Slashdot Mirror
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.
Note: The European elections are due in a month or so, so contact your MEPs to ask why they exist if the parliament can be bypassed like this.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Pirate the software! Oh wait they already do....
Is the 3rd world. While these countries are poor now, their economies will be openning up. If they have adopted a standard of open source, they will have no reason to change. Certainly not at Microsoft's prices. The point will come where, if the US wants to do business, we will be forced to adopt their standards. Good thing we already have Linux here.
I'm genuinely looking forward to the release of the Ximian Evolution Windows port as it'll finally give a decent free mail client, which I can distribute to the several dozen friends' PCs I unofficially support.
I've been trying to get them off Outlook/OExpress for ages (for safety purposes) but most refused to go to Thunderbird as it was "too different"
They can hardly say that about Evolution.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Miguel realizes that while, for example, OOo doesn't have all the MS Office features, "it's good enough" and that's a great start for the majority of users.
But the problem is that it is NOT "good enough". Just because OSS zealots think it is does not mean that it is.
When I can open every single one of my Word and Excel files without a single error then it will be "good enough". The missing features, etc, are one thing but not having the exact replica of what I saved in Office is a hassle.
I agree with him that if OSS software gets rooted on the Windows side then the transition to the Linux side would be easier... Only if Linux becomes a large percentage better than Windows at somepoint. That point comes when the rest of the world decides it not when "we" do.
Of course someone deeply involved in the Open Source software movement is going to say that Linux will become the dominant system. It's in his best interest to say that.
Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Craig Mundie, etc. all feel that Windows and Microsoft software will be the dominant platform. Steve Jobs thinks that Apple and OS X will be the dominant platform. Is this really news?
The more interesting question is if de Icaza *really* believes that Gnome and Mono are going to be the dominant desktop. I know as the founder of the project, again it is in his interest to say yes. I just wonder if he's tried to use a KDE 3.2.x system and what his impressions are of it?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
It always bugged me that Evolution was not available for Windows. I'd be more than happy to ditch Outlook, but a good alternative does not exist. The Mozilla family is not a good alternative.
I hope that this means we'll see Evolution and others ported to Windows in the near future.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Two countries that simply refuse to be bullied by anybody. Watch out for Linux development heading eastwards - patents or no patents. China, as we have seen went out of their way to develop an alternative DVD standard just to get around patent crap. And they almost went their own way on WiFi too. I wonder what the terms of settlement between Intel and China amounts too. Japan too, for their consumer electronics industry adopting Linux in a big way. NTT DoCoMo's reference platform for the next generation phones is based on Linux.
Wakey, wakey!
Don't forget: this guy also thinks Mono is a great idea.
Sometimes I wonder if he's actually working for MS with the ideas or "strategies" he comes up with.
No it didn't work, but the rest of the world cares not for the backwards, stone-age measurement systems used by the US. Instead of persisting, we just point and laugh when the US talks of feet and inches.
The US won't be the world's super power forever, once they're second or third for a half century, I'm sure they'll make efforts to fall into line.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
I've been following Linux for several years, but it's only this year I been able to stay exclusively on linux for a week or so while doing uni work. It's like everything has clicked for me, and I'm finding that I'm prefering to work under linux for coding. Maybe it's because i've been fiddling around long enough that I've grown to love the OS and desktop managers like KDE, or maybe it's because projects in the open source community have risen to such high levels of quality.
Thats not to say though that I haven't had my share of problems- cant get tv out working nicely, or 5.1 sound, or my OpenGL working right...
But for sitting down and doing research, coding and web activites, I'm finding Linux (i'm using Mandrake 9.2 btw) is more productive for me than Windows.
And when it comes to business, productivity is a significant drawcard. Due to my new found fondness of linux and OSS this week, im thinking that OSS will win users over due to it's increasing quality moreso than patent issues.
Live in your skin. Keep changing the scenery.
What are you talking about? The United States Congress officially adopted the metric system in 1866. :-)
They just didn't force people to stop using the units and measures with which they were familiar.
Coming from a science/engineering background, I *hate* working in traditional/avoirdupois/empire units.
On the other hand, it feels unnatural to talk about the weather in anything but degrees Fahrenheit. I've tried. I have plenty of European relatives. But centigrade's units feel too "big" and awkward.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
One interesting question this raises is which MS would prefer the poor countries to do: Pirate MS Products or use Linux. My guess is MS would prefer them to use pirated Windows than Linux because MS at least then has the vendor lockin. MS change of heart concerning WinXP SP2 installation on pirated machines would certainly argue for this.
The only countries that were greatly outspoken against the war in Iraq (specifically France and Russia) were heavily involved with UN "Food for Oil" kickbacks.
And does anyone actually want a monopoly operating system? I know I don't.
There are two or three agendas in the FOSS movements which can be summarized thusly:
- "Why? What are we going to do tomorrow Brain?" "Same thing we do every night Pinky... try to take over the world!" Microsoft, goes the argument, is eeeeeeevil. We must topple it at all costs. While it may or may not be true, there's an element of 1918 here, toppling a cruel and dictatorial czar and not caring what the regime is that replaces it.
- "Freedom!" - Proprietary software is eeeevil, we must topple it at all costs, toppling dictators whereever we might find them even at immense cost to ourselves.
- "Choice" - The problem isn't Microsoft, it's Windows. If Windows was what we wanted, we wouldn't be so hostile to it.
My problem is I see too many people who see GNU/Linux as a chance to create an alternative Windows. And I don't see how anyone really benefits from that. We replace one monopoly with another, that monopoly might be less "evil", but we don't even know that. What we do know is that an inappropriate clone of someone else's work isn't likely to be as good as the original. And many, many, of us do not like the original.Above all, the regime being proposed is frequently the worst of all worlds. People who hold this view tend to argue that Windows needs to be replaced with a version of GNU/Linux that looks like Windows. But a version of GNU/Linux designed to be as similar to Windows as possible to an end user is going to be dysfunctional by definition. GNU/Linux isn't Windows, it shares few of the same concepts, the solutions Microsoft came up with for interfacing the underlying OS with the user are unlikely to be relevent to GNU/Linux and rarely are in practice. And Windows is simply not a good example of a user friendly operating system, unless you're talking about the original version of Windows 95, which at the time was "pure", it hadn't been hacked to try to push certain competing middleware out of the market. And do you really want to switch to Windows 95 today? GEM and Mac OS System 6 were user friendly too, would you like to clone either?
There's some legitimacy to this view, but again it has a tendency to be undermined by its own supporters who frequently assert that, as a starting point, you need to clone whatever's already there. Again, the Pinky and the Brain scenario springs to mind here, with the more vocal supporters being in favour of a dysfunctional system "because it's what users know." In fairness, most also argue that free software, by its very nature, improves choice because if you don't like the way something works, you can modify it. However, it's not "free software" that's taken hold so much as "open source", where programmers across the world collaborate. This is both a strength and an Achile's Heel, because just as Microsoft and other proprietary vendors cannot keep up with such a freight train, neither can most ordinary users who'd like their software to work with a better paradigm.
This is the only one of the three scenarios that has immediate and obvious benefits to end users. A view based on choice works best when people create Free Software, when programmers try to do original things, and when people try new things.
Personally, I love free software. Given the choice, however, between One (Supported) Free Operating System (the "Supported" is important), an Operating System whose design choices have made me dislike it intensely, and a miriad of supported proprietary systems, at least one of which works in the way I prefer, I have to go with the Devil and chose the latter. It's not Microsoft I dislike, it's their operating system and the dull grey rock of monoculture. Changing who owns that rock doesn't make things much better.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
More to the point, IP laws in the US are generally becoming more restrictive, as corporate interests codify their wish-list into our legal system.
This will backfire, as it forces innovation out of the US.
Honestly, I expect Europe to follow the US lead. The same corporations that are doing this to the US are also well entrenched in Europe. So in effect, we're pushing innovation to India and China, the new growing world economies.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Boy is there some confusion here about the adoption of Linux in Europe! If anything, the US is still the above-and-beyond leader in terms of small- and large-scale Linux implementation. A few well-publicized adoptions by town councils overseas changes that in no way. Hey, I live in Europe!
Lumber - 5x10's instead of 2x4's (a 2x4 is not even 2 inches by 4 inches) and metric lengths.
Carpeting/flooring etc - sell by sq meter instead of sq yrd.
All scales sold must use metric as Primary unit (they could also give the archaic english units)
There is a lot more use of the metric system in the US society than you might think at first glance. Those people working in anything to do with chemistry are likely using the metric system in their work.
I don't think the US will ever adopt the kilometre in place of the mile, however, because in a lot of the US, the land is plotted into 1 mile square sections and this provides a more usable unit with which to measure distances. Using km would just be more confusion.
Does anyone know if there is a metric unit that would correspond to the english bushel? (a unit of volume)
Pssst... wanna hear a secret? So do the new ones.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Actually I'd say the best way of producing games software would be to have the bootstrap loader and OS on the actual CD/DVD media. (I'm actually thinking of doing something like this myself with FUSE and a bunch of old Spectrum games running on a minimal Slackware.) It then would be "neutral" with respect to whatever OS already was installed on the host PC, as long as it had the right architecture.
..... it could be a BSD variant, a pared-down Windows, or even a whole brand new OS if anyone can be bothered to write one. The point is that games with such an on-disc OS would not depend on a particular installation, but would be usable equally by Linux or Windows users. This should lead to greater reliability, since the author would know what package versions were in use and all dependencies would be met already.
It needn't even be Linux
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Is this really an "US and them" issue ?
After all, we're only ordinary men.
Holy crap! Someone makes a joke about a comment using a pretty well known, 30+ year old Pink Floyd line and it gets modded Insightful instead of Funny. I always thought those guys were great lyricists, and this looks like conclusive proof to me.
Rock on all you Floyd fans!
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Ranked 1st if counted as a single country? Um, it is 2nd in both figures you give. (Well, 2nd of 2). What does this Ranked 1st mean? First in what? You already said GDP is lower, GDP per capita is lower. I don't follow.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
but you did not what is ranked first in:
certainly not GDP 9.61 vs 10.4 nor GDP/Head 21.1K vs 337.6K, and certainly not population, China and Indian has everyone else beat on that count.
No flames please.
"Just remember, it takes a village idiot." -- The Motley Fool.
Only they're not. With the major exception of Ireland, the developed european countries have been growing more slowly than the USA for decades now, and if anything the gap is probably widening. This slowdown trend is most pronounced in Europe's biggest economies (Germany, France, UK) so even if the dirt-poor basketcase former communist countries manage to improve, Europe as a whole will still be heavily weighted down by the slow performance of these major countries.
not to mention China and India.
Unlike Europe, these two countries now have solid growth trends going back for decades, and the trends outpace both the USA and especially Europe. Of course, you have to allow for the fact that both countries are unimaginably poor by Western standards, and their governments are terribly scrwed up, especially in China. In the long run I think we'll see India pull ahead because their government is dramatically less screwed-up than China's is.
The days of the US as the economic superpoer of the wolrd are numbered by just abount any metric you use.
WRT to the EU's relative position, this is absolute fantasy. It appears that Europe's days of being relevant may be numbered. As I pointed out earlier, Ireland is the only "major" (if a country with 60% the population of New York City is "major") developed European country to have an excellent and established growth trend.
WRT to the eastern hemisphere, things may be different. Even if my pessimism about China is unwarranted, it'll still be a couple generations before they can match the West's prosperity. Of course, that'd be a great day if it comes. Personally I think by the end of the decade, there'll be clear signs that India will completely overshadow China as an industrial and technological power. We can only look forward to this day, for it is in developed nations where new technologies are created, medicines discovered, etc.
But looking at everything as a "race for dominance" misses a lot of the point. In general, we all benefit from each others' prosperity. Prosperous people invent and produce more stuff, making us all wealthier.
a mile has some odd number of yards which have 3 feet which have 12 inches
a kilometre has 1000 metres which have 100 centimetres
You tell me which seems more intuitive
and if you can reduce the speed of light to an intuitive number then you'd win a nobel prize
Try converting it to your archaic system
As for their reason of creating metric, is was to make a better system that was easier and more logical
On one hand competition is good and it may happen that it helps further adoption of free software, improvements in both Evolution and Glow and all that. And we hope both remain standards-based and interoperable.
But at this point, we aren't strong enough to compete much, we already have too much duplication of efforts like in the whole KDE vs Gnome mess, and the BSDs vs GNU/Linux vs Hurd one.
Worse yet, he is happy that Sun users get less goodies! This is simply Not Good. Whatever Sun motives may be, this is not a good thing in itself. It would be much better to work with Sun to address its concerns, but then de Icaza already proved he would rather follow his own path, like he already dissociated himself from copyleft and the FSF because he didn't like the focus on ideas over pragmatism.
And perhaps that's nice about Sun doing their own stuff: it's copylefted and they have copyright assignment. Not only Glow may prove a safer choice (legally speaking) than Evolution both to users and developers (if Sun ever frees Java, or makes it run good on free JVM implementations), but Sun is getting used to free software and copyleft. Free Solaris and Java anyone?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
We're a bit worse off in the Great White North, because of exactly this. While we're technically supposed to be metric, because of heavy trade with the US we have to do both. FYI I live near Toronto.
When you're buying a house, the property size is measured in metres. However, the interior measurements are all given in square feet.
I know my height in feet and inches, but my driver's license lists it in centimetres. Funny, because I measure my skis in centimetres.
I buy meat in the store by the gram or kilogram, but my microwave asks me how many pounds is it when I want to defrost it. Of course I know my weight in pounds.
Construction materials are measured in feet, while I drive in km/h. I pump litres of gas into my tank, while I purchase hard booze in ounces. But beer, water and soft drinks are sold in millilitres.
I read the outside temperature in celsius, and I set my thermostat in C, yet my oven is set in farenheit. At least, all the recipes I have do (some ovens have both C and F listed).
We're pretty damned confused up here.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
There is a very good chance the UK will withdraw from the EU after the referendum. There is an unholy alliance of little englanders, anti-immigration parties, free-marketeers, beaurocracy haters, democracy lovers, and now software developers. Straw polls indicate 60% of the population will reject the new constitution.
I wouldnt be suprised if Denmark breaks away too, possibly taking the rest if Scandinavia with it.
Germanic cultures will then find itself isolated with Latin countries to the West, poor ex-communist states to the west, and independant states to the north and south. Cant imagine Germany will hang around when its having to bankroll everyone elses peasant economy.
After that, I think its Britain's turn to invade France. Or maybe Germany's, its hard to keep track these days.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
first of all, linux is probably more adopted in the US than anywhere else. secondly, linux is not the most adopted in the rest of the world, windows is.
did you forget to take your meds?
Remember national debt interest payments go mostly to Americans, who spend and circulate the money and it get taxed back to the government. US savings bonds and treasury bills/notes = national debt.
In fact the government itself owns almost half of the debt! And that doesn't include debt owned by local or state governments
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Canada should not really be throwing stones in it's own protectionist glass house. You still have "Canadian content" laws to protect whatever crappy culture Canada still has left... which are protectionist as hell quite frankly.
The huge risk in not migrating is not being able to satisfy your customers while your competitors do.
If your clients decide TCO is compelling, then it doesn't matter what you think - someone will be there to support them, and someone will be there to send them documents in formats that work well for them, or take their data in formats you can't handle, or whatever is relevant to your business.
That's how Windows and Office came to dominate in the first place: Some people saw a benefit, and they got a domino effect from partners, customers etc. that may not have seen a direct benefit, but saw a benefit in interoperating with people who had taken the leap.
Read out loud. Slowly. NA-TIO-NAL DEBT BUD-GET DE-FI-CIT And you still think the US is such a great economic power?
Too true. But to the rest of the world I say EX-PORT ECO-NO-MIES, TREA-SURY NOTES, UN-EM-PLOY-MENT.
You are not creditors, you are partners! -- Donald Trump
an ill wind that blows no good
Enough said.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
> And don't forget that most UK businesses
> will have no way of verifying your name and
> address as they relate to the card's genuine
> holder.
They most certainly do have the means to verify the address of the card holder. It's been a couple of years now since this facility came in. Along with the card number and expiry date the retailer now passes the numeric component of the house number and postcode and the card issuer checks that this is correct.
Any mail order company not using this facility is demented.
However, having run a mail order company for five years, I can say that the single most effective anti-fraud measure is having people with clue taking the orders.
John
It's that kind of arrogance that makes many people across the rest of the world resent the US. The US only got involved with WW2 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. Until that time they were quite happy to sit back and let the world fight it out.
The US has a high GDP because of the large number of international companies with head offices in the US. If they all went offshore the GDP would plummet.
The US is an international bully. Don't get me wrong; I have met several Americans and in general they are good people. But as a country, you have WMD yourself but heaven forbid if someone else develops them! You have economic clout that is used to benefit the US at the cost of other countries, including third world countries. Studies have already shown that the *only way* Americans can continue their current lifestyle is to keep the third world in poverty. There simply are not enough resources in the world to support that lifestyle if the third world catches up.
Sure, you live in a pretty good country. But don't think that makes you better than the rest of the world. You're not God's chosen people, or at least no more so than the rest of us.
Incidentally, I wonder sometimes when Americans will wake up and realise that you live in a Capitalist society, not a Democracy. Some of the laws over there (the DCMA comes to mind) only benefit the large corporations. Great for their hip pockets, terrible for the people. Some democracy.