This Week in Open Source News: New Microsoft Scripting Language Opens Up, What Most Dont Get About OSS, & More

Quoting:Misconception: Open source is ready for prime time as-is. The community releases of open source infrastructure software are ready to be used in a development, lab, or educational setting, but not in production. It needs to be made robust, with reliability, security and manageability enhanced and assured.

Opens source is the engine and chassis. It's not the whole jalopy.

not ready for production?

Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu LTS, Firefox, LibreOffice, GCC, Python, Ruby, nginx, postfix, salt, LXC, GlusterFS, ...

these are all not ready then for production? i'll better call a consultancy and have them make those tools more robust, reliable and manageable. oh, wait, i am that consultant. but i have yet to run into a case where i'd need to make a tool more robust or reliable, or manageable.

a cluster of them, yeah, ok, made manageable with salt. big deal. still no need to make them more robust or reliable.

greetings, eMBee.

@mbaehrlxer,

>> Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu LTS, Firefox, LibreOffice, GCC, Python, Ruby, nginx, postfix, salt, LXC, GlusterFS, ...

+1!

I'll throw into this the many awesomely "robust, reliable and manageable" package managers as well. And we don't really need no stinkin' payment demanded for use of $huttleworth2much's Snap neither! http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/36226/

2c

Obviously this article's author, Mitch Wagner, has little experience in the supercomputer space.

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/230858/

If you are going to spend a billion dollars on a new supercomputer it is a given that it will run Linux. So yes, Linux is quite ready for prime time.

Linux is ready for primetime, Mitch is not.

What is admittedly missing, though, is an easy entry path. Microsofties can just walk into their favorite computer store, put down a credit card and walk out with a computer with OS. With Linux, one needs to be a little more sophisticated than that. Some knowledge is required.

penguinist wrote:What is admittedly missing, though, is an easy entry path. Microsofties can just walk into their favorite computer store, put down a credit card and walk out with a computer with OS. With Linux, one needs to be a little more sophisticated than that. Some knowledge is required.

That comes about from a philosophical decision; does the computing control you or do you control the computing?

For most, the computing controls them and that's the way they like it.

Quoting:That comes about from a philosophical decision; does the computing control you or do you control the computing?

Nicely put.

But, a most depressing conclusion.

Yes, cybertao has stated the conclusion well.

I have an acquaintance who perhaps illustrates this. She is noticeably uncomfortable making even the smallest independent decisions. When faced with a choice she delays until she has validation from at least one other person that her action is the right one. I've even seen instances where the choice should be simple and obvious but someone else needs to state the choice first and declare it good before she will act.

Let's face it, independent thinking is work. Sometimes it's hard work. Many and perhaps most would avoid that work and they will do that by taking comfort from following the crowd. If this were not the case then why would businesses be investing millions in television advertising. The TV ad is another way that people can be made to see where the crowd is going and be happy to fall into the line.

Followers need leaders. Someone who can take them by the hand and show them the path. Microsoft will be happy to show people their path and they will even do this with millions invested in TV ads.