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Linux, Inc.
An anonymous reader sends in a link to Businessweek talking about the business of Linux, and the increasing threat to Microsoft's operating system monopoly.
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Google. That would've helped to shake up the PHBs a little more effectively, given this is BusinessWeek.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
You know something must be up if BillG himself is shuffling off to South America to persuade the government to lose interest in open software...
It's the value of the software. Even at the same price as UNIX, Linux would kick the pants off of Windows on the server. Linux is by hackers for hackers, and Windows is by suits for suits. I'm not a suit, I'm a hacker; incidentally, so are most other IT folks.
Oh no! Not that!
Love,
Steve Balmer.
P.S. I can buy any Linux business that becomes a real threat with the spare change in the cracks of my sofa.
To short text for you to edit?
Don't you mean too short?
The only reason they're not doing that is the simple fact that they are effectively a monopoly. If they let Linux get a small share, then all that Linux will do is take up some of the slack from people who would have a higher chance of not paying for MS products anyway. What it also does though is give them something to point to. "See! They have some of the market...we're not a monopoly" can be their response to a judge.
Soon, hopefully, Linux won't be at MS's whim that much. But for now...they're letting us get any gains we have.
1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 3.141529 (awright, knock it off, you with the vulcan ears) .. 4 .. 5.
5. Damn. You had to know with boardroom approval and purchasing agents and all were going to take the hacker gleam off this cute little pengy one day.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
like, omg, an article about linux!
- Said the AC troll, that bitches about slashdot being biased.
-Bill Gates
Not even M$ has the change to buy IBM and they are the biggest 'Linux' company out there.....
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Don't you mean 'Don't you mean too short a'?
Stop saying that! They might own the desktop (tell that to mac users), but they have never owned the server room. If anything the server room has changed from being filled with proprietary Unix boxes to being filled with Linux boxes.
This 'threat' has been mentioned every year for the past couple of years. In order for linux to become truly something to be wreckoned with, Joe user must become accustomed to it.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Too lazy to create a sig...
I have seen headlines about the linux revolution for a few years now.
I use linux at home and love it.
Wake me up when linux breaks double digit market share in the desktop world and then we can call it a revolution
If linux didn't exist, I don't think MS would monopolize the server market, but I just don't know what other alternative there is that would compete.
BSD probably wouldn't exist if not for linux (correct me if I'm wrong but it uses the linux kernel right?)
Solaris, Aix, HPuX? Tighly bound to [insert name] hardware
Minix?
Unix? Perhaps SCO was just trying to make linux disappear to make this happen but would they be sucessful if linux didn't exist? Small minds...
Amiga?
Novell?
Some unknown flavor of lisp running on a lisp machine?
What other OS would have become the MS competitor in the server market?
I've been really thinking about the whole Linux gaining footing thing, and as much as everyone around here just LOVES XWindows and loves to say it's as usable as OS X or Windows, let's face it, in the eyes of most users it simply isn't.
Apple has taken FreeBSD/Darwin and built their own desktop environment around it. OS X is very usable according to most people. And even though there are many camps of people who will argue that Windows is more usable than OS X or vice versa, the one point most people will agree on is that OS X and Windows are both more usable than XWindows and the various window managers. I perosnally hate both KDE and Gnome, and thus use a mostly text BSD box, but I know I'm in the minority there, as well.
Here's what I've been thinking.
What's stopping someone from writing an entire environment like OS X from the ground up, around and on top of Linux, and creating an OS X like environment that is as complete and modern as either OS X or Windows?
I know everybody shudders at the thought of obsoleting their beloved X, but even some OS X users install and use X when they still feel they need it, but I think I'm just being realistic when I think hanging onto X is just overall the wrong strategy for putting Linux on the desktop. (Counter arguments exist, and will likely be in the many replies, and I don't entirely disagree with them, but...)
I really think this is an effort worth pursuing. A new desktop environment built to be the primary way that Linux is used. A Linux based graphical environment designed from the ground up to be a Desktop GUI, following in the footsteps of OSX/Aqua.
To make things easier (here's where many will disagree with me) one could work on such a program primarily focusing on modern hardware and esspecially modern video cards. Let's face it, ATI and NVidia run the show now days anyway.
These are just my thoughts, and I hope people will constructively discuss this possibility instead of throwing around a bunch of "No way, not possible, why bother, go to hell Apple/Microsoft lover" comments.
I like BSD, and I like OS X. I would like to see something similar done with Linux.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Linux threatens Windows! Holy living poop!
When did *this* happen?!? Why wasn't I informed? Where's my cranium?
He doesn't even speak to Torvalds anymore -- since Torvalds decided to use a piece of software that wasn't open-source to help develop Linux. "The place he wants to lead people is a mistake. It isn't to freedom."
Jesus Christ, get over it already.
Having RMS walk in in his St. Ignucius getup is enough to make anybody lose their lunch...not just the suit and tie crowd.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
While this article includes nothing new for any regular /. reader, it's still a really good one. It avoids the all-to-common journalistic practise of balancing one positive statement with one negative statement. This article doesn't serve as a bullborn for FUD, it's entirely positive wrt Linux and the open source model. And it's written in a way that any shmoe can understand.
So why would us slashdotters care about an article written for average shmoes? Well, because we can forward it to friends and family who have a hard time relating to this "Linux" thing they keep hearing us enthusiastically blathering about. I've already sent it to my friends and family, you should too. C'mon, get going.
No, I have no stock in BusinessWeek, don't be so cynical.
Windows is dying!!
The GPL ensures that Linux will never cost money itself, and commercial adoption means that innovation will come in the area of user-friendliness. I'm not militantly Free, and I think that this a good step to making Linux a viable competitor in all areas currently dominated by MS. I am considering converting my entire family to Linux (I'm currently the only linux user) or Mac OS X when Longhorn becomes the only option with a new computer, because it will be different enough that either way will be a struggle on my part. Linux is becoming polished enough by big corporations that it is becoming a very strong competitor to MS for everyone. OS X though, still reigns king in my mind for ease-of-use and polish (except for games :()
I just had a knee-jerk thought. How is Linux a threat to anyone? Linux is freely available to almost anyone ... individuals or businesses.
:-)
The "playing field" is even because of this universal availability. Those that don't take advantage of this MAY find themselves at a disadvantage to those that do.
Linux isn't a threat because YOU choose NOT to use it in your business model. The real threat is a poor plan that doesn't use the tools and technologies FREELY available today.
Did that make any sense?
Get working on HURD. Release something, or shut the fuck up.
You haven't done anything relevant in a decade. All you do is shoot your mouth off and drag the entire OSS movement down.
The guys like a lead weight around linux' ankle.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I read somewhere an interesting theory that companies (and organizations) that don't try to compete directly with Microsoft (plan their buisness around beating Billy) and just concentrate on making a good product end up succeeding. (Imagine that!).
One of Microsoft's tactics over the years is to bait companies into direct competition with them. Usually companies that take the bait lose.
As long as LINUX continues to improve NOT because of MS but because people are interested in making better software, then I think success will continue.
I'd imagine it's as if you were playing some game like raquetball or tennis and some dude is at the fence trying to get you to "compete" when you are perfectly content to play whatever you are playing, and get better.
The turning point for Linux will only come when desktop Linux users become willing to pay money for software on linux; non Open Source software at that.
With great OSS projects like Open Office, Gimp, and others, Linux desktop users have become accustomed a totally free desktop, and dislike free solutions that only provide binaries. This is not a very inviting environment for commercial companies to jump in, given the effort porting would take, and given Linux's penetration into the Desktop market (not meager, but not massive either).
it's as easy to use as Windows or Mac OS. Until it makes inroads to the typical user, Linux isn't a big issue.
Linux has a very tiny collection of games that can be played compared to the overall market. And it has no exclusive games (none worth getting excited about anyway). Exclusive games are what get people to buy multiple consoles. Linux has no exclusive applications. Hardware is still a long way from being reliably plug and play on Linux.
If Linux could make inroads even with the gamer market, they'd be getting somewhere.
Linux has come a long way but they've still got a very very long way to go.
Work Safe Porn
Microsoft is not worried about losing their Windows dominance to Linux. They aren't worried, in other words, about losing 100% of their server OS business-- they are worried about losing 10% of it. That's all the fight is for now.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Microsoft has been dominant, but hasn't been a monopoly in anything, not even PC-platform OSes, for nearly two decades.
Why are the editors so focused on publishing any little bit of info with the word "linux" in it?
That being said, most of the *iux developers I know today, including myself, dumped Linux for Apple especially on laptops. Granted this was 3 - 4 years ago and OSX versus Linux of the day was no contest. However, I haven't known of anyone that's gone back from OSX to linux. Some have linux boxes they use as cheap test boxes, but I even converted my old x86 box into a FreeBSD server for my house.
Still if I am going to pick between a Linux box or getting a Macmini or is it MiniMac...anyway, I think I'm going to spend the money on the Mac. Again it comes down to needs and software. iLife is a great set of tools for home use. Its easy to use, simple, and works. Linux has come a long way since I started using it circa Slackware 2, but it still has aways to go as well.
I say this with a grain of salt: but the some in the rabid Pro-Linux community is still hurting the image. There are still those that want it in the realm of the uber-geek hacker. As the song "Every OS sucks" by three-dead trolls in a baggie says: "Linux or Lineux, I'm not sure how to you say it or install it or how to use it, but its for elitest nerdy smucks".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
To draw the parallel, it seems like this would make Microsoft comparable to, say, Acme Cesspit Corp., a fictional company that might have invented and patented cesspits and the means and tools for keeping them safe and usable in a city environment.
The public is crying out for a better system, which has been developed and is proving itself in municipality after municipality. But Acme is freaking out and suing or hiring thugs in towns where they dominate in order to maintain control of your bodily waste.
A company like Acme could do well to embrace the open standard and move on to the next step, since even with an open standard, people are going to continue needing help disposing of their wastes.
Likewise, Microsoft would do well to embrace open source software and operating systems. People will still need great apps and services, and they'll be willing to pay for them. But if they weren't so dependent on the volume of money coming in from their operating system monop^H^H^H^H^H division, they might realize that letting go and moving on to other types of products and services might be a hundred times more profitable.
Or, better yet, 100 times more beneficial to humanity. Minesweeper is a great game and I'm glad they include it, but nobody ever cured cancer by playing it.
The CB App. What's your 20?
I have to say this is the best example of journalism regarding Linux that I have seen yet. It is comprehensive and doesn't just regurgitate all the usual stuff for corporate drones. It actually has somewhat rare/new content about how actual decisions were made etc. I wish there was an email/feedback link to the author, cause I would tell him this myself.
IMO, something as polished as an operating system kernel can only be created in a corporate setting. There are too many egos wanting different things, it'd be impossible to get a team of 100 coders to all agree to work towards the same set of goals. One guy wants X, another wants Y.
Oh wait...
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
But is Linux really growing?
I mean, Linux in early 2004 was a lot bigger than in early 2003, but does it look any bigger in early 2005?
I see stagnation.
But seriously... unless Microsoft could find a way to invalidate the GPL, there is no way they'd do that because then they'd have to share their code changes with everyone else. Once they did that, most of the world would know just how bad their internal coding practices are.
OCO is Loco
his focus on promoting HDTV and digital communcations, deregualtion of the internet,etc. I suppose there is no point in giving him any credit in any of that since he is a republican. Since this is a tech site, check the Cnet article. I think that is more news for nerds.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Tech companies have opened their checkbooks to pay for administrative support, including a legal staff that scans every stitch of code to make sure it can bear patent scrutiny.
I thought that you weren't supposed to do that for fear of triple damages. What am I missing?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I said screw it @ work and finally got tired of the CPU & memory intensive Windows Installation and loaded Fedora Core 3. It works, now, on the other hand, I know my way around Linux pretty damn well, but I finally got tired of dealing with Microsoft's shit, and made the switch. Yes, there are little hiccups (like getting our SMB shared printer to work), but a little tinkering later, everything works well. I'll load Vmware for the programs i TRULY need, other than that. I'm done. Joel
Can you say "cutting your own throat"?
You do realize what is holding Windows in its dominant position, don't you? It's the vendor lock-in of their applications and 3rd-party apps that depend on Windows. By validating Linux with their own version (and, by necessity of the GPL, opening up their related code), that lock-in is gone. Then Microsoft would have to compete on the technical merits of their products alone. Right!
Yes, Microsoft could kill most/all commercial Linux distros this way. But getting rid of competition isn't the goal of capitalism: making money is. Crushing competitors is only useful if it furthers you toward that goal. Giving away the biggest reason for millions of customers to stay with you is not good justification for squashing Red Hat and Novell.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
It kinda makes me scratch my flea-ridden head... There's an endless stream of articles heralding linux as enterprise ready, Msft's achille's heal, etc. Yet when you look at novell and redhat's stock you see something much like this: \ What gives?
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Linux is still way behind in market share. WAY behind. The threat is increasing, yes, but until Matilda the ape can set up a Linux server like a Windows one, Linux will lag.
Cant Linux remain Linux. I can appreciate X becuase its the same as it was 10 years ago, and it will remain the same.
There will always be typewriters, toasters, mobile phones, audio players, video players, game consoles and Macintoshes that will be better than Linux in some aspects and for some groups of people (that said, they could of course be made Linux-based, thats another thing).
I want Linux because it compils and runs the huge amount of useful and fun open source toys, tools and server programs I like. I like that the VIM/gcc/make-development environment is constant. I dont need to upgrade to the latest version before I continue with my hobby-projects. grep, sed and friends are always there, and they always make the same great job. That means a problem solved today, is a problem solved in ten years. If you throw X out, thousands of man-years are lost, just because we want to copy a desktop innovator.
For desktop purposes, BSD and Linux kernels would basically do the same great work. Apple chose the BSD kernel for license reasons. The Apple advantage is that they have great design, and full hardware control. That gives them the opportunity to create a superb user experience.
Linux should continue to be the plattform of choice for geeks who just want their "problems solved", for once and ever. Then companies and people will find amazing ways to use the great technology - and one day you'll find Linux in your toaster, game console or car...
This was certainly considered and many, many people tried. But nothing really came of it. It now looks like the way to progress is to modify X into a modern system.
The biggest impediment was in fact the opposite of what you are claiming: using X gets you the modern hardware, and alternatives don't. Any and all advanced drivers are written for X, and the X driver interface was so complex and linked to how X worked that it was impossible to reuse them for anything other than X. Thus the very first thing any replacement for X would encounter was that it would not run in anything better that SVGA mode and would run quite slow without even rudimentary 2D acceleration. This has killed Berlin, Fresco, KGI, even kernel framebuffer interfaces, and every other alternative to X on Linux. Every one of these projects has been forced to make a "run in an X window" implementation so that they can at least write tests yet run their screens at their natural resolution, which means they will never work better than X and will all be subject to any and all glitches in X.
The truly annoying thing is that a real alterantive would probably have a much better driver interface and if it succeeded we would have many more and better drivers and hardware support than X has. Not only that, more alternatives would be easy to write because these new drivers could probably be reused easier. So it is all a catch-22.
The other lesser impediment was the need to provide compatability with X so you could run your existing applications. Ideally this should be done by an emulation library atop your new system, however Xlib is such a mess that this is incredibly difficult and will not be done by a new development. So at least initially, either X programs don't work, or they work in an incredible kludge where the hardware is shared by two low-level systems (like the OS/X solution) which makes the windows behave in annoyingly imcompatable ways that produce a worse user experience than plain X does.
I personally thought this was an excellent idea and fully expected it to happen, may favorite solution would be to return to IrixGL days, where OpenGL was used to draw every single pixel you see on the screen. But it never materialized, I followed development on a dozen systems but nothing ever came of it. It now looks like the future is in Xorg and the freedesktop standards, where they are trying, however painful it is, to modify X into a modern system, by replacing the driver level and adding new X calls to do modern graphics.
Redhat is, SuSe was; Novell isn't, neither is BigBlue. If some delivery service uses brand X vehicles, does that make them a X company? IBM merely invest money into Linux, because they use it on some of there systems. NSA created SALinux? Does that make them a Linux company?
Lesson to learn: think before you type
#1. Games Games Games.. i am not talking about latecoming ports of Doom 3 and UT 2004 either. im talking about going to wally world, EB, or GameStop, picking up a game, sliding in the CD and playing RIGHT then. someone was right in a below post --- Nvidia & Ati has the ball in their court and they arent going to hit it back anytime soon. they are running things these days. #2. i am talking about going to get a router, a digital camera, USB sticks, printers, plugging in the item or putting in the CD and it works RIGHT then. #3. Security for linux is ok as of now..but i think some hackers might be getting bored with hacking into MS or finding vulnerabilities. The result?? here at work we use ReD Hat Enterprise. we have had 7.. thats right SEVEN kernel updates in the past 2 weeks b/c of vulnerabilities reported not in time or found ahead of time and was fixed. #4. Useability ...well i guess for the most part enough said. remember you arent trying to sell Linux to new computer users really.. you are going to be trying to convince hard core windows users that know their way around windows and no how to keep their personal machine, server etc secure and free from hackers.
Vendors concentrate on these two distros because companies standardise on them. They also have certification programmes to make sure your software is compatible with their OS.
There is absolutely no reason for mandatory standardisation. The market is taking care of it.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
I can't remember if this is from patent, copyright or trademark law, but isn't there a legal requirement somewhere to defend your IP as soon as you know of an infringing case? And if it can be demonstrated that you knew about it and chose to not defend your IP against infringement then you lose the right to sue in the future based on that same IP?
What's stopping someone from writing an entire environment like OS X from the ground up, around and on top of Linux, and creating an OS X like environment that is as complete and modern as either OS X or Windows?
That is were KDE and Gnome are going? What's the difference with what you want and [KDE|Gnome]?
There are even specific browsers using the same toolkit (Konqueror/Galeon). KOffice is very neatly integrated. It is still somewhat rudimentary, but its an office suite perfectly integrated. You can configure most services (and even the kernel source) from KDE control center. You may say its not as intuitive/nice/whatever, but the rest is just nonsense.
If M$ really wanted to end the threat, and I mean end it for mom & dad users, Linux will always be alive for hackers and /. users, then they should lower their prices so rediculously low that people won't think twice about buying it. I'm sure they can chop a $100 without Billy's wallet getting any lighter.
hack a day
You wouldn't know that up here in Microsoft Land. No MS skills? Don't even bother looking for work up here.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Right. We spend decades authoring an operating system just to steal a worse one.
Its always nice to read something with a touch of the warm fuzzies - But heres something to think about. There are obviously a lot of people who are fanatical about linux here on slashdot- I've been using Linux almost exclusively for several years now. Its heartening to see it grow and grow from year to year and there is increasing speculation that *this* year will be the year of linux on the desktop - I dont really want to discuss that here because thats such a non-quantifiable thing- it works for me - might not for someone else.
...
What id like to throw into the discussion mix here is this; Will linux and open source enevitably cause another tech boom? and do the philosophies and ethics behind what it is to be "Open Source" actually gather enough momentum to change fundamentally the face of computing? Has it happened already ? or are we just witnessing the tremors before the earthquake?
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Being employed by REAL fortune 500 companies I can assure you IBM has a Huge investment in Linux Software ( they are phasing out AIX in the next 12 months) Just because they don't make a Linux Distro, doesn't mean they are'nt a linux Co. Last Co I worked for, you could go in the data center and see rows & rows & rows of rack mount IBM servers in cases all running Linux and some other IBM software DB2, Tivoli etc.....
Thier new Cell processors, guess what OS they will be running them on, YUP linux.
Go back to playing half life2 or whatever in your parents basement. If you don't think IBM has bet the bank on Linux then you need to get out more.
Their Super Computing cluster??? Only runs Linux.
Now thats not what they sell, but they are moving quickly to a linux only model. The Co I used to work for, they cried never Linux on desktops, now IBM is pushing them in that direction. The Company is a well known fortune 500 company, with Billions in Assets and Income.
You need to think before you type.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
It is BusinessWeek after all, so I guess we shouldn't expect much else. But it is a little funny to hear Linux repeatedly called "Linux Inc." ... only to have the author backtrack and say that, actually, it doesn't work like a corporation at all. Er, not like a traditional corporation, that is... yeah, that's the ticket, Linux is some new kind of corporation we've never seen before! (I guess that works for the kind of folks who can't think about anything but corporations.)
... and Linux will continue to get better and better. That will always make it an attractive product, and Linus doesn't even need to sit around in a boardroom discussing market share to make it happen. Imagine that!
It's also kind of missing the point to talk about Linux's "market share" and rattle out the rhetoric about Linux being "Microsoft's biggest rival" and "brass knuckle tactics" and "sword rattling" and all this. What makes Linux so competetive is that, while Microsoft may see it as a rival, the Linux and open source community don't necessarily have to see Microsoft as a rival at all. Sure, a lot of people see Microsoft as having had a negative impact on the tech industry and would like to see Microsoft fail because of that. But you could just as easily contribute to Linux and not care one whit what Microsoft does. Really, the only thing that will ever impact Linux's "market share" is if people decide some other software gets the job done better for less. Until that happens, it doesn't really matter all that much what "tactics" Microsoft uses. The people who like Linux's price point and see it as almost good enough to do what they want to do will continue to contribute just enough code to push it over the edge of "almost"
Breakfast served all day!
I have been hearing about this 'increasing threat' for quite sometime now. Just tell me when MS loses its monopoly...
But consensus is really the key. Why does OS X work so well? It's not just because they have a different window manager and widget set. It's because they build in consistency and uniformity from the ground up. That covers widgets, fonts, colours, textures, menu layouts, shortcut keys, toolbars, cut'n'paste, drag'n'drop, file locations, selection, high-level GUI metaphors like drawers and tabs, Dock behaviour, and so on throughout everything in the system. It's all been designed to work the same way (i.e. the way you expect), and to interoperate.
It's not perfect, of course; some choices are questionable, and there's the occasional oddity. But in general, apps look, feel, behave, and work the way you expect them to. And I think it's this consistency which is the real difference from Linux: not just in the low-level look of individual components, but in the mindset and user experience too.
The flip side of this is that it gives developers less choice. Using the system widgets (where appropriate) stops you getting creative in designing your own. Letting the user choose colours and skins may make your app stand out, but it detracts from the whole system. I don't want the choice of umpteen skins and looks -- I want ONE that WORKS PROPERLY! (Sorry for shouting, but I've struggled against so many apps whose authors seem to think that providing a choice of skin or other decoration is the answer to an ugly, awkward or unusable UI.) Similarly, using non-standard shortcut keys or whatever may be better for your app, but the lack of consistency reflects on all apps.
So IMV the main problem with getting a decent UI which is easy for casual users is that it requires app developers to be disciplined and to restrain (or at least channel) their natural creativity and ego. That's why a corporate setting is probably the best bet for such a system; not because individual developers lack the skills, direction, or organisation (as Linux &c have shown), but because a decent GUI needs restraint, obedience, and submission to central authority.
The only way such a system could be possible would be to have a very strong leader who knew exactly what he wanted and could take steps to ensure that apps complied, but who could also inspire lots of developers to join in -- a tough combination.
In the meantime, while developers still consider the natural unit of functionality to be the application and not the whole system, I'll keep on using OS X!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
The cute blond kid on those IBM comercials?
Linux remains out of the desktop mainstream.
Perhaps if they used a another character like Kip, the Brother of Napoleon Dynamite as the "Linux Boy".
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
The reuslts speak for themselves...
And Linux STILL can't get cut and paste right.
"Everybody knew things were falling apart," recalls Larry McVoy, a programmer who played peacemaker.
That's not how I recall it - Larry was responsible for some of the biggest flamewars ever on the LKML.
...then please, for sanity's sake, buy and read "Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines". You will find that Apple actually researched what makes an intuitive interface & then did a damn fine job accomplishing it. The current Linux GUIs suffer from the same problem as Windows; they're completely arbitrary.
I hate when background windows force themselves to the front on MS Windows, and it makes me sick to see that happen under Linux. I hate selecting some bit of text under Windows, only to find that releasing my finger from the button caused some last-second movement that totally screws up my selection. Linux's GUIs do this too. Macintosh knows people are human beings & it filters out last-second movements like that. And so on, and so on, and so on.
So please...if you're going to write a proper Linux GUI...HEED STRONGLY WHAT APPLE SAYS!!!
(Disclaimer: I am a major Linux head, but was once a Mac developer. OS X looks awesome, but unless Apple stops being the sole source of hardware, I'm not buying a Mac.)
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
... and coupled with the fact that X allows you to run transparently across a network, you have the flexibility of the local system for those users who really do need a "personal" PC, and you can run a server based solution for where you need more of a corporate standardised, upgradeable, lockdownable desktop.
Actually, he then miserably failed.
Business users are not interested in games. In fact, I read a Linux-on-the-desktop case study recently where the suits listed the shortage of games as a big plus for Linux on the desktop. They think thier employeed spend too much time goofing off with Solitaire, or getting their Windows machines deloused by support staff.
If Microsoft invented the browser, it would probably be an expensive Office plug-in, targetted only for Fortune 500 corporations.
But what's most important: Microsoft COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY INVENTED the browser.
At that time
- Microsoft's horizon ended at the corporate networks, no ability whatsoever to imagine world-wide, "free" audience
- It would not have worked with "open" HTML, where you can check and "steal" the source code - which was fundamental to the fast speading of the Web. Again, Microsoft corporate culture would not have allowed to even think of this.
The point is: Microsoft - and other corporations are fundamentally limited in their imagination of what to achieve, by their profit and WallStreet-oriented corporate culture.
Linux might have been non-viable as a business - it's enormously strong as Open Source. Fot the most part, because it is not tied to Wall Street expectations. It's only limit is the imagination of their creators - not target market, profibility, etc.
In a sense it's like writing Harry Potter on walfare. No decent businessmen would have invested a penny in the unemployed, never before published Rowling to create a story.
She did it, anyway...
Open Source is pretty much like this: L'art pour art...
It's driven by true passion and freedom of thinking, real freedom to innovate.
Unlike a corporate slogan, it actually carries the spirit - and sometimes produces the unimaginable.
I downloaded and installed Mandrake 10.1 a couple of weeks ago. It took me a whole week to get it functional.
Firstly, the default music player amaroK kept crashing. I then installed xmms (a painful experience in itself), it too kept crashing. Finally I updated the latest version of Taglib and now things are ok.
This was just to play my mp3 collection, I had other problems that I am not going to go into.
Linux is great and now that I have a functioning box, I really enjoy it, but it isn't grandmother proof. They need to come up with a standardized and easy (and free) way to install and update software.
Way too much Torvalds in the article, which is weird. The way Linux (the kernel) develops isn't really important anymore. Programmers are overrated. It's about hardware manufacturers opening up specs, it's about desktop apps, OOo, GNOME, KDE, Mozilla... There is need for cooperation and integration. They should've interviewed someone from Ubuntu instead.
:)
But what the heck.. It's Businessweek
How come the date on the article shows a date of January 31, 2005?
Not as bad as Indonesia. I have spent two months in Ecuador and the corruption there is NOTHING to what you see in Indonesia.
It is true, though that if you bribe the right people, you can usually get some traction. However, things have unpredictable consequences.
When I was in Indonesia for six months, there was a massive movement among businesses to switch to Linux. So, I wondered why, and I asked a few people. The answer really didn't surprise me, but it is of interest to this discussion.
It seems that the Indonesian Government had begun a serious crack-down on the distribution of pirated movies and software (apparently due to presure from the US). Now you couldn't get Windows for $10 anymore, and nobody wanted to pay for it, so they were adopting Linux wholesale.
So, in this case, you have to bribe a WHOLE LOT of people. And in the long run you still lose.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I think the business model is actually important for two reasons:
1) You cannot compete with Microsoft if you play by their rules.
2) You have to offer compelling value at a lower cost. You cannot do this if you play by Microsoft's rules.
So Linux is successful because it represents a more cost-efficient way of developing software which fits specific needs better than Windows. The whole Linux development support structure fits this well.
In a certain way, this is less of a business model than it is a community model. You have other similar communities with a similar success rate, such as the Apache Foundation, and any discussion into how they achieve their results is important.
I think that we are on the brink of a business model revolution as profound as that of the Industrial Revolution, with all the associated social pressures, and I think that Open Source is on the vanguard of that revolution. I hope that this sort of article helps others begin to see how this is developing.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This response isn't directly related to what you're talking about, but you got me thinking. I'm currently doing some temp work for a usability evaluation company that specialises in evaluating websites. (I'm a postgrad student with experience in HCI.)
A few days ago, the topic came up that I use linux for everything on my home PC. The company's a small one (~5 people) and uses Microsoft software to work on. One of the people there commented off-hand that I was certainly setting myself up for lots of usability issues. I shrugged it off at the time, and it's true that linux still does have a lot of usability issues. But my own view is that Windows really isn't that much better, if at all, in many places. People are certainly used to it and understand it more, but Windows and associated software has all sorts of usability problems.
The reason I like using linux myself is that it's so clean and nice as an expert user. Windows tends to focus more on beginners, and many people are kept as beginners and doing everything in the beginner way all the time. (Not always, of course.)
Comparing Windows usability with Linux usability doesn't make sense, because linux isn't intended to be usable -- it's intended to be an operating system, with something usable built on top of it. Comparing Windows with a particular desktop manager makes much more sense, at least in terms of usability. And you're not comparing Windows with Linux -- you're comparing it with KDE, or Gnome, or Windowmaker, or twm, or Black Box, or whatever else... all of which could be running on top of linux, NetBSD, Solaris, or possibly even on top of a Windows kernel if they were ever ported that way.
Some time soon, I may take my laptop in to work and show them the nice sorts of usability features that I have a choice of when using linux. I can choose a nice lightweight WindowMaker, which loads quickly and lets me flip between virtual desktops with the roll of a mousewheel. I can choose the more heavyweight KDE, which looks a little more like Windows and is focusing a lot on making it easy to do things without having to know much about what's going on... like rip CD's to MP3's and Ogg-Vorbis by dragging and dropping virtual files. I can choose any number of desktops. At any time in all of them, I can choose to jump to being an expert user by opening a shell, accessing any number of scripting languages to do some very powerful and useful things.
I don't think any of them are fantastically brilliant, but then neither is Windows. On the other hand, each of them has lots of handy usability-centric features that Windows doesn't have, and could definitely learn from.
And that's why I like Linux, because it gives me more flexability to choose what I like most rather than forcing me to follow the Microsoft marketing decisions about what's best for everyone.
Netscape - they have an internet browser thingy and it's really catching on and will soon put MS out of business. .00001% of MS business - they're going to do it for sure!
Oh wait, N/M.
OK, there is this other company called apple pie or something, and they will do it, they will put Microsoft out of business, as soon as they find someone to lend them the money they need to stay in business.
Oh wait, N/M.
Ok, there is this other company called Linux, and they've been around for at least 10 years and they have eaten away at least
Please. IBM isn't a threat, Linux isn't a threat. The only threat to MS is some company unknown to the vast majority at the moment, which comes up with some new innovative have to have commodity. Newsflash: it isn't a 30 year old Unix command line clone band-aided together in an attempt to emulate a user friendly OS by a bunch of non-accountable non-paid hobbyist. There is no compelling innovation there at all. At best - in a long stretch of imagination - a better way of doing the same old thing. If MS had come out and just did a different version of Mainframe software do you think they would have knocked IBM out of the top position? Nope - they seized on a new innovative platform.
If you haven't noticed, MS is spending considerably more effort getting into the home market than worrying about linux. Hint: the technology that runs your household is a market MS must win. If Linux follows historical patterns, they will be late to the party, as usual.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Preferably killer apps?
If you write a whole new desktop system, you'll have to port a lot of apps to it. In fact, you'll probably want a compatibility layer with some other system; given that the only one of the Big Three desktop standards that isn't proprietary is X, you'll have an X compatibility layer (this is fairly easy to do, too).
But what does this really gain you? Where's the payoff for the user? How does using e.g. NVIDIA pixel shaders enhance usability in a way you can't do with X?
There are routinely groups of people who set out to do this. The Berlin project (which appears to have moved to http://www.fresco.org/) is the biggest example; the last news on that page is from 2003, so we can consider them dead.
Read this on X bloat...
You are probably right, but...
I'm the type that is brash. I prefer to really think and calculate:
What do we as the Linux community need to do to win this war?
In my mind, the MOST important thing that we need to do, and what will decide the winner or loser in this war against the evil empire, is that we INNOVATE.
We need to out-innovate them. We can and must out-innovate anything out there.
We need to build equivalent applications of everything on Linux, and surpass even what anyone else has.
We need to get the backing of corporations both large and small, and still appeal to the average newbie. And we need to have GNU/Linux installed by default on the latest, greatest, and smartest machines out there by OEMs on purchase.
And we need to fight the legal battles for our right to innovate.
Innovate on Linux, or die. Fight 'till the death. Make no mistake about it. This is the battle for the future of computing.
And that is the only way to win.
Your TEH funny!!!11!11!11 LOL!111!!
They don't "own" Linux either. Owning a copyright to a GNU based work doesn't mean you can stop people from using it. BSD is the same, only different. You can take a copy of that and make a closed product out of it, but you still can't stop other people from using, or adding to, the original source.
It's sort of like the parable about the guy who took a feather pillow and went down the streets of his village, putting one feather from the pillow on the front doorstep of each house. The next day, he went out to try to gather all the feathers back. Of course, he could no longer do it, since the feathers had blown away.
Point is, once the source is out there, it's forever gone from your control, unless someone violates the original terms of the license (see: SCO). That's the power of FREE software. Oh yes, MS could take a lot of wind out of the sails by pressuring companies to abandon it, and they are certain to start trying legal moves to stop it (read: PATENTS), but it's still a useless effort. Every software engineer in the World has access to Linux. If it isn't developed here, it will be in Brazil, and China, and India, and South Africa, and Germany, and Saudi Arabia, and Japan, and .....
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Huh? You have heard of the GPL, right? I *seriously* doubt that they would do this, because they would still be required to release the source code to all their modifications, and that would effectively expose all their precious little API's, especially for Office.
Besides, why would anyone want to run MS Office on Linux? OpenOffice runs better, and it's free. MS will never give up that cash cow!
Your Servant, B. Baggins
From: /4195177.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click _online
Bill Gates plots a Windows future
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates
Bill Gates is the founder and figurehead of Microsoft
In the first part of a two-part interview, Stephen Cole of the BBC's technology show Click Online talks to Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates about the "digital lifestyle".
Stephen Cole:
Now we last met three years ago when we played Xbox and I have to say I was very pleased to say I beat you. What has changed in the last three years for Microsoft and for Bill Gates?
Bill Gates:
Three years ago we were talking about the idea of the digital lifestyle. That your music, your photos, your TV, your communications would all be very different. And over these last three years I'd say that's really coming into the mainstream.
The vision is that people should have the ultimate in convenience. Being able to get the things they care about on the appropriate device
Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman
We have brought out the Media Center PC. That's really our showcase. It shows how with a single remote control you can get at all these capabilities and then we are making sure that it connects up to everything else.
Whether it's a phone, a music player, audio receiver and we have an increasing number of partnerships. Now we are up to literally hundreds of hundreds of partners who are building things that connect in with the Windows ecosystem and particularly the high end of that which is Media Center. So it's been a great three years for digital lifestyle innovation.
Stephen Cole:
Can you summarise what your vision is for digital entertainment?
Bill Gates:
The vision is that people should have the ultimate in convenience. Being able to get the things they care about on the appropriate device.
So you have got to have a very simple user interface, you have got to have a richness of software that's there and available and you have to bring together all the elements.
Communication because you want to send photos around, the TV guide because you care about watching that, the latest interactive games that are always improving in very dramatic ways, you want this to be very holistic. So the user thinks: 'Hey I just sit down and I can access what I want'.
Stephen Cole:
This is what you mean by 'computainment'? It hasn't really been a fantastic success.
Bill Gates:
Well first we have to take the popularity of the PC in the home. It has continued to rise, it's the key rich device in the home. So we are building off of that and the success that Windows has there.
Media Center we have just got started a few years ago. Now this holiday we have had double the sales we had last year. We're at about 1.4 million units. So 1.4 million, compared to total PCs or total households is still pretty small...
Stephen Cole:
It is very small indeed.
Bill Gates:
People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video
Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman
But as these devices come out, we will be able to double the sales of that every year for a number of years.
And you always want to get in to avant-garde households and then start the word of mouth, where people can come and see that just this one remote control can teach somebody how to use the simple menus.
In a few minutes they can come and say: 'Wow I really like that!' So it builds momentum, so we feel very good about where we are with the Media Center.
Stephen Cole:
But what convinces you that the PC will be the entertainment hub?
Bill Gates:
People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video. And you do w