Jimmy Conrad, pray that death will come quickly
2009-11-30 22:13:00
Is it too late to talk about this? I mean, I know that everyone on the soccer interwebs has been taking turns beating on it with a baseball bat, but there's got to be something left for me:And then I read a book that detailed the history of Linux. And upon finishing the book, I had an epiphany. And with that epiphany, I had a vision of what the future of Major League Soccer should look like.
To the uninitiated, Linux, in its simplest form, is a computer operating system. What sets it apart from its competitors, however, is that its evolution is based on a collaborative effort from developers using free and open-source software. The original developer of Linux was Linus Torvalds, and he built his idea by standing on the shoulders and the work of Richard Stallman and Andrew Tanenbaum, just as those after him will use his shoulders to reach farther and aim higher. And those willing to join the community are encouraged to use the model in place and build something better without repercussion.
So with these Linux-influenced thoughts in my mind, I knew what had to be done. I had to create a platform for the masses, something to build off so you, my dear reader, can add or subtract or enhance or toss out whatever you see fit. It makes no difference to me how it develops, but a real conversation needs to start and start now.
Wanna run with my crew, huh? Rule cyberspace, and crunch numbers like I do?
In its simplest form, Linux is a kernel haphazardly built by a Finnish recluse. As for the userland monstrosity that sits on top of it, have you ever tried to build CPAN modules off of the standard RPM Perl install? It totally sucks. And apt-get isn't much better. Sure, up2date solves some of the problems but not all of them, so if you want to do hard core web development work that involves any kind of tough dependencies you need to build from source anyway or go with something more robust like pkgsrc or Ports on Net and Free BSD respectively.
And quite frankly, the model where anyone and their sister has their own Linux distro has hardly solved the file system organization issues that lurk underneath whatever xFree/Org window manager you're running. Serving web pages from /var? Fail. Yeah, the CentOS boys will hoot and holler about how they're bad ass and sure I'll give them props for persistence in the face of the nightmare that is Red Hat's shipping quality, but while Ubuntu is "sexy" on the GUI front end and names its releases after cute animals, a Mac will still put it to shame, even after a decade of shitting all over the Human Interface Guidelines, plus you can still compile and run gltail with no problem.
As for building something better without repercussion, have you been on a Linux mailing list lately? It's a bunch of n00bs bitching that shit doesn't work and coders with way to much to do telling them that if they want it to work, they're welcome to open up the source code and fix it themselves. And if they do get into the code and fix it or introduce new functionality without introducing a bunch of regressions, then you've got even more people complaining.
So yeah - Open Source Software is a veritable utopia, one on which I'd love to build a vision of what MLS's future should look like. Look Jimmy, just because anyone *can* commit back to source doesn't mean everyone *should*.
Anyway, Dan more or less ends the promotion/relegation trolling. In regards to Conrad's assertion that MLS should buy USL, I think that ship has pretty much sailed, and even if it hadn't, I'm willing to bet there's a more cost effective way to implement reserve teams. Conrad's last point about abolishing the draft is really about liberalizing the Home Grown rule, which is about the most sensible thing he has going for him.
-FS
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