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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.
Well, that's a nice idea and all, and the initial logic seems to follow, but... will the US actually follow suit? The US isn't exactly known for following the rest of the world. Think of the metric system, for one...
to move F/OSS to Windows. It helps the migration to Linux a lot better.
Linux needs to improve to become a better desktop OS.
Many organizations do not use Linux and F/OSS becuase they have not been certified for use with their profession, like accounting etc. So there needs to be certification of Linux and F/OSS products. If the organization doing the certification is in the pocket of MS, fat chance of that happening.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
...largely uses either legitimate copies of Windows (most of Western Europe and Japan) or pirated copies of Windows (poorer regions like most of Africa, South America, Asia).
I really don't see this changing.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
> So since he has already made his fortune, why should he care if there are strong IP laws to insure that others get paid for their work?
> Actually, the same criticism applies to all these big name open-source advocates.
Right, RMS is in it for the $$$:-)
What does "US" mean in this case? It's not like there aren't already American people and companies using Linux. Does he mean the US government?
I mean, when is the last time you heard of a successful business person taking advice from a skid row bum?
And, yes, I know it sounds harsh, elitist, and rude, but it is the truth and we all know it.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Is for the big important games to start coming out for Linux instead of Windows.
Of course, while the U.S. sucks for console games, it rules the PC game market. So I don't know how likely it is for games to be a way for the world to force the U.S. into OS compliance...
Also if De Icaza gets his way this won't happen.. since Icaza's glorified-Wine mono project is more likely to lead to crossplatform games than linux-only ones...
-- Super Ugly Ultraman
From the article:
Poor countries don't have the money to buy and maintain Windows; this is where open source software is becoming a real and powerful alternative," he said.
OK, but if they are too poor to maintain Windows, doesn't that also mean that they are that much more open to pressures and special "deals" (to ensure lock-in) from Microsoft?
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
There is at least a bit of a fundimental difference.
:) ).
Joe Six-Pack in the U.S. doesn't usually need to use the metric system in his life, so he has no incentive to change over to it. He DOES however use the internet regularly, and his company may do deal with some overseas companies. If Linux is adopted overseas, all it means it that interoperability will probably have to be maintained between Linux and Windows. Once that happens though, managers in the US may start to see the cost savings, and switch.
On the other hand, as long as the interoperability is maintained, there is no incentive to switch.
For instance, if the U.S. was REALLY serious about moving to the metric system, they should offer incentives to Juice/Bottle makers too only put out things in metric containers (instead of a Half gallon of milk/Juice, go get a 2 liter contianer). They should also mandate that all gas pumps should be switched to the Liter instead of the Gallon. Those two things alone would bring the Metric system into the average persons, life in such a dramatic way that it might foster adoption (one they get past the resentment that things have changed
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I think its good to see a leading F/OSS developer saying there needs to be F/OSS software made available on Windows. I am a developer that releases software under the GPL and try to make all of my software cross-platform. I believe that F/OSS developers needs to get out of the Linux bubble and realize that there are other platforms which are hungry for the software. I think that cross-platform is the next logical step for developers. I want to be able to use the same software at work (SolarisOS), home (WindowsXP), and develop environment (Linux).
A little learning never hurt anyone.
Here's to another 7-10 years of the Linux community ignoring people telling them how to improve the end user experience!
My though exactly. The US doesn't mind changing just as long as it changes in the way they though of. If the metric system was created in the US then it would be fully used right now. The same with Linux adoption, Linux wasn't an American product it is more of a world product which is competing against Microsoft (An American Product). As well the poor job in education in the US in the Math/Science areas has extended to computer technology. So before we were doing a poor job teaching the metric system to kids and encouraging them to use the English System (Until late in high-school, where the courses are elective). Now we are doing a worse job in teaching computers to the children (where 20 years ago the intro computer courses would cover programming in Basic and Logo, and now they are teaching hotkeys for Word) So this generation who grows up with the Microsoft is the American Way mentality will be extremely resistant to change to an other os no matter how good it is.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And at the same time, avoid pissing off the rest of the metric world by spelling litre properly. I know "liter" is an accepted way of spelling litre, but it just looks wrong IMHO.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
The EU is becoming more and more unified every year, and the economy of Europe is quickly becoming simmilar to the economy of the US, where you can compare a European country to a US state.
United States:
Total GDP (2002) - 10.4 Trillion $
GDP/head - $37,600
Ranked 1st (countries)
European Union:
Total GDP (2002) - 9.61 Trillion
GDP/head - 21,125
Ranked 1st if counted as a single country
Europe is coming up fast... not to mention China and India. The days of the US as the economic superpoer of the wolrd are numbered by just abount any metric you use.
Metric vs. SAE
... and a lot of other things
But then this weekend something happened that changed my mind on the future of Linux. I downloaded Knoppix 3.4 and stuck the CD in a friend's WinXP box with a failing HD. WinXP wouldn't boot. Knoppix "just worked". It auto-configured all the hardware (a Dell 4550 series P4) and allowed me to back up most of this person's data to a CDR.240V 50Hx vs. 120V 60Hz
Drive on left vs. drive on right side of the road
EBCDIC vs. ASCII (IBM vs. everyone else)
This is the kind of thing that will make people take notice of Linux. They want a car that they can turn the key and drive away. People don't want a car that needs to have the engine tuned before they can drive it off the lot. Or one that they actually have to read the owner's manual.
They want an computer that auto-configures and is intuitively obvious to use. Knoppix 3.4 is a step in that direction.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
In the US it is all too possible for something to be well established prior art, but an inventor claims to have made the invention prior to the first date of open publication. Having been involved with both US and European patents until about 1995, I considered the US system to be deeply screwed - the opportunity for fraud is immense. (though yes, that didn't stop me from filing US patent applications...)The EU system should not be so bad.
If this still applies, the important thing is for all ideas and concepts being brought to the OSS table to be published as soon as possible after they arise, thus creating prior art even if it is only in a very buggy bit of code.
Of course, if the US gets the entire IP world to rely on "date of invention", we're all screwed, and I'm going to buy a farm and retire.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
The US economy is very dependant on foreign trade. Over time many other countries are becoming richer and influential. For example, today China's choice to use Linux doesn't matter much to the US. But if it's the next big market as many people believe then what standards they use will most certainly matter to the US. As trade with China grows and companies become more entagled overseas their choices will influence US companies.
Developers: We can use your help.
No, they were protesting out of hatred for the Iraqi people and out of a desire to keep Saddam Hussein in power. They cared nothing for Iraqi lives: Saddam was executing between 10,000 and 20,000 a year.
"No, they cared about the eleven thousand people who are now dead who woulnd't be dead right now but for the war."
Given Saddam's previous track record, there likely would have been 20,000 dead if the protests had their way and their hero Saddam was still around to fill the body pits.
I get the impression de Icaza really does believe Gnome and Mono can become dominant on the desktop. He seems to have a decent grasp of the political and economic situation surrounding the debate. Plus he gives credit to Microsoft when appropriate (and sometimes when inappropriate in my opinion), so he's not overly zealous. You're correct in that he does have a vested interest. But I think he's a true believer.
Developers: We can use your help.
If your friends were off Outlook and all other closed source programs (i.e. they switch to Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.) would they be comfortable then switching to Linux?
Not sure. Most are already using Mozilla FireFox because it's simply better than IE 6, but we don't use OpenOffice as we all have copies of MS Office. Personally I dabble in linux a few times a year but never found a compelling reason not to go back to Windows.
The problem Linux faces in our situation is that Windows 2000 *just works*. F/OSS can be driven by our choosing to convert to OSS software on our PCs but, although this makes it easier for us to switch to Linux it gives us few reasons to do so. With AVG or Norton Antivirus, Zonealarm, Media Player Classic and iTunes we're quite happy with our Windows desktops.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
This is a nice thought, but, as always, the US will do whatever it wants. Metric system, cell phones, wars, etc.
And that's not because Americans are stupid/lazy/whatever; it is because it is the largest consumer market in the world. Corporations will bend over backwards to cater to the needs (real or perceived) of the American buyer.
Not saying that it is good or right, but that's just how it is.
I think a lot of people may be missing a few key points. I'm sure these will draw some criticism, but here goes:
First, F/OSS is only as good as it's user input. If you use such software and gripe about it's this-or-that, but never submit even these quirks to the dev team, DON'T expect the issues to get resolved any time soon. The dev team, unlike major corporations, doesn't have the ability or capital to test and develop on a wide scale.
Second, on a lower level, I doubt Microsoft would be up for offering deals to poorer economies, lock-in or not. If they offer WinXP Pro to Uraguay for $50 a license, the American businesses that got the "Special Business License" for $75 would start whining. That's just something they don't need to deal with. In such case, I think MS will continue to treat the market as a whole in the manner they always have.
Third, in relation to the productivity of an application or OS, I would haard a guess that one is more productive when one goes into something (e.g. a new OS, a new F/OSS app) expecting to BE more productive. I tried the Firefox browser a few months ago, and hated it. Coincidentally, I expected to hate it because it wasn't IE. A month or two later, I tried it again, with a more open mind, and lo and behold, it's my current favorite browser. Same idea for C++/C# IDEs - from VC++ 6 to some no-name F/OSS IDE with ero problems. It's all relative.
So as far as a mass migration to Linux, it's anyone's guess - but I think it's a bit too early to be calling it Linux's game. Too many branches, and a whole new system to learn, seem to be a bit daunting for the average user. Wait ten years until Linux certification really gets a firm footing in the industry, and until the weaker Linux flavors drop off or conglomerate, and we may have some good competition.
[SQL Error ID 10-T: This sig. is above your current threshold.]
The problem is that F/OSS has to be better that Microsoft when it comes to things like file format conversion, not just as good. Like it or not, people have a double standard: if they try to open a Word document in Open Office and it doesn't work, they'll say that OO (and by extension, F/OSS in general) is no good; but if one version of Word refuses to open correctly a document created in another version, they'll shrug and say, "That's the way it is with computers, what can you do?" Microsoft is like the weather to a lot of people -- they bitch about it, but they don't seriously think they can do anything about it, and they think of it as an unavoidable part of their environment.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
yeah, that'd be fine if there were some logic connecting all the imperial measurements. if i want to go from inches to feet, i divide by a constant. from feet to yards, i divide by another constant. from yards to miles, i dived by yet another constant. there's non of that crap with metric. just simple units. if the unit it too big or too small, multiply or divide by 10, the SI way. there is NO logic using a system of measurement based on how long some kings foot was hundreds of years ago
TIAEAE!
>Two countries that simply refuse to be bullied by anybody.
No, thats the US. China and Russia are strong but nothing compaired to the US.
>China, as we have seen went out of their way to develop an alternative DVD standard
So did BestBuy.
>And they almost went their own way on WiFi too.
The US has gone their own way with alot of standards. They "did", not "almost".
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Quite a breakthrough.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Moderators disagree? :) Ok I'll back it up my reasoning (and try to speak slower):
.NET," he said. "At this point, we have millions of developers building .NET connected applications." "
.Net apps or MS/Windows Logo certified?
"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."
It is not easy to move Linux/Unix stuff to Windows. It is expensive - costs the developers time and effort, and there are other costs supporting a rather different architecture- look at the various apache-win bugs. And what does that gain Linux and the rest? More Windows software. Wow, great move that.
What next? Get people to write more native windows software, instead of just porting Linux apps to windows? Oh yah he's trying that too:
"Another Microsoft spokesperson told internetnews.com that, "Mono is just one example of the level of excitement within the developer community around
Insert image of MS spokesperson "rubbing hands with glee" - More Windows software.
If more Linux developers write Mono software for Linux and Mono software runs on Windows with no modifications, AND MS office and other Windows-only software doesn't run on Linux.
THEN the software available for Windows increases more than software available for Linux. Go figure.
Do I need to talk slower and more loudly? Doh.
And what if there's an "embrace and extend" war? With some slight incompatibilities? Who wins? Mono-certified
And now this joker talks about the World Forcing the US into Linux if the EU doesn't do the US thing.
Doh. What next the World Forcing the US into signing the CO2 treaty? Sorry I must have lost track of which universe I was in. This must be the universe where the World forced the US into Iraq eh? And where Miguel ends up being the whole reason for the universe entire existence.
... widespread diversity. Linux could become dominant, easily, but it won't be one single distro or way of doing things. It's rather a unique concept in the business world, but there are other examples that are close enough. An example analogy might be the early railroad days with each company having their own track gauge sizes. Eventually it was agreed to have a single gauge, but there were still multiple railroads and brands of engines and cars. They also agreed to play nice with each other and use each others tracks, and the government in a lot of cases stepped in and adjusted laws in the favor of retaining (or seizing via eminent domain) right of ways for the tracks.
I think FOSS will be universally adopted, because it has the momentum and mindshare now within the developer community of the younger people,not the users yet but the developers, who are becoming the techs/admins and eventually the managers all across the professional IT board, the dreaded PHBes. They will use what they are comfortable with, and attrition will negate the dominance of closed source and propietary and (more) expensive.
But I also think that change in hardware will dictate what gets used as well, I can foresee when all devices use embedded, and that will extend to the desktop, both home and business, which will go to a merge between a full thin client model, distributed computing, and stand alone single use machines. Hmm, for example, the "business desktop" that comes prebuilt to work only with a secure company server system, and is even more modular than wehat we have today, extremely easy plug and play modularity, with "aware" components that don't have to work in conjunction with extremely specific hardware, following the USB and Firewire progression modality, and that also contain their own processors, ram, OS and so forth. Plug it in, it can talk to all the other devices, not being dependent on a single OS, just having a common way to communicate in other words.
It's interesting to watch it really. Cellphones that are becoming PDAs with audio video capabilities, PDAs that evolve into cell phones, desktops that resemble laptops (smaller, adoption of LCDish screens, etc), laptops that can mimic powerful desktops justfrom advanced features, etc. Hardrives becoming more RAM like, while RAM being used more and more like a hardrive used to be used for.
It's quite amazing really, because we've crossed the point where any sort of single monolithic standard can be dominant, there just isn't time to market something extensively before it's entirely obsolete, this will gradually force just the interoperability standards of communicating between devices to determine general computing trends more than anything else, and even there that's a moving target right now.
4. NTSC color was adopted due to the need to be backward-compatible with black and white TV sets in the 1950's. The Europeans never considered black and white compatibility with older sets when PAL and SECAM color was developed in the 1960's.
I missed one arbitrary difference: US mains is 60Hz, while most of the rest of the world is 50Hz. This ensured that - even if the whole world had agreed on a single TV specification - it would still be incompatible with the US.
Why is the US 110V 60Hz instead of 220V 50Hz? Because of Thomas Edison and his bizarre attempts to foist a DC system on the country.
The underlying aspect is that in America it is capitalism which determines standards and that capitalism often involves sticking it to your competitors and their customers. Look at the New York City subway map to see what happens when you rely on free-market competition to deliver a solution. See all those lines between the financial district and Brooklyn Heights? Those were the valuable routes, so you now have six parallel lines with virtually no interconnection. Ditto US cellphones in the 1990s.
I've lived in several metric countries, they all get along quite well with integeral Celsius weather reports. It's always irritating when I read some story where it's obvious some editor or reporter has taken a round figure in one system and converted it to another with 5 figures of implied accuracy ("it was about 160.93 kilometres away..."). One Celsius degree is more than fine enough to know what to wear.
In the real world, you'd be deciding whether to make it 31C or 32C. Incidentally, that'd be for a hothouse.
My roommate is from Germany and he says that an Austrian man living in his home town for 40 years is still considered an Austrian by everyone in the area. I don't want to apply a stereotype on all of Europe, but I don't think tolerance will come so quickly (and it may never come). The EU may be united in currency, but there is a lot of cultural conflict in the entire area. There is even internal conflict in countries like Germany where the east and west have completely different views.
Don't forget, even the United States has trouble getting along with itself. Not just the political parties, but the North and the South still see each other as "separate but equal". Just because you belong to the same state/country/alliance doesn't mean you'll get along.
Your relative just isn't smart. That can't be helped in *any* measurement system.
For most long distance trips I figure 60 miles/hour on average (I drive fast, my kid needs stops). That works out to... a mile a minute.
More precision. Calculate that.
Get off my lawn.
Miguel's got a great point, one that evangelical F/OSS developers tend to miss: If you want the lay person to celebrate F/OSS software, make it available to them, meaning make it build and run on Windows. I've had great success migrating almost all of my Windows-using friends and family to Firefox and GAIM. Both of these packages are obviously superior to their proprietary, Windows-only counterparts, and my users understand this within the first five minutes of working with them.
But fundamentalist F/OSS developers often tell me that they don't want their software running on the Evil Empire's OS and that if users want to run them they need to use a supported OS. They seem to be angry at the user for running Windows in the first place. I think this is a counter-productive attitude: We want people to use F/OSS software, but we refuse to make it available on the OS that the majority of them run?
I don't mean to imply that all or even most developers feel this way, but it remains an attitude that must be dealt with if we are ever to 'dominate the world.'
-Nick
OSS is a fad that will, for all purposes, die in the next 5 years. It's already started. Why would people want free software when they can buy the same thing? People love to buy things...it gives it value. When they get it for free they hardly want it. The only thing free and OSS is good for is improving real software. So, while you may be using and promoting inferior OSS, a wonderful corperation will be selling the same thing, but better and making lots of money on it, while the greasy, pimply, no girl friend OSS developer and user bitch and moan about no one using their software. OSS is cool to you, but incredabily lame to ~98% of other people. Artists love avant guard art, but the general public, namely you in this case, enjoy Star Wars, comic book art and all the other crap "art" derivitives out there. The articts will never use Linux. They want OS X or Windows. Why? Because although we the nerds don't see it, those operating systems are 100 times better in terms of use, features, software and support. They're "real". Linux is great, I will always use it, but OSS will never be heavily adopted by people. The day it's as good as commercial software is the day commercial software is that much better. You have no chance to win!
If you can tell the difference between 24 and 25 C well enough that you feel you need a temperature value inbetween the two, then I'm seriously impressed.
Well, if we are picking at random from major disributions (especially if you choose a weighted average) then there is a good chance you'll get a distribution from France (Mandrake), Germany (Knoppix, SuSe), Internationally Developed (Debian, Gentoo). The only really major distribution I can think of that comes from the USA is Redhat, or possibly Slackware, which is only major in historical terms.
Yes most of these distributions can be localised to American English, but of course that is not the only locale they support. Every one of the above distributions supports more than one language.
Check your assumptions, boy.