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Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn
An anonymous reader writes "In Miguel de Icaza's latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn's new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs users to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Originally seen on OSnews." Mmmm...Miguel smart. Seriously, good commentary - and ripe for discussion/flame wars.
Hey - if someone wants to make a goal for Mozilla, here is a good one:
Create a "drop-in" replacement for Internet Explorer. That is, it has the same layout and "feel" of the IE browser without all that monopoly crap.
I'd use Mozilla if I could shift+click and get a new browser window. But every time that I install it, I end up removing it because of little annoyances that happen from my IE habits. I can't expect to make others use it (I deploy many PCs) if I don't do it myself.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Having something similar to the Microsoft platform would encourage developers to develop cross-platform. If a usable subset is developed on mono, the restriction to that subset is the price for a cross-platform application - better than a reimplementation.
What do you mean 'wasting time'?
His post is all about getting something working out of the door first. The point is defining what you need to do and how to go about doing it. Someone has to mull all of this over, privately and publicly, and Miguel's one of the ones doing this.
Good for him.
(Did I troll feed? Sorry)
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
Although I don't think the OSS community should be making descisions based solely on Microsoft's heading, I don't think ignoring them is the way to go either. I do think the fact that something like mono exists makes one less argument *not* to make the switch to linux. If you support .net the Linux platform can attract developers which would otherwise be coding for and on Windows only.
Just my 2ç
It's not a clone, it's an evironment that allows portable code. That is one of the points of .NET; with a written VM, the code can run on anything. Like Java, except Microsoft isn't writing the VM's for other platforms, it's down to the users, hence Miguel.
> There's no reason for me or anyone else to buy Longhorn EVER
Just as there was no reason to buy Windows XP. But still, many people did it. And new computers come with Windows XP, so there is no easy way to avoid it.
Especially when the first applications are written that only run on that version of Windows. (Either XP or Longhorn.)
I thought Sun Solaris was the standard for servers? I thought Apple the standard for schools? Face it, there is no standard. The standard software is the software which comes first. Microsoft steals standards but never sets them. The browser was not invented by Microsoft, Netscape was around long before IE. Just like Google owns the search engine and AOL owns instant msging, Microsoft is not standard. We should take the good features of OSX, BEOS, Unix and Windows and make the best OS. Forget about copying Microsoft as if Microsoft innovates. Copy Apple, at least Apple actually does invent new technologies instead of just new buzzwords.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
If the OS blocked the user from installing other software that would be one thing, but they don't and you can install whatever you want to.
And just how many people do that? If you want a clue, look at the adoption of Opera, and especially Mozilla (which doesn't have the cost barrier Opera hase) against IE. Despite the fact that IE is a security-hole-ridden pile of outdated junk and Opera and Mozilla beat it hands-down on features and standards compliance, huge numbers of people still use IE. Why? Because it came with the computer and they either don't know there are alternatives, don't want to know or aren't allowed to use them because they "aren't supported".
Certainly he has boundless energy, but many people were allready pointing out that it could be the case to concentrate on getting P&P functionality with what was allready available (and hence beating MS to the market), rather than play MS at a game of catch up that you could never win (they make the rules).
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
That was quite an interesting read. While I don't totally agree with every point, the gist of the blog is right on target. I think one of the keys to Linux fighting off such threats is to get better cohesion between GNU projects, outside the Linux distro. This weekend I went to install some GNU software on my WinXP Pro laptop. I get to the download page, and ooops! I also need to install 3 other GNU projects just to get the software I want to work. Then I get to one of the other projects, and ooops! I have to install another program to get it to work. To install one app, I had to install 4 others, which meant a lot of navigation and downloading. No sweat. I am a coder; I can do this. But it did take extra time. I started wondering why these were not all packaged together, or why the installer could not simply detect they were not there and install the needed apps. This is one advantage MS has over many GNU projects and the Linux community. They are one company, and can enforce product compliance, etc. The point I am leading to is this: if the GNU community wants to beat MS in the long run they need to make sure more of their apps can easily install on MS boxes without having any knowledge of programming, IT, etc. Once you get people using this software, the switch to using this software on Linux will be much easier. Open Office is a great example of this. I know most GNU projects compile on Windows (or will with some modifications) but it has to be easier for the Windows user to get said applications.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Despite the fact that IE is a security-hole-ridden pile of outdated junk and Opera and Mozilla beat it hands-down on features and standards compliance, huge numbers of people still use IE. Why? Because it came with the computer and they either don't know there are alternatives, don't want to know or aren't allowed to use them because they "aren't supported".
And because webmasters, especially those using Windows Media, are too stupid to embed multimedia in a way that mozilla can handle (i.e. no ActiveX, dummies). Especially big commercial sites with loadsacash budgets tend to fuck this up, whereas joe schmoe geocities sites tend to actually work (before their bandwidth limit is reached).
Most "IE-only" sites (that don't use javascript to kick you out) work perfectly in mozilla, mostly the windows(multi)media/plugin infested sites suck ass.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
For example, why is everyone trying to get 2D vector icons when it's obvious 3D or even 4D (fourth dimension is time) icons are the way to go? Why on earth would 3D or 4D icons be the way to go? It's a simple picture that reperesents an application or idea. The simpler the better. Nobody cares if their word processor icon has phong hilights and the like.
From Miguel's blog The sandboxed execution in .NET [1] means that you can visit any web site and run local rich applications as oppposed to web applications without fearing about your data security: spyware, trojans and what have you.
That's true...if Microsoft can get it right. But as in any complex software system, there will be bugs, and considering the scope of Microsoft's deployment base, it could be disastrous. I do not think Microsoft makes worse code than anybody else, it's simply that updating their massive install base is very difficult once bugs are found. Also, the majority of Windows desktop users make poor systems administrators, there will always be bugs and crackers that exploit them. Sad, but true.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
.Net/Mono, C et al will be for the overseeable future. (Dont give me the "C is portable too" crap, just today I found differences in the behaviour of strtok between platforms, not to speak of "compile everywhere").
.Net", hopefully they will interoperate more or less seamlessly, something that there is already work in progress on in more than one place.
Its always interesting to see people dismiss java as a failure out of hand with no real arguments for it. Did it fail? Depends on your point of view. Is java cross-platform? Most certainly is! And will continue to be so to a bigger extent than
Is java a failure on the client? Well, as far as circulation goes, probably, but that has three main reasons:
1. Higher learning curve, VB will always be easier to learn.
2. Old myths die hard: yes, Java was slow and java interfaces where ugly and clunky. 5 years ago! Newsflash, Java has moved forward in great leaps since the days of Java 1.1
3. Applets are mostly useless. But: Java != Applets!
Java is a great success just about everywhere else BUT on the desktop computer though, there are millions of java-enabled handsets, there are tens of thousands of java server deployments etc etc.
But.. Hopefully in the future I wont have to choose "java or
XUL does not have the potential to do this for one simple reason. Almost nobody runs Mozilla. Yeah, I know we all do, but in the real world, on the desktops of people doing their internet banking, their web based email and so on, nobody uses Mozilla, so people cannot ship a web based app using Mozilla tech (XUL). It would have to run on IE to have even a chance in hell of nullifying Avalon, and XUL simply does not, and will never, work on IE.
You're deceiving yourself if you think XUL can do it. Microsoft's new technologies WILL be out there, and they WILL succeed. If you accept that, you can be smarter about things. Let's get interoperable so we can compete - THEN we can extend into a new arena.
Miguel "gets it." The future of the web is seamless, safe perfectly integrated rapid application delivery. Imagine delivering an app via website that used native widgets and looked and felt like part of your OS, all while safely sandboxed. It's gonna happen come the Longhorn./NET heydey.
Many fanboys bitch and moan that Miguel laps up the Microsoft swill and ensures their success, but I'd argue it's the converse: Miguel knows we need to reach interoperability to have a meaningful competition in the first place. The better technology doesn't always win. Sometimes you gotta play the game via the home team's rules before the league lets you vote to change them.
From what I've seen, most linux users are always comparing linux to windows 95 and 98...most of them having bailed out of using windows around then...and they basically are fighting against the ghost of windows past. Whereas I don't see many of these people ever saying "yes, I use winddows xp / server2003 almost constantly in an attempt to understand what I'm up against here."
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This "analysis" is poor:
Where is "Java" in that list? Java's only big problem, at this point, is the mindset that "something is wrong with it". It's really quite good, and there is a growing ecosystem of open source stuff (see SWT and friends) growing around it.
Every major computer company besides Microsoft supports it, and a Sun JVM now ships with many (most?) new Windows PCs. Even if not, a broadband JRE download is only a couple of minutes...and ~40% of U.S. households are on broadband if I remember a recent article correctly.
There is also plenty of effort going into Free/OSS JVM development, including gcj and IKVM on Mono.
Java tends to break the MS monopoly...Mono/.Nyet tends to lock it in. Which do we really want?
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Around 10% or so run Netscape/Mozilla, still a small amount. This amount could easily rise if AOL wanted it to, but until AOL decides to do so, Mozilla won't gain much support at least not in the USA.
In other countries however this is a different story.
If AOL were to market Netscape like they do Winamp and AIM, everyone would be using it instead of IE. We use AIM and ICQ over MSN already even though MSN comes with the damn OS.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Let's just hope that never happens... Is there anything around at the moment that ONLY runs on XP?
I help blind users with access to computers, and the evil JAWS screen reader package ($1800!) comes with limitations; you can only install it on win95, 98, ME (why?), and XP home only. No win2000 of any flavour, and no XP pro. The reasons for its restrictions are not technical though; they are built in to ensure that corporate users are charged more than personal ones...
I've started teaching one of my clients some linux skills as X can now talk... the Linux revolution is here for the blind community, as it is for the rest of us!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Also to assume Microsoft will win, is to have sold out. If you think Microsoft is going to win at everything they do, why don't you go work for them and help them.
That's the difference between being a realist and an idealist. It would be ideal if Microsoft wasn't a guarantee, but it is for now. Accept it and maybe we can do something about it.
Developing (say, mono ) to prevent platform lock-in is a hell of a lot better than trolling Slashdot and whining about how everyone else's actions are wrong.
As more people get more and more spyware on their computer they tend to think it's "getting old" and is "too slow" for today. Hence they want a new computer because all the sudden their old one seems slow. I've seen it several times and I'm sure it's happening elsewhere.
People will always buy new desktop computers and upgrade their OS (you'd be suprised how many typical home users actually do this...).
Longhorn will have a pretty decent installed base once all is said and done I bet.
The Mono project is an implementation of .NET on other OS's. This means developers *are free* to build any framework they like using the C# language alongside of implementing the MS ones for compatibility. The C# language is highly productive for a programmer, and when coupled with a good IDE can lead to code rates of over 500 lines of code a day (which is roughly what I will pound out on a decent day). By having .NET on Linux I can write an app in Mono on Windows, then easily port it to run on Linux. As long as you stay away from COM and some other proprietry stuff you can enjoy the comfort of the MS IDE whilst producing code for other platforms. Now, how isn't this a win-win for Linux?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I doubt that Microsoft's newest OS will have anything drastically new that the Linux community does not already have, or that can easily be added.
.NET apps seems to be a really good idea from a security standpoint -- patch the runtime and all .NET apps benefit, be it performance benefits or security benefits. No more of this "patch a single app" stuff. Microsoft is definitely on the right track with this.
.NET runtime IS faster than Java, meaning it's actually possible for them to make most of Windows's user apps run in the .NET VM without a huge performance hit. As much as Slashdotters lambast Microsoft for not "innovating", they're definitely taking radical steps with Longhorn. And, as usual, I predict that Linux users will remain stubborn and say "Oh those features are stupid, no one will use them. Linux can already do that with this ugly hack. RTFM" until about two years after Longhorn is released, at which point suddenly you'll see GNOME and KDE emulating all those things that Longhorn has been doing for years.
I wouldn't be so sure. Integrated XML user interfaces? Sandboxed VM execution for user-mode applications built in to the OS? Longhorn's got em, Linux doesn't. In particular, the emphasis on
It's attitudes like yours that Icaza is talking about. "Oh, XYZ huh? Yeah Linux has that, if you follow these seemingly endless instructions to get this kludgy hack working." I hate to say it, but just watch. Microsoft's XML UI technology is going to be faster than Mozilla's XUL, and their
Maybe I'm on a fruitbreak or something, but why not pick up GNUstep and enhance that? That way you get some semblance of source compatibility with Mac OSX Cocoa apps. Why follow Microsoft's example? It has always ended in tears in the past.
Stick Men
I don't know nor care much about whether or not going to support Avalon and XAML is a good idea if your goal is nuke Microsoft and Redmond.
However
My goal for Mono, being an active supporter and a small contributor, is not to try and kill Microsoft. My goal is not like most slashdot zealots to wipe and replace Microsoft. My goal is to provide Linux with a platform for developers that they can and will enjoy.
The point is not to compete with the Java world nor to compete with the Microsoft world. The point of Mono is to create both a self hosting platform and a platform that will be somehow compatible with Microsoft.
The point of Mono is not the be 100% compatible! It has never tried to be 100% compatible. The main point of Mono is to create a self hosting platform.
People often argue that it would be better to implement our own kickass framework. Well, Mono is just that. Agreed they are filling in the specifications which Microsoft made. But Mono is doing much more than that. And the specification is not that bad at all. Why throw a way a nice specification just because you hate the creator of it? That doesn't make any sense. And I don't hate Microsoft, nor do most Mono developers (oh by the way, Miguel is not the only developer).
Hating Microsoft is foolish and stupid. You don't have to love them (hell I don't) and you don't have to agree with their marketing point NOR technical point of view (mostly for the marketing part I for sure don't), but that doesn't mean that you also have to ignore them completely. I even dare to say that you are a fool and an idiot if you do so.
I would very much support introducing support for Avalon/XAML in Mono if Avalon/XAML is a nice technology. And yes, it looks nice to me. So if it's possible to implement that technology (using Mono or using whatever) then I think that we as an OpenSource community should do that. We should, indeed, (re)implement it, at some point in time.
Not because we can then compete with Microsoft, thats not the point, but because we want to provide developers (and in the end, users of our softwares) with the best technology, the best platform and most choices.
Our users will have the benefit of not having to get locked in that Microsoft monopoly because WE recreated a part of that Microsoft-world.
Lets not forget that we are doing this because of the love of the art of programming, not because we HATE Microsoft. Thats what those stupid newbie Linux usies think why we do it. We love the art of programming. We love to show our art and the best way to do this is by making it public. And we, OpenSource developers, think that the best way to make things public is by licensing it using for example GPL, MIT or whatever OpenSource license.
Just like a lot musicians release their compositions for free, so that students can learn using their materials. I often compare such (classical) music with software code. The author thinks that it's art, the listener mainly enjoys it. But for a lot people it's art, okay?
For software developers, our code is our art. Our users don't give a shit about that code. They want to use our code. We want to distribute our art and show our skills. THATS the main reason why OpenSource exists. NOT because we HATE Microsoft.
Regretfully most people think we are doing this because we hate Microsoft. We don't. (And I speak for a lot OpenSource developers, I am confident about that).
There was a good reason to buy Windows XP - it is great. It's by far the best version of Windows since 95, and for people that were stuck with 98, or God forbid ME, there was a clear reason to upgrade.
Free iPods - now in the UK!
I see Longhorn as a threat more from an interoperability standpoint, personally. For example, we're just now starting to get to a semi-usable point with the NTFS filesystem. Longhorn will use WinFS, which is essentially NTFS with a database layer on top of it. Which means Linux will need to reverse engineer in support. Again.
.NET hard with enterprise developers, and if it starts to get strong uptake without Linux support, it would essentially gurantee a stronger uptake of Windows on the server side, which is also bad. It's a catch 22 type situation, really.
If Microsoft follows through with many of the changes they've announced for Longhorn, it essentially means Linux would be set back to square one as far as being able to work together with a Windows system on several fronts. Nothing MS haven't done in the past, but the thing that makes this particularly dangerous for us is the fact that they're going all the changes are much lower level this time.
This is the reason I've always been unable to decide if I agree with the Mono project philosophically or not. On one hand, I do feel that trying to play catch up with a language implementation where MS is making up the rules cheapens Linux to an extent. On the other, Microsoft is pushing
Mono means they can stay in their comfort zone, but still produce software that will work for people moving to Linux. You're not likely to change the minds of all those Windows programmers who are just doing a job because they are being paid to do it, but you can at least open a path of least resistance towards portability. Go Mono!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Off topic, but ... Are there any examples of actual projects using mono that I could try out right now? (On Linux.)
.. Anything?
Web apps, desktop apps, utilities
I do. I use Windows XP hours on end at work. But I use GNOME on Debian at home. And I prefer GNOME over XP. Even though I'm on a 750MHz Duron.
And, in my opinion, it doesn't matter that I'm a power user in both OS's. I work as a student tutor at the local community college, and I see people completely new to computers coming into the lab every semester.
They don't find Windows intuitive. They don't find Office intuitive ("Where is cell B5?"). They don't find MS Paint intuitive.
The easiest thing for them to use is the Internet. And that's actually easier to use under Linux than Windows, since IE is absent under Linux. People get all these windows popping up over their screen, and they have a hard time doing anything about it.
There's a lot of people around who still don't know how to use a computer well. They go to community colleges to learn. Community colleges exist to serve the needs of bussinesses, and they have a tendency to swallow market speak. So market, damnit!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I see two possible options:
* Implement Avalon/XAML and ship it with Linux (with Mono).
* Come up with our own, competitive stack.
wxwidgets and python with a sandboxed execution stack using the already existing xmlrpclib.
Got Code?
Java failed because Sun assumed it was good to use on the web and it simply wasnt.
.NET (and Java too) come up with good, interoperable, solid ways to make this happen, web apps will be springing up in areas that you have never imagined.
No, Java "failed" [as a web app framework] because Sun never could put together an applets platform that was fast and produced professional-looking apps.
If you really believe there has never been any demand for fully functional applications running in a browser, your vision of the demand for apps has been far too narrow over the last 10 years. There was absolutely high demand for this type of application in 1995, and even more so now. Some isolated examples are coming closer and closer to this vision already, just making use of DHTML and proprietary browser enhancements. Good examples are the newer versions of Exchange Web Access and Hotmail, which are both coming closer to fully functional web apps with every new release. Once
More importantly, there is high demand for easily deployable applications in many business environments, and it's obvious that the easiest deployment is no deployment - something which is only accomplished via a universal tool that everyone already has - i.e. The Browser. Just because you personally don't see the need for a web app, does not mean that many thousands of companies with billions of dollars to spend don't have business needs for them.
This is only half true. As the 'computer person' in the family I get all of the 'my computer...' calls. Most of these calls are related to virus activity and or crappy performance. The most common being performance issues. 9 times out of 10 this is related to LOTS of spyware. Every machine I sit at after removing all of the spyware and setting up adaware to run every so often I remove all links to internet explorer from the users desktop and start menu and replace them with Mozilla. I name the link 'Internet Explorer' and replace the icon on some machines because people do not know what to do in any other case. Once this is done I always get comments like 'The Internet is so much faster now!' and once I tell them about the new 'feature' of tabbed browsing it is a done deal. 100% of these users are STILL using Mozilla. As I am sure all of the readers here know its all about what is PRESENTED to the user. As long as MS continues to bundle IE it will be the dominate browser. If we do not want that to be the case then start removing it from user land and putting mozilla in its place.
By having .NET on Linux I can write an app in Mono on Windows, then easily port it to run on Linux.
.Net as far as speed and GUI capabilities, and for real (not two-day petstore toys that the press loves) applications, they're about the same as far as productivity. .Net has a little less cruft, but give it a few years and it will have similar cruft as Java. Check out javootoo for nice look and feels for Swing apps.
Disclaimer: I am not a Java fanboy, but if you really wanted to do this, why not use Java? Instead of waiting for Miquel to try and reimplement an unofficial port of a moving target (.Net), Java on Linux is officially supported by Sun. There are many IDEs available for Java. If you want GUIs, JBuilder is probably the best. For general coding, Eclipse is about the best IDE I've used, once you get used to its philosophy. After a couple of months with Eclipse, I had to go back to VS.Net 2003 for a couple of days, and I was shocked hollow it was and how dependent I had become on the "lightbulb" feature (fix my code) of Eclipse and the refactoring tools. Not to mention the on-the-fly compiling.
As an aside, VS.Net 2005 will have this lightbulb feature, and I predit the MS mainframers at our company will come running into my office to show this innovative "new" feature that Microsoft invented.
Anyway, the features you want are already available. Once you get the cheerleaders from both sides out of the room and get down to real work, Java is about the same as
So maybe the Mozilla team should consider creating a XUL plug-in for IE then. Is that feasible, or are there technical quirks preventing that from happening?
You can already "embed" XUL in IE of course, by having the user download the Gecko ActiveX control and effectively embed a renderer within a renderer, but that's a cheap hack and has severe performance implications.
To be frank, I'm 100% not convinced that Avalon is going to be as world changing as Miggy predicts. I think it's especially rash to be starting internal projects even if they are "thought only" to develop a competitor.
Miguel thinks Avalon will be great, because it will let you deploy applications via the web browser that use native widgets, and be nicely integrated with .NET and so on.
But ... but ... but ... Microsoft did this years ago (minus .net). Or am I really the only one who remembers the version of Outlook implemented entirely using DHTML/HTA (which produces native widgets). I can't remember the codename, but the project was scrapped. The benefits of running Outlook inside IE just were not compelling enough to overcome the performance and other problems.
I'm not denying it'd be useful. The long term UI goals for my own packaging/installer project are that the user should be able to launch (and implicitly install) software simply by clicking on an icon embedded in a web page. As far as the user is concerned then the effects would be the same, so the real differences lie in how the developer sees things.
In the Avalon world view, the developer creates widgets on a canvas (AFAIK), ties them together with .NET code, and then .NET CAS allows you to launch it from a web browser without fear of it doing nasty things to your machine (which is a massive oversimplification, but oh well).
In fact, we can do this sort of thing today, with technologies that are either here or just around the corner. SELinux allows you to effectively sandbox native code to a fine degree, similar to .NET CAS except enforced at the kernel level and not by a VM. It's not just a set of kernel security checks - it's actually a security architecture with an exposed set of APIs which allow people to use MAC security features to a high level.
I don't know enough about .NET security to know how it compares, but SELinux policy is easily distributable in the form of text files and allows you use native code, which runs directly on the CPU without the overhead of a VM and huge set of managed APIs.
So, if you can download some native code and correctly sandbox it, you have the start of web app deployment. XAML appears to bear a superficial representation to Glade (note: NOT xul) but using a more customised and therefore human friendly schema.
I say Glade and not XUL because a Glade file is, in actuality, not an UI description at all. It's really a persisted GObject tree that libglade uses along with the GObject reflection APIs to reconstruct the GUI at runtime. I have read that XAML despite appearances is similar: it is a persisted .NET object graph.
So, I think if Miguel starts from "what user experiences does this technology allow" and work backwards, he'll find we already have the basics in production. Sure, they need to be improved and tied together, but they are there nonetheless.
Finally I think it's wrong to say that the reason desktop Linux didn't happen in 1994 was because people were "sleeping at the wheel". The fact of the matter was in 1994 Microsoft already had several thousand people working on Windows full time, whereas desktop Linux had .... none.
Really, I think a simpler explanation is just that MS had a monopoly pumping cash into their development teams, and Linux did not. Its falling behind was therefore completely inevitable until it gained enough momentum to move as fast as Microsoft do.
Here's a question. How do we copy Microsoft and get our "working something" out the door first? Do we go back in time?
Here's another question which nobody on the "We must clone Microsoft's products at all costs" lobby has ever satisfactorily answered: how are we contributing anything to the world if our product is just a (poor, it has to be poor, because Microsoft's technologies are not lumbered with having to run on a platform that was never designed to run them) clone of something that already exists? Do we improve music by producing "free" versions of Brittney Spears and the Spice Girls? Do we contribute something new and wonderful by making a movie with the exact same plot as Terminator 3, but with even poorer acting? Do we ensure that everyone has something that caters for them by spending a lot of effort cloning the writing style of Jeffrey Archer and writing predictable thrillers, then redistributing them for free?
As long as Microsoft defines the product, Microsoft will be ahead. Icaza ignores this because Icaza likes Microsoft's technologies, they suit him, he lacks the imagination, will, and talent to produce anything better than what Microsoft produces, so he's content to spend the rest of his life in perpetual catch-up, pretending that he will in some way be able to produce something better than his mentor and rival without ever knowing ahead of time what it is that mentor and rival will be producing and so being unable to produce his clone before Microsoft's original.
The truth to the statement "The central point was that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to define the game. And when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win." is self-evident. You cannot both follow and lead.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The truth to the statement "The central point was that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to define the game. And when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win." is self-evident. You cannot both follow and lead.
That is specious reasoning; Microsoft gets to define the game regardless. No matter how much we innovate, the pain of migrating to another platform keeps companies on Windows. If we created the next killer app, Microsoft would have plenty of time to copy it before people started to migrate en masse.
The only way to ease the pain of migration is to make things work. Most companies' infrastructure is far too thick to be able to migrate to a whole new platform in one giant leap. So addressing Windows compatibility is critical before many people can even consider Linux.
That said, I agree largely that a single project can't lead and follow, but GNU/Linux is not one project. If you are arguing that resources spent copying Microsoft are wasted, then I think it is only your own time that is being wasted, since open source developers work on what they want and will never all agree to one ideology.
A Microsoft clone of GNU/Linux is as bad a thing as a F/OSS clone of Windows. Clones are bad. Choices are good. Clones remove choice.
Remember the late eighties? You had Amigas, Macs, Atari STs, PC Clones with GEM, PC Clones with Windows, and those were just the "mainstream" platforms. You had choices. You could chose a computer that actually suited you. The different manufacturers did things in different ways to suit their audiences. There was more than a nod to the Mac in all of the above, but not so much you could safely argue most were clones of it. That was a good time to be in computing.
The F/OSS communities can be leaders in the industry. It doesn't have to replace one monopoly with another. It certainly doesn't have to submit to a monopoly mindset, as its leaders do today.
This is a justification for cloning Microsoft, not something that addresses the issue of Microsoft's ability to define the game. And it doesn't answer the fundamental "what's the point of creating something that isn't a choice" issue I raised in my original. I'm arguing that copying Microsoft is fundamentally damaging. The cloners are more interested in the idea that something called "GNU/Linux" will become popular and that "Microsoft" will not than producing something positive. They don't care what gets called GNU/Linux, as long as it "takes over the world". If it's a lousy, security hole ridden, irritating, poor clone of an operating system that was never any good to begin with, that's fine, as long as the name wins out.This shouldn't be a war against Microsoft. This should be a war against a lack of choices, and against proprietary software. Both are inherently undermined by the cloners.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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I do not think you read my whole message,
because I stated that there were two options:
to implement Avalon, or to build our own.
We are in the process of specing out what
ours should be (the platform we call
"salvador").
Miguel.
Sure enough, Microsoft has DEDICATED people reading this stuff. Access to it is just a click away. Market strategy is all about surprise. So I'm proposing a new movement. Open Source, Closed Strategy (OSCS). Seriously.