I have heard this argument before ..... Our home server was hacked some time ago, because I changed the root password to 'fnord' .... some kid deleted all data (ok there was none it's a gateway) and logfiles and left me a nice message ....

After re-installing debian (30 minutes + 3 hours to find the mistake in the slightly exotic network configuration) and simply turning off some inetd services the server has been up and running and unhacked ....

Dave didn't get where he is by being right, he got there by being loud. That doesn't diminish his contributions (after all, he started blogging in, what, 1992? and built the first real weblogging tools three or four years before anyone even coined the word "blog"), but it's annoying all the same.

Unix-girl, no one pointed out the error, and on questioning they just flamed more. And ironically their site couldn't handle the load from Scripting (which is served on Linux, btw) it was crashing in some very spectacular ways, so I took the link down.

If I were going to rewrite the piece today I'd still say that Linux is impossible for a mortal to install, and I'm sure it has security holes (you don't get rid of them by flaming).

Take care.

Actually, I sent you an e-mail yesterday morning. I'm sure you have a busy inbox and didn't notice it, but I doubt I was the only one. I can assure you that my e-mail or this post is not flaming either..

It's hard for me to judge whether linux is hard to install since I've used it for ages and am very familiar with it.. but the last time I installed windows it seemed harder than a RedHat install (I wouldn't expect anyone but a dedicated unix geek to even attempt a gentoo install). At any rate, linux comes in many different forms and flavors.. lindows is supposed to be dirt simple (never used it, so can't confirm). OSX is a snap to install (that I can confirm just went through the exercise myself), even my mom could do it.. and it's unix.

Dave, plenty of people pointed out the error, and the "load" from Scripting.com had nothing to do with it, it was unchecked data in a comment that caused the XML parser to throw a fatal error.

The funny thing is, this was pointed out pretty damn clearly in the error page - so why are you claiming Scripting.com had anything to do with it?

> If I were going to rewrite the piece today I'd still say that Linux is impossible for a mortal to install

That's nice. Is it still based upon your opinion of a years-out-of-date Redhat? What is your basis for generalising this to other distributions?

> I'm sure it has security holes (you don't get rid of them by flaming).

No, you get rid of them with a lot of hard work. So it's not especially nice to hear that you write "really shitty software", when you are outperforming your nearest competitors in the security stakes by an order of magnitude, and are being blamed for poor decisions made by completely different people. Do you really think that Linus Torvalds had anything to do with Redhat's decision to install with servers switched on by default years ago? Then why are you using Redhat's poor judgement to back up your claim that "Linus Torvalds makes really shitty software"?

The most interesting thing about this whole discussion is that the static portion of www.scripting.com seems to be running on Linux/Unix........

Seems that our faithful leader of blogging is out of touch in more than one way.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.scripting.com

> If I were going to rewrite the piece today I'd still say that Linux is impossible for a mortal to install

I just installed Red Hat 9 the other day. No harder than windows, it seemed to me. Nicer, in some ways, because generally the various "wizard" pages a guy clicks through each explain themselves quite well.

Heh... that's funny, I installed Red Hat 9 last weekend and it was actually pretty easy. Considering it was my first time installing Linux of any flavor I was really impressed:

http://www.jasonlefkowitz.net/blog1archive/000693.html#000693

The biggest security issue I found was that it seems to require the root password to do nearly anything (including change the display resolution -- huh?), which just encourages naive users to do the Very Bad Thing of always logging in as root to save the time of re-keying the root password all the time.

But the default list of installed packages for the "desktop" and "workstation" configurations sure didn't look like they were server-happy -- maybe an MTA on the workstation, but that's it. And yes, by default there is a firewall, and by default it looks pretty tight (though I haven't had time to inspect it too closely yet).

There's things you can knock RH for, Dave, but distributing software that's wide open by default isn't one of them...

For best security, we've all got to upgrade our OS every year or two and install security patches regularly. Any server, Windows or Unix, which isn't kept patched will get broken into.

At work, we keep our Linux servers up-to-date and subscribe to the RedHat Network's auto-update service. This is convenient--you can manage dozens or hundreds of computers from a single website.

Similarly, RedHat installation is getting pretty mindless (except on laptops). Just pop in the CD, answer the questions, and reboot.

And yes, the Linux community has some assholes, as do the Macintosh and Java communities. (I suspect that Windows community has plenty of assholes, too, but I don't pay enough attention to notice.)

Ironically, Dave Winer has been whining about a "factual error" in the Columbia Journalism Review that they "won't correct." The CJR credited Pitas.com as the first blog tool rather than NewsPage suite. This is obviously a simple matter of opinion about where to make the cut on the continuum from emacs through TypePad with respect to blogging "tools." NewsPage suite was a geeky thing that can hardly be called a tightly integrated user-friendly tool that your mom could use.

Oh honey, oh honey, oh honey... my dear sweet Kasia, please don't go down this road. You were so nice and sweet and sane before you started quoting Winer. I fear it will all go downhill so rapidly now. Just leave his pathetic little lies sitting there, festering, in his own little ghetto of the Internet where he feels he's important. Correcting the wild misconceptions of lunatics will never get you anywhere.

This is all pretty silly. And, distasteful, too, when some posters demean themselves with personal attacks on Winer.

The truth is that most Linux distributions shipped for several years with loads of services running by default. It's only in the last few years that distributions aimed at the desktop market have turned them off. The fact that Torvalds doesn't have any control over that might be seen by some as a good thing -- part of what they see as the positive chaos of open source -- but it's just as easy to see it as a popular operating system with no enforced standards, no focused direction, and no centralized control and quality assurance.

So, yeah, Winer was wrong about that, and he's said as much. But, then, there's nothing wrong ever published on a Linux community site, eh? Everything posted about Microsoft is accurate? (Geez, Slashdot must carry 10,000 lies per day.)

Flaming and cultish behavior is rampant in Linux-land. Any perceived failure to follow the "Linux Can Do No Wrong" path results in reams of virulent lambasting for straying from the party line. How many times have you read posts from some yahoo exclaiming that Windows and Mac users are "too dumb" to use Linux?

That kind of behavior, practiced by part of the Linux community, is the most significant factor working against an otherwise very good OS.

As for software quality...well, everyone's seems to be Not Good Enough.

Ten points to enloop.

You guys circle the wagon at the first sign of criticism. Pilgrim is doing it right now on a mail list about syndication. Instead of listening to the criticism, and trying to fix the bugs or make it work better, you attack the critic. This will not make the problems go away.

Microsoft has always had a culture of seeking out people who will critcize what they're doing. The Unix world, when it works, does the same.

You guys aren't serious. We'll know you are, when conversations begin politely, and continue that way.

I've been reading Scripting News for years, but this is it... I've had it. His comments on Linux yesterday were plain uninformed trolling. Fine. But for him to follow this up with an attack on Linux because they have written an Advocacy Howto is really unbelievable. Mr Winer would do well to actually read and follow that Howto in his own relations, since he seems to burn bridges as fast as he can light matches.

About the CJR controversy, if they were making an arbitrary distinction, they are required to say so. That's an academic journal, and authoritative. I think they're going to correct it. I never said the nasty personal things you guys have said about me.

And note that I did retract the statement and said it was my mistake, in public, which is more than I've ever seen a zealot do (be it Unix or Mac). There really aren't any Windows zealots, nothing like Mac and Unix. That's probably why I use Windows. I used to use a Mac and hated that people saw it as a religion. It's a computer, just a tool, hardly a cause.

BTW, to the guy who "outed" me for using Linux to host my site, the jokes on you, if you scroll up a few posts, I said exactly that. Maybe you should brush up on your reading skills.

Voivoid, no one cares if you read Scripting News or not. I sure don't. It's a powerless gesture. Worry about something that matters, not a fucking operating system. Geez Louise, you need to get a grip.

Dave -- there is no "you guys" -- there are hundreds/thousands of developers (and dozens of distributions [hundreds if you count non-Linux Unixy things like OS X, the various BSDs, Solaris, HP/UX, and all the rest), and your simple, unqualified statement tarred them all, by association, with the same brush. Is it any wonder you got some heat directed your way in return? Why are you pulling Pilgrim's name into this completely unrelated discussion? More light, less heat please.

Mr Winer, clear your cache, you are working with very old third hand information. These days Linux is running your VCR, guiding torpedos, powering many of the fastest supercomputing clusters, pre-installed on $200 PCs at Wallmart, and apparently powering scripting.com! Resync. Consider getting what journalists call some first hand information. Throw Redhat 9 on an old PC and see how it works.

Or troll and bring nothing to the conversation. Your call. But don't label all of the Linux world "not ready" because you don't get responses you like to your trolling. From the evidence above, Linux clearly is ready and has been for years. Anyway, your post was clearly written from anger and trying to provoke the same... I'm done feeding the troll.

To enloop:

> The truth is that most Linux distributions shipped for several years with loads of services running by default. It's only in the last few years that distributions aimed at the desktop market have turned them off.

Dave Winer stated "...Linux ships with every security feature wide open." This is not the truth.

> The fact that Torvalds doesn't have any control over that might be seen by some as a good thing

I wasn't stating that it was a good thing (although I do believe that). I was responding to Dave Winer's statement that: "Both guys (Ballmer and Torvalds) make really shitty software." seemingly based upon an out-of-date view of Red Hat. The fact of the matter is that when Dave attacked Linus Torvalds in this way, he was talking about user-space; i.e. something that Linus isn't involved in.

> but it's just as easy to see it as a popular operating system with no enforced standards, no focused direction, and no centralized control and quality assurance.

It's a mistake to see it as a single operating system at all. "Linux" is just a kernel. When people talk about "Linux" the thing that you buy/copy/download and install, they are referring to an individual distribution. The individual distributions each have their own merits, including QA etc.

> So, yeah, Winer was wrong about that, and he's said as much.

How so? He still seems to be asserting that he was right as far as I can see.

> But, then, there's nothing wrong ever published on a Linux community site, eh?

This isn't Linux vs Dave. This is people standing up and saying "Dave, that isn't true in the slightest, stop being an idiot."

> Flaming and cultish behavior is rampant in Linux-land.

Yes it is. Does this mean that people who use, develop and benefit from Linux-based systems should just lie back quietly as Dave calls their software "really shitty" without good reason?

> Any perceived failure to follow the "Linux Can Do No Wrong" path

Where did anybody say that? Dave attacked specific points about Linux, and he was wrong on all counts. Acknowledging that does not mean you claim that Linux is perfect. It certainly isn't, and I haven't seen anybody claim that it is.

To Dave:

> You guys circle the wagon at the first sign of criticism. Pilgrim is doing it right now on a mail list about syndication. Instead of listening to the criticism, and trying to fix the bugs or make it work better, you attack the critic. This will not make the problems go away.

Huh? The problems went away /years/ ago. You just haven't realised it because you are out of touch with the current state of Linux. It's absolutely fine to be completely ignorant of Linux, you aren't being attacked for that. It /isn't/ fine, however, to attack it whilst still being completely ignorant.

> You guys aren't serious. We'll know you are, when conversations begin politely, and continue that way.

The conversation started with you telling everyone that Linux was "really shitty software".

Follow your own advice.

Dave, if you had told the story straight up you would have gotten some respect. Don't be surprised that people get angry when you post untruths.

"Linux" does not ship with all services open, and it never did. "Distributions" ship with different defaults, but I don't think there has ever been a distro that both installed and activated all possible services by default - not even this "Red Hat of 2-3 years ago" that some people have latched onto.

Certainly there have been secure distributions going back years. Bastille Linux was started about 4 years ago.

I guess the reason people get angry is that we think "How could you not know?" or "Is it that you were never told, or is it just that you refuse to accept?"

It's interesting to note how Dave Winer basically says "Fuck off" to anyone who disagrees with him:

> Voivoid, no one cares if you read Scripting News or not. I sure don't. It's a powerless gesture.

But then complains on his Web site how Google won't index his blog under its News tab. Maybe, Dave, Google is saying the same exact thing to you -- No one cares if you use Google or not. We sure don't. It's a powerless gesture.

Yes, Dave, you matter no more than any other blogger on the Web. Hard to swallow, isn't it?

Jeez, I didn't know I'd start a religious war by pointing out false information..

So who likes vi over emacs? It may go over easier than this..

This entire episode is entirely sad in the way its degenerated. Its one of the things that I can't stand about blogs. The minute someone posts something you have ten other people bringing in their personal beef and attack the attack until it creates on hell of a nice flame war. Wow, matured the internet has.

Yea, Dave was wrong. Still, he admitted to being wrong today which is an improvement. Yes, some of his later comments on here are pretty stupid but then so are much of the posts on here in response. Its all just pathetic

To Jim:

-- Seems to me Winer posted something that was incorrect. I certainly knew it was wrong when I read it, and expected him to be pilloried for it. It's sad that I had every reason to anticipate how part of the Linux community would respond.

-- Yes, I know Torvalds only handles the kernel. But that's a bit sophistic. The kernel is useless by itself; no one runs just the kernel. It is the entire OS that counts. Linux has no central organization trying to assure that all the pieces of the entire OS play nice with each other. Besides, Torvalds is certainly inextricably linked with Linux-The-Operating-System. The fact that distributions exist and that neither he or anyone else exercise focused control over the entire OS is a result of decisions Torvalds has made.

--Yes, people who use Linux should just go on with their lives when someone writes or says something about Linux that they don't like. The compulsion to jump on the web and start defending the OS they use is the impetus for all that flaming and intolerance. An OS is an OS; a refrigerator is a refrigerator. Both are useful devices. People aren't motivated to start flame wars about refrigerators. Why do they care so passionately about a piece of software?

enloop: I suspect that if people spent 8 hours a day in front of their refrigerators, continually eating and moving food items around, they'd care a lot more about them and probably start arguments. They'd also be _way_ fat. :)

I'm sorry but I'm deleting any comments that are nothing more than personal attacks.. this isn't right.

I think Dave Winer may be my favorite troll.

"If I were going to rewrite the piece today I'd still say that Linux is impossible for a mortal to install, and I'm sure it has security holes (you don't get rid of them by flaming)."

I run Windows XP at home and Red Hat Linux 7 on a server. I find it easier to secure the Linux box using command line tools, ASCII configuration files, and up2date -- Windows is too much of a "black box" for my tastes. However, as I learn more about Windows XP networking and how the various components work, it's not as bad as Linux advocates claim.

I had pretty good luck installing Red Hat Linux 9 recently, but there is one area in which it drove me up a wall: modem support. Windows PCs (like my Dell machine) often include a cheap internal "Winmodem" that only works under Windows because it delegates some of the work to the PC's hardware. There are no Linux drivers that work with these modems. I also couldn't get BellSouth's DSL modem to work. Both dealbreakers.

To me, the zealotry on either side is a waste unless it drives one side to copy the best features of the other. Red Hat 9 is a nice desktop interface, but there are still a lot of usability issues where it is inferior to Windows XP.

> Seems to me Winer posted something that was incorrect.

Incorrect, and also needlessly inflammatory. It seems to me like he deliberately set out to attack for the sake of it. I also expected him to be widely criticised - I would have expected the same thing if he'd posted something equally dumb about Windows - this isn't about any particular OS.

> Yes, I know Torvalds only handles the kernel. But that's a bit sophistic.

No, Dave specifically named him as somebody who writes "really shitty software" on the basis that somebody took his kernel and made an OS Dave didn't like.

> It is the entire OS that counts.

I agree completely. So why bring the kernel or Linus into this? Dave could have used "Red Hat Linux" instead of "Linux", and "Red Hat Inc" instead of "Linus Torvalds". He'd still be very out-of-date, but at least he'd be focusing on the right area.

> People aren't motivated to start flame wars about refrigerators. Why do they care so passionately about a piece of software?

People don't give up their time freely to create fridges to give away for free. I suspect if a "fridge engineer" heard Dave making baseless claims about his work he would also rebut him.

to enloop:

I don't see it as being about "someone [writing] or [saying] something about Linux that [we] don't like." I see it as being about bias, or unfairness. Some (few I hope) people will react angrily when they face an opinion they don't share (forget them), but IMO a lot more people will get angry when they face something they think is unfair. They will feel they have been wronged. They should be treated more seriously.

One of the other memes flying around right now comes out of this book (and similar):

Descartes` Error, by Antonio Damasio

Emotion, anger, reason, and belief tie together in the human species. We, as human beings, can be pretty good at rational discussion and objective analysis ... but none of us can be completely good at it. Our brains don't work that way.

On the other hand, emotion is what makes us care. This is what runs through journalism, advocacy, and life. Our emotions make us care about platfrom choice (strangely) or a national policy (for more obvious reasons)... and the rest of our brains make their best effrot to achieve it.

now ;-), what makes the best effort to achieve platform advocacy ;-) ;-), an obviously biased argument, or what seems an honest attempt at objectivity?

"You guys aren't serious. We'll know you are, when conversations begin politely, and continue that way."

Dave, you start with a blog entry that makes inflammatory blanket statements using words like 'shitty' and 'sucks', and then you post this comment? Goodness, for Halloween are you going as a pot or a kettle?

My prrevious post was deleted because it was a bit "personal". Ok. Well, the fact is that Dave Winer keeps discrediting open souce software and WITH a reason wich is 100% about money. What do you prefer, frontier or python?

d.w.: I suppose if I sat in front of a refrigerator 8 hours a day I might come to loathe that refrigerator.

Jim: Bringing Torvalds into it is just as appropriate as linking Ballmer or Gates with Windows. Windows is a Gates/Ballmer product. It is what it is because of decisions they have made. Linux is what it is because of decisions Torvalds has made. Gates decided to sell Windows;Torvalds decided to give Linux away. Both might have made other decisions. Torvalds, for example, might have released the kernel with a license that required all userland code to be vetted by him, or his designee, before it could be attached to the "Linux" name.

Rebuting Winer isn't what's happened here. Several posters went out of their way to launch personal attacks on Winer. A simple post saying "Dave was wrong because..." was all that was necessary, if that. It's the proclivitiy of many (not all) Linux users to behave this way that's damaging the entire Linux community. And, it isn't unique to Linux. The OS/2 community was (and the remnants still are) poisoned by flaming and personal attacks. If memory serves, the same disease afflicted the Amiga community way back whem.

Who wants to use these OS's if they attract such vehemence and lack of civility? Why be asociated with them?

lefty: Most of us manage to keep our emotions under control. fortunately. We don't feel compelled to let our feelings control our behavior. It's perfectly possible to care about something, even something as mundane and common as an operating system, without letting that emotion cause harm to ourselves and others.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about "platform advocacy", but I don't see any need for it. If I did, I'd certainly rather see it based on objectivity than emotion. It's hard for me to deal with people who "care" that much about software. Decisions about software, as for most things, should be made based on reason, not by attempting to satify emotional needs.

enloop,

> Bringing Torvalds into it is just as appropriate as linking Ballmer or Gates with Windows. Windows is a Gates/Ballmer product. It is what it is because of decisions they have made. Linux is what it is because of decisions Torvalds has made.

No. Just because your decisions affect an operating system, it doesn't mean that you are responsible for the operating system as a whole. I'm sure the whole Free Software movement has had a large effect on Microsoft Windows - would you say they are responsible for it?

Please explain how it is justified to criticise a kernel programmer for such things as the method of installation for an operating system that happens to use that kernel.

The people in charge of Microsoft, on the other hand *are* responsible for the operating system that their company produces. A more reasonable target, therefore, would be the people in charge of Red Hat.

Oh, by the way, were you aware that virtually no distributions actually use Linus' tree as-is? They all make their own modifications to it, according to their own judgement. The people behind the distributions are the ones to criticise if you don't like the way their distribution works.

> Rebuting Winer isn't what's happened here. Several posters went out of their way to launch personal attacks on Winer.

Perhaps. I think that has less to do with the operating system involved and more to do with the person who made the stupid comments. It's not like Dave isn't famous for attacking people without just cause, is it? The only reason the Winer Number stupidity amused so many people was because of this.

> Who wants to use these OS's if they attract such vehemence and lack of civility? Why be asociated with them?

I want to use them because they do the job better than anything else. I choose to be associated with them because I would like to be associated with excellence. The fact that there are a few stupid flaming users around makes no difference to me because that is true of *any* operating system.

to enloop:

I'm afraid you miss my meaning, but perhaps it's hard if you haven't read the same books. (Descartes' Error is a dry read, but IMO an important one.)

Emotion is always a factor in a healthy human mind. You and I are not in this thread of discussion now because it is "logical" (in a Mr. Spock sense) for us to be here. We have some desire (an emotional word) to be here. Dave, when he openned the ball, did not do it because it was "logical" that his webpage contain those specific comments. Instead, he had something he wanted to say. His message springs from his hopes/dreams/desires.

I think what he did was generally platform advocacy, or dis-advocacy ... but we could call it "reporting." (The distinction, see Fox News, is blurring.)

Was it fair and objective reporting? I think not. I think if he wanted to be fair to his readers he would acknowledge the difference between Linux and its Distrobutions, and he would explain to his readers that security-centered Distributions have been available for years.

Dave knew he was not saying the truth about linux. It was obviously on porpuse. so who cares if he admits he was "wrong"??

What, people still read Scripting News? ;)

lets bomb google with the phrase "shitty software" pointing to "you know what" :->

or flamer...

Jim:

It's silly to say Torvalds is just another kernel programmer. He created Linux. It was his decision to GPL it, thereby allowing the growth of an unknown number of distributions, all containing software that is under no focused regime, other than the people marketing the distribution. It Torvalds had made another decision -- such as the example I provided -- Linux would have evolved differently. The fact that Torvalds chose to take one path several years ago does not absolve him of the repercussions of that decision.

And, yes, I know that the GPL allows people to tweak the kernel code as much as they want. See the graf above this one.

Your unsubstantiated assertions that Winer's comments were "stupid, that he is "famous for attacking people without just cause", and your use of the pejorative "Winer Number" show you came to the discussion with a pre-conceived bias against Winer.

Lefty:

No, I haven't read that book on Descartes. Sorry, I try to stay away from whatever meme has been annointed this week. That said, I don't consider Winer's blog an example of "reporting". Few, if any, blogs are examples of "reporting". They're examples of what one person finds interesting. That, by itself, is not reporting. So, I don;t hold Winer, or other bloggers, to the same standards as I hold journalists. (I know that's heresy in blogdom.) As a reporter, Winer would have been professionally obligated to check his facts. Since he is a blogger, he's not.

Should mention KNOPPIX here, easiest install of any PC OS I've ever seen. (It's a debian-derived bootable CD)

Winer must have a bit missing - he always seems genuinely surprised when people expect him to follow the precepts he applies to others.

Kasia, I prefer vi myself. Or more specifically vim. Go ahead -- burn me!

Seriously, it's unfortunate that you're the recipient of such an, uhm, interesting but not necessarily productive thread. However, I'm rather selfishly glad it happened because I really enjoy reading your posts. You have a terrific sense of humor. Which is probably a good thing about now.

I will be back when the boys are done playing badly with each other.

Blogging is "easy-to-update personal web pages for the masses." NewsPage Suite was not "easy-to-use" or "for the masses," so it wasn't a blogging tool. You can write an online diary or blog with vi or PHP+MySQL, but those aren't blogging tools. NewsPage was closer than those, but to not include it in a list of blogging tools is not a factual error. How did a trolling idiot like Winer get to be a Harvard fellow? There needs to be an central archive of all his raving postings so that Harvard and everyone else can see all sides of this asshole.

"...There needs to be an central archive of all his raving postings so that Harvard and everyone else can see all sides of this asshole..."

That would make him a Mobius Asshole, no?

to enloop:

How do you possibly read blogs without hitting memes? ;-)

Some seem to misunderstand the term. It is descriptive in nature, and simply means an idea that is seen to be hopping around from person to person. Things like Blogdex or Google News are entirely meme-meters in this sense.

That doesn't mean we have to do anything particular when we encounter a meme. It is just like any other idea. It's up to us if we want to accept it, oppose it, or repeat it.

As it happens, we are all here today to respond to a particular meme, one that is at the top of the page. Some of os oppose it, and some apparently defend it.

Some of these reactions to Dave Winer's comments are overblown. (The corrections are well-deserved, however.)

I'm speaking specifically about the "shitty software" bit. Unless you regularly read Scripting News, Dave's comment that "Linus makes shitty software" comes across as more of an intentional attack than it really is, IMHO.

In fact, the 'shitty software' line isn't an attack on linux, it's a long-running shtick Dave applies to all software, including his own.
http://davenet.userland.com/1995/09/03/wemakeshittysoftware

It's nothing but his dramatic way of making the point that there is always still work to do, and nobody is perfect. That's the way this one came across to me, anyway. (So, to sum up: correct the rest, sure, but don't mind the 'shitty'.)

lefty: I suppose I encounter a meme ot two as I read blogs. (Although I read fewer than I dod a year ot two ago.) I just don't lend much credence to every bright idea that seems to be making the rounds. In fact, the adoption of the word "meme" is a little pompous, I think.

No reason to get excited, you know.

cad: You're right about Dave W's long-standing critique of everyone's software as "shitty". (As in not-good-enough. He's right, too.) He's said it over and over again in Scriptng News. Still, it's risky for him to assume that every reader is a long-term reader who remembers what Dave has previously published. We have to add to that the knee-jerk defensiveness of some members of the Linux community to any published comments about their OS that don't amount to blatant cheerleading.

> It's silly to say Torvalds is just another kernel programmer. He created Linux. It was his decision to GPL it, thereby...

...Thereby he should be blamed for making "really shitty software" because a decade later somebody was selling an operating system that used his kernel that Dave didn't like?

Stop trying to dodge the point. The people responsible for Red Hat Linux are the Red Hat executives. They could have used a different kernel if they had wanted to. They could have changed Linus' kernel if they had wanted to. It doesn't even matter, because the problems Dave attacked Linus for (security, GUI, ease-of-installation) are all user-space issues.

> Your unsubstantiated assertions that Winer's comments were "stupid, that he is "famous for attacking people without just cause", and your use of the pejorative "Winer Number" show you came to the discussion with a pre-conceived bias against Winer.

Excuse me? I think what he wrote was stupid. That doesn't give me a pre-conceieved bias against him, it just means I think what he wrote was stupid.

Observing that he is famous for attacking people without just cause doesn't give me a bias either, I was trying to explain that I don't think it's Linux fanboy zealotry that turned this into a flamewar. Bringing up the Winer number was merely the best example of how people are already prone to attacking him because of his attitude in this respect.

The answer is simple: vim :) Everything else is just a winer.... whoops I'm sorry :) Nothing against the man personally (Dave that is), it just seemed to go with the general flow of comments here. Question: how many of the commenters on this story will become regular readers of this blog?

I second the motion for vim.

/me has been a regular reader for quite some time now...

My OS is better than your OS. =p

"He's said it over and over again in Scriptng News. Still, it's risky for him to assume that every reader is a long-term reader who remembers what Dave has previously published."

You don't have to be familiar with his entire body of work to know that he calls his own products (and everyone else's) "shitty software." He says it all the time, along with other self-deprecating mottos like "it's even worse than it appears."

to enloop:

I've noticed that Dave doesn't like "memes" either. I think I actually emailed him years ago on the subject. It could be that he (and you) met the idea by a different path than I. I think I read it ... in one of the old Whole Earth Reviews, actually. But I think the article was close to the source (Dawkins), and used "meme" in the descriptive sense.

I think it's a great word because there isn't anything else handy for the idea of ideas-that-spread.

I don't think it's pompous because it says nothing about the value of the underlying idea. We've all seen bad ideas that spread - like baggy pants with visible boxers. Just because I distain them, it doesn't make them any less of a meme. ;-)

As osX becomes more common, ragging on Linux may become the joke du jour.
You have to take Dave's technical discussions with a grain of salt, he is a Windows user.
In a way he is becoming like Pournelle.(sp) At some point his viewpoint starts to seem less like wisdom, and more like pandering to his interests.

"You have to take Dave's technical discussions with a grain of salt, he is a Windows user. In a way he is becoming like Pournelle.(sp) At some point his viewpoint starts to seem less like wisdom, and more like pandering to his interests."

Yeesh. It's amazing to see how many people are eager to correct Dave while showing a remarkable indifference to facts on their own. He's a Windows and Mac software developer who hosts several multi-million-hit Web sites with Linux. I think he's wrong about the security of a default configuration in today's Red Hat Linux and other distros (I suspect UserLand's last install was RH 6 or RH 7), but to write him off as a Windows know-nothing is dramatically uninformed.

So that's um...2 votes for vim. Yay!

vim is my OS of choice.

How completely unexpected. Dave making utterly stupid comments based on his having done no research himself. More of Winer's desparate attempts to remain in the limelight. He'll say anything so long as it feeds his horribly, horribly narcissistic ego. As usualy he follows up by insulting someone completely unrelated, takes yet another stab at mailing lists, tries conflating himself with the likes of serious vendors. Meanwhile one or two lone deluded souls try to rally to his defense. Those poor misguided people, ah well.

Seriously, ever distro since, what RedHat 6, has been shipped damned near entirely locked down.

The next thing you know Dave will be telling us house door locks are unsecure because they don't come nailed closed. If it'd feed his ego he's sure as hell try.

lefty: It's not that I dislike memes. I just don't see why they're such a big deal among some bloggers. Ideas spread any time people talk to other people.

Bill Kearney: I've installed every version of Red Hat since RH9, and several before that. I'm pretty sure I recall turning off some services in each of them. Commercial distributions targetting the home desktop are gettng smarter about shutting down services, and it's about time. How many people need to run sendmail on their home machine? Or even have a clue what it is? Or need a clue?

Hello Rogers Cadenhead.
I meant that Dave's appreciation for what makes a "good" os is based at least to some degree on his choice of Windows as his primary platform. And I mean by this that he doesn't live in Mac OSX all day, or Linux. Its all a matter of perspective.

I've read Dave's blog to have a feel for where he stands on things. This outbust from him feels out of character. It seems like he has had an unpleasant experience with Linux, or isn't feeling well.

Dave hosts my blog on his "Qube". Beyond that, I haven't heard much about Dave's experiences with Linux.

Okay, last post from me. Dave recently posted this:

"To me, standing up to help a person being attacked is the best we can do. If it's the US government or a BigCo trying to keep people from talking about them, or a lout with a website, trashing good people's reputations. I not only remember who did the deeds, but I remember who stood by and did nothing. And that's almost everyone. And that's our shame."

So no, when some lout with a website trashes good people's reputations (in this case Linus Torvalds'), I won't just keep quiet and "go on with [my] life".

Jim: that's a fine example. Dave the attention seeking hypocrite. He'll constantly spout some pithy words of wisdom and then promptly turn around and do exactly the opposite. It's called having no integrity.

As Edmund Burke once said "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Sure, lots of folks are willing to look the other way but some of us, who actually HAVE integrity, won't sit idly by and watch these lies being told. Especially for no good reason other than to feed an otherwise out of control, narcissistic ego.

Dave Winer is a bastard. Wait, if you have read my blog, you will see i constantly say bastard to people who is really intelligent. I redefined the word. Linux is shitty software, Dave Winer is a bastard.

Notice that Dave doesn't return to the discussion after Jim's completely even-keeled challenge on October 28, 2003 12:20 PM. (Not saying this was the first, but the most complete.)

Dave Winer's M.O.
1. Stir the pot
2. Go to other comment boards, provoke further
3. Ignore legitimate challenges
4. Wait for ad hominem attacks to appear
5. Claim victim hood, ignoring legitimate challenges while
6. Go back to scriptingnews and whine about "personal attacks"

Dave is essentially an asshole who stirs up trouble because he needs the attention; the follow-on and mostly deserved abuse makes him feel relevant.

Isn't this common knowledge?

What is real ironic is that Dave does know better by exp as his company has been using Linux via the Qube boxes that hea run for say lets see 4 years now or more..base d on his recomendation..