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What's up with Lindows?
A reader writes "In this editorial at DesktopLinux.com, commentator Malcolm Dean questions whether Lindows is any sort of linux at all, and suggests that the world might actually be better off without yet another proprietary/commercial Windows wannabe (that runs Windows apps, no less). Dean asks how it is possible that, as Lindows.com founder Michael Robertson manages to claims in his latest newsletter, Lindows' ten million lines of code include a Windows Compatibility Module that somehow works better than anything else available today. "Has Mr. Robertson's team accomplished in a few months what took WINE years?" Where is the substance to back the hype? Besides, what if Lindows does succeed: do we really want to perpetuate the use of Windows software on a linux platform?"
How does this relate to the Wine project? Is there any chance of Lindows ever releasing any code back to them?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
What's wrong with this? I haven't used it, but I think the real test should be "does it work"? IF so, then great, he did something that WINE couldn't. If not, then so what, don't use it. Simple. And the reason to perpetuate windows apps is that they are currently the dominant standard. The same reason you don't see many web pages with embeded corel draw vector images.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
The problem of Microsoft's monopoly will not be solved by making Windows emulating layers over Linux. Their monopoly is based on the "double" monopoly they have on Office and on Windows. If Office runs on Lindows or on Wine, you can trust Microsoft will find ways to make it runeable only on Windows, as complete compatibility is unpossible with all the undocumented features there is in Windows. IMHO the only way to break Microsoft's Monopoly is to break it on the 'Office' Apps, not on the OS layer.
If Lindows stops being able to run i386 ELF executables, then we have a problem. In the best of all worlds, Linux could have a compatibility module for Java bytecode, 68000 and PPC Mac apps, Windows, ELF, and all the other major platforms out there, just so people have no excuse when using the other, less fun operating systems.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
then run Windows!!
No OS can run Windows apps better than Windows itself.
Ten million lines of code ? Holly molly... instead of wasting your time on making linux run windows apps, why dont you make better *LINUX* apps for LINUX ?
I guess we now know happened to all that stolen M$ source code.;-)
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
How many people are in the team? You know, the linux kernel has like 30 millions lines of code, which have been coded by many talented programmers, matured through the years, and then this guy claims that his product has 10 million lines of code in A FEW MONTHS?! wow.
Or has he already made Lindows so "Windows Compatiable" that even the whole team/company emulates Microsoft in all aspects? Maybe he's just a clone of Bill.
Don't quote me on this.
In fantasy terms:
No, Mr. Robertson. If you breed an angel with a demon, you don't get an angel able to cast death magick.
In my book, Lindows is not any sort of Linux at all. If it is commercial, then even if it runs Linux software, has a Linux look or even if it is somehow related to a true Linux, it ain't Linux.
Linux is not the penguin. Linux is the smile on the penguin's face.
// Ego sum Nucivorax, me clamare audi.
Why would anybody want to be able to run fewer programs than there was the potential for? There are thousands of extremely useful Windows programs out there (believe it or not, it's true!) and being able to run them on Linux can only be a good thing.
Programs are tools. Why would anybody choose to limit the amount of tools in their toolkit, when some of the forsaken tools could help them get their job finished much earlier?
Good luck to those who would add to the functionality of Linux!
I for one, dont want to see it ever happen.
this will no nothing but encourage M$ to do more harm.
now.. do we want any more buggy M$ type software running loose? I think not.
bet: this ever gets released, and works..
microsoft will:
A. sue.
B. make all their applications break on lindows.
if its more stable they will:
A. install lindows on all their machines.
B. use it to make more borg software
oh well, looks like we will lose anyhow.
Don't you have the feeling that this will give an argument to Microsoft, towards "Your Honor, there *is* competition in OS and apps business..."?
:)
I don't really think the average consumer will see the advantage of running windows apps in a restricted environment. Even so, if you run, let's say, an unpatched outlook, with your real address book - when SirCam/whatever eventually hits you there's little difference from running pure Windows: it will send itself to everybody and will infect/delete the "sandbox" itself. For most of the people this will mean "everything".
To sum it up, apart from giving M$ something to mention (or not) in court and to give someone the opportunity to run a hybrid os, I don't see any real uses for Lindows. Nor do I see a market segment or even a niche for it.
What's this about again?
The Windows Monopoly is because, YOU DONT GET TO CHOOSE.
No one and I mean absolutely no one had the chance to choose Windows, it simply came with every computer.
You didnt have the CHANCE to choose OS2 because it wasnt an Option.
The same reason everyone uses Internet Explorer is why people use Windows. Because its already there, and it works.
If Lindows can manage to get OEMs to pack it into their computers, This will be the beginning of the end of the Microsoft Monopoly.
At this point people will be able to say, "Hey Lindows runs Windows software and Linux software, I dont use Linux but my friend whos a technician seems to keep telling me about it. hmmm"
This is the reaction Lindows will make, and from here its up to the open source community, and Lindows to get people to switch over.
IF Lindows has a nice OSX style GUI (I doubt it but its a nice wish)
And if Lindows can use most Windows software, Lindows will be a hit.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What happened to LinuxOne, btw?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Why are we debating this? I hate to be so skeptical, I hate to sound like a troll, but Lindows sounds like vaporware to me, at best. At worst it sounds like snake-oil -- since you have dish out $99 for a preview release. Let's wait until this thing comes out before we get into these little stupid debates.
A couple of years back Gatway baught the rights to all of the Amiga patents. They promised a new Amiga computer. They put up a website with designs, talked about how it would work, how it would change the world. The website said Amiga was comming back in a big way and promised to release a new computer within a year.
As a member of the Amiga communitiy I participated in fierce debates about things like: Should the new amiga use USB or Firewire? What should the main processor be? If it doesn't run the same Amiga OS is it still an Amiga? And more importantly how will the new Amiga affect current software venders? How difficult will it be to port programs? etc. etc.
In the end, Gateway sold off its patents, never released anything, and I wasted a bunch of time.
The author of the above editorial obviously didn't read the page too well... No wait, I take that back. The page has changed.
Here's the quote, from a Wired article. It's a doosy. Apparantly Lindows has taken Wine, under the ever-so-exploitable modified BSD licence (there has been talked of changing to the LGPL soon, to ensure people like this DO feed changes back into the main tree...) and (rumor) stuck some chinese developers behind it to hack on the functionality Wine has been missing.. DCOM (supported somewhat by Transgamings WineX) and some extended Shlwapi functions. Woop.
Lindows achieves Windows compatibility by using pieces of Wine, which is software that allows Windows applications to run in Unix that has been in development since 1993.
Wine is only a part of the overall Lindows compatibility layer, Robertson said. The rest will come from software developed in-house. .
Omg you just spammed the department of justice. Can you imagine how many trolls just sent their proposed settlements?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
i think what really would be needed are competitive native linux apps which people would actually want to buy. a main reason why people want to run windows apps under linux is that the want to use linux but they have the necessity to work with word/excel/powerpoint files. these files are all over the place and its a sad fact that there is nearly no way to escape them: even governments or, for example, the european commission, requires reports and other stuff to be supplied in word format. so the optimal solution for me would be that the antitrust court ruling would require microsoft to make public and stick to a usable document format or at least a usable and fully working interchange format. this would enable competitors to offer their own office applications for whatever operating system without isolating their users. official standard formats for office documents would have been even more needed then W3 standards already for some time. the sad thing is that what is called "industrial standard" now is not a standard at all: it is not documented, MS is free to change it at any time, and who knows if they are not even free to sue others who use that format. sadly, it looks like the latest chance to open up the market has passed unused. any solution that will offer a windows environment under linux or other OSs will eventually face the fate of OS/2.
That gets expensive at upgrade time though. :-) You need one computer for the wife, one (or two) computers for the kids, one computer for Windows (for you), one computer for Linux, an old system for your firewall, another old computer with a ton of disk for a dedicated fileserver holding your MP3s to serve up to your Turtle Beach Audiotron in your stereo system, a bunch of old Sparcstations because well.. you're a geek right? Then there's the damned Alphastation 200 you bought 5 years ago to play with AlphaLinux on and pretty soon you have no room for any of this shit and your electric bill is $200/month for computer equipment. :-) Or at least, that's what happened when I didn't hold back on the computer stuff. I can't believe some families have one PC. Sheesh.
The only real desktop market at this time is for Windows desktops. So how to you compete in that market? The most obvious answer is: Run Windows apps as well as Windows, and do something that Windows doesn't do. In this case, they're trying to achieve that by taking Wine on Linux, extend it and package it as a Windows clone.
They get to benefit from all driver work and performance enhancements done by the open source community for Linux and Wine, and add to that to be able to put out a Windows environment at far lower development cost than Microsoft. Leveraging open source is quite possibly the ONLY way to compete in the Windows market, considering the immense sales revenues Microsoft has to fund their development.
This is a good thing, regardless of whether you like Windows or not: If Lindows succeeds, Microsoft will be forced to cut prices to compete. If you like Windows you will benefit from lower prices, if you hate Windows you will benefit from having Microsoft busy spending their resources on a more direct competitor as well as with less money to spend on squashing competitors, as being forced to cut prices will have a very real effect on their earnings.
do we really want to perpetuate the use of Windows software on a linux platform?"
Face it. There is no way in hell all software will be available for Linux, and if a company cannot run that mission critical app, then they won't switch to Linux.
Let me give you an example. I'm from Norway. Companies tend to want programs where they can do their accounting - which has all norwegian tax-rules, and so forth ad nauseum programmed into them.
In norway we have some software called 'Guru Software' or something like that, and surely others too. Its windows applications.
Now, a company which has done its accounting in that software for a couple of years is quite locked down. Its not an easy task to just switch to Linux. The windows-software _needs_ to run on linux, so that previous years accounting information is easily accessible. Of course, one could always hope that the company would make a linuxversion of the software, but that isn't always easy.
Now, microsoft 'owns' such companies as long until Linux can run this kind of windows software perfectly. And the answer is 'yes' -- we want the ability to run such software under Linux. If not, well then we're not gonna get such companies as users.
Take another example. I'm currently doing civil service in Norway, in part of a city adminstration. We're 'locked in' on using Windows, as a lot of proprietary solutions we are using is windows-only applications. They run on windows servers, and the clients only exist for windows.
These are products in the health and social sectors, with highly specialized use. Its not very likely that the free software movement will produce software that less than 20 relatively small institutions worldwide will use, which is of this enourmous complexity.
The answer is that we _need_ the ability to run windows apps, and yes, it is something we _want_. IF not, we've lost a _LOT_ of potential users, which are 'locked in'.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Besides, what if Lindows does succeed: do we really want to perpetuate the use of Windows software on a linux platform.
... people aren't just going to switch from Windows to Linux because there's no software, and there will continue to be no software if there is no people to sell/give it to.
... a solution to which would be a benefit to us all, whether we'd like to admit it or not.
What kind of comment is this? Software is software, and right now some of the new, great software is a heck of a lot easier to write for the Windows platform.
The community's way of dealing with that should be to create a way to run all of this software on the Linux OS. It is doing this well, IMO.
The problem with some of these anti-MS advocats is that they think they can take over the market in one fell swoop. Well, I'm sorry it's just not going to happen that way
Making Windows software run on Linux is a perfect bridge here, even if Lindows is not free, it still solves a problem
----- rL
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If something isnt broke, why fix it?
Its not that people dont care, they dont know any better.They arent knowledgeable enough to know theres something better than windows better than IE, and so on and so forth.
They use AOL because they believe AOL IS the internet, not a client to access it.
They use Microsoft Windows because they believe Windows IS the computer, and that theres nothing else to use.
You see, if people arent given a chance to choose in a store when they go to buy their computer, they automatically assume that because Windows is all thats being sold, that Windows is all there is.
Proof- Not so long ago, people believe that in order to buy a PC, you had to buy an Intel Pentium, people even called PCs Intel Boxes, or Pentiums. When a person wanted to buy a Video Card before Nvidia arrived, People went for a Voodoo, not because Voodoo was the only card but because thats all that people saw in the stores, sure there were other cards but what card did all games seem to support? The Voodoo cards.
Sure theres always been choice, but if every corperation, every store, everywhere you go, you dont see any choice, you just see one product, eventually in your mind thats it, theres nothing else to choose from. After years of only computers packed with Windows, it will be quite a shock to see a computer packed with Lindows, but if Lindows can prove to the user that its better than Windows,
Like Nvidia beat Vodooo, and AMD beat Intel, Lindows may beat Windows.
However, IF Microsoft forces OEMs to only use Windows from Microsoft, and people like Dell dont even sell you a computer with anything else, well, what do you expect to happen here?
I'm happy to see Lindows stand up to Microsoft and give them serious competition, the problem with OS2 is, it wasnt competition at all, it actually helped sell Microsoft Windows because OS2 sat in the backround, no OEM sold OS2 computers, not even IBM the makers of OS2 sold OS2 on their own Machines.
Just like Mozilla and Netscape cant catch up to IE because AOL wont use Netscapes browser on their own software.
So what do you expect to happen when Linux users dont support Lindows?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
THia aituation reminds me of that with OS/2 back in the mid-90's. OS/2 was technically superior to Windows (especially in the win 3.1 era, before win '95), but because it allowed Windows and MS-DOS software to run transparently, there was little incentive to port applications as native code.
There were other reasons for OS/2's decline, but a lack of a native app code base was one major one. The efforts spent developing a Windows compatible layer on top of Linux would be better spent porting important apps (Photoshop, Games, Dreamweaver, etc.) to Linux as native apps. Of course before that happens, Linux GUIs need to be fine-tuned and driver support made less buggy.
Building tools to allow software developers to port their apps into Linux-native code would be best in the long run.
Virtual Windows on top of Linux and dual-booting (especially since LILO and GRUB are so persnicketty) are not long-term recipes for success.
Linux developers should either cede the desktop to Microsoft or develop native tools and apps and port Windows products to native code.
Just like OS/2, Linux had a technical advantage (in some ways) over Windows up until now, but with the introduction of Win XP, that advantage is lessening.
Time is of the essence. Lindows is a counterproductive retreat.
evanchik.net
In all seriousness, I think it's been painfully clear for a long time that there's an enormous double standard in play in the OSS field. Everyone claims to want to improve Linux and make it more useful, but as soon as someone claims they have a way to remove the biggest single barrier preventing the 95% of desktop users currently running Windows convert to Linux, then everyone gets pissy about it.
My suggestion: Quit your damn whining and wait and see what Lindows delivers. If it works, it will end MS's monopoly faster than you can say "Ralph Nader". If it doesn't, then we can make fun of it and move on.
Haven't we learned anything from OS/2? Without Windows compatibility OS/2 would have failed miserably. Oh wait, it did fail miserably. Sorry, I must have been thinking of something else...
For a long time I've been saying that in the future there will be no linux users or vegetarians, and the world will be ruled by a company called McAOLSoft.
Dump linux, use AOL and eat hamburgers
Suffice it to say that the problem was solved while these id10ts were busily browsing for p0rn:
Win4Lin, which has actually worked for the past two years and is going to be distributed with Mandrake 8.2.
Plex86, whose name changes on a regular schedule.
VMWare, still usable despite the developers' best efforts.
Wine, the massive, ongoing masturb^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hemulation effort.
All of these work (listed in decreasing order of compatibility). Lin4Win is actually kept up to date, and is the only solution that runs Windows faster in emulation than in native mode (because it uses the Linux filesystem and block cache). This also keeps the registry from getting trashed -- even after 2+ years, my registry is still clean and Windows hasn't scribbled over itself.
In fact, Win4Lin works so well that some disgruntled Wine developers took it upon themselves to announce Netraverse's demise on f*ckedcompany last summer. That's high praise indeed.
P.S. -- I don't work for Netraverse, I'm just extremely happy with Win4Lin and their free upgrades for life.
People seem to forget the true way for Linux to compete... instead of maybe spending so much time on WINE, prehaps a better investment is to work on fast Java Virtual Machines..
They are getting faster, in fact Sun plans to release JDK1.4 soon, and it is MUCH faster than JDK1.3.
Now, once Java is comparable fast to native applications, (which in some situations it already is), developers can start writing applications in Java commercially.
Once this happens, any OS that supports Java can run those applications. Example:
Lets say some day down the line, 20% of the programs you can purchase in the store is written in Java.. well, that means ANY operating system can run those programs if they elect to run the OPEN java specs.
So in summary, the true way to open up the opearting system market is to get developers to use Java.
The problem with some of these anti-MS advocats is that they think they can take over the market in one fell swoop.
You're forgetting, or failing to mention, that people advocate GNU/Linux for other reasons than toppling Microsoft. If software freedom is your goal, then migrating proprietary software from one OS to another doesn't really accomplish a thing.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Also you're not *forced* to use IE at all anyways.
He didn't say "forced" from what I read. Your either intentionaly twisting his argument into what you wish he was saying or do entrenched in your own opinion to notice the subtleties.
And if you want to rehash the debate if a default installation illicitely breads monopolies I invite you to take it up with the current Judge overseeing the Microsoft case where they were ruled as using one monopoly to gain another *by* enforcing onto OEMs the choice of user installation.
I fail to see relavance. Sorry.
Get facts, get them straight, then please come again.
DUH!!
Edith Keeler Must Die
I'm not interested in word games either. Make it into a crossword puzzle and maybe I'll do it on my next plane trip.
I've already my opinion on the matter, if you have disagreement say so. If you need clarification ask.
Openness and mass compatibility is simply nice for users. I don't see it as a world domination scheme, and nor do I care. It's nice for me, the user, to be able to run Windows stuff without rebooting.
That's all I really care about.
Remember, Linux's main strength is that it is a solid, free framework. People who want that will use it, both on the developer and user side.
Those who wish to rule the world with it can sit in their bunkers with their Mr. Bigglesworths and scheme. I wish them all the best- I love distributed world conquest. They might even win.
I'll just do what I do.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Of course we do. Just think about it. If a console system somehow played games from the PS2, GameCube, XBox, Super Nintendo, Genesis, and ROMs downloaded off the internet for any of those systems AND Mame... wouldn't you buy it? If an HDTV set somehow came with built-in VHS player and a built-in DVD player that could play VCDs, any music format you wanted on a CD or CD-R, AND burn both CDs, CD-Rs, and DVDs, including off another DVD... wouldn't you buy it? Of course you would. These things would do anything, take up less space than several different consoles/players, be much easier to setup, and would probably cost less.
The point? The thing that does everything, does it right, and does it at an acceptable price is the best thing out there. If Linux could run just about any program you wanted, no matter what operating system it was originally meant for, it would be the perfect operating system. It would be the operating system equivalent to a Swiss Army Knife, and would be a perfect alternative to the system that most computer users have to put up with now: Use Windows alone or have Windows on one partition and Linux on the other. Because of the limitations of work, school, and gaming, most people NEED to use some Windows programs. To make it more accessable to those people, Linux should definitely run Windows programs, and if possible flawlessly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As I was reading the faqs on the lindows.com, a thought came to me. It seems to me like Michael and the rest of the crew aren't striving to make a linux os that also runs Windows apps moderately well. In fact, instead of comparing this os to Linux w/ WINE, I would compare it more to OS X. It seems like he's trying to build a new operating system, based on a Linux Kernel. With these extra 10 million lines of code, there has to be a little something extra than some sort of buggy emulator. It seems more like a fundamental rewrite of how one would approaching running Windows apps on Linux. But instead of Mac sitting on top of Darwin, it's Windows sitting on top of Linux. Just like OS X can run photoshop (something designed around Mac) or various unix/linux programs, Lindows can run Office (something designed around Windows) and various unix/linux programs.
For anyone who can't see what I'm trying to get at, screw you for not being able to read my mind. Otherwise, I'm probably just full of it...
Do we really want to perpetuate the use of Windows software on a linux platform?
So you don't want me to run my Windows software on Linux? You WANT me to use Windows instead??? I don't get it. If you want to increase the Linux user base, you gotta allow for new people coming over, and for those new people to want to be able to use some of their favorite aps. So what if its on Lindows? I'd think that anything != Microsoft == Good or at least better. And besides, not all Windows software is Microsoft software. Think of the dozens of games made for Windows that have yet to be ported over to Linux. And what about wine? Doesn't it encourage the same thing??
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Wroot
You're forgetting, or failing to mention, that people advocate GNU/Linux for other reasons than toppling Microsoft. If software freedom is your goal, then migrating proprietary software from one OS to another doesn't really accomplish a thing.
....
.... except bring a larger market share to a free OS. I think it's obviously naive to think that the software industry as a whole will just keel over and start giving its software away.
Maybe in the future there will be no 'software industry', but I think exactly the opposite will happen: the software industry will only get larger. Proprietary software has a right to exist and people deserve to get paid for their work.
If the Linux community at least supports a way for it to exist in the OS (which is does, but it often frowns upon non-free software), maybe proprietary software and open source software will compete in an equal market (for once) and Linux will be brought to the masses because of the availability of more software. Wouldn't that be interesting
But the whole thing about software freedom is interesting as well. Should a free OS run non-free software? Sure, why not? The OS is still free. Let's let the market dictate success or failure of a piece of software instead of having this endless debate on freedom. If people want free software, they'll choose it on its merits.
----- rL
Hmmm, let's see. The problem with Win4lin is that IT REQUIRES ONE TO OWN WINDOZE. You STILL must purchase windoze, register windoze, feed the Beast, serve the monopoly. If EVERYONE used Win4Lin, Gates would be happy as a clam because it effectively does the same thing for him and M$ as everyone using just straight windoze. The money and propriatory software and APIs are still "accepted" as "standards".
Win4lin and VMWare are ONLY useful for those who own or have windoze by other means (ahem). It doesn't do anything to eliminate or reduce the monopoly power and abuse of M$. It serves to perpetuate it.
Wine, on the other hand, has the potential to HURT M$ and its monopoly hold on the desktop. ONLY Wine is set for this. It doesn't require windoze. No one need purchase or acquire by other means (ahem) windoze. This directly impacts negatively on M$. The more successful Wine is, the better. M$ gets hit, money is saved (a GREAT deal of wasted, unethically obtained money).
It is FAR better to not have to pay M$ a dime than to STILL have to purchase their crapOS. It is far more satisfactory on an emotional level too to thumb your nose at Gates and say "Na-na! I am running windoze software without owning or paying for windoze! Na-na! I don't NEED you!."
Wine (and Lindows, if it actually turns out to be more than vapor...like Freedows) is the ONLY viable future means to use the software you want from the windoze world without feeding the Beast money.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Cheers for Lindows, but we should keep our eyes on the ball and support legal remedies with letters/e-mail and with votes. Otherwise you get the image of a bunch of programmers slaving away at something (like Wine) that never quite matures. It's always struck me that programmers, who love systems as few do, show disdain for the legal and political systems.
Microsoft's lock-in of customers and developers is based solely on its illegal monopoly. In the plainest possible terms, the lock-in is a violation of the rights of software customers and competitors. Customes suffer through reduced innovation and competition by software providers. Competitors suffer because Microsoft uses the Windows/Office fortress to terrorize the entire software community.
Microsoft's illegal behavior results in great harm, and that harm can only be stopped and remedied through legal and regulatory means. If Lindows and Wine manage to capture any important portion of the desktop, it will be ten years out. (Heck, Windows XP won't even capture the desktop completely for four or five years!)
I personally don't feel like waiting ten years for a maybe. I support anyone who supports strong sanctions against the Microsoft monopoly. I don't buy Microsoft unless I have to. (I wouldn't have an XBox in my house if they were giving them away.)
A look and comment on the personality of the head cheese IS valid. His egomania or any other foibles, deficiencies, etc, have a DIRECT link to the likely future behavior of the company the person directs.
Gates is an egomaniac with a number of personality failings (along with Ballmer) that DIRECTLY lead to the monopolist, unethical and illegal behavior of the company they run. Personality traits ARE validly considered.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Proprietary software has a right to exist and people deserve to get paid for their work.
Fiat doesn't make it so. Sorry, but pick any economic theory you like; none of them say you "deserve" to get paid for your work. If I collect a bunch of sticks and buy a bunch of yarn and busy myself making god's eyes twelve hourse a day, do I "deserve" to get paid for it? Of course that's nonsense.
Personally, I prefer the capitalist take on this issue. I'd like to let the market decide what the effort that goes into programming is worth. And I'd like the market to decide what the value of mass producing digital content is worth. But we don't get to see that happen, because these industries are propped up by government regulations that circumvent the proper operation of the market.
If people want free software, they'll choose it on its merits.
Not necessarily, given the current anti-competitive market in which it has to compete. Moreover, if you consider freedom in and of itself the most important "merit", your statement evaporates in a tautology.
I would love to see the "market dictate succcess or failure of a piece of software". Not the US patent office. Not the monopoly owners of copyrighted proprietary de-facto standards.
Given the sordid state of the software industry, it's about time we do away with notion that proprietary software deserves a seat at the table. The only reason it has a seat at all is because we, as a society, invited it. It's time for the boot.
And let's never stop having this "endless debate on freedom".
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Mozilla is a fully functional legitimate program that MS has not suppressed in any way shape or form. Any windows user can download Mozilla and make the switch.
And won't they be surprised when they go to look for the latest "l337" animation, only to find that the thing they need to view it is only available as an ActiveX extension, since IE no longer supporte NS plugins.
No, no suppression of competition at all.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
What kind of comment is this? Software is software, and right now some of the new, great software is a heck of a lot easier to write for the Windows platform.
:o) can be sometimes be terrible extermist advocates. Paying for software at all? Not OpenSource?
I'm a software developer and I strongly disagree at this point, if you're pointing at MS visual C++. The win32 API is one of the dirtiest and most unhandy API's I've worked with so far. For what I touched in the past only MSDOS beated it with it's terminate-stay-resitent-crap.
Personally I find QT/KDE a far more intuative and an easier API.
Well I asumeed here you refered to lowlevel and middle software. If you're doing with VB you're fine of with development time. But having (commercially) programmed VB applications in the past I tell you it's a horror to get them run across different windows systems. When I developed it it ran fine under win95. THen win98, did it run? No the printer API suddendly behaves differntly. Then they moved to Win2000, did it run? No again the API changed somewhat in behaviour.
You're right if programming targeted toward the market. If I today have to programm an end user application I want to sell, windows would still be my selection. Why? Since most users use it. 2nd reson? Because linux users (like me
(However if I want to build today a server, Linux is my selection, it's cheaper and I personally find it far more reliable (you need only the knowhow you've to aquire only once) If I want to build a high end embedded system Linux is my selection. I don't have to pay royality licenses, I have all the source, I can freely modify it, it has less overhead (kernel can be smaller than 500K). writing hardware drivers for it is tousend times more easier than win95/NT/2000/XP. If I would sell a complete "solution" I would also sell my application together with linux software. But still my Apps would proparly be closed source.
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Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
What this discussion has come down to is mostly the linux users saying how MS monopoly sucks so forth. Personally I love the office 2k products. They're easy to use and they do what I want them to do. Star office I'm sorry to say is a product that doesn't come anywhere near office. It's incredibly slow to load up(I love how my mouse crawls as i load up any component within star). On to topic: Lindoze in my opinion is a waste of code.. for heaven sakes 10 million lines of code. I might as well partition a drive and run windows 2k on it... I recall lilo being able to dual boot :) But seriously instead of wasting 10 million lines of code to do somethign that windows can do better why not invest that 10 million lines into cooler software for linux.
Get the best of both worlds... I'd say yer lying if you were to tell me that Windows isn't one of the easiest operating systems to use. Along with the fact that it has one of the most complete libraries of software. Linux is a good OS.. but it still mainly for enthusiasts. Unless you really know what yer doing a linux box isn't too fun to set up..
As Linus did with UNIX, as the "clone wars" (I'm telling you, that would've been such a better name) of the 80's did with the IBM-PC, Lindows may be able to accomplish with Windows. As the car analogy comes back into play, all cars run off of gas, but have different features. Some people run electric/solar powered cars for the whole ideal (think linux). Then there are most of the people who run off of regular gas powered cars (think windows), they don't have time to put up with the inconveniences that the other cars offer but would most likely love the advantages of them as well. Then you see the hybrid cars (think Lindows), these are the only cars that have a chance of penetrating the market with the idea that slowly people can make the transition to fully non gas powered technology. Many of us here do use Linux because it offers us many benefits and we can afford to put in the time to reap the benefits of the OS. Most people just don't have the time to put in or don't see the advantages without ever using it. Lindows is exactly what this market needs to put Microsoft out of the picture as the sole distributor of Windows (sounds funny, but it makes as much sense to me as Intel and AMD both releasing x86 processors). Why will or why should people choose Lindows? Because it offers them more. If you have all the base options and give a little more, people like that. Just look at SUV's :)
If MS is such a monopoly there must be some competitor it is crushing.
Exactly WRONG. If MS is a monopoly, then by strict definition it doesn't have competitors. That's what "monopoly" means.
Now, having a monopoly, per se, is not illegal. Leveraging a monopoly in one market to seize control of another market is. At which point I simply say "Stacker", and the case is made; Microsoft used a monopoly on DOS (a monopoly so complete that MS was at the time paid by most computer manufacturers for every PC shipped, not every PC shipped with DOS) to drive Stac (now Previo) out of the PC disk compression buisness and gain a monopoly on PC disk compression.
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if you consider freedom in and of itself the most important "merit",
That's a very big if. Most people want software to work. It can be 100% free but if it doesn't do what you want it to then it is worthless - software is a tool, not a religion.
Mmmmmmm
> You have no right to criticize anyone--all parties are following the terms of the BSD license.
Looks like you're implying that we have no right to criticize anyone who doesn't break the law. You know some of believe that we should act at a higher standard then just what we are able to get away with.
Furthermore who are you to tell people what they can and can't criticize?
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
I'm not sure why your posting was rated as "funny," because it's right on the money.
Take my mother. (Please! No, not really, but I couldn't resist.) A few years back, she wanted a computer. I, being the evil scum that I am, concluded that she would do better on the Mac than on Windows 95. I was right. She's had a couple of PowerBooks. She does a lot. She uses email (not through AOL), can get to the web, does finances on Quicken, writes up test papers and letters, manages addresses, and uses the spreadsheet. She is, if anything, above average as a home user. Every time I visit her, she has questions for me, usually trivial matters, and she's very afraid of making changes. (I bought her a Palm, and she was afraid to synchronize it, because she didn't want to "break anything.")
So, a few months ago she calls to say that some of her games aren't working. A conversation like the following ensues:
I: What changed?
She: I had to upgrade Quicken.
I: Just Quicken? Was there anything else?
She: Yeah, I had to get another number.
I: Another number?
She: Yeah, wait a minute. Here it is. 9.1.
I: You installed a major operating system upgrade without calling me first? That can cause a lot of stuff to break!
She: That's what I'm finding out.
People who are not geeks or computer scientists simply do not know what an operating system is. A minority of them know the phrase "operating system," but it has no more intrinsic meaning to them than "geegaw" or "rang deedio." If they know at all about it, they just know that it has to be there and has to work.
Nor should they, in an ideal world. The whole role of an operating system is to facilitate use of the computer and not get in the way. In the user model the operating system is the computer is the genie behind the screen. When they buy a computer, they buy a computer, and everything they get in the box that says "computer" is the computer. They may understand keyboard, monitor, and mouse as parts, but they don't understand, at all, that the OS is a fungible part of the system. There may be a disc, but they ignore it until something breaks.
The same thing is true of user interfaces. Well-meaning people like Jef Raskin and Donald Norman, as well as not-so-well-meaning people like Alan Cooper have been advocating for clean user interfaces that are invisible to the user for years. They're right, from a technical standpoint. They're all of them totally wrong when they try to explain why user interfaces are bad or how to make them better. The reason that user interfaces are not as good as they are is that the more invisible a component is, the less people are even aware of it when making purchase decisions. As a result, while really terrible user interfaces may result in some bad word-of-mouth, really good interfaces also suffer, because by definition, most people don't perceive them as elements. Beyond a certain level of frustration, market forces don't work on user interfaces and may even work against good ones, because mediocre interfaces have more visible features.
Wine works, but sometimes it works better with Microsoft DLLs. Not everything is completly ported yet, or even ported well. This will get fixed over time, but if you want to use certain areas, for example, OLE, then you need to keep that Win Distro.
See my journal, I write things there
Gee, bet Lindows is going to be great! ;P
Fiat doesn't make it so. Sorry, but pick any economic theory you like; none of them say you "deserve" to get paid for your work. If I collect a bunch of sticks and buy a bunch of yarn and busy myself making god's eyes twelve hourse a day, do I "deserve" to get paid for it? Of course that's nonsense.
This isn't what the previous poster meant. What he meant is this: If I work 12 hours a day making god's eyes out of sticks and yarn, I have the right to sell them for $50/each. You have the right to either buy them or ignore them. In no way are your rights threatened by my activity.
At this point, you are going to counter me with the "software is different" argument, but we both know it doesn't wash. In both cases the physical material involved (sticks and yarn or CD's and cardboard) is minimal. The labor and time is the primary component of the product.
When you give proprietary software the "boot", you are essentially barging into my house and saying what I can do with my sticks and yarn, and dictating how I relate to my neighbors.
That is why proprietary software has, and must continue to maintain its right to exist. It is also why the Free Software movement is possibly the greatest threat to liberty in the new century.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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No. Unlike RMS, I have no desire to make publishing software under a particular license illegal just because I don't like the license. Let me clarify myself. Joe Blow kernel hacker doesn't threaten me, not at all. What threatens me is RMS's statement to the effect that he can't support the "right to release under any license" espoused by O'Reilly et. al.
When I speak of the Free Software movement, I am speaking of the radical element that has an agenda to make it illegal to write proprietary software, to wrest source code from Microsoft by government force, etc. OTOH, if the market determines that software should be free, I am just fine with that. The carriage analogy is a good one.
As for the PP not wanting to take away my rights, I doubt that he wouuld hesitate to vote for a representative who might sponsor a bill to regulate the software industry, with a long term view towards socializing it. This is what has me afraid, because the Republicans are way behind the curve on this one. Most of them don't even know what the FSF is. They need to be mobilized.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"If I collect a bunch of sticks and buy a bunch of yarn and busy myself making god's eyes twelve hourse a day, do I "deserve" to get paid for it?"
Well you've certainly confused the issue by taking a very anal approach to reading comprehension.
The point was obviously that you DON'T have the right to use the other guys work without asking permission. It is quite possible the granting of permission may be commiserate with a payment of sorts, in fact in a capitalist society it usually is.
Yes, let the market decide. But the market is not supposed to involve coercion.
The GNU organization stands for coercion, which is a threat to liberty.
I quote: "Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned."
That is a quote from the GNU Manifesto, it goes on further to rail against people who ask money for their work and how these people shall be outlawed as well.
"Now, Windows makes up about 10 to 20% of total system costs, if you add in Office, it is as high as 50%. "
So what?
I spend more money on CDs than my CD player cost.
I spend more money on DVDs than my DVD player cost.
I spent more money on vinyl than my turntable cost.
I spent more money on VHS tapes than my VCR cost, especially if you count rentals.
I spent more money on books than my lamp and glasses cost.
Yes, let the market decide. But the market is not supposed to involve coercion.
My thoughts exactly. Which is why I am against software patents and copyrights.
Are going to tell me that those institutions don't constitute coercion? Do you must believe that you have a natural right of ownership to the output of your brain's machinations? I.E. - that these laws simply institutionalize what we all know is good and holy?
BTW, don't quote me. These words belong to me.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
"Are going to tell me that those institutions don't constitute coercion? "
Yes, they don't involve coercion.
You have a choice, you can buy the product or not buy the product.
Copyrights and patents protect the creator from you stealing their hard efforts without just compensation.
"BTW, don't quote me. These words belong to me."
Isn't that hypocritical? Besides under fair use doctrine, I'm allowed to quote you.
It appears the one trying to coerce, is yourself.
Personally, I prefer the capitalist take on this issue. I'd like to let the market decide what the effort that goes into programming is worth. And I'd like the market to decide what the value of mass producing digital content is worth. But we don't get to see that happen, because these industries are propped up by government regulations that circumvent the proper operation of the market.
;)
What I think you're saying is that Linux shouldn't allow proprietary software because the existence of which would use patents and be a detriment to free software.
I like the idea of sharing software ideas and not allowing ridiculous patents, but creating software is a lot of work, and people have to get paid somehow in order to survive (not forgetting that programmers/software designers are very educated people with student loans). If they are going to get paid, they have to be able to depend on the fact that their original (new) idea is protected, so some other company (or even free software) can come along and steal the idea.
I'm not saying that the current patent process is in any way fair, but there has to be some way of protecting business interests once a large sum of money is put down on someone's new bright idea to ensure someone else won't steal it and use it.
I know this is against free software ideals, but the idea that free software will dominate the world is almost ludicrous, only because I can't picture millions of current and future programmers and software designers working for absolutely nothing. I think it's fair to say that most free software writers (besides those hired by the likes of Red Hat et. al) have day jobs in the proprietary software industry. If it goes, how do these free software guys make a buck? As far as I'm concerned, it's Utopian and it will never happen in the near future.
What we need is something on an Internet time scale. A software 'patent' that lasts 3-5 years and after that the idea can be used by anyone. That amount of time is enough to get a good head start to profit on the idea, but still releases the idea to the public in a timely mannor.
I don't see any way around this copyright issue: - programmers need money to survive --> programmers need to get paid --> software needs to be bought by someone --> software contains orignal idea --> original idea can be protected.
In the end, proprietary software should (and will) exist on the Linux OS. Mixing this issue with the flawed software copyrighting system only confuses people. One endless argument at a time, please.
----- rL
They can be compared, but you are comparing a language to an Operating system. You can run java app x on os y (or W) but when its about installation you still need some OS specific code.
You are correct about the slowness. Both KDE and Gnome (and Windows) are forcing huge amounts of complexity on use because nobody designing these has had an actual "innovation". Try ROX or some of the tiny window managers to see some attempts to be different, and compare their sizes to KDE/Gnome/Windows. Unfortunatly I am starting to despair that we will never see an "innovation" because of the vast number of sheep that are locked into the Windows interface, even MicroSoft is having trouble making any changes!
Technically Linux is slower because of Xlib's horrid design. This is a fact and something should be done about it. The solution is not to make some forced toolkit/dll, though, it is to write *HARD* code to do *FAST, POWERFUL* graphics operations.
Wine works for some things I have tried. The only things I really care about thus far are games. A couple games work, most don't (that I have tried).
I may have need to get Word or some other non-game app to work but so far, I haven't managed to get them to work. I have found BIG problems with trying to get wine to work with virtually any WinME app. I can't even get notepad or minesweeper to run under wine. What of Win2k? How does wine fare with that one? I have that available to me too and would almost prefer to replace ME.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
No no, NOT console games (I hate arcade crap). I mean things like Half-Life, Deus Ex, Homeworld, etc. Half-Life is perfect in wine but most of the other such games I've tried are fair to middlin or DOA. This is virtually the ONLY reason I have and use wine. There is no point to Windoze software otherwise.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Me thinks that Wine uses the damnable BSD license so NOTHING has to be given back. They get to make any changes or improvements they like and the rest of us get squat for it unless we tote up with $$$.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Try to explain how to install and use DJGPP to a teen.
I have. Twice. Once to my friend Josh Kearney (who was 16 at the time) and once to somebody else on AIM (who was 19 at the time). It's easy: unzip all zipfiles, set up the environment variables in autoexec.bat or msconfig (depending on Windows version), restart the computer, and then from any command prompt type rhide to enter the IDE. RHIDE can manage project files (.gpr), has a text editor with overlapping windows, and can trace your code with the GDB engine.
It took me [when I was 15] about a week or two of work to figure out how GCC works.
I told them gcc -Wall foo.c bar.c baz.c -o foo.exe and that was it.
Now, yes, I know GCC is not a complete suite of tools. I'm saying the tools bundled with GCC [like the cygwin or mingw packages] don't include useful guis or anything.
RHIDE is an IDE for GCC, and it looks like the GUI of the old text-mode Borland IDE. So what if it runs in text mode rather than pixel mode? Or are you talking integrated resource editors?
Personally I am a fan of simple edit boxes. I like the color highlighting and the API popups. Anything else [macros for example] are just not features I would use to enter text into a box
RHIDE has relatively simple, relatively Windows-like edit boxes with syntax keyword highlighting. To get help on a function of a library whose Info docs are installed, place the cursor on the function and press Ctrl+F1.
Both [MSVC and free(beer) lcc-win32] include clean and simple gui editors that make project management simple.
So does RHIDE.
Packages like mingw or cygwin [which are the types of OSS packages most zealots here support] are complete from a compiler point of view but they lack editors and other useful integrated tools [resource editors for example].
RHIDE doesn't include a Win32 resource editor, but it doesn't include ResEdit (Mac OS Classic resource editor), whatever Mac OS X uses, or Glade (GTK+ resource editor) either. You can get resource editors separately. Both MinGW and Cygwin include windres, a Windows resource compiler.
If you object primarily to the separate download locations of the various components (compiler, ide, and resource editor), feel free to package your own distro of Cygwin software and recommend it to other developers.
Will I retire or break 10K?