HackFUD

In the 70’s we had a new mini ice age coming . Then that was changed to Global Warming.

Nowadays, the phrase people use is “Clinate Change”.

Generally, when people speak this phrase, they’re really talking about global warming - the planet is warming up and it is all our fault.

Let’s take a skeptical look at this, and let’s get some perspective on the whole thing too…

Okay so this planet - the Earth - is rather old - roughly 4.5 billion years old, according to scientists. And in this time, it has had a rather large amount of interesting and varying climates. When it was very young, it wasn’t a very pleasant place to be - well, if you liked molten rock lakes, poisonous gas, explosive eruptions, being constantly bombarded by rocks from space, and really rather hot temperatures, this was the IN place to be.

Over aeons, as the planet got older, things began to settle down a bit - it started to cool down, the volcanoes calmed down, the molten rock began to solidify, and somewhere, according to theory, pools of goo began to collect and coagulate and had a rather nice time of it all, eventually evolving into single-celled organisms, having a bit of an evolutionary party, and getting increasingly complex.

Throughout all this time - and this might come as a bit of a shock to everyone - the climate was changing! Yes folks! Changing constantly, from hot to cold to hot to cold again to ice ages to tropical stages back to ice ages returning to tropical stages - change change change! Everybody panic!

Well, no, because, for most of the lifetime of this planet, there haven’t been human beings around - we’ve really only been running around and panicking on this world for a blink of a geological eye.

And yet, we have people on this world who have decided that WE are responsible for the planet heating up, that WE are responsible for this phenomenom called Global Climate Change, and that - unless you and I and everyone else start paying lots of money and more taxes, nothing can be done to solve this problem.

Now, you have to ask yourself - given that there were times in this planet’s lifetime when it was obviously so much HOTTER then it is now, and also, given there were times when it was oh so much COOLER, and given the short time we’ve been here, how the heck can we puny beings be even remotely responsible for any change in the climate?

And let’s talk about climate change. What is climate? Climate is an all-encompassing word which describes the conditions of humidity, temperature, atmospheric particle count, precipitation (or lack of), wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, and a whole load of other factors, for a specified region , and this is the important bit - over a long period of time.

Climate is not weather. Weather is what’s happening outside your window now, when you’re looking out - is it raining that day? Is it sunny? Hot? Cold? Foggy? And so on and so forth.

We humans have short memories. We generally only live for a short time - 70 years or so - some more, some less. And as such, we have no memory, if you like, of what the weather was like in the past, before we were born. Take for example, the Little Ice Age, where the weather got decidely chilly for a lot of folks.

So back to the present. What’s happening now is that there’s a lot of noise emanating from various people, organisations, media, and politicians, all repeating the same meme - that we are responsible for the Earth warming up, and that we need to Do Something About This. Generally, this Doing Something About This seems to entail us paying more taxes, becoming “greener”, and oh yes, paying lots of money to various people in order to Help Save The Planet. Agenda, much?

I have to ask myself - and I suggest you do so as well - when I look at the Al Gore’s of this world who are getting into a real tizz over ‘climate change’ - despite mounting evidence to the contrary that the global climate is warming up at all - I have to ask, “What is the real reason these people are saying all this? Why does mainstream mass media do nothing but try to advance the warming message every time?”.

I have my suspicions as to why - and it’s to do with both keeping the power-hungry in power, and to keep the rest of us subjugated. You might disagree with me, you may even agree. You may even have your own insight into why this is. I’d like to hear from you, and what your suggestions are to counter this climate FUD.

Sorry for the lack of site updates, I have moved to a new location here in Japan, and because of this have been monumentally busy. Things are beginning to settle down a bit now, so, I should hopefully be able to resume writing articles for the site. Once again, my apologies.

There’s an interesting phrase, and this short article isn’t about any kind of FUD at all, just a quick response to an interesting article I stumbled across, and felt I needed to just make a point about it;

Interesting, just nomenclature eh? Imagine this situation:

1. I buy a license for RHEL
2. I find a bug or want a new feature
3. Lucky for me, I have the source code to RHEL
4. I also have the technical skills to pay the billz
5. I fix the bug and add that new feature to my copy of RHEL
6. I no longer have RHEL, I have RHEL*

Can I get support for RHEL* from Red Hat? A candy bar to readers who answer, “nope, you’re out of luck, Red Hat won’t support you on anything other than RHEL (i.e. RHEL* != RHEL)”.

Which makes sense for Red Hat, when you think about it After all, anyone with the ability can make changes to programs, utilities, and kernels within the paid-for Red Hat distribution. Red Hat allowing its full support facilities and help desk access for any old randomly customised versions of that distribution would be an absolute nightmare for the company, so it makes sense for Red Hat to support only its one - known - distribution.

I suggest that perhaps the better alternative sequence of events Savio Rodrigues could follow would be this;

1. I buy a license for RHEL
2. I find a bug or want a new feature
3. Lucky for me, I have the source code to RHEL
4. I also have the technical skills to pay the billz
5. I fix the bug and post a bug report to Red Hat with the patch which sorted the bug.
6. Red Hat acknowledges the bug and either accepts my patch or writes its own.
7. A patched version of the software is released by Red Hat.
8. I had a fully supported RHEL. I still have a fully supported RHEL.

Q.E.D.

The above diagram, originally made available to Mary Jo Foley on her blog , appears to be what Microsoft has in mind as a strategy to overcome its personal monster, otherwise known as Linux.

Microsoft wants to have all the Free and Open Source Software goodness for itself, wrapped up in its Closed Source, Proprietary “candy”, and in so doing, hopes to starve GNU/Linux of the oxygen of FOSS.

It’s mistaken if it believes that strategy will succeed in usurping Linux as the base from which FOSS grows, and the reason is this : GNU/Linux’s candy - the flavour of Freedom, tastes sweeter than Microsoft’s proprietary and expensive “Stack”. It’s a combination of philosophy, perception, and server back-end suitability in which GNU/Linux will win all the way.

This strategy is typical Microsoft “embrace, extend, extinguish”. It’s an old, worn-out strategy which people are by now wise to (finally, after decades of being taken in by this), and it’s a sad, desperate move by an old dinosaur which is now slowly realising that its reign and power over the IT industry is coming to an end - slowly, but surely.

I’d write a much longer and more detailed article, but frankly, I’m not that concerned.

(Oh and sorry for not having more articles since the last one - I’ve been extremely busy for the last month or so.)

Paul Murphy, over at blogs.zdnet.com, has written a completely unimpressive blog entry entitled “I’d suggest Linux - but…”

The most persistent complaint you hear about Linux from the wintel community is that it’s for geeks - and that the geeks involved so rejoice in their geekiness that it’s off-putting to the sensible majority represented by who ever happens to be speaking.

What an odd thing to say. What an extremely odd thing to say!

Paul, I have to tell you, this simply is not true. Apart from the fact that you don’t back your statements up with any facts, what you wrote there is arrant nonsense. What’s a “wintel community”? People who only use Windows and Intel PC’s? Because if so, then I can tell you for a fact that what you wrote is poppycock. My last job, before I moved countries (from Britain to Japan), was as IT Manager for a company with offices world wide. Most if not all the employees used Windows on their PC’s to complete their job tasks, making them part of this “wintel community” you speak of. Whenever I mentioned Linux, I didn’t get any sort of response such as “oh that’s just for geeks“, I received mostly either indifference or a response of “interesting, I might have a look at that”.

Aside from that, “off-putting to the sensible majority represented by who ever happens to be speaking“, is - to me - meaningless padding of a bleak blog entry.

This used to be true for a minority of those involved with Linux - as witness the widespread use of the intentional, compiler stopping, minor error in the distributed source to frighten off the unwashed.

What the heck is an “intentional, compiler stopping, minor error in the distributed source to frighten off the unwashed.” ? Are you stating that some Linux “geek” somewhere intentionally placed some kind of show-stopper bug in some - unspecified (of course) - source code somewhere, just to hammer members of this “wintel community”? If so, again, I demand that you back up this ridiculous hyperbole with some verifiable facts and examples, otherwise I may just think that you’ve made your blog entry up as you typed along.

It generally isn’t true any more but the meme persists

Simply not true, in my experience. Allow me to give you an example. A few years ago, I met up with a lot of folks who frequent an IRC channel called #linux. We met up in Manchester City, in the UK, over a weekend, and I can honestly say I’ve never met a nicer bunch of folks. There was no arrogance, no “rejoicing in geekiness”, just a bunch of human beings enjoying each others company and who share a common interest. I myself am married, and have a son. I may suffer from the odd bout of arrogance but it’s not Linux specific. I may be a “geek” but I’m certainly not immature.

presumably because the people who recite it as a mantra believe that it’s both effective as a put down against open source and a subtle way of strengthening their personal identification with the pretty party people who typically rise to the top in business and government organizations.

Arrant nonsense. Anyone who recites such things are either trying to create FUD about Linux/FOSS, or are quite simply, out of touch with reality. The company I was an IT manager for converted from Microsoft Exchange to a Linux based email solution under my initiative and the upper management saw the benefits of the replacement system in terms of uptime and stability, and also of the cost savings in not having to renew expensive software licenses. They certainly didn’t disparage the use of Linux. In fact the company had been using a Linux based web server years before that.

Unfortunately saying that most Linux geeks have outgrown this doesn’t mean all of them have

If you’re saying that there are immature users of Linux out there, then this is indeed true - I agree entirely! However, I say there is an order of magnitude greater proportion of immature “wintel” users out there, simply because “wintel users” currently outnumber “Lintel users”. Aside from that, your statement again is pretty meaningless. I could just as well say “Unfortunately, saying that most Snowboarding geeks have outgrown this doesn’t mean all of them have”. How about “Unfortunately, saying that most gardening geeks have outgrown this doesn’t mean all of them have”? Do you see what I’m getting at? How about I spell it out for you? For every set of humans who are “geeks” for a particular subject or pastime, a subset of those will be immature, or have not outgrown their immaturity. Do you get where your reasoning is going wrong yet?

and because it takes years for social dampening to affect a mythology like this it’s particularly unfortunate that a high profile site many Linux tire kickers go to for Linux information: linux.org; goes out of its way to illustrate the problem.

” Linux tire kickers” - ad hominem attack. And lets see your point about linux.org…

Try it: do what any wintel user would do, go to “Linux.org” in the expectation that this will default to www.linux.org and look at the message you get:

For comprehensive information about Linux please visit our proper site, www.linux.org.

Please update your bookmarks and any links you may have to this old site.

Paul, you seem to have no clue about the difference between a domain, and a host within a domain. Look at the message : “Please update your bookmarks and any links you may have to this old site.” - note the words “old site” - this probably means that the web site was located at that URL, but has now been relocated to “www.linux.org” , and that anyone who has “linux.org” bookmarked should now make their bookmark to “www.linux.org”. I can’t see any harm in that. Oh but you do, apparently…

It defaults to the www address in ten seconds - but think about the impact this smug, arrogant, and geeky message has on a potential Linux recruit just barely willing to whisper “linux” out loud and point his browser at the obvious: linux.org, to get more information.

It’s worth spending some time just to rip this sentence apart bit by sorry little bit…

It defaults to the www address in ten seconds

Just enough time to take the message in and remember to do something about it…

but think about the impact this smug, arrogant, and geeky message

I see nothing smug about this message. Nor do I see anything arrogant about it, or even geeky. What I do see is the beginnings of a Straw Man argument coming from you…

has on a potential Linux recruit just barely willing to whisper “linux” out loud

How can you whisper something out loud? Absolutely ridiculous writing…

and point his browser at the obvious: linux.org, to get more information

I don’t know about you, but nine times out of ten I usually attempt to try typing “www.<domain>” when first guessing a new site I want to access. Either that or I search Google - and Lo And Behold, www.linux.org is the top entry in google’s results. This site, hackfud.net, I personally chose to have its default URL to be “http://hackfud.net”. My personal choice. But if you type “http://www.hackfud.net you’ll be automatically redirected to the first URL. Again, my personal choice. The people who run www.linux.org will have their reasons for doing things they way they have, I’ve sent them an email and am awaiting a response. If I get one I’ll update this article.

Really, Paul, to me it looks like you just wanted to have a general moan about something, picked Linux, and then set about creating a straw man to beat down.

And lastly…

FYI: I tried to contact them using the email address Linux.org provides on its front page:

The original message was received at Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:10:21 -0700 (MST)
from suni [70.65.128.188]

—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–

(reason: 550 5.7.1 … Mail refused: 70.65.128.188 listed by
DIAL DNSBL. See http://www.invlogic.com/mail/dial.html)

—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to mail.linux.org.:
>>> DATA
< << 550 5.7.1 … Mail refused: 70.65.128.188 listed by DIAL
DNSBL. See http://www.invlogic.com/mail/dial.html
550 5.1.1 … User unknown
< << 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)

Try reading the bounce message, and following the given link. Then go to the other link from the page there and read that they screen email rather aggressively to prevent shed-loads of spam reaching user’s inboxes. They even offer solutions to solve your email bouncing problem.

Really for someone who claims;

Originally a Math/Physics graduate who couldn’t cut it in his own field, Paul Murphy (a pseudonym) became an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies after a stint working for a DARPA contractor programming in Fortran and APL. Since then he’s worked in both systems management and consulting for a range of employers including KPMG, the government of Alberta, and his own firm. In those roles he’s “been there and done that” for just about every aspect of systems management and operation.

IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies? I question your knowledge and experience. Either that, or you specifically set out to write this FUD piece. Either way, you have, in my opinion, made yourself look rather foolish.

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