open source sucks...

[Matt Alexander]

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 |    PLEASE    |
 | DO NOT  FEED |
 |  THE TROLLS  |
 |    --The Mgt.|
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On Fri, 24 May 2002, T wrote:

> ...at least, according to this article it seems to...
>
>
> http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz05222002
> .asp
>
>
> A May 2002 news story from News Corporation’s Australian IT website
> illustrates how the open source method of software development for Linux is
> vastly overrated for business customers.  According to a story on May 21,
> 2002 titled "IT Workers poorly skilled: report" by Karen Deane “Internet
> Business Systems chief executive David Brykman said he was shocked to find
> many candidates with university degrees and years of experience couldn't
> pass a simple skills test.  The Melbourne-based company has been seeking
> Visual Basic and SQL programmers over the past six months to handle its
> business in industrial strength applications that run through a browser or
> over the web.  ‘In the past two months we've reviewed about 500 resumes, and
> out of those we’re lucky if we can distil one or two people who are what we
> would call qualified,’ he said.”
>
> It is a grim statement on the state of software programming, but you might
> ask: “What does this have to do with Linux and open source?”  Okay, think of
> it this way: What makes open source the secure, stable and elegant software
> panacea open source cultists claim it is?  The Linux crowd point to the
> “thousand eyes” in the vast and benevolent Linux community that view the
> code and the ability to reuse this secure, stable and elegant code in
> numerous projects.  These thousands of eyes are supposed to be able to spot
> weaknesses in the code and fix them immediately without bureaucratic hassles
> found in corporate software development.
>
> Because of the General Public License that virtually all Linux/open source
> apps are subject to, Linux/open source programmers are within legal rights
> to cut-and-paste pieces of code from any other open source app into their
> project.  For example, say you are the IT director at a bank and you buy
> into the Linux is stable, secure and bulletproof hype.  The bank’s CEO
> mandates that all loan officers to have a custom software package to track
> customer credit ratings.  Your main applications programmer tells you that
> he knows a perfect piece of code he can use on SourceForge (an open source
> code clearinghouse website) that will drastically cut development time and
> costs.  You can legally cut-and-paste this code into your credit software
> and supposedly make your system “stable and secure.”
>
> What do business people involved in software development think of this
> approach?  David Brykman lamented that most software programmers have become
> lazy due to the prevalence of open source development methods.
> “Unfortunately we find people try to look up existing code and then want to
> copy and paste it, rather than being able to do the task themselves.”
> Brykman said.  “[P]eople still need those skills.”
>
> The attack on Brykman’s views from the Linux crowd will be: “He’s working
> with Microsoft tools like Visual Basic that are inherently too closed
> because of Micro$oft’s monopolistic bullying.  If Brykman worked with open
> source tools, he wouldn’t have this problem.”
>
> Such an attack is pointless because it doesn’t address the business aspects
> software development.  If Brykman could use a
> “free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty” piece of code to accomplish his
> business goals for almost no cost, he would.  Brykman's business is creating
> browser-based Intranet software - Usually that business segment prides
> itself on being “platform independent.”  Wouldn't Brykman prefer open source
> development methodologies due cross-platform nature and its ability to
> use/reuse code for “free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty?”  Linux cultists are
> so fond of saying there’s nothing in the GPL keeping businesses from
> charging for code (a semantic gymnastic feat to prove to anyone with half a
> brain), so why wouldn’t Brykman welcome programmers whose method is to
> cut-and-paste snippets of open source code?
>
> No, the problem is that even these supposedly skilled programmers who “hack”
> couldn’t get a functioning application out of the millions of lines of code
> floating out on the Internet.  If they could, Brykman wouldn’t be
> complaining about the lack of programming skills found amongst most job
> applicants.
>
>  Businesses in the post dot-com-bomb era will need real programmers, not
> spoiled lazy kids stealing from true geniuses.  The Microsoft .Net framework
> is poised to be the formidable computing platform in the next few years;
> mainly due to the innovation required in the C# programming community and
> their commitment to intellectual property rights.  The Java cross-platform
> programming language has been around for almost a decade and Sun has never
> been able to work it into their “the computer is the network and the network
> is the computer” strategy.  Maybe it’s because so much Java code is used and
> reused?  JBoss anyone?  Does IBM’s “Jikes” ring any bells?  Notice all the
> Java code on SourceForge?  See the press releases from Sun trumpeting their
> alliance with Apache “to make the Java platform even more open”?
>
>  Welcome to the lazy, cut-and-paste world of open source “innovation” where
> people who should be smart enough to know better still think you can get
> something for nothing.  It would be humorous if it wasn't so pathetic...
> Email me with your opinion
>
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