5 ms·

>Debate me by all means, don't silence me. I tried to be honest and keep an even town. I was on topic. Just because you believe that my opinion is wrong doesn't

>Debate me by all means, don't silence me. I tried to be honest and keep an even town. I was on topic. Just because you believe that my opinion is wrong doesn't mean that you have to down-vote me for it. I think your post was downvoted for being dogmatic (e.g. "Open source is the way, the truth and the light!"), not for being wrong. On a side note, don't fret getting down voted so much. Who cares. Once you get 200 karma you can downvote people but other than that I don't know of anything that more karma buys. >It appears to me from looking at the software landscape that open source is becoming more and more pervasive all the time. This is because you're seeing it as some kind of ideology. It isn't. It's a loss leader. You see people doing loss leader all over the place (e.g. milk sold below cost, gaming consoles, television for free but with commercials, etc., etc.), do you think there is a growing trend of people who want to pay you for using their product? Of course not, it's part of a larger strategy. Just like open source. >That's unfair and unkind on your part to equate what I feel as pretty rational beliefs with religious thinking. When you see the same thing as everyone else but ascribe it to some "higher power" when there is no evidence of such what should I call it? >Look at the valuation* of Redhat (the champion free software company) vs Microsoft (the champion proprietary company over the last two years for instance ... What does that stock movement tell you? And bizarre examples like this further point to irrational thinking on your part. Microsoft dwarfs Redhat in every meaningful way. Are you comparing stock prices between the two [1]? And if you want to talk about the champion of proprietary software I think Apple has a better stake on that claim. They just recently blew past Microsoft in market cap (the metric you should be looking at if you're trying to judge valuation of a company). >You can't say that Redhat are making a better fist of the console market or a better cloud play or thin client play because Redhat outcompetes Microsoft on their own turf (server software and support) and this is all due to open source software. Redhat isn't remotely relevant to Microsoft. MS is worried about Google and Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if Ballmer didn't even know Redhat was still around as a company. >It seems to me that all the big IT companies get this - HP gets it, IBM get it, Oracle now get it through SUN, Yahoo gets it, Google definitely get it ... Microsoft are conspicuous by their absence to the party. No idea what you're talking about here. Frankly this sentence sounds absolutely delusional. Oracle "gets it" via Sun? Do you read the news? Every single one of those companies you mentioned rely on proprietary software. Sure, they use free software. Some even do some loss leader with it (e.g. Google). So what? Microsoft also gives away software btw. Out of that list it is beyond bizarre that you would give Oracle a pass but single out Microsoft. I feel like I'm having a conversation on slashdot in the late '90s. [1] http://www.thevarguy.com/2009/10/22/red-hat-vs-microsoft-the-big-stock-myth/ http://www.thevarguy.com/2009/10/22/red-hat-vs-microsoft-the...

igravious 16y ago
Thanks for continuing this conversation with me. Lets put aside ideology for a moment and talk about facts. >This is because you're seeing it as some kind of ideology. It isn't. It's a loss leader. You see people doing loss leader all over the place (e.g. milk sold below cost, gaming consoles, television for free but with commercials, etc., etc.), do you think there is a growing trend of people who want to pay you for using their product? Of course not, it's part of a larger strategy. Just like open source. Because with open source software you get unhindered access to the source code and because sending bits over the internet is very cheap it is seen as pointless to charge for the media. But open source software charge and make a very fine business from support. Your example of milk is odd because farming is subsidized, something that a lot of people find unfair but that is necessary so that you don't become agriculturally subservient to someone who suddenly becomes your enemy. And what does milk lead to? Cheese? Gaming consoles, yes. But apparently Nintendo never has. Television programming uses the business model of advertising just like a whole bunch of websites do. This does not mean that your television programs are loss leaders because what do they lead to? Consoles lead to games. Programs lead to more programs which the advertisers like cuz they like eyeballs. With advertising you are the product, the advertisers are the customer. This is why probably you get better programming from subscription channels because they are not as beholden to their customers (the advertisers) but this is all beside the point. The example that is kind of true reinforces my point about software being exorbitantly priced. >Microsoft dwarfs Redhat in every meaningful way. Are you comparing stock prices between the two [1]? And if you want to talk about the champion of proprietary software I think Apple has a better stake on that claim. They just recently blew past Microsoft in market cap (the metric you should be looking at if you're trying to judge valuation of a company). It's not about size. It is about your return on your stock investment in terms of the share price going up and not down, and the dividends on the shares. The data I gave you showed that Redhat's shares have outperformed Microsoft's shares over the last 5 years even though Microsoft is phenomenally profitable. What does that tell you? I don't know about dividends, I haven't looked that up. Your talk about Apple is beside the point because I am not talking about market cap. Sure market cap gives you one evaluation of a company but so do lots of other things such as stock movement, volume of trading, price to earnings ratio and a whole bunch of other things. Judging things by just how "big" they are is not a great way to go about educating yourself. >Redhat isn't remotely relevant to Microsoft. MS is worried about Google and Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if Ballmer didn't even know Redhat was still around as a company. You are joking aren't? What is Microsft's main source of revenue. It was spelled out in this article. Windows and Office. Has been for years. Redhat competes with Windows in the enterprise. They are a direct competitor of Microsoft's cash cow. Apple is too but only kind of because Macos is not a general purpose OS and always comes wrapped in shiny hardware and so doesn't compete directly with Microsoft. It's more the other way, as Microsoft expands beyond its cash cows it enters the turf of others, into music devices or web search for instance. And Apple kind of proves my point cuz Darwin and LLVM are open source projects that Apple heavily invests in so gives them a competitive advantage. Check out http://www.apple.com/opensource/ http://www.apple.com/opensource/ "As the first major computer company to make Open Source development a key part of its ongoing software strategy, Apple remains committed to the Open Source development model. Major components of Mac OS X, including the UNIX core, are made available under Apple’s Open Source license" And what about this community? HN is powered by Arc which you can get the source from here: http://arclanguage.org/install http://arclanguage.org/install and the OS is FreeBSD according to Netcraft: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://news.ycombinator.com http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://news.ycom...

igravious 16y ago

Thanks for continuing this conversation with me. Lets put aside ideology for a moment and talk about facts. >This is because you're seeing it as some kind of ideology. It isn't. It's a loss leader. You see people doing loss leader all over the place (e.g. milk sold below cost, gaming consoles, television for free but with commercials, etc., etc.), do you think there is a growing trend of people who want to pay you for using their product? Of course not, it's part of a larger strategy. Just like open source. Because with open source software you get unhindered access to the source code and because sending bits over the internet is very cheap it is seen as pointless to charge for the media. But open source software charge and make a very fine business from support. Your example of milk is odd because farming is subsidized, something that a lot of people find unfair but that is necessary so that you don't become agriculturally subservient to someone who suddenly becomes your enemy. And what does milk lead to? Cheese? Gaming consoles, yes. But apparently Nintendo never has. Television programming uses the business model of advertising just like a whole bunch of websites do. This does not mean that your television programs are loss leaders because what do they lead to? Consoles lead to games. Programs lead to more programs which the advertisers like cuz they like eyeballs. With advertising you are the product, the advertisers are the customer. This is why probably you get better programming from subscription channels because they are not as beholden to their customers (the advertisers) but this is all beside the point. The example that is kind of true reinforces my point about software being exorbitantly priced. >Microsoft dwarfs Redhat in every meaningful way. Are you comparing stock prices between the two [1]? And if you want to talk about the champion of proprietary software I think Apple has a better stake on that claim. They just recently blew past Microsoft in market cap (the metric you should be looking at if you're trying to judge valuation of a company). It's not about size. It is about your return on your stock investment in terms of the share price going up and not down, and the dividends on the shares. The data I gave you showed that Redhat's shares have outperformed Microsoft's shares over the last 5 years even though Microsoft is phenomenally profitable. What does that tell you? I don't know about dividends, I haven't looked that up. Your talk about Apple is beside the point because I am not talking about market cap. Sure market cap gives you one evaluation of a company but so do lots of other things such as stock movement, volume of trading, price to earnings ratio and a whole bunch of other things. Judging things by just how "big" they are is not a great way to go about educating yourself. >Redhat isn't remotely relevant to Microsoft. MS is worried about Google and Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if Ballmer didn't even know Redhat was still around as a company. You are joking aren't? What is Microsft's main source of revenue. It was spelled out in this article. Windows and Office. Has been for years. Redhat competes with Windows in the enterprise. They are a direct competitor of Microsoft's cash cow. Apple is too but only kind of because Macos is not a general purpose OS and always comes wrapped in shiny hardware and so doesn't compete directly with Microsoft. It's more the other way, as Microsoft expands beyond its cash cows it enters the turf of others, into music devices or web search for instance. And Apple kind of proves my point cuz Darwin and LLVM are open source projects that Apple heavily invests in so gives them a competitive advantage. Check out http://www.apple.com/opensource/ http://www.apple.com/opensource/ "As the first major computer company to make Open Source development a key part of its ongoing software strategy, Apple remains committed to the Open Source development model. Major components of Mac OS X, including the UNIX core, are made available under Apple’s Open Source license" And what about this community? HN is powered by Arc which you can get the source from here: http://arclanguage.org/install http://arclanguage.org/install and the OS is FreeBSD according to Netcraft: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://news.ycombinator.com http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://news.ycom...