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Alan Cox: The Battle for the Desktop
richjones writes: "There's a new interview with Alan Cox up. I think he's right on the money with how Linux is going to spread into businesses, but he seems to think Internet applications are going to be big with consumers... I can't really see it... but he's Alan Cox, so he must know :)"
Check out this weirdness in the interview:
"How militant are you about which licences people use for their software, and how they use them?
People who are not following the (free software) licence are pirates, it's as simple as that. It's no different if you take GPL (GNU Public Licence) code and don't give people the source code, or if you make copies of movies and sell them to people, it's the same thing. In terms of other software, it really depends on the people who write it. I don't think you have a right to dictate how somebody controls their own work, apart from the very, very basic standard you'd expect."
Was this a bad cut and paste job or other bad editing or what?
For the first part of the question it's almost like they asked him about that recent askslashdot
where the guy was asking about his company's dodgy "interpretation" of the gpl, abusing it
for pleasure and profit.
In the last half of his answer, he appears to be on topic, but just take the question and the first
sentence of the reply and it makes Alan Cox look like some kind of idiot...
graspee
...he seems to think Internet applications are going to be big with consumers... I can't really see it...
I can see it, and here is why: As technology spreads throughout the world, the devices are going to become easier and easier to come by. Soon they will just be a part of life for everyone. Look at how televisions are in every household now, and a radio in every car. This is just standard progress, and the devices that are based on the technology will just get simpler and simpler to use.
I was particularly enamoured by Alan's example of the Black and Decker equipment, "So I could see in a few years' time owning a home PC becomes kind of like the Black & Decker DIY kit -- it's something people have because they enjoy that kind of thing, not something people have because they want to get on with certain specific tasks."
Of course Internet Applications are going to be big with consumers.
Hotmail
eBay
Amazon
IMDB
...
No the point is that you never know when a law as stupid as the DMCA is gonna get you put in jail or involved in some legal nonsense. That's the point.. don't be stupid if you are this upset lobby against the DMCA instead of getting angry at a guy who won't post security fixes because of it.
Here's two: Office and the Bloomberg service...
Just a couple of the critical apps we need. If I can't even coax an OS X version of Bloomberg out of them, how can I persuade them to do a Linux port (even though it'd be easy, since they do/did a Solaris version).
And we still *need* Office. OpenOffice (which I burn CDs of for employees' home use, after they get sticker shock at the cost of Office) isn't a sufficient replacement. (hopefully this is just a -yet-)
We need apps. Big ones. How do we get there?
---
Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.
I found it interesting that he would prefer not to visit the US because of current copyright issues. I wonder what people in other countries think of our copyright schemes, I know each country has its own intellectuall property protection problems, but our (US) system seems generally more basterdized then most.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
I think we are going to see a shift in thought about what computers are, and what they can do for us. As Alan stated, users want services, if their computer messes up, they want to hit the power button, and have it all come back like it was. Users don't want to have to deal with hardware issues, they want their computer to work like their phone. Plug it in, and it works - it just works.
Perhaps what Alan was unconsciously advocating was the promotion of terminal services like those being developed by LTSP and perhaps companies offering terminal/computer services to employees, and perhaps in a broader sense, 'computer utilities' who would offer computer service to residential and small business customers.
Compared to Microsoft, which requires 3 (count them, 3) licences for one user on one thin client to connect to one terminal server (one for the terminal server OS, one for the client OS, and one for the Client Access Licence), Linux can provide better functionality at a fraction of the cost. Linux opens this market, where Microsoft has sufficiently stifled its growth by making it more difficult than it should be to enter that market.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
I don't know about you guys, but I've seen users get completely lost when installing software, or looking for that .doc file he saved somewhere, or even trying to add a music to a winamp playlist.
Well, I'm an experienced user and would say "you dumb***, drag that outta the floppy's window to the playlist and it's done" but hey... they have no clue about how the GUI works!
Say what you want, but for users who only touch the comp. once a week or less, and can't even program that video they have for years already... ALL the options we have as OS (Yeah, I know MacOSX) suck. Bad.
When are we doing to put a level of abstraction between that lousy filesystem design (in the user's point of view) so we can really add INFORMATION where we want? Can I add a note to my DivX;-) file? Nope. File design doesn't allow it. What if I wanted an email attached to an MP3? Nope. Can't.
If we learned something with Apple's iTunes, iPhoto, iWhatever, we'd see they KEEP THE USER FAR AWAY FROM THE FS, while not completely locking the user away from it. Beautiful, huh? So why are we still insisting in making a WINDOWS CLONE out of our GUIs???
I know this reply floats around a bunch of topics, but they all end up in the same question: DOES THE SOFTWARE SERVES US WELL, EASILY? CAN IT DO WHAT I WANT/NEED???
"Hack that directory tree!!!"
--Drake 2c
My point is, in 10 years, everyone is going to want to use a computer, use the internet, and use them both together, seamlessly, all the time. On everything, from comptuers to PDAs to the fridge. We'll have computers that'll blow your mind and enough bandwidth (well, maybe not enough) to do just about anything. Linux and windows won't have anything to do with this. Get over it. The only thing will matter is the user interface. The computer won't matter, because they'll be extremely powerful, and the OS won't matter, because most people won't even be able to say what "OS" stands for. The only way to get consistent interfaces across multiple platforms that are internet ready is to just have them be IAs and have it all run off a central server. The dumb terminal will have its revenge.
Mark Andresen of Netscape fame.
What has he done lately?
Being right once doesn't mean you are right, or insightful, forever after.
The thing is, mom doesn't care what's under the hood as long as the toy she bought works as advertized.
All of this bickering over OS domination is pointless in the end. People just want something that works. It isn't about some OS holy war to them.
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
Janie's geeky friend from down the street leaves in a hurry when he discovers that Mom & Pop's USB scanner and USB camera aren't gonna work. Of course, he's wiped out their drive and left them with a shit desktop that connects them to the net but doesn't have the Instant Message client they're used to, and is missing the Paint program their daughter uses for school assignments.
What I don't understand is why AOL created their own (proprietary I might add) protocol for their network (or at least why they continue to use one...). TCP/IP can easily do everything their network does, coupled with a decent web browser and a search domain, typing the "keyword" into your AOL program (standard web browser) will bring up pornfreaks.keywords.aol.com or something that could point to a well coded DHTML or Flash or whatever site. Why do all these people that create proprietary stuff when there are open standards that do the same thing make money? Utilize existing technology to do something new, I'm sure they could make alot more money that way anyways, more userbase is good isn't it. Totally away from the point of this post, but isn't the consumer market migrating away from services like AOL anyhow, everything is availiable on the general internet now, and with broadband becoming the norm, why bother with badly coded software? I work at a (normal) ISP, and whenever someone installs the AOL sofware, it fubars the Windows TCP/IP stack. And if my guess is correct, AOL doesn't have a huge market share, though they have by far the biggest market share. In other words, maybe 10% of Internet users use AOL, the other 90% are spread across local ISP and such (these numbers are arbitrary). When will these monopolistic companies get the picture that people don't like being pushed around (at least people who know anything...)
Something I'd like to see, and something that may actually be possible if broadband gets more mainstream, is to have these sorts of services running on your home computer. Just like what yahoo and msn do now, only w/o the ads. (I keep my schedule and to-do list in my space on the universities computers, and can get to it anywhere that has a telnet or ssh client, for example.)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
GNU Enteprise
Here's an overview; "GNU Enterprise (GNUe) is a suite of tools and applications for solving the needs of the enterprise. From human resources, accounting, customer relationship management and project management to supply chain or e-commerce, GNUe can handle the needs of any business, large or small. If you are looking for a full-function ERP, GNUe is the package for you.
Details: Written in Python (for easy application creation) and C (for speed), GNUe is under constant and heavy development. If you want to write custom applications for it, it's ready. Pre-packaged applications are on the back burner as the development team works on making the core modules more complete and compliant with varying standards. My personal estimate from following the project is that the first complete applications will show up in about 6 months, and then rapidly accelerate as more app developers learn about GNUe and get interested.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.