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Java Desktop System Rivals XP, OSX in Usability
protohiro1 writes "In this glowing review Chris Gulker calls Sun's Java Desktop System 'the most polished and real-world user-ready Linux desktop in existence.' Well, I'm sold. Will this finally sell the PHBs on a linux corporate desktop?" Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
So, it rivals OSX in usability because Nautilus has a toolbar button that opens a Documents folder, it can browse SMB and NFS shares, Evolution showed an hourglass cursor while launching, and - are you ready for this? - cut, copy and paste work.
Yep, I'm sold.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The enlarged screenshot is actually here, for anyone interested.
If you don't want companies to be able to make profit from your code then you should choose a more appropriate license. If you choose the GPL (or similar) then you choose to let companies profit from you code.
Here's what I found on Sun's site: "The software consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components and industry standards, including a GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice Office Productivity Suite, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, Java 2 Standard Edition and a Linux operating system."
Translation: in no way, shape or form is this desktop written in Java. It is merely branding, the same way Microsoft brands a version of Windows "Windows .NET Server" and Visual Studio ".NET" in order to tie together their .NET brand.
Actually, at the risk of sounding like a zealot I've heard of organizations with ratios of 1 IT guy supporting a couple thousand machines without difficulty. Crazy? Nope - Mac OS X (and OS 9 before it even). I didn't believe it myself (and Im a Mac user), but people with large Mac installations (all three of them) seem to get by pretty well without a lot of support costs.
:)
My memory is a bit hazy, but I think I talked to a few folks in K12 who made those types of claims (I was trying to do an informal TCO study of large Mac installations since you can't find a good recent one from something like Gartner), as well as a guy from Los Alamos IIRC. Perhaps we just got used to the support intensive Windows model.
OK, Im being a little vague, but its 3am and my buzz is wearing off
>> Since it's not free I actually feel it's a rip-off and a major vendor lock-in. JVMs running everywhere on your machine.
Hmm. Those two statements don't match.
It's vendor lock-in because it's $50/year licencing. Migrating away is a matter of installing Linux, Gnome and Java and running the same applications on those.
What you'll lose are the Sun additions that make it so cheap to maintain, sort out usability, etc. But that's why they're charging for it.
JVMs running everywhere is such a non-issue I'm confused by you raising it. You are aware that there are multiple sources of JVMs, and they all work identically?
~Cederic
Try supporting a multi-thousand desktop environment. You really really DON'T want users customising and modifying their desktop environment.
- standard roll-outs of apps no longer work or take considerably longer development effort
- training becomes more of a pain
- people spend all day changing their settings instead of being productive
- people change things so they no longer work, then ring up and complain that things no longer work (cost for helpdesk, for people to go out and fix it, etc)
The lack of customisation is a big bonus in an enterprise corporate environment.
For the record, I always customise my desktop, its appearance, and do naughty things like installing my own web browser instead of using the corporate standard. Which is why I always argue that development boxes (which I use) shouldn't have the same constraints that standard users boxes have. Double-standards, etc
~Cederic
It's very good to see Sun launch a a Linux distribution that won't make repel adults in horror, but Gulker perpetuates at least one of the abiding and unfortunate errors of many Linux supporters.
Contrary to the linkage made by the review, ease of use is not synonymous with "dumbing down". Ease of use does not mean hiding capabilities. It simply means what it says: easy to use.
Example: Creating a "Documents" directory and suggesting users sore all their documents there makes a system easier to use. Nothing frces a user to do that; no capability is lost. If a user wants to track through the file system and store files in other locations, nothing prevents that. A "Documents" directory is based on the same principle as the "etc" and "home" directories. Both provide a suggested place to store files that share certain characteristics. If using a "Documents" directory is for dummies, why don't we see smart admins storing configuration files all over the file system? Surely, anyone smart enough to use Unix doesn't need help finding files?
Other examples exist, but the perpetuation of the bogus ease of use/dumbing down linkage remains an ugly theme of the Linux community.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
From the article:
>> Java Desktop System could be dropped into most non-technical enterprises in places where general productivity was the mission,
What he misses (like nearly all of the Linux On The Corporate Desktop advocates) is that nearly every small business uses some sort of vertical-market application as their central IS system. There are packages for real estate agents, beverage wholesalers, dental offices, auto repair shops, property management, and for practically every other business you can think of. And nearly all of them run on Windows.
Every small business I've ever worked with uses something like this, and that's always the obstacle to having such companies even consider Linux.
Perhaps as more of these are moved to an HTTP-based architecture, the doors will open for Linux on the business desktop, but until then, the real lock-in isn't MS Office but the zillions of vertical-market apps that run on Windows.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am sick and tired of hearing all this Sun-bashing from a bunch of half-witted Slashbots.
Sun has contributed more to the open source community than IBM.
- We could of course start with classics like NFS and NIS, which appear pretty much everywhere specifically because Sun open sourced them.
- You think GNOME made such a vast improvement between 1.x and 2.x because a bunch of kids wrote code in their spare time? Sun has a lot of people working feverishly on GNOME. That's why it's so damn polished these days. Sun also contributed nearly all of the new accessibility features, which is a requirement to get in the door for some of those government contracts we want so desperately to see Linux win right now.
- Ever heard of OpenOffice? Do you think Linux has even a ghost of a chance on the mainstream desktop without it? (If you answered yes, please take your KOffice CD and your delusions elsewhere.) We have Sun, and only Sun, to thank for freeing this absolutely crucial piece of software.
Sun's biggest liability is Scott McNealy's big mouth. Everyone knows that, and hopefully Sun will wise up someday and either replace him or find a way to get him to quiet down. But to paint Sun as a big advocate of closed software and lock-in, similar to Microsoft or SCO, is beyond stupid. It's just plain hypocritical. Sun's attitude towards Linux is a bit schizophrenic, but they are not the enemy. They may not have gotten up the guts to slap a GPL on the Java runtime, but that doesn't mean they're not a big contributor to the open source pool in other places.Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!