 2009 at 8:18 am
> about Mono, it’s great from a technical standpoint, Johan
Why expend resources in getting parts of dotNET to run on Linux when they would be better occupied in improving the core Linux system. For instance about a common installer that would run across all the distros? The main effects if Linux developers write mainly in MONO is to dilute the core Linux ecosystem and render it effectivly a backwater. Oh, wait, just to whose benfit would that be
flarg said,
May 8, 2009 at 10:23 am
See, this is the problem with certain groups in the Linux community and fan boys in general. The moment anyone shows some tough love, they freak out and scream “You’re anti-Linux and hate freedom!”. They can’t possibly fathom something they love so much having any flaws, so they flame those who point out flaws. How is something supposed to improve if you don’t point out the flaws?
Once the fanboys get riled up, second rate blogs chime in just to get that bump in traffic. And this just throws more fuel on the fire and gets the fanboys riled up even more. It’s a sad cycle, indeed.
In summary: Boycott Novell are poo poo heads.
T.Face said,
May 8, 2009 at 11:04 am
just to make sure we are spreading liberty: TISM – Mr.Elliot – He Wanker.
Well.. TS Elliot tuned the radio,
Couldn’t get rid of the static,
Serves him right for being so enigmatic.
TS Elliot crashed his motor car,
Snapped a clutch cable,
I bet you my youngest daughter
Could drink him under the table.
TS Elliot, TS Elliot, TS Elliot, TS Elliot
Oh Thomas
Well… TS Elliot lost his wallet
When he went into town,
Serves him right for hanging out
With the likes of Ezra Pound.
TS Elliot thinks he’s famous because he’s a genius,
But don’t you know I’m ambivalent
About the modernist achievement.
TS Elliot, TS Elliot, TS Elliot, TS Elliot
Wooaah
TS Elliot
Hey girls, there ain’t no maybe
TS Elliot
Well I’m your favourite teacher, baby.
TS Elliot
He’s only a poet.
TS Elliot
Well I’m your man and don’t you know it, baby, yeah
Ugh!
Huh!
Aaghh!
We’ve come to tell you a something tonight, Mr.Elliot
We’ve come to tell you something…
Do anything you like, Mr.Elliot
Say all the loves, all the lights and Juliets tomb
Or you can roll the universe into a ball
Good night, ladies, good night
Do anything you like, Mr.Elliot
Become the greatest Anglo-American poet since the war,
Mr.Elliot
You can be quoted in Heart of Darkness, Mr.Elliot
But there is one thing I warn you,
There’s one thing you should never do
Don’t you ever step on my… blue… suede…
Shoes.
T.Face said,
May 8, 2009 at 11:11 am
Who cares about the lives we could save
When we give birth astride a grave
Being healthy, it’s carcinogenic
And life’s a game show called ‘It’s Epidemic’
Why aren’t crocodiles vegetarian?
How come Atilla wasn’t a honey?
Why didn’t Hitler stay a librarian?
Why don’t people find rock bands funny?
Life kills, life kills
Life’s a sentence, read all about it
Who invented the businessman?
Who told bankers the meaning of loan?
Who gave us writer, critic and fan?
Who told teenagers they’ve got a mind of their own?
I’m going down to the Waterside Worker’s Hotel
I’ll wear women’s clothing and I’ll yell
Here’s a broken bottle boy, send me to hell
If life is my alternative I might as well
Life kills, life kills
Life’s a sentence, read all about it (x2)
I’m dying; I’m dying; I’m dying; life kills!
You’re dying the moment the sperm hits the ovum;
You’re dying as a foetus, breathing though gills;
You’re dying at birth; there ain’t no supposin’ -
You die all your life, and even Blind Freddy
Knows your children will die – true perspective! –
Your parents will die, if they’re not dead already)
Life is just death, made retrospective.
You’re trapped all your life, from the very first moment,
By your mother and father, who must’ve been mad
When they decided to add to their own entombment
By having a child, like their own Mum and Dad’s
Mum and Dad’s Mum and Dad’s Mum and Dad’s Mum and Dad.
Philip Larkin described it in a poem; I cried:
“Families” he said, in ‘Home Is So Sad’,
“Are a joyous shot at how things ought to be fallen…
T.Face said,
May 8, 2009 at 11:22 am
Don’t Hate; Accept
Don’t Judge; Agree
Don’t Speak; Listen
Don’t Write; considerate
Don’t be a fuckwit
Don’t be a fuckwit
Don’t Be a fuckwit
YA FUCKWIT!