• Daniel (unregistered)

    I just wanted to say the comics are fine, somewhat funny and worth the time to read, while telling the author to keep getting better. But then I read them, and they suck. A lot. Man, they are awful. So, author, keep getting better... and come back after a while, ok?

    :)

  • Anonymous (unregistered)
    I doubt that the minimal advertising revenue would be in any way affected if comments were disabled entirely and all the /. kiddies couldn't vent their frustration. Since they don't believe in paying for things anyway, they're not going to click on any ads.
    Oh, I see, now that I have a different opinion and don't choose the style of wording that you do (for whatever reason) then I must be a Slashdot reading communist zealot kiddie who doesn't believe in paying for things, right?

    You're freaking ridiculous.

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to Target

    Actually, Open Source is closer to pure capitalism than communism. One of the cornerstones of Capitalism the ability to choose any competent vendor; this choice increases competition, and as companies are forced to compete, the marketplace becomes more healthy.

    I think by 'capitalism' you intend to include tactics like vendor lockin and creating artificially high barriers to entry, things that make companies rich by reducing choice in the marketplace. There's a term for this, too - it's called fascism.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    So far, I haven't found he actually had any successful software business (that paid his bills) based on OSS. What he does is just politicising, getting paid for "promoting virtues of OSS". Peddling Linux to Hugo Chaves. "See - we got those capitalist suckers to work for free to create this wonderful free software for all the technically-challenged dictatorships".
    Any example? Because so far you've failed to back anything up. And for God's sake, quit this all communist thing. Stallman is not a communist. Free Software is not communism. If you can't understand things that are so simple, then you're already a lost cause.

    Man, I wonder if you ever lived under Communist Party rule. I did. And I can recognize similarities when I see it.

    "Art belongs to the people". That was one of slogans.

  • (cs)

    I'd say the one thing this comic needs is more drawn out (pardon the pun) character development. You've got some good ideas on the satire that I'm sure plenty of people will agree with, but I'm getting the feeling like I don't care whether the main character gets the job or gets run over by a bus. I didn't even realize the main character's name was Gilroy (Gilroy?) until I went back to the first frame of the last comic. You've got some solid material otherwise, good luck!

  • Ddd (unregistered) in reply to Anon Fred

    Wow, you linux nerds need to learn to take a joke.

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    Now that was fscking funny! Someone buy that guy a beer!

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to alegr
    alegr:
    I'm curious what actual money Stallman made _from_ OSS, besides from getting paid for _talking_ about virtues of OSS.

    Specifically, what is the difference? Money is money, right?

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    alegr:
    I'm curious what actual money Stallman made _from_ OSS, besides from getting paid for _talking_ about virtues of OSS.

    Specifically, what is the difference? Money is money, right?

    Tell that to a programmer who tries to make ends meet.

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to alegr
    alegr:
    Tell that to a programmer who tries to make ends meet.

    If your rent is due, does your landlord not accept money that you made from talking to someone? Does he insist on only taking money that you made by writing a program?

    Money is money, right?

    You asserted that Stallman didn't make money from OSS, just by talking about it.

    If his OSS didn't exist, then he wouldn't have anything to talk about... and wouldn't have made money talking. Therefore, his writing OSS is what made him money.

    RedHat doesn't make money from OSS, they just make money talking, consulting, fixing, and doing other things with it. But they sure make a boatload of money.

    Money is money, right? You just need to find a way to make money with OSS.

    Cheers, -J

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    alegr:
    Tell that to a programmer who tries to make ends meet.

    If your rent is due, does your landlord not accept money that you made from talking to someone? Does he insist on only taking money that you made by writing a program?

    Money is money, right?

    You asserted that Stallman didn't make money from OSS, just by talking about it.

    If his OSS didn't exist, then he wouldn't have anything to talk about... and wouldn't have made money talking. Therefore, his writing OSS is what made him money.

    RedHat doesn't make money from OSS, they just make money talking, consulting, fixing, and doing other things with it. But they sure make a boatload of money.

    Money is money, right? You just need to find a way to make money with OSS.

    Cheers, -J

    Save your fingers some typing. alegr is under the naive impression that you can only "make" money with X, Y, or Z by marketing and selling X, Y, or Z.

  • nat (unregistered)
    But I promise you, dear TDWTF readers, that I will make Mandatory Fun Day a better comic.

    please don't. or at least just do it somewhere else

  • ConfusedByIgnorance (unregistered) in reply to Schnapple
    Schnapple:
    There is a sort of unabashed idealism that comes along with a lot of the Open Source movement that simply does not work in the real world, nor is it compatible with companies that want to make a lot of money.

    This is either a joke, or you're as clueless as the fellow portrayed as a open source contributor in this comic.

    Schnapple:
    Some of us want to change the world through open source software. The rest of us want to pay our mortgage.
    Many of those contributors do it in their free time, and do have paying jobs or consulting positions. Of course, if you've found a way to pay off your mortgage in your free time, I'd love to know.
  • (cs)

    I like the comics, and I hope that you guys continue to make them.

    With that said, I think the premise for this comic is a little tired. Yes, there are people like this, but isn't it just a little too easy? What's next, a comic poking fun at goth kids?

  • Teh Mikeh (unregistered) in reply to :\

    Buck up George, don't take crap from these communist defenders.

  • (cs) in reply to :\
    :\:
    I like the stereotyping here. So whats next a strip on how all Latino's eat rice and beans while everyone of African decent love to eat fried chicken and BBQ all the time?
    No, but we're dangerously close to one about improper apostrophe usage and word confusion.
    I don't see the humor in it basically your taking a large segment of the software development community stereotyping them as communist software developers who are all long haired stallman types and that no money can ever be made from an open source project.
    Thanks for the straw man, Captain Hyperbole.
  • Mr. Boo-urns (unregistered)

    Mr. Burns: Smithers, are they boo-ing me? Smithers: Uh...no. They're saying Boo-URNS, Boo-URNS Mr. Burns: (To the crowd) Excuse me, are you saying BOO or BOOURNS? Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Hans Moleman: I was saying Boo-urns.

  • (cs)

    Those first steps... antagonized by those who don't take them. Keep going. This is the intraweb, we bitch about everything.

    I used to be naive about that OSS stuff. Made a few applications myself and made them free thinking that users would support me enough to buy a case of beer or something once a week.

    Two years and about 10,000 downloads later, my wallet was heavier by $0. ROCK ON!

    http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=79826&ugn=navi3&type=prdownload&mode=alltime&package_id=0

  • troll (unregistered) in reply to alegr
    alegr:
    Gonzalo:
    Have you any idea about how much Google invests on Open Source Projects? I think you don't.

    invests != makes money

    Most likely the opposite.

    Addendum (2008-02-13 13:33): You know, they can afford it.

    However, invests == "Gives Money" Which means that some unwashed pasty-faced linux troll is making money off of FOSS.

    /How does Stallman feed himself? //

  • (cs)

    I think it was funny... I am one of those people who works for real money everyday, and I appreciate what open source brings, but anyone who is "successful" in open source cannot be so close minded as to think that they shouldn't be earning a paycheck.

    I think there are a few major developers in the open source arena.

    1. Those who are employed for a company and write open source for fun/hobby, which is cool.
    2. Those who actually make a living from writing open source through the company or project they work for
    3. Those, like the guy in the comic, who fail to see that contributing to society often means not being a burden on others to achieve your goals.

    I hate that I even had to analyze it, but when I read some of the responses it made me angry because I didn't feel that you were blanketing the entire open source software industry.

  • Soviut (unregistered) in reply to :\
    :\:
    I like the stereotyping here. So whats next a strip on how all Latino's eat rice and beans while everyone of African decent love to eat fried chicken and BBQ all the time?

    Guess what. All those stereotypes DO exist, whether you like it or not. The strip isn't making fun of the community, its making fun of the stereotype itself! Its poking fun at the PERCEPTION, not the people.

    Get a sense of humour and learn to laugh at yourself.

  • random surfer (unregistered) in reply to :\

    no matter what, someone will find something to gripe about. so to have some uppity open source junkies flame a comic that abstractly disses them, so what? i suggest try not taking yourself so seriously to be threatened by a webcomic.

    maybe you should write your own so you can feel the burn. ;^)

  • unum (unregistered)

    It's a good stereotype. While I didn't say anything to my friend when he went to work for a company published by M$ he knew I was thinking it. Of course when I graduated(a few years later) I went to work for a company getting Republicans elected. I can no longer call anyone else a sell out with a straight face.

  • Hacky (unregistered) in reply to Volmarias
    Note from Alex: If you have yet to learn the power of ignoring things* you don't like, ...
    • Igorning MFD is actually amazingly easily in this case. Here's how! if (rssTitle.startsWith("Mandatory Fun Day:") || webTitle.IsColor("Obsidianish") ignore();.

    As i was bored, and also annoyed by those whining about the comic, i hacked together a little snippet of code.

    It actually works as a greasemonkey script to remove the MFD from the front page, yay!

    Disclaimer: even though its only 7 lines, its probably full of WTF's as i dont know javascript and this is mostly a google-inspired copy/paste thingy :-).

    var allPageTags = new Array();
var allPageTags=document.getElementsByTagName("*");
for (i=0; i<allPageTags.length; i++) {
  if allPageTags[i].className=='Mandatory_Fun_Day_Outer') {
    allPageTags[i].parentNode.innerHTML = '';
  }
}
</pre>

    PS: Yay for open source! See, everyone can benefit from my 10 minutes of hacking now!
  • :( (unregistered) in reply to :\

    I'm a linux geek and I don't find the stereotyping humour offensive or inappropriate. It's humour, lighten up. On that note, I also find racist humour funny, too. Jokes don't hurt anyone unless you're a wimp, in which case you should just stay locked up and not listen to free speech anyways because you'll always find something to be offended by.

  • DannyV (unregistered)

    2003 is the year of linux? Come on! We ALL know that 2008 is the year of linux!

    captcha: inhibeo

  • mikeh (unregistered)

    Well I'm not offended by the comic, despite the sweeping generalizations it makes. I contribute to open source projects, and make money from them, so the joke seems to be on the same level as putting devil horns on a picture of Bill Gates. Hmmmmm. Ah well, each to their own.

    The thing that annoys me about it is that it's a huge detour from what thedailywtf has done before, and certainly not what I visit for. If it was moved to a separate feed, great. Otherwise if it keeps crowding the front page, I won't bother reading any more.

    (heh, catpcha is "dolor" - spanish for pain. How appropriate!)

  • t (unregistered) in reply to :\

    Most people who think realize that stereotypes form the basis of most humor. That's why there are blond jokes, religious jokes, jokes about what cats do, and jokes about 20 somethings who whine about life being so hard.

    May I suggest realizing that the real world will not cater to your specific wants and desires, and that you should probably just get over it and try to take things in a lighthearted manner occasionally.

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to DannyV
    DannyV:
    2003 is the year of linux? Come on! We ALL know that 2008 is the year of linux!
    I remember when 1993 was the Year of Linux.
  • (cs) in reply to jgoewert
    jgoewert:
    Those first steps... antagonized by those who don't take them. Keep going. This is the intraweb, we bitch about everything.

    I used to be naive about that OSS stuff. Made a few applications myself and made them free thinking that users would support me enough to buy a case of beer or something once a week.

    Two years and about 10,000 downloads later, my wallet was heavier by $0. ROCK ON!

    http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=79826&ugn=navi3&type=prdownload&mode=alltime&package_id=0

    Ok, let's pull ourselves down from the pillars of injustice for a moment here.

    Navi3, an "Asheron's Call Spawn Collection and Pathfinding Decal Plugin", that you have put so much love and devotion into, has no use in a revenue generating industry, let alone an essential use. A person that uses your plugin does not do so in the hopes of capital gain, improvement in business processes, or reliability of business infrastructure. A person that uses your plugin is a person that plays an online role-playing game. So yeah, duh, that person doesn't give you money. Your plugin's maintenance and development is not essential to any of their business needs or even their online playing experience. On the other hand, an embeddable standards compliant HTML rendering engine, for example, does have application in revenue generating industries like embedded devices and network appliances, and businesses in those industries may fund the development of said rendering engine to be able to utilize it at low cost of acquisition, testing, and maintenance. That's how the open source world works. If you fill the void of an actual business need, you may earn money. If you make a toy, however cute it may be, you probably won't see a dime except through selling adspace.

  • Feek (unregistered) in reply to llama64
    llama64:
    Good first steps on the web comic!

    Ignore the morons here whining about a new feature they didn't pay for.

    Here, let me explain the joke to those of you who failed basic reading comprehension:

    • He's poking fun at people who reject getting paid for doing software development and exclaim that it's immoral to work on anything but Linux and open-source software. I've met these people, they exist, and they deserve to be made fun of.

    The strip was not making fun of open-source professionals or open-source software. Learn to read.

    QFT

  • dan (unregistered) in reply to :\

    dude!

    It's a comic. It's more accurate than ElfQuest or the Uncanny X-Men.

    Calm down.

  • Freudian Slippery Slope (unregistered)

    Every time I look at the titles of these cartoon items, they seem to say "Masturbatory Fun Day". What's up with that?

  • Slippy Lane (unregistered)

    Dude, I couldn't care less how well you draw. Nor do I give a tinker's cuss about your spelling or grammar. What I care about is that your strip is amusing and shows potential, and that you have a definite style of your own. Don't change your style, just keep drawing.

  • Stupidumb (unregistered) in reply to :\
    :\:
    I like the stereotyping here. So whats next a strip on how all Latino's eat rice and beans while everyone of African decent love to eat fried chicken and BBQ all the time?

    I don't see the humor in it basically your taking a large segment of the software development community stereotyping them as communist software developers who are all long haired stallman types and that no money can ever be made from an open source project. You do realize their are many open source developers out there making good money alot more then $42k a year.

    But hey keep your head up if the strip don't work out here Microsoft might have an opening in their FUD department for you. :)

    <<<<<<<<<<<<<EXAGGERATION>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    But I guess it would have been funnier if it went something like this:

    Employed Guy: "I got a job." OS Guy: "That is good news. I am currently work on an OS project." EG: "That, also, is good news." OSG: "Please keep in mind I have other things in my life." EG: "Noted. Thank you for joining me in this discourse."

  • Gonzalo (unregistered) in reply to alegr
    alegr:
    halber_mensch:
    alegr:
    Gonzalo:
    Have you any idea about how much Google invests on Open Source Projects? I think you don't.

    invests != makes money

    Most likely the opposite.

    Addendum (2008-02-13 13:33): You know, they can afford it.

    WTF?!

    alegr:
    Google makes lots of money _using_ open source software, not _writing_ or _selling_ (or otherwise peddling) it.
    Which one is it then? Does google make money or lose money with OSS? Let me answer that for you.

    Gonzalo is stating that Google invests money into OSS, which is true. You've previously stated that Google uses this OSS to make money, which is also true. Therefore, both Google and OSS developers make money through mutual benefit; i.e. Google pays OSS developers to continue development on software that Google uses which makes Google more money to invest in the development of the OSS which makes Google more money which ... etc. etc.

    Here is the deal. They use Linux to run their server farms. This saves them a lot of money they would spend otherwise on proprietary system licences. They make money sellind ads, not by selling OSS. Their indexing software is proprietary; they don't open its source. They finance a lot of OSS developers just for charity sake, not because they make money out of it (they just can afford throwing money on it). Do you still see any contradiction in this picture?

    You make me laugh. Charity??

    Google without an Operating System is just nothing. If Google would paid for an OS with cluster and distributed systems support when it borns, Google today would be a failed project, because nobody had invested on these two crazy students.

    (I'm sorry, my english really sucks)

  • Gonzalo (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch
    halber_mensch:
    jgoewert:
    Those first steps... antagonized by those who don't take them. Keep going. This is the intraweb, we bitch about everything.

    I used to be naive about that OSS stuff. Made a few applications myself and made them free thinking that users would support me enough to buy a case of beer or something once a week.

    Two years and about 10,000 downloads later, my wallet was heavier by $0. ROCK ON!

    http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=79826&ugn=navi3&type=prdownload&mode=alltime&package_id=0

    Ok, let's pull ourselves down from the pillars of injustice for a moment here.

    Navi3, an "Asheron's Call Spawn Collection and Pathfinding Decal Plugin", that you have put so much love and devotion into, has no use in a revenue generating industry, let alone an essential use. A person that uses your plugin does not do so in the hopes of capital gain, improvement in business processes, or reliability of business infrastructure. A person that uses your plugin is a person that plays an online role-playing game. So yeah, duh, that person doesn't give you money. Your plugin's maintenance and development is not essential to any of their business needs or even their online playing experience. On the other hand, an embeddable standards compliant HTML rendering engine, for example, does have application in revenue generating industries like embedded devices and network appliances, and businesses in those industries may fund the development of said rendering engine to be able to utilize it at low cost of acquisition, testing, and maintenance. That's how the open source world works. If you fill the void of an actual business need, you may earn money. If you make a toy, however cute it may be, you probably won't see a dime except through selling adspace.

    In closed source world (excluding Freeware, of course), you pay for marketing, in open source world, you pay for how useful was this project to you. So, people do better things, starting from a developed and tested software, don't focusing on make the soft compatible with marketing, just with functionality.

    And if you have a great idea to apply to an existing software, you have not to remake the whole software.

    Again, sorry, my english really sucks :(

  • Some Exorcist (unregistered) in reply to unum
    unum:
    I went to work for a company getting Republicans elected.

    BEGONE FOUL DEMON!!! IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY I COMMAND THEE TO LEAVE!!

  • Vas (unregistered)

    I thought the comic was great, lets face it Open Source is a joke.

    The quicker the software communtity realise that releasing out programming talents for free is what is hurting our ability to earn the better.

    I'll jump on the OpenSource bandwagon, when real estate agents jump on the Open House wagon, and Lawyers start giving out free legal advice and grocery stores start having a Open food policy.

    Come on people, Developers used to be top tier earners, now there is too many people caught up in this ideal that is hurting us.

  • Timothy (unregistered) in reply to :\

    I thought it was funny. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Why are you complaining? It's not like you're paying for it!

  • cyberjigoku (unregistered)

    I earn more working on Linux than I did working on Windows. Also a lot more job security. IT DOES pay. Let the windows only slubs think they are funny.

  • Vas (unregistered) in reply to cyberjigoku
    cyberjigoku:
    I earn more working on Linux than I did working on Windows. Also a lot more job security. IT DOES pay. Let the windows only slubs think they are funny.

    Some people get paid from working on Open Source, but how bout the vast ammount that are doing work from the basemonts for the pure pleasure of it.

    Those people are damaging others from being paid whom have skills in similar fields. We are against each other, Microsoft vs Linux that sort of rubbish.

    What we need to do is work together as developers and charge bucket loads out of all companies, not code for free.

    look after ourselves here, cause no one looks after us Companies hire cheap labour as soon as they can find it.Consumers steal our hard work of websites, which most of us create for some reason.

    Time to tighten up guys, Open Source is doing us damage. The only good thing it can achieve is for educational purposes, but do we really want more skilled developers in our industry, we already have too many 4 month IT schools out there..

    We need a Union similar to the old factory working days, if your not on board then your labeled as a scab, taking bread of others table. (or in reality the mercedes out of my driveway)

  • *sigh* (unregistered) in reply to :\

    No, there are many many other things that give open source developers a bad name. The comics just exaggerate and poke fun at a common stereotype.

    Less sensitivity, less preaching, more developing feature complete products. That's how to raise the image.

  • (cs) in reply to t
    t:
    Most people who _think_ realize that stereotypes form the basis of most humor. That's why there are blond jokes, religious jokes, jokes about what cats do, and jokes about 20 somethings who whine about life being so hard.
    Most people don't tell that type of jokes when in a room (half-)full of exactly the people the joke is aimed at, though. But this is only getting started, so let's be tolerant and call it the set-up. I'm sure it'll get better.
  • Roy-G-BIV (unregistered)

    I think it would be a lot funnier if it had managed to work in a 'Friend Computer' joke somewhere.

    Though perhaps I can't blame him for not doing so. After all, it would be treasonous for someone with as low a clearance level as he.

  • (cs)

    funny stuff. will be checking back for more.

  • (cs) in reply to :\
    :\:
    I like the stereotyping here. So whats next a strip on how all Latino's eat rice and beans while everyone of African decent love to eat fried chicken and BBQ all the time?

    Or we could kill two birds with one stone and have them steal a car together. Brother...

  • captain obvious (unregistered) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    ...and the commentary has to be more accurate, as a good portion of the folks who work on Open Source do so under the pay of a company that uses it.

    On the other hand, let's ask what's being made fun of here. The idealism? The kid's assumption that he'll take over the world? Or the fact that he chose to create economic output in the form of writing open source software?

    And, let me ask: what's inherently wrong with someone who, having a lot of time on their hands, decides to write open source software? Some folks join the Peace Corps; others join groups such as habitat for humanity. Still others choose to write open source software. If it provides benefit to society in general, then that is economic output and may be valuable. Remember, the two guys in a garage that was RedHat in the mid 90's now has hundreds of millions in revenue every year.

    It appears that you're assuming because someone works on open source, that person is a slacker. You know what happens when you ASS-U-ME, but in this case it's all on you.

    Cheers, -J

    Dude, shut up. Obviously, some people do well for themselves and are involved with OSS but the cartoon accuractely depicts many people.

  • dkmurphy (unregistered)

    Sometimes it's hard to tell if the people who make comments are being sarcastic, facetious or curiously serious.

    Did you all miss the point that the FOSS guy condemns his friend for accepting a paying job, yet is willing to set aside his principles to benefit from his friend's filthy lucre by making him buy dinner?

    Pssst, that was the joke here, not that FOSS developers can't make money or aren't gainfully employed.

    We all have someone like the FOSS guy in our list of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Someone who will ignore the principles they espouse when it's convenient. For instance, I know a competitively athletic vegan/peta member who is able justify wearing leather basketball shoes because of the better support they offer her. Clearly, in this instance it's OK for the cow to give up it's skin so she doesn't sprain an ankle.

    Perhaps those who have been posting defending FOSS (not the butt of this joke) are the FOSS guy in their own circle friends....

  • fu (unregistered)

    That's just a patheticly tired joke from a no talent hack.

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