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Sun Negotiating With Wal-Mart Over Java Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "According to an EWeek article, Sun is challenging Microsoft on a new front: the consumer market. Believing its Java Desktop System is "a more effective home and retail solution," the company is negotiating with major retailers Wal-Mart and Office Depot to include the Java desktop on consumer PCs and laptops."
...is in John Mitchell's blog.
As he says, 'Did you notice how little actual Java there is in the "Java Desktop System"?'
The Army reading list
And Atari thought that Alan Alda assembling a system in the blink of a 30 second advertisement would sell systems. They may sell, only to find a pirated copy of Windows on them in short order.
What does this product have to do with Java? From the literature it seems like a Linux distro with Gnome.
How many games or entertainment packages are supported under the JDS ?
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Now every old, dirty, walking-around-in-WalMart-wearing-their-underwear- at-3AM-because-its-still-open, couple can enjoy Java.
The masses thank you.
(P.S.: Yes, I've seen that, and it is frightening(ly hilarious if you are one of my friends.))
Being that there is so little java in java desktop anyway (as mentioned above), maybe they should rename it to six-pack-of-bud desktop, or Moonshine-computing environment to appeal to the walmart market.
Java is so upper-class yuppy: Apple users would eat that up!
disclaimer: posted from a powerbook at a down-town coffee shop
That they are going to make more money off Linux than they ever possibly could off Solaris, do a complete about face, and proclaim 'Linux is the best choice for the server as well as the desktop, and Solaris is `legacy` technology.'
I give it a till June next year.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
They're not going to use Lindows. SJD seems to actually emphasize quality over gimmick.
not that "Java Desktop" is gimmick-free... just call it GNOME, damnit!
even though i dont think i'd be too inclined to run sun's java desktop system, after running other linux distros -- i like seeing it developed. i have big hopes for this, and whatever novell does with suse/ximian.
-m
. . . but the more that people get used to seeing non-MS operating systems (even Java and Lindows), the better.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I think this is a great idea - a company with a deep and developed support network finally pushing an alternative desktop at the consumer market. As it is also cheaper than a windows license, it is likely to be at least somewhat popular.
Now of course the problem is that Sun's massive support network is currently aimed entirely at business, so it will take them some retooling to make it consumer-friendly. Let's hope they succeed - there hasn't been a big-company supported alternative to Windows on low-end computers since IBM's OS/2.
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
"An IT manager, who asked not to be named, said he could not understand why a user would trade one proprietary desktop for another. "I personally keep Java off my computer because it crashes the system," he said. "If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C and donated to Linux. Sun is no better than Microsoft."
Hey, MORON! Java Desktop is NOT powered by Java, but rather Gnome2 and Star Office. Jeez, where do they find these IT managers.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
The idea of Wal Mart selling PCs with an OS to compete with Windows appeals to me. But it can, conceivably, open up a whole host of other problems.
Case in point: My retired aunt and uncle bought a computer based primarily on price. Presuming that the Java-OS computers are cheap, then many people who have never bought a computer will be like my aunt and uncle and buy this computer as their first PC.
What happens when they visit their local techie goods retailer and look for card games, or photo editors, or even hardware like printers, scanners, or digital cameras? Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
The point is this: The hardware is irrelevant. For most people, hardware is nothing more than nails, tacks, and screws. Software is what matters. Unless Wal Mart has Java-OS-specific software right next to the PCs, and can sufficiently educate consumers that Eudora won't install on their computer, then we'll have problems.
(Mind, this diatribe is based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the Java OS. But all thoughts apply regardless.)
Does this mean Sun will help port Deer Hunter to the JDE?
Let's see...Wal Mart hires people at substandard wage, utilizes sweatshop labor and sucks the life out of communities wherever their stores land... On the other hand they support open source... Do I shop there or not? They still leave a pretty icky taste in my mouth...
...in bed
Another hardware platform to hack after it fails miserably in the market and I can buy them for $40.
Wal-Mart sells PCs with Lindows on them from their website. They're supposed to be a decent seller, so they probably aren't adverse to the idea.
I remember dealing with Home Shopping Network a couple of years ago. Their biggest seller was computers, but it was also their biggest return. People just couldn't figure them out properly.
For most people, PCs are just too complicated. They try to please all of the people all of the time, and fail miserably.
Sun might be on to something. Time to check up on their stock.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"So an inferior computer(The e-Machines that Wal-mart carries) are going to carry not only one"
Well, it is superior to a typical Mac costing twice as much, being faster, having more memory, more standard features that are extra $$$ on the Mac, and running umpty-ump zillions times as much software as a Mac (not to mention taking a much greater variety of add-on cards and peripherals)
I guess it is inferior to other PC's though.
I am so sick of KDE and GNOME. KDE is an unbearable, inelegant mess, and GNOME just seems to have been stuck immoble in mud for forever. KDE just gets more and more like windows over time, without ever seeming to take on Windows' two or three good features; GNOME has the worst case of Mozilla-itis I've ever seen outside of Mozilla itself (It doesn't matter HOW fast your machine is. Somehow, every single mouseclick, every motion feels sluggish, like some slight delay kicks in after every attempted action. It makes OS X look like BeOS.)
I want so badly for someone to take the Wonder Twins down.
Now, I can only hope Sun understands concepts like "the users expect and demand things like a GUI monitor resolution switcher should be IN THE OS and easy to find, and no consumer OS should ever make the user be aware something called 'XF86config' exists.."
Is the source at all available for Java Desktop? Is it at all customizable by directly talking to the java objects that comprise it?
From the article...
"I personally keep Java off my computer because it crashes the system," he said. "If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C and donated to Linux. Sun is no better than Microsoft."
I've never, ever seen Java "crash the system". Not on a mac, or on a PC. Where did they find this crackhead? I'm sure I'm going to get modded down for this, but the linux zealots need to stop with this "IT HAS TO BE IN C AND OPEN SOURCE TO BE GOOD". Anything that takes desktop market share away from microsoft at this point is good.
Here: Java Desktop to Maybe Help Brits Stay Healthier, Cheaper?" and here "What does 'Java-based' actually mean any more?"
Give away a free "kitchen carnival" with every computer and you'll corner the market. All kidding aside, with giants like Sprawl Mart price is king. If they can sell something that looks like windows, works good enough for the average joe, and costs less they will sell it.
So, when can we expect to see Wal-Mart selling this new line of furniture with integrated coffee machines?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I though Sun's "Java" desktop was just SuSE linux with a few bells and whistles. Why do they keep referring to it "java based" operating system?
Wal-Mart will be ready to sell this, but only on their website (like the Mandrake and Lindows $200 computers).
Did you notice how many posts here assumed that Java platform has anything to do with this Java Desktop System???
Even Java OS was mentioned!!!
People, Sun JDS is a Gnome based Linux distro with some Java apps on it. It is not written in / does not utilize Java platform. See OSnews review of JDS or Slashdot review of the review.
Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
I've always been a fan of Sun, and it's never steered me wrong. They've been struggling lately as a company, hence signing a deal with such a large retailer will be very beneficial for them. Plus, anything to get Lindows off the market, it is a shame even to the name of Windows and especially to Linux.
BTW i read in some study that in a few years the only OEM computer companies with any sort of market share will be Dell and WalMart
Not very subtle, but sure to catch a few morons. Bonus points for skirting the flamebait line so elequently.
See, I think its funny for a different reason.
Sun isn't challenging Microsoft. Apple isn't challenging Microsoft. *nix isn't challenging Microsoft. Even combined, they're not a challenge to Microsoft.
A challenger would be a company that suddenly starts earning a MASSIVE amount of Microsoft customers over. Apple had a brief stint of this when the iMac came out, but that leveled out (or did it fall back down?) quickly.
Microsoft STILL has, what, a ninety-something percent market share? Yeah. They don't have challenges right now. Doesn't mean they're not going to *react* as though they did, but in all honesty, they really really don't.
What constantly worries me when I read about OEM's deploying nonstandard (i.e. non-microsoft) products on their desktops are the headaches that will come with tech support. I sure as shit know that if a granny calls with a new Lindows computer running Linux then she's SOL for tech support.
From the "unnamed systems administrator" in the article:
From what I had heard there is little or no Java on the "Java" Desktop; it's just being called that for branding reasons (which, apparently, are having the opposite effect Sun had hoped).
Am I wrong here? Is Java Desktop actually Java-based?
All's true that is mistrusted
>Sun sells JDS for $100 per machine per year, or $150 per employee per year
I can't justify paying $100/year for JDS. Especially when most games are not written for JDS (at this point in time anyway). In addition, starOffice is nowhere close to MS Office.
Sorry sun, once again you are a day late and a dollar short.
If they expect to steal users over from Microsoft Windows, they're going to have to work REALLY hard at improving the UI that was /. reviewed last week (the crappy /. search won't return the right link).
If, however, they're targetting current advanced users of Linux/etc, what makes them think these users will pay buy their desktop instead of putting one together themselves and downloading linux.
I would think most average users would rather go in for a dual boot system rather than linux/unix alone, because of the amount of family/educational software/games etc available for Windows.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
OK, so they're naming something not-very-java-ish "Java Desktop" to capitalize on the Java name.
But look at the COMMENTS in this thread, even so far! Look at all the posts going "eww, JAVA? for a DESKTOP?". Java is NOT a name with positive connotations. Everyone "knows" that Java is slow, clunky, and jittery. Of course, the only time they've ever directly used a Java app was AWT applets running on Netscape 4 ages and ages ago, but that's still the perception I think most people have.
Java, from an end-user perspective, was blitzed out before it or the VMs were even remotely ready, was oversold in the embedded-in-web-browsers area (where it ran like crap) and undersold as a facilitator of cross-platform application development (where it ran almost acceptably), was pushed in everyone's face in the form of poorly designed pre-Swing applets, and then quietly retreated completely from the end-user space. This is the last memory most people have of Java (even if it's the woman in wal-mart going "oh, Java? I think I remember that from that email forward from my grandson? that's the thing that makes animations that blink a lot, isn't it?") and outside of the community of programmers and people who know what a "servlet" is, it probably currently has negative mindshare.
Is Sun actually thinking "Hmm, 'Java Desktop System', that's a name people can trust"?
Or is the idea that they now trying to rehabilitate Java's brandname by attatching it to a product that (one can only hope) is actually worthwhile and usable?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If Wal Mart is really just looking to sell PCs at the cheapest possible price, I don't think the day the is too far away when Linux distros are sufficiently commodidized for there to be a Sam's Choice Distribution on their bottom end PCs. Just knock off the Windows look and feel, and throw a red white and blue theme on there.
Dude, take some bong rips and go get a pizza. You'll feel lots better.
Right.. my bad... it's not actually powered by Java... so what's the point?
Bill? What are you doing on here? You're supposed to be off helping SCO.....?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
If it means I can go out and buy a cheap computer that can handle email, WWW, word processing and printing, then I think it is good. For lots of people that would be a very good deal. If I bought such a computer - for how long time would it serve my fathers needs without maintenance?
10 years?
This f***ing business needs to grow up and deliver mature technology.
I have no idea if Suns Java Desktop is the right way to go - but if simplicity and end-user-needs are in mind I think it is a step in the right direction.
Also, IF it would be successful we would see yet another OS (as in commercial product) running on ordinary PC hardware that does not feature all the DRM-shit that MS says they'll put in Longhorn. For hacking c-code any stable and open system will do.
Okay... so we can all agree that calling this "java desktop system" is really confusing and fuels misconception about the product. The question is -- will this sort of branding dilute the meaning of "java" to that of ".NET"? ;-)
-m
"I love you, Dr. Zaius^iW^W^WLinux!"
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
This proposed Walmart deal strikes me as exactly what Red Hat would be trying to do, if they were remaining in the market as a consumer distribution. The article doesn't even attempt to define the Java Desktop System (hence the above links), so there's really nothing in the way of comments as to how good the thing is.
Also, does the "Java" in the name of this product really mean that the desktop is in fact written in Java? I can't imagine that's the case, or why it would be desirable. But one analyst quoted in the article seems to take it as a given that this thing is written in Java:
I personally keep Java off my computer because it crashes the system...If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C and donated to Linux. Sun is no better than Microsoft.
From what I can see, if this deal comes to pass, Walmart may soon be selling Linux based systems with a highly polished front end, equipped with a suite of office/internet software that does everything an entry-level buyer could want. Seems to me that this would be a big step up from people buying XP boxes. It would increase the market share of Linux, and result in way more Linux software being developed.
So I have two questions. If anyone here has used the Java Desktop System, what do you think? And does anyone see any real downside to Linux if this deal is made?
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
The name is incredibly misleading and I think will ultimately hurt the product. Consumers associate brand names, IMHO, as umbrella terms under which features (like language support and applications) fall. For example notice how Windows 2003 is not Windows .NET Server 2003. I suppose that name was a candidate, but it was decided to identify the product more uniquely, a simpler name was chosen. Because .NET can run on other Windows versions as well. This helps seperate the ideas of .NET with the single product Windows 2003. What seems to a technical person marketing-speak, is much more clear to a non-technical mind.
/. and surely will confuse other crowds.
Not only that, the most important and effective name, Linux, seems to be left out. Just as Linux is gaining mindshare, Sun decides to confuse an OS with a language.
Maybe if Sun did something clever and made an appliance-like OS with Java or something, then this would be appropriate. As it stands, it seems stupid on
You know this 'Java Desktop' thing has little or nothing to do with Java. But the funny thing was the guy who was interviewed who said something like, 'Well I don't know why we'd use it. It uses Java, and Java crashes computers..." Hmmm.. Good reporting there. Why not ask a chimneysweep or a horsemaster next?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
since they are hardly even business friendly.
,of course, asked me again for all hte detials i had alreayd painstakingly sent them. Then.. I get a call from a guy actually at SUN who was supposedly in charge of ".com stuff". He asked if I had talked to anyone else. I said no. He said he knew I had, because all the resellers report to him. Then he a) quashed a deal with one reseller I was going to buy from, telling them the pricing they were giving me would end up getting them in shit with sun.
The problem, I find, with Sun salespersons, is that they are generally of the opinion that Sun is the supreme god of everything, and that everything not sun is garbage.
I have called sun several times in the past, with a clear, precise list of what I need to buy from them. I explain to them what I want, that I am familiar with all of their services and equipment, and that I really only need what I am asking for. They still manage to waste DAYS worth of time trying to convince me to replace other stuff with sun gear... despite the fact that the sun gear can't come close to doing what I want. Example: Fileserver
I was about to purcahse a 50 gig NetApp NAS box... the sun guy tried to sell me on some sun fileserver.
The pros/cons
NetApp - Hardware raid on FC drives. Filesystem that takes snapshots. Netapp gave me performance stats for NFS ops/sec, etc.
Sun: Software raid on scsi drives. Smaller array. No snapshots. Could not give me any specs on throughput, etc.
Now.. come on. I can appreciate trying to push your company's products.. that's their job.. but you lose a lot of credibility when you try to convince me to use GARBAGE in place of what I want, just because it's not yours.
Example #2: I was about to purchase about $300,000 in sun gear for an E-commerce type setup... I called several vendors. I had my hardware list DECIDED, based on current offerings. Took the resellers almost 3 weeks to get back to me. They gave me some okay quotes... each,
b) Offerred to set up my whole system for me and guarantee it, on the condition that I let them purchase ALL SUN hardware, including swtiches, etc, and could not mess with it.
c) Wanted me to say OKAY to this without showing me a quote. His point was that if he showed me the quote, I could just use that as my system specs and build it myself.
Now.. tha'ts kind of messed up, but he sort of has a point. So I tell him "Look, there is no way in hell I'm committing to anything without full disclosure from you, sorry, what are you thinking". He sends me his specs.
They are MY specs, minus a few items, but it COSTS more.
So what the hell, he's accusing me of potentially stealing his plans when he already SAW mine, and they were just like his?
I started as a perfect customer. We were ready to wire the money immediately if they had just simply GIVEN us a quote for what we asked for. Instead, they fucked around for a month, and ended up losing the sale totally.
I diligently mailed him, his superious, and all the resellers to point out how this guy had totally fucked up for sun.
I also went to a SUN meeting one time.. they wanted to demonstrate the SunRAY stuff (which is cool) and also some windows file sharing stuff. They pointed out how it was way better than samba because it was based on real NT code that they had a license to. Now.. this was all fine and great. Except.. it also contained the NT bugs (for compatability). Okay.. I can understand that. I start asking about how I can integrate this with unix stuff.. are the ACLs in text files? Like, why would I actually want this over an NT server? His answer? Nope, you can't really do anything like that.. it's JUST like using windows, isnt' that great? Except it's on a SUN, so it won't crash. You mean the application won't crash? Oh yes, it will.. he means the computer won't crash.
Sun has made some cool stuff in the past.. and I used to really respect them.. but after trying to deal with them on multiple occassions, I feel they really need to get their heads out of their asses and start dealing with reality.
I would say this is an extremely smart move for Sun. My dad (who is a CPA) read in one of his Magazines that Walmart contributes either 5% or 10%, can't remember, of the US's GNP. That doesn't sound like a lot, but for one company to have that much share is huge.
"But that's precisely the point! Sun is trying to associate their new Linux/GNOME distribution with the Java brand"
But, then, shouldn't they have followed standard GNOME protocol and renamed it GN AVA DESKTOP?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"I personally keep Java off my computer because it crashes the system," he said. "If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C and donated to Linux. Sun is no better than Microsoft."
I would have a hard time giving credence to a anyone who said something like the above. Especially the "..it crashes the system." part. That is a little ridiculous.
Except that it is Sun who has mischaracterized their product! When JDS was announced and I read about it, I wondered what the heck this has to do with Java other than the branding value of the word 'Java'. I remember previous attempts at a true Java (that is, written in Java) OS, now here they come with a Gnome-derived Desktop Environment and they say it's Java. No wonder a person is quoted in the article, "If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C...[instead of Java]". Smack that guy with a clue and point them to Gnome source, but Sun isn't helping things a bit.
I currently don't do much Java development, but I can now see why some people are leery of putting too many of their eggs in the Java basket. If Sun can decide "this is Java, this here is not Java" based on marketing, and not technology, how can a developer feel secure about their time investment?
Obviously, you know very little about Sam Walton (the founder of the Wal-Mart chains). He was VERY into MADE IN AMERICA for those of you old enough to remember. It was only AFTER his death that it has become impossible to find something there which is NOT Made In China. Please do not curse someone because their legacy has been corrupted.
Sun has a brand name that people recognise. Whether it is in China, the UK, or the USA, managers feel more comfortable going with a known name. (It works for IBM too.)
Now, I may be really dim or something (don't...!), but is the Sun Java Desktop available for download? Just that most of the software (GNOME2 etc) is available for download, so is it?
Heh, from the looks of his website it looks like he already has!
What are they selling? From everything I've read the Java Desktop is basically Linux with Gnome and a Java RE. That's neat, but I don't see how its not going to suffer from all the regular problems Linux distro's have penetrating this neophyte market. With the driver issues and the usability issues (and the software availability issues) I don't really even see this as a good thing. If people buy these all they are going to see is a second rate operating system. Wal-Mart customers don't use VI. Linux isn't ready for the masses and in its current state they'll just think there's something wrong with it.
Quack, quack.
On a Windows XP box that otherwise worked quite well. Someone was trying to view some over-the-net presentation. I can't remember which site was providing the broadcasting software. Anyway, the box was running Sun's JVM, probably a few minor revisions old.
The presentation would work for a few minutes, until something (perhaps a newer api call that wasn't supported by the version of the JVM?) would REBOOT the machine!?
Anyway, there was no time to dig too deeply into the situation. I ended up upgrading to whatever was the latest JVM at the time and all was well. Your guess is as good as mine as to what was wrong, it might even just be a corrupt installation of the JVM... still, a reboot?
People don't realize the reason why it's called the Java Desktop, but it has to do with using Linux as simply a set of extremely well written device drivers, and recognizing that the underlying OS is a commodity. *Everyone* now recognizes that value is moving "up the stack" of the OS, and of course an OS is important, at what point does it cease to become incredibly relevant? A BIOS is important, after all, but the shift from the BIOS to the OS is significant enough that the focus has moved to the OS.
.NET but a complete and utter endorsement of Sun's vision? Why not go straight to the source of leadership? Sun is earning people's trust at the same time Microsoft is destroying it, signifying a changing of the guard in terms of overall leadership in the industry. This does not mean that Sun is just going to become another Microsoft, but more that we have entered a new era and the tension comes from trying to hold on to an old paradigm for too long. And, if anything, the Internet weeds out closed technologies. The fact that Java is one of the most commonly referenced "Internet technologies" speaks for itself.
Well, the focus has now started to move away from the OS (as we now think about it, after all the BIOS is a type of OS and pretty much anything could be considered an OS) and moving higher in the stack. Call it marketing if you want, but it's accurate to indicate that this is happening. Some higher level of abstraction from the underlying hardware OS will become so significant that you will cease to notice the OS really. As it is, people think of the Internet as their computer, and Java is similarly a strategy to move the focus of computing more to the network.
Now, the JDS is not pure GNOME, not pure Linux, not pure Java, not pure anything, so why not call it where its focus is? I know my personal interest in it would be for a high level of support and integration with Java. OpenOffice, Mozilla, and other apps use Java technology in one way or another.
What I expect as a result of this move by Sun is to provide better interaction between Java and the underlying hardware OS, such as some of the projects to enable control of USB devices directly within Java. Also, Sun might provide something like what IBM is doing with SWT but using the existing Swing API but with more native support in the JVM (instead of simply a theme).
Sun is absolutely on the right track. Java is a brilliant piece of technology that is really starting to come into its own. People generally assume that when a technology has been around for a long time and hasn't really "taken off" (which some may say about Java on the *desktop*) that it means it won't, and others will realize that it's more a matter of a vision finally coming into fruition. What is Microsoft
i mostly run Java on a GNU/Linux Pentium III machine and it runs very well and has never, ever crashed my system. As for the speed situation, my earthly-mother purchased a brand new Dell with a Celeron chip running XP and a Java app is just as quick. I for one like Java.
I didn't realize that Wal-mart already carried computers with Linux.
if my dot-com doesn't get some traffic soon [gelotto.com], i'm out of a job.
why such an odd name? is it for recovering gambaholics?
As people have always said, it's all about the applications. Better OS's than MS have come and gone - but windows holds the desktop because they have the desktop applications.
and argue as you may about performance or server marketshare or stability -- linux does not have the consumer application maturity.
the home consumer wants to create birthday cards, print pictures from their digicams, play games off-the-shelf, do their taxes, browse, keep a schedule, and email.
Sure, linux does all those things. but as the stifling size of the MS consumer software market shows -- having the application available does not mean you have the interface the user likes. often the home user will buy a program that lets him do something he can already do. but because the interface is so backwards, he doesn't even know it.
many home consumers will routinely use a different graphics program to scan than they do to make an invitation or an envelope or print digital pictures. current linux users are absolutely content with the single complex program. you can see there, the purpose gap as well as a culture gap between linux and the average home user.
the installation procedures, the dependencies, recompiles, configs -- it all echoes the hardcore requirements, and stands in contrast to the home user's needs.
linux on the home desktop can start to beat microsoft when the installation becomes easier, the interfaces become better, and the silly applications that slashdotters don't buy start to appear.
so unless Sun is going to really work on the consumer usability end of linux - it isn't going to work.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
that Sun thinks that the world thinks that 'Java' is a great brand name .... but in reality a whole bunch of people have been burned by it (at least in part by being flavor of the month for the .com crash) and will automatically associate it with whatever disaster they've suffered thru
I wonder how Sun will handle production of these desktops if they take off. Given the demand that Wal-Mart can generate, it has often reshaped the product lines of it suppliers - frequently in ways that are not profitable to that supplier. People have noted Sun's declining sales of server hardware. However, I'm not sure that pouring resources into commodity desktops will make Sun more profitable.
And even then, there's not much hardware that scales like Sun's does. Think about this: if a processor has a bit of memory in cache, and another processor updates that value in RAM the original processor now needs an updated value. Scale that over 100+ processors.
Intel processors can't do it.
Yet Sparc/Solaris does it damn near linearly - for a hundred or more processors.
Where else but Sun can you get 100 or so 64-bit processors with uniform access to half a terabyte of RAM? Right here.
And I thought "OS/2" was the worst brand name for an operating system.
"Java-Desktop"?
I'll install that along with my "VB Document- Editor" and "C++ Grid-Based- Number-Calculator" software.
Anyone want to play a game of "Run-Around-and-Shoot-Each-Other-in-a-Sci-Fi-Envi
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
What do you think Sun/Walmart should do to solve the problem described by parent carl67lp?
This seems like a great idea to me, too - I like the idea of a company with Sun's resources handling a Linux distro - but I winced when I read the headline.
Based on what I've read about it, the new Java Desktop has a lot of promise, but it's still brand-new! In the long run they'll profit much better if they roll it out slowly, first to some companies who are willing to work with them on ironing out the wrinkles, before the general populace ever sees it. They need to build up a rep of relibility, security, and ease of use as soon as possible.
They already have to overcome the associations between "Java" and "bad GUI" (yes, the GUI is not really Java, but as shown in the article, the baggage comes with the name, and most people are understandably confused). I think it could be death to the new distro if they shine the spotlight on it before it's polished, has a consistent look & feel, etc. etc.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
If the Sun Java Desktop catches on you can take all your MS hate mail and articles and just replace MS and Bill Gates with Sun and Scott McNeally. IMO Scott is worse than Bill. Scott is so two faced you can't believe anything he says. Just look at the Java license for a great example. You may not like what Gates says, but he doesn't have the cloud of smoke around things that Sun does.
On Windows (have seen on 98 and XP) there have been issues with various ATI drivers through the years. It seems Java drawing packages, such as Java 2D, like to do things that are very much "on the fringe". Basically every time you hit a java web site with an unpatched ATI card (downlevel driver), you risk a hangup. Usually ATI fixes this with a driver patch, but I blame Java...no other apps had this problem.
Maybe ATI could learn, but so could the Java people. The java folks are also horrendously slow at fixing or responding to JVM bugs. They'll rarely acknowledge your existance.
Ha ha ha that's a classic. LMFAO.
It's called the New York Times: All the news that's fit to fabricate.
This is an interesting comment- that many people are looking for a cheap way to get what we think of as the minimum. And this distro, dressed up a bit, might be a great idea. But lots of people would ask about AOL and chat rooms. I don't think AOL likes Linux yet, does it?
You must live in a whole. Walmart started selling Lindows machines at least a year ago. Do you always post admitting when you don't know something?
I'm going to stick with "C GNU/Linux Desktop System" and "C++ MacOS Desktop System" for the time being, however (note poetic license, please). In the meantime, I expect Sun to continue to drag the Java name through the mud in the wrong part of town--meaning: subverting their own creation which I'm quite fond of, actually, and insisting it belongs on the desktop. And much like you hear those "Linux is not ready for the desktop/Oh yes it is!" arguments, in a parallel dimension the same people argue pro/con for Java desktops. But you know what? Java is most certainly not ready for the desktop. Not until Swing GUIs look and feel *exactly* like their native counterparts. What's that? SWT, you say? Nonsense! Remember, Sun is trying to drive Java into the ground. They would never help work out the problems with SWT so we can get real integration.
I know people who've been using Java desktops for years, though usually people wipe it up before too long.
"What happens when they visit their local techie goods retailer and look for card games, or photo editors, or even hardware like printers, scanners, or digital cameras? Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things."
Unemployed tech: For $50 an hour, I'll be their nephew.
Clue stick: Every OS out there has had to deal with this, including Microsoft. Somehow (magic?) they did, and here we are.
The only use java desktop could possible have, is if you own a sun workstation and your stuck with CDE and compiling gnome by source is too much of a pain.
Unless there is some other features in Sun's version that I am not aware of, but other then that its a waste of money for something they already have.
http://saveie6.com/
I would like to see GNU/Linux to become a more powerful platform and by a more powerful platform I mean a platform that provides the user with a pleasant experience. Now, to provide a pleasant experience a platform must give the user a choice - a choice of applications that exist for the platform is a step in the right direction. However, GNU/Linux is not such a platform yet. If it were, it would have been embraced by the masses already and it is not. There are a few things that GNU/Linux system is lacking and one of the more important lacking components is a convenient tool that allows a novice create his/her own software for the platform, software that easily manipulates data imported from multiple sources and allows to create graphical interfaces to that data. In the Microsoft this functionality is provided by such a ubiquitous tool as Visual Basic. In the Free Software world there are many tools that are extremely powerful but none of them have the same kind of momentum that Visual Basic delivers on Microsoft platform.
To answer the question- "What can be the VB for Free Software?" we need to look at the kind of problems that will have to be solved by this tool. The problems solved by VB are of many kinds, but for the general public VB provides the bridge that closes the gap between a user and a multitude of small problems that the user wants to solve. Of-course it is possible to just create a VB IDE for FS platforms but I believe there is a more interesting solution to this problem and it is Java. Just like VB, Java runs in a virtual machine, so the user will never really have direct access to any hardware resources, but an abstract layer of JVM can provide a nice buffer between the user and the hardware and at the same time Java will always behave in the same way on multiple other platforms, including Windows. Java has thousands of convenience libraries, there is enough Free Software written for Java that can be integrated into an IDE. However there is a big problem with the language itself - it is not Free.
Sun allows anyone to use Java for free but nobody can modify the language itself except for Sun. In order for Java to become for Free Software and Gnu/Linux what VB became for Microsoft, Java has to be Freed and put out under the GPL. There is also probably a good business sense in it for the Sun Microsystems as well - their language suddenly becomes the language of choice for millions and thousands will work on improving the language, the virtual machine, the compiler etc. In this case Sun will stay in a position that Linus finds himself in - they become the gate-keepers for the vanilla Java tree, but Java will branch and will become much more spread than it is right now. Sun can capitalize on that by providing more Java based solutions and services.
Now it is likely that Sun management will not agree to the change of their Java's status, however, if there was an immediately profitable reason for them to do this, they just may turn around and start thinking about it. A reason that is profitable could be a large sum of cash available to them upon releasing Java under the GPL. Where could this money come from? These money could be collected by the FS and OS supporters, the developers and the users who would like to see more momentum in the GNU/Linux movement towards a successful (wide spread) desktop solution. I suppose no one will seriously object to have one more powerful tool in their Free Software tool-bag. Java can be this tool and it can be just the thing needed to tip the scales over towards quick appearance of a useful and a popular GNU/Linux desktop.
You can't handle the truth.
I recommend reading Donald A. Norman's book: The design of everyday things, and Alan Cooper's book : The inmates are running the asylum. You'll find that complexity isn't the main reason computers are hard for end-users to deal with. A common misconception.
As bright as the future of Linux might be - it doesn't have much of a track record.
And it still doesn't scale.
It's too bad that Macs aren't any cheaper. It seems that they would flourish better with the market that these computers will be reaching while providing the users with a system that's more suited to their digital cameras, printers, etc. that they just want to work out of the box.
Life today. Uncertainty tomorrow.
Have you heard about, Apple, you get msoffice. word ie and just about any other aplication, plus a computer really does last a couple of years. oh and you can run OOo on it too.
"bingo. steve jobs actually said it back in the 80's "consumers only care about the applications". the oeprating system is just lifesupport for the dohickeys mom-n-pop want to run on top of it..."
Said all that and Apple still has a small marketshare. Sounds like something went wrong somewere.
A yearly subscription fee???
Taken from the sun.com:
Pricing
Q.
How much does Java Desktop System sell for?
A.
There are two available pricing options for Java Desktop System:
$100 / desktop / year. An OEM volume tier pricing schedule is also available.
$50 / employee / year for Sun Java Enterprise System customers.
A special promotion is also planned that reduces by 50% the first year price of either of the above two options. This promotion is in effect until June 2, 2004. See:
How to Buy.
Q.
Why would I purchase a per desktop license at $100 when the per employee license is available at only $50?
A.
The per employee pricing is available only if you purchase the software for all employees of your company. If only some employees will use the Java Desktop System, it may be more economical to purchase per desktop licenses.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Sun has not addressed any of the major issues facing Linux and the home user. Say what you like about M$, they do make a hell of a desktop for Joe Six-pack. Consider the first time Joe Six-pack installs some software and it doesn't show up in his menu... That will be the end of JDS for the average home user, the only good point being that as long as Sun sells it as JDS, the Linux community might at some later date reclaim that user, when the needed work has been done.
And that is only one trivial example of a real world ordniary user issue. Literally thousands exist, each of which has the potential to be a show-stopper for some portion of the home user base.
Linux has a long way to go before it is ready for prime time on the home front. Microsoft has queered that pitch permanently. As long as Linux does not provide, internal to the desktop environment itself, the kind of handholding help system that M$ users have at their disposal, why would Joe Six-pack switch?
All of "our" arguments about the superiority of security, etc. fall on deaf ears if folk can't use it. The home user is the guy who uses his CD drive as a cupholder people. Does anyone think Linux is ready to deal with that level of incompetence? But that is the market Sun is going after? Does anyone else see the problem there?
Now everyone restrain yourself before posting your favorite Linux rhetoric in reply. Your elegantly crafted arguments, and the sublime supremacy of your arguments (and mine) are all predicated on the necessity that the audience has access to the relveant information, but more importantly, can understand that information, and comprehend the implications of it. Now apply that to Joe Six-pack.
I understand the missionary urge that makes most of us want to push oour OS to the limit, but to be successful at converting the "heathens" requires more than a strong wish. Consider the Roman Catholic Church and Christmas. Christmas is a compromise, a case where accepted religious doctrine was modified in order to be able to attract, and retain converts among the pagans. That it was extremely successful is obvious, that it fundamentally changed core aspects of Catholocism should also be obvious. I have serious concerns about the "Church of Linus" being able to accomplish the same thing.
How many of you would accept fundamental changes to Linux in order to get it widespread use in private homes?
More importantly, how many of you would accept fundamental changes you were diametrically opposed to in oder to get Linux on more home desktops?
I strongly suspect that such a fork is coming. While I won't be so naive as to suggest that the Linuxwe all know and love is going to go away, but I will suggest it will not be the Linux that could succeed in the home market.
As Catholocsim has to make some room for patently pagan beliefs in order to grow and spread, Linux may well have to make some room for heretical beliefs for the same reasons.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
This is probably the most insightful comment I've seen in this thread. It's very true. We're dealing with a consumer market. It's totally different from the markets where some of these technologies and strategies have failed previously.
Look at phones. Everyone I know is getting phones that can browse the web, email pictures taken with the camera and do messaging. These people have no clue as to the tech behind it. They don't care how it works or why it works and they aren't beholden to Microsoft or Apple. They want to DO THINGS. Any computer that satisfies these use-cases will be compared on price. It's simply a matter of features and price that will get these users to switch. Once a market is created, then we can start pushing into the corporate world with Linux desktops.
I really can't believe the negativity on this thread. Yes, Sun is trying to brand Java and use this brand to push a cheap Linux desktop. Who cares? If Sun puts Linux with Java pre-installed in the hands of consumers and can provide a user experience somewhat on par with Windows XP Home while beating it on price, it will win.
Look at the success of WebTV and those little $99 email terminals. There is a market and Sun is trying to do an end-run around Microsoft. This is a good thing. I would recommend all Open Source app developers that write consumer oriented apps to provide an easy install tailored towards this system. Get these users used to Open Source software and help make this platform viable. It will only help in the long run.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Oh man I love this quote...
:D :D :D
"I personally keep Java off my computer because it crashes the system," he said. "If Sun had the interests of the customer in mind, then the Sun desktop would be written in C"
Does he realize the JVM he's running *was* written in C?
Netscape can enter the market now with a Netscape Desktop :):)
For example notice how Windows 2003 is not Windows .NET Server 2003.
.NET because Microsoft still has no idea on what .NET actually is and therefor didn't want to be locked down to one specific item that would be .NET.
I'd always just assumed that it was without the
I am currently using Slackware 9.1. The java dev is as good as vb, and one hell of alot less expensive than MS orafice VB ware! I just ./setup Open Office and it has all the java bells and whistles. To my way of thinking the latest Slackware is the best distro hands down! Just because my users have to type a blind password to login doesn't slow me down. Having to type startx is not a real hardship either.
Of course being able to have multiple logins going is great as well. No I am seriously thinking of teaching Slack to small business owners. It sure is fast, even with an older (1999) p3 450 it outruns XP and MS office hands down! I think Sun should talk to Patrick et al about releasing a java desktop together.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I would dare say that Python is *extraordinarily* easy to get up and running, more so than Java. You can do extremely powerful things and very easy things with Python. And if you want clean cross-platform development environment, it fits well, even with GUI if you accept wxPython. I've been blown away at the ease of things when I did PyGTK, and when I wanted something that looked less out of place in Windows and that would work on OSX, I picked up wxPython and was simply amazed at how cleanly it slipped into Windows and OSX, with native widgets and all.
I know Java, and it truly does provide a far richer development environment when compared to C/C++ (well, C/C++ nearly catches up if you allow for MFC/KDE/Gnome/Cocoa/host of other libraries, but those are all platform dependent), but the syntax isn't that much easier to handle, so it isn't a good VB-killer candidate. Python syntax is extremely simple and scales well for complex tasks. I don't want to inflame perl advocates, perl is more powerful and easy for many tasks, but the syntax of python caters well to readability for learning and for the average programming tasks.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I think Sun made a mistake calling this distro Java xxxx but you can tell how many have tried it. I always found it amusing years ago when some DOS dink would tell me about the problems with Unix or Solaris. "You have to recompile all the time" - yeah at the time it had been a few years since I had recompile a Sun kernel. I could have turned around and complained about edlin. Same thing now with Linux on the desktop. How many of the arguments against it are legitimate? We even see managers from HP, IBM, Linux World and Red Hat saying linux is not ready for the desktop. What distro did they try and when. I use Mandrake but I bet there are at least six distros ready for home or enterprise desktop use today. Sun has always been good at large computing enviroinments and I hope they roll these out without much trouble. I see they are making deals where they just replace M$O with OO.o or StarOffice as well. Go Sun! Cut off Billy Bob's air supply.
"No, these are the lazy idiots who will buy exactly what's spoon fed to them. They are good for one thing - buying shit I spoon-feed to them."
You should be a rich man then?
This article does a good job of conveying WalMart's reach. Microsoft rules the desktop, but WalMart rules retail.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Isn't that the same desktop Linux system that doesn't include KDE or any QT libs whatsoever except for an old library just to run yast?
I can understand that for the sake of uniformity, Sun might want to go GTK-only in its workstation approach. But home and desktop users left without the good selection of qt apps (k3b is what really comes to my mind) are left with a colossally inferior solution to any other desktop offering.
Why leave a sizeable chunk of Linux software (especially of the desktop kind) out of the system and halve the possibilities? It's too early to do that, neither Gnome or KDE can really be mutually exclusive on a desktop yet.
Wal-Mart is already shipping Linux systems with what seems to be a pretty consumer-friendly desktop.
So, I don't believe this is a good development. Sun may be destroying Lindows here. And what is Sun pushing? A Gnome desktop integrated with Sun proprietary software.
This so-called IT manager keeps Java off his desktop because it crashes the system.
Maybe the IT manager means the Java interpreter (the one available at java.com) rather than individual Java programs?
Anyway, I completely agree with you. I routinely run the latest Sun Java interpreters on my computers without any problems. Hell, even my ol' Windows 98 compaq armada runs Java fine.
Does GAIM work for IM/chat? It's there.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
If you teach community classes, that explains education in the US.
Are you telling us that you are paying less than $100 total for Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office XP and support?
pity the fool that wants to buy a computer from Wal-Mart these days.... I think the nicest logo will win (to be honest).
If Java is now a brand, then from now on Java will have to be called "Java Language".
And any true Java Desktop will have to be called "Java Language Desktop".
Pathetic indeed.
According to the Java platform's package naming standard, the first few elements of a typical Java package's name are the last elements of a domain name in reverse order, which is why you see many Sun internal packages in "com.sun.*" and many Mac OS X specific packages in "com.apple.*". Thus, the publisher of a package whose name begins with "com.marketing" would be Marketing.com; this name is held by a domain speculator. I don't see what sort of important Java package a domain speculator would publish. Can somebody please explain this joke?
We use nouns in English to define things. Sometimes we get cute and reassign a noun to define another thing, like Java, which instead of being "coffee", now means a somewhat portable programming language initially developed by Sun.
When Sun start using "Java" in the name of a product, how can anyone NOT assume it refers to the the definition we all know for Java? Why is anything BUT reasonable to assume its a product written in or dependent on Java?
What's next the Harley-Davidson desktop?
That might be a good thing. Linux is perceived as an OS only used by geeks. The thing is, people need to make up their mind. You want widespread use of Linux, right? Isn't Sun's move even remotely beneficient to Linux? Of course this is not ideal, but it helps more than it "hurts".
Maybe you're just trolling, and I should leave this be, but hey, the obvious sometimes needs to be said.
What you've said above applies to the desktop market, although you still overstate the case a bit.
On the server-side, however, Microsoft faces many challenges. If you don't believe me, head on over to netcraft and check out IIS's marketshare. In the machine room, Microsoft has lost a massive number of customers, many of them to Linux, others to Solaris and other Unices.
Considering how much money Microsoft has put into trying to win back this category I'd say they feel challenged. The fact that they fail to take back ground is an even better indicator.
In the engineering workstation and visualization sectors, Sun still has a pretty damn good foothold. These are not so much customers that Microsoft lost as ones it never had.
Hell, don't even get me started on Tivo vs. UltimateTV.
That said, I am not really a firm believer in Linux on the desktop. It is a powerful system for servers and more advanced computing, but I think it has a few thousand too many moving parts to make it as a general purpose, mom-and-pop desktop. I don't think Sun's offering will change this. I would much prefer to see the community build an OS with the consumer in mind from day one.
WALMART CUSTOMER: Aint java whats them city folk drink in ther fancee coffee joints. Well I gots to get a JAVA computer. Its a heifer and two pigs cheaper than an Apple. I don't want that Micro-soft cause I herd bout identity theft on the 10:00 news, where the Russians bust in and steals yer numbers. I want my mo-chine to be REAL fancy though. I can buy a full inter-net computer for $299 at WAL-MART with a printer and TV screen and typewriter disk and I get 1000 free Owls(AOL). God bless America...Cheyanne, WHERES MY TV DINNER! Wheel of Fortune is on!
(fade to a small polyester flag which flaps in the breeze, a screen door slams shut next to a coon dog, on a redwood deck, connected to a trailer as a camaro being worked on in the yard revs its engine, coughs and belches black smoke.)
This to illustrate the point, its half about brand recognition to people who know very little and care even less and many will use the computer only for printing digital pictures, email and porn. It is not about usability (Microsoft anyone?), not about performance (microsoft again). The main problem will be a lack of computer games and tax software, but if it takes off, that will change soon. The real question is, will you want the white trash of America using Linux or Windows?
they just rebranded a bunch of existing, successful projects (gnome, java, linux) and tied them together into a new, slick product. the number of engineering and QA hours that went into JDS verses *any* other new product a company would deploy is minisqule... so the fact taht with so little energy invested that they already have sold *millions* of licenses makes it an astounding success.
not so much trolling as uninformed :-\
:)
thanks for the explanation though. obviously, there's a lot that i didn't think of.
Linux is hammering microsoft out of the supercomputer market and slowly killing microsofts market share in the server. Linux is moving in on the moblie phone market/PDA. Basicly Linux has too much going on to really target the desktop to hard. But Heck when they attack it will hit hard. Next sony games system could be the start of a wave.
This is the threat but Java desktop exists for linux question is what is the core under the Java desktop.
I did a quick check (read: too lazy to look for very long) for the sources and couldn't find them. Does anyone know where to locate them?
Why is it that all the supermarket linux boxes, which might actually get some marketshare among the populace, are set up with very dubious distributions? I mean, first there's Lindows. Blearghh. A linux that runs you as root. Yahooo. Just what nobdoy needs. At all. Now there's Sun's JDS. If I remember the review on Slashdot a week ago, it was a rather lukewarm welcome for the new linux distro, with worries about features, poor design and performance dominating the comments.
And here's The Question: Why doesn't some actual linux company get in touch with some supermarket chain which sells computers (there are enough, after all). Mandrake might have made the cash they desperately want, SuSE might get some market penetration in its competition with RedHat, and some Debian-based thingie could have gotten its ticket into the market. So why Sun and Lindows? It's not like Sun was traditionally in the home computing market; certainly not with prices like that.
Oh, one last thing: Some people mentioned the problem of grandma&grandpa(TM) going into the shop, looking for a photo editor, or some such, and of course finding only Microsoft-compliant stuff. I do not know about JDS, but any *nix (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, Mac OS X) I have ever used already had one of those! If you have the SuSE professional, there is precious little you might want that is not on those 2 DVDs. That's the beauty of a linux distro to my mind: (almost) everything you need/want in a box.
Divide et impera!
Anything that weakens MS will eventually benefit Sun (assuming they dont go out of business first, of course). If you cant win, you can at least try and be a spoiler.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I'd suggest that Sun has been building something pretty serious, one careful step at a time.
In order to challenge Microsoft they need to see some other OS on PCs. On a practical level it doesn't matter what OS, as long as it's not Windows.
But as noted, it's applications that drive PC purchases, not the OS. So what has Sun done?
Purchased StarOffice, spun off OpenOffice, and this week added support for the latter. For 95% of people the Sun office suites will handle anything that they want to do, as well as saving in MS compatible formats. It may not be perfect, but it's certainly Good enough. Better than MS Works in any event.
Add Mozilla and maybe Evolution for e-mail and you've covered the bulk of most people's activities.
So Sun can offer a non-Windows OS, a non-Windows software package. Bundle the new PC with a printer and Monitor, maybe a scanner, and you have a complete package that will suit most folks. If it does these things, and maybe connects with their digital camera, then they don't care about OSs and Application names.
The only thing left is marketing. Sell a similar box to say a fraction of the population of China and your per unit costs drop fast. Fast enough that you can also sell to WalMart, make a profit, and allow them to undercut other retailers.
Sure, there will be some problems supporting software and other hardware, but It still looks to me like Sun has a good chance of starting to eat into Microsoft's market share.
Barry
Three Squirrels
He's just exploiting one of the many bugs in the slashdot moderation system -- the 700,000 idiot moderators.
Give me a break. Do you have any idea how many Wal-Mart customers would run into problems without Windows installed on their PCs?
Customer: "Why doesn't POPULAR_RETAIL_SOFTWARE_OR_HARDWARE_PACKAGE install or work on my computer?"
Wal-Mart employee: "Uh, because it runs the Line-Uhx operating system or something."
Customer: "I thought my computer ran Microsoft Word operating system?!?"
What a disaster!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart alone could make low-cost, vendor-supported Linux computers available to almost everyone living in the continental United States. This still seems sort of hopeless-after all, consumers will still want Windows to run, well, almost all of the popular commercial software out there. After all, there isn't much commercial software, or hardware, support for Linux, right?
But that will change pretty fast once the largest retailer in the world is making Linux available to its customers. It would be a hell of a lot easier to make money from Linux software by slapping a "Wal-Mart PC Compatible" lable on the box and getting ten copies in every Wal-Mart in the USA. If Wal-Mart can succeed at selling PCs, it could even demand that software and hardware vendors support Linux to get a product onto Wal-Mart's shelves. Colleges that go all Microsoft in exchange for software discounts might have to stop requiring that students bring Windows PCs to school and use MS-Office formats for electronic submissions if half of their students realized how much money they could save by buying a Wal-Mart PC with the Java Desktop instead of a Windows PC and MS-Office.
Wal-Mart could be the catalyst for an Open-Source renaissance of sorts, bringing a shell prompts and compilers to the masses. If this report is true, and Sun can get Linux PCs on the shelves at Wal-Mart, a lot of people in Redmond are going to be really, REALLY scared.
Wait, look who I'm talking to. Of course you don't.
At this point (mid to late 2004) the Linux distros, Mac OS, and *BSD will be 100% compatable with SJD software, and Adobe, Quark, Mooneshine Automation Sys, etc., will port their software to SJD/Linux, assuming it catches on. The status quo may go back to what it is now, depending on how the hardware/M$ DRM situation works out, but it looks like there is hope for 'the free world.'
Or,
one month from now Microsoft will start selling a WinXP lite edition for $15/cpu to OEMs and basically buy back their dominance.
Either way I'm sticking with Apple.
I think what they're trying to do here is set up a system with which the easiest way to get new applications is to get new Java applications through JWS.
If you haven't used JWS, go and install the plugin and try it out. A friend of mine wrote a class diagram / UML tool called The Virtual Bar Napkin. If you have JWS installed, you can hit the link on his webpage and the application is running in a few seconds.
He didn't have to write an installer, or deal with a page saying "for this version, click here, for that version, click there".
And to clarify, It is not an applet. It's an application, running in its own window, etc. Furthermore, it is actually installed on your system, and you can access it later through the regular menu system (on windows) without having to be connected to the net. Upgrading to new versions is just as trivial.
JWS is a great example of the promise of Java. Write your client application, distribute it seamlessly, update it in near real time, and avoid all the nonsense with servlets and sessions and HTML + javascript web interface nightmare.
So long as this gets us closer to that, I'm interested.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
I agree. I think, as usual, Sun is rushing into this without forethought. The average buyer is not going to pay money for something that doesnt install AOL or Quicken or any of the games that the next guy on a windows PC has. I don't think it will matter if the darn thing is half the price of a Windows PC (In fact I am curious to see how they will price it. I doubt if they can sell a PC for any lower than $250-300. But then you can get a Dell for $400). Linux is a decent desktop but it has a long way to go before its UI is as smooth and comfortable as Windows.
If they are really serious about this, I think they should offer the Linux desktop only to corporate customers for now (maybe the corporate customers aren't flocking as they hoped.. maybe thats why the home PC idea). They should wait for a year or so until their developers have had enough time to smooth out the chinks and write/package really compelling apps with a stable interface. Also by then hopefully OO/StarOffice would have gotten better.
At the face of it, it looks like another one of those frantic attempts from the Sun folks to make some money. I think their home pc desktop idea will lose credibility just like how Java apps lost credibility because they packaged it out too soon.
These things aren't being sold in Wal-Mart stores. They're only available online.
Maybe the target market is businesses that want to run Sun JD (or other Linux distro) and aren't big enough to get Dell to sell them PC's without Windows.
There are enough *real* Linux customers out there that are not being served by the majors. Could this be Wal-Mart's way of going after Dell in the small business market that they've owned for too long now?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
SGI.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
So far I can only see Linux desktop being ready for enterprise use. It is nowhere near good enough or easy to use when it comes to home users. Sun would have better luck making a name for themselves in the enterprise first, and then spinning that success off into home markets if it really wants to. So far, Linux as a desktop can do office, mail, internet, and IMing good enough to replace microsoft. But printer support (for those people who want to do digital photo printing) is pretty lacking, or at least the tool useful for that is pretty obfuscated in some distros that I don't even know if Linux can do this yet. If it can will it be point and click, or will I have to go around tweaking some settings in Open Office or something? Speaking of Open Office.... it's a good free office suite, but I tried editing a MS Word file in it the other day that had charts, and OOo completely screwed it up. I had to install MS Word to be able to edit it properly. Linux and OO has some way to go yet. It will get there eventually... but it has a lot of playing catch up to do yet.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Give it one year of failing badly - then Sun goes to the DOJ and says: "We can't get our competing OS to sell at all, because of the monopoly that is MS." Will this fix it? No. Will it be another chance for Mr. Sun to aim another kick at the janglies of Mr Bill? You bet, it is what he wants to do. Bsides - in that year they will pick up a few customers, the grandma's of geeks, the few proto geeks who are poor etc.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Java is a great server side tool......surprise SUN is a server company.
I have yet to see SUN put out an application, written in Java or anything else that was user friendly and not god awful slow.
Im a Java fan, I would like to see the Java desktop, but I will not install one on my PC.
Between Java, various new Free Software Projects, and some microsoft stuff at work I am sick to death of S-L-O-W software that people keep reminding me is really wonderful.
When will speed and performance come back in fashion?
Steve
Seems like a great idea to me. Of my immediate family maybe two people out of 14-15 have in depth knowledge about computers. The rest of them have almost never bought any software. Their computer runs whatever Windows version it came with and they spend 99.9% of their computer time using Office/MSIE/Outlook. If something goes really wrong they call me and most of the time it's some sort of spyware that has abused MSIE and now pops pr0n up on their screen constantly.
Now Sun is offering a complete package that replaces the Windows/Office/MSIE/Outlook and it is both cheaper and more stable/secure (being Linux based) and supported as a single unit. Good for them! I get so many calls asking for computer help from these people, I'd never spend the time to setup Linux on their systems and then support it - but I might recommend they let Sun take that job.
n/t
I dream about this happening to Larry Ellison, Paul Allen and Bill Gates everyday. Of course Allen would like it......
EAT COCK!
the peripheral issue is not that bad
Last time I checked, Linux used SANE for scanner hardware support, and the Microtek Scanmaker 4850 I received as a gift was completely unsupported in SANE.
it will drive the peripheral market to offer Linux drivers a little more often.
Linux drivers, or Linux drivers that Just Work(tm)? There's a Radeon driver in Mandrake, and the installer detected the presence of my Radeon 9000 card, but it found no modes available.
Easy. Get a GameCube console, a Game Boy Player accessory, and a BTTV compatible TV input card, and you get thousands of available games for GameCube, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance platforms. In addition, you can easily move a Cube to the big TV in the family room when the kids are having a party; doing this with a desktop PC is more cumbersome, even if it does have composite video output.
IMHO
grisha.org
then Sun goes to the DOJ and says: "We can't get our competing OS to sell at all, because of the monopoly that is MS." Will this fix it? No.
But it might get the existence of a "device drivers barrier to entry" on the public record alongside Judge Jackson's "applications barrier to entry."
Hell, even my ol' Windows 98 compaq armada runs Java fine.
Wow, I didn't even know Win98 could do clustering.
LMFAO, they are idiots. Sun wont be around much longer as they cant seem to market anything ver well. Ontop of that the only flagship they have is their JAVA and Solaris solution which is quit legacy in its own. Good performace you say, compared to what? Other solutions can offer competetive performace with much more intuitive administration and end user friendliness.
Desktop Solution? Are you kidding me? Solaris already has an inteface that is a joke and SWING is the ugliest thing known to man, not to mention performes slow and responsivness is questionable.
Sun needs to get a grip and catch up with the times. Two years ago they were praising their 'new' processor that will revolutionize the industry, being the equivalant of 20 processors in one, wth happened to that? Still in development like most of Sun's stuff?
I have personal experience with Sun and this is why I hate them. The day they go down burning in flames is the day I celebrate a company that couldnt do shit right is gone forever!!!
(and for you english professors out there, a little side note. Intelligence is not judged by my grammar in a discussion board!)
"If I was smarter I could rule the world!"
Looks to me like they're selling the Desktop - ie the OS + Java + StarOffice. That doesn't include hardware.
Hardware has marginal cost. Marginal cost for software itself is $0. Ask Microsoft.
So it's just a matter of making sure that services/support are covered.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
The 100% Pure Hype(tm) Standard is part of Sun Microsystems initiative to promote the development of corporate earnings and increase of shareholder value using the Hype(tm) Marketing language. Compliance to the standard consists of faulty analysis and conclusions for multiple Hype Marketing Environments.
The 100% Pure Hype standard is the set of guidelines that a blind idiot can follow to assure a reasonable sense of comfortability. Customers can be assured that the program relies only on the documented and specified Hype platform, so that it will trick any unwitting dupe who is fooled by the Hype Marketing Environment.
etc.
"Nevertheless, Sun is moving forward, according to Schwartz, and is in talks with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp. about running Java on the companies' respective architectures. "
misquote! Java ran on AMD and Intel from 1.0pre beta1 in '95... Today it runs on itanic and amd64.
Java as a language encorages class inflation and even where it is fast, there is some slow coding. I don't like the memory handling in the JVM and have seen lockups and general suckage with regards to multiprocessing. OTOH, I'm talking about financial trading apps where the demands are somewhat greater.
I'm no Java fan, but on the whole it is more stable than the equivalent C/C++ implementation and it does not as the administrator claims, crash the system.
Java source is relatively easy to get hold of and if you don't like it, then there are LGPL'ed variants.
See my journal, I write things there
you rarely [hear] anyone declare that Apple must support every single last [piece] of hardware ever invented in the universe just because Windows does.
That's because there's plenty of hardware with "Compatible with Mac OS" on the front of the box, but I have seen little to no consumer PCI or USB hardware with "Compatible with Linux" on the front.
Perhaps IBM should submit a JSR.
It's openness has been without a strong de facto standard in interface design
What have you found wrong with the GNOME guidelines? Or do you mainly complain that too many high-profile apps do not conform, or that the competing KDE guidelines would confuse users too much?
it's installations are too open to user intervention.
I don't completely understand what you mean by this.
A cute label maker that Just Works with standard printers.
Provided the makers of label paper deign to cooperate by providing specifications of where the labels are placed on the page. However, too many printers are not "standard printers" in that they do not conform to a "standard" language such as PostScript or HP PCL; these non-standard printers need the cooperation of the manufacturer. In addition, "cute" implies clip art, and the free software community has found it rather hard to attract visual artists who are willing to free license their works under e.g. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.
A photo app that lets them just plug in a digicam and browse pictures
Again, provided the camera manufacturer deigns to cooperate.
or draw smiley faces on Cousin Bob without worrying about layers and opacity.
It's possible to edit an image in GIMP without creating a new layer, just as in Microsoft Paint.
Much like the academics on the pre-Mosaic internet, many Linux users tend to feel like people should have to know what 'root' privileges are to use a computer, as well as where the proper config files are and what a mount point is. (some go much further)
I agree that config files and mount points could be simplified as Mac OS X has, but I've found it rather easy to get people to understand the concept of superuser. Use an analogy between root and the head of the household.
that many of the most popular applications do not follow [their supporting desktop environment's human interface guidelines] is the problem.
Have you reported such inconsistencies to the maintainers?
grandmother-proof means you just use the most basic driver that works, and offer the chance to switch later through a config panel.
You mean 640x480 pixels, 16 colors? First impression in this case is that "Linux looks ugly."
Perhaps what linux truly needs is a common print control that sits between the application and the printer driver.
Isn't CUPS, the Common *n?x Printing System, supposed to do that? The thing holding it back is that HP and Canon have so far neglected to put working CUPS drivers on the discs bundled with their retail inkjet printers.
and then leave it up to the specific driver translation as necessary. hell, use HP PCL if they'll let you.
And if the printer manufacturer refuses to publish such a "specific driver", then what?
and the transmission standard dictates the file access protocols
Some cameras look like standard storage devices; others don't. Microtech Scanmaker 4850 flatbed scanners definitely don't.
Gimp is good but the default setup for the interface does not lead a new user to the logical conclusion that if i want to edit a picture i should run 'GIMP'.
Microsoft Paint is good but the default setup for the interface does not lead a new user to the logical conclusion that if i want to edit a picture i should run 'Microsoft Paint'. To Joe Sixpack, "paint" is what makes his house or car look a particular color. The expansion of "GIMP", on the other hand, contains "image manipulation". What would you suggest instead that isn't already taken as a trademark?
if the analogy of root and 'head of household' works - then why don't the interfaces reflect that?
Because I haven't yet suggested such an analogy to developers of desktop environments. Whom would I contact for this?
i think the entire concept of root/administrator is something the user shouldn't be asked to understand in detail.
And then you go on to explain sudo. Your gripe lies with the distribution makers that don't implement sudo transparently the way Mac OS X does.
and i'm not linux bashing.
I understand. I see no better way to bring out points for a system's developers to concentrate on than well-reasoned, justified, polite discussion of the faults of the system. If you have a better idea of how a human interface for a GNU/Linux environment should be designed, go right ahead and put up a web page about it.