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de Icaza: Rest of World Will Force US Into Linux
Eugenia writes "OSNews had an interesting discussion with Miguel de Icaza about all things Linux and Novell. Miguel talked about the general patent problem and how this will become the one single stumbling block of widespread adoption of Linux in USA, while he asserts that Longhorn uses some 'new' technologies already found on Gnome and elsewhere. Miguel believes that poor countries will be the first that will adopt widely Linux, and as long the EU won't adopt a similar system to US for patents, Europe will follow soon after, leaving no option to USA but to eventually adopt Linux as well in the long run (despite potential patent problems). Another strategy Miguel discussed was about moving as many F/OSS applications as possible to Windows in order to familiarize the casual users with open source. Among many other interesting tidbits he also mentions that Quark is now using Mono on Mac OS X." Of course, the EU not adopting software patents seems to be less and less likely.
Wrong. As has been pointed out oh-so-many times, not even Microsoft can open their own documents in different versions of Word in the same way. So close enough is good enough for most users.
The European wasn't bypassed. It's part of the law making process. The proposal bounces between comission an parliament several times until one side accepts the proposal of the other. The comisions proposal will hit the parliament after the election, so elect wisely.....
First, I will admit that I didn't RTFA yet, so let's get that out of the way. Mod me down if you don't like it.
That said, I would say that the US is unlikely to adapt a standard just because the rest of the world has. Witness:
www.wavefront-av.com
Of course, most of the people in the Parliament directly responsible for this directive were pro-software patents (as the whole purpose was to legalise software patents, and not "clarification" and "harmonisation" like the Commission claims). Let's hope indeed the next Parliament will be ready to show its teeth if we can't get the Council to reconsider.
PS: Here's the whole codecision procedure in pseudo-java. I wonder whether this means that the "underlying principles and processes" of it should be patentable as well...
Donate free food here
Quite true and rather a confusing situation for everyone for a while. Interesting you talk about territory when the EU is a political entity. It's the people which matter. About 2/3 of the countries have joined.
The EU is now 450 million people, just two weeks ago it was 380 million. In 3 years it will be 480 million when Romania and Bulgaria join. Then it will be just Switzerland, Norway, the Balkans. I suspect Russia will never join and it be a good few years before Belarus and Ukraine join.
In 50 years the EU is going to be a unified superpower and the EU and Europe will be synonymous. Hopefully they won't forget the reason for it existing in the first place.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The US is already a major user of Linux. Pick any major distribution, what language is it in? What country does it originate from?
I think there is just a few faulty assumptions here, as well as some mis-applied logic. For example, "MS is evil" is a subjective opinion, and not really fact. If it wasn't for MS and windows, I don't think computers would be quite as widespread as they are now. "The US will follow the rest of the world", while at times they should be doing what the rest of the world is doing, the US will do what it wants, for better or worse (proof: metric system, Iraq)
In PPP figures the EU would be larger economically. It's just that the poster used the wrong figures (plain GDP).
European Union GDP $: 11.50 trillion Per Capita $: 25,300 Pop: 454,900,000
United States GDP $: 10.40 trillion Per Capita $: 37,600 Pop: 290,343,000
I think you have the direction of dependency reversed. The Economist, among other sources, regularly bemoans the fact that the world is far too dependent on being able to export to the US, the "consumer of last resort". If the US were to abruptly cut its imports by enough to eliminate its trade deficit, there would be some pain; but the economies of countries like China and Korea would suffer far more.
At the present time, the US economy is just about ten times the size of the Chinese economy. Assuming that China can outgrow the US by five percentage points per year (say 8% growth to 3%), it will take 48 years for China to "catch up". And the Chinese government is already trying to scale back their current growth rate, realizing that it is not sustainable. China may be the next big market, but it will be a long time before that market is comparable in size to the US.
Unfortunately, we may all get a chance in a few years to see what happens when the US has to make big cuts in its spending habits. The US consumer "engine" appears to be driven by debt, both public and private, and the situation will have to change.