[oclug] Bad News re Loki

[Strosberg, Bill]

> From: Dave Edwards [mailto:dle1 at sympatico.ca]
> 
> Hey Gang,
> 
> I just read that Lokigames has filed for bankruptcy.  It's 
> unlikey that 
> they'll pull their fat from the fire, but in any event, it's another 
> weight on the other side of the scales for the arguments, *OSS and 
> business can't co-exist*, or *OSS advocates/Linux users are 
> cheapskates 
> and freeloaders*, i.e., *it really _is_ about ``free beer'' 
> -- they won't 
> pay.''*  It also adds to a large problem:  the absence of 
> popular apps, 
> games in this case.  

All:

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of all this doom and gloom
nonsense!  Linux/OSS is a stunning success, within market segments where it
makes sense, and the commercial alternatives offer no significant increased
value and reduced confidence due to proprietary and unaudited source code.

Running web servers as I do, I could professionally care less about X,
desktop eye candy, games, office suites and word processing.  What I'm
concerned about is stability, uptime, security, throughput and reliability.
Linux, openssh, modssl, Apache, PHP, MySQL etc provide these things in
spades.  I would pay any reasonable price to a commercial vendor to get
products as good as the Open Source programs I use every day.  It is about
"Free Speech".

Duct taping antlers on a dog does not make a reindeer.

Yes, you can use Linux to create an acceptable platform for just about
anything, providing the user (or installing sysadmin) is adequately
sophisticated.  That doesn't mean that the real value of our efforts can
only be measured in success at things Unix was never intended to do.  Who
cares about the average brain-dead corporate desktop user/manager's opinions
anyways?  Who cares about idiotic stock market analyst's opinions?  If it
were about "free beer" and financial success, Stallman and Torvalds would be
unknown and possibly successful niche market flashes in the pan, not the
major computing world influences they are.

Linux (and Unix) is a stable, open platform for multi-user, multi-tasking
networked computing, communications and server duties.  Linux admirably
handles these tasks.  This makes it an unqualified success, and the only
yardstick that matters (to me at least) is success in the server
marketplace.

There, I've said it.  Let the flames begin...

--
Bill Strosberg