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Big Names Back Possible Linux Standards
Sean Feryl writes "Adobe Systems, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, RealNetworks and Red Hat are all backing the new Linux standards effort led by the Free Standards Group to form standards for key components of Linux desktop software, including libraries, application runtime and install time. The goal is to encourage the development of more applications for the Linux platform. 'With this complex and costly development and support environment, independent software vendors may choose not to target the Linux desktop, leading to reduced choice for end users and an inability to compete with proprietary operating systems', the group said." Also covered on FoxNews.
Adobe? Does this mean Photoshop could be on the cards?
(and yes, I've used the Gimp, and no, it doesn't do what Photoshop can do)
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
I agree, I think that standards such as directory structures and all that. It might not be as important. But that is a start. It takes too damn long someimes to figure out where X is on my system. It should be here, but its over there.
I also think that this would be good for having a strong divx like layer. I love linux, but there seems to be too many fads, and flavors-of-the-months for things like that. Games and all that would love something that is common to all sytems.
As long as the layer isnt imbedded into the kernel. L)
MMMMMMMMMM Standards
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
I find all this talk of "Linux standards" amusing. To me it appears like POSIX, etc, all over again and I expect it will have about just as much success and impact as POSIX and friends did in standardising Un*x.
The first problem here is most of the "new blood" involved weren't around to witness the mistakes of Un*x in the early 1990s and so Linux has been as different as it can be whilst still being POSIX compliant.
What everyone needs to understand is that standards will never deliver what people are claiming they will.
What we should do is just accept that RedHat, Ubuntu, SuSE, Caldera, Debian, etc, are all different operating systems that happen to share a common source code -base-.
In the end, I expect that the standard will be nice but "not enough" because there will be "differences" in key places to allow each vendor to provide more functionality, expand, etc.
Can't the others just copy for compatibility? Yes and they can do so today but they don't because of different ideals.
All that said, I would love it if the mechanism to install a new software package and have it enabled at bootup was the same on _all_ Linux platforms. Unfortunately, today, it isn't and given the gratuitous differnces in how this is done, I'm not confident that it ever will be the same everywhere.
How many of the distros will follow the standard? I know that it is commercially important for the major distros to follow the standard, but newer and more innovative distibutions may forgo them. If you spend much time running Red Hat or SuSE, you can get frustrated sitting down and attempting to edit scripts on Debian, or at least that had been a problem in the past. Gentoo seems to follow its own path, and I haven't spent more than a few hours working with Slackware in five years. These are just a few of the different approaches to linux file management (especially the rc scripting). Then there are the various package management systems, updaters, and user scripts. I haven't had time to play with Ubantu, but it would take me time to work through the directory tree to see how things are arranged as well.
Linux standards are a great idea, but I don't know how many of the dozens of distros will follow it.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I can see what you are saying, however, I think that it will force trhe companies to compete on a level playiong field. Kind of like the old beta max, DVD standard thing. Once everyone agrees, and the public accepts it, then it will be time to move on. Then everyone else will be able to enjoy it, and isnt that the whole idea behind this ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
It is not about having no choice. It is about having a stable platform to target for development. Kind of like the appeal of Java is not the language, it is the platform.
All these package managers are great for distributing OSS, but once you get into the situation of "I paid hundreds for this photoshop CD" things might get complicated. Releasing OSS and even "free" software like adobe reader is easier than something like photoshop. Free software can be distributed and it's up to the distros to make .debs, .rpms, .ebuilds, etc. But how do you do that with something like photoshop or illustrator? People want to buy the CD and pop it into any computer and install it. And adobe can't possibly make a different package for each distro, even the popular ones.
/usr/portage/distfiles and have an ebuild work from there (as in sun-jdk, crossover office, etc.).
I'm using gentoo and ubuntu right now. I love them because thousands of software titles are available either with the click of the mouse or a few keystrokes in a console. But this works because people get those free packages and configure them for each distro either because their distro paid them or out of the goodness of their heart. But it'd be illegal for someone to make a photoshop ebuild that distributed all the files. And it's a pain to copy the photoshop files into
So yeah, this is a problem without an easy solution. Probably the best thing would be to make a common installer such as autopackage and leave it up to the distro to support it and work with it. Whether the distro wants to use autopackage exclusively isn't required.
The reason apps are not ported from Windows and OS X to Linux is that it is a poor use of resources. Why port apps to an OS that such a small fraction of users use? LSB will not solve that problem.
Linux needs to gain popularity from the ground up, not the top down. Especially given the nature of F/OSS and community driven development, the Linux community should not be looking to big software companies for handouts. How much would Adobe have to sell Linux Photoshop for in order to make money off of it?
Yes, I know there are arguments that companies should be trying to steer their users toward Linux, but without an apparent bottom-line payoff, this will be the exception, not the rule.
From an LSB whitepaper: "without a widely supported binary standard for linux, a single vendor, de facto standard will emerge, effectively removing choice and locking end users in". I feel that as long as linux competes with itself it won't effectively compete with other commercial OS (at least for mass adoption on the desktop). Also, I'd be more interested in learing compiling stuff if the differences between distros didn't create such a moving target for the student. I'm keen to learn, but make it too hard and I'll go off and learn something different.
The more big companies get involved in forcing standards, the less the single developer at home has to say about what happens with the OS.
And the more that single developers insist on trotting out oddball standards for everything that comes to mind, the less they'll be able to complain about business users not adopting Linux.
If Money driven corporations start calling shots
They're called "users with money to spend." You're confusing the vendors with the people the vendors work for (users). No happy users, no vendor profit. No profit, no vendor at all. No big vendors, no one for large business users to trust with their IT services/support... except maybe Microsoft.
standards that work best with their business model
And without customers wanting (and paying for) what they do, they wouldn't have any business at all, and you wouldn't have Adobe or IBM, or anyone else backing the better things that some "single developers" do come up with. But when a standard makes sense, and is adopted by both business users and the companies that serve them, that usually triggers both a large wave of additional development around that standard, and wider use of the resulting platform/apps by businesses. You can't get broad use at the office (and thus an urge for people to switch on the machine they use at home, too) without standards backed by the people that serve those businesses.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
See, the problem is that the very idea of making a "GNOME application" or a "KDE application" is WRONG! People should worry about making an X11 application instead.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Giving up your software freedom for some features is unwise. The free software community would not be where it is if the people who wrote and distribute free software behaved as you're advocating now. Proprietors would love to tell us how we can do the jobs they will allow us to do with computers. I understand why you would be attracted to features you miss—you've never been taught to value software freedom for its own sake hence you see nothing wrong with trading it away—but it is better to improve the GIMP to meet your needs.
Digital Citizen
And that's why initiatives like this are doomed to fail. One person has a suggestion for the 'proper' place to put things, and another says that it belongs somewhere else. Repeat the argument ad-naseum.
What some people fail to understand is that the 'proper' place is the one that (a) someone just makes a decision on and is done with it, and (b) everyone else can depend on.
Who cares if it should have been /etc/X11 or /var/lib. Can someone just make a damn decision already? (yes, I develop software, and this unwillingness to just MAKE A DECISION is a pet peeve of mine).
The package manager:
a. Doesn't always have the latest version available.
b. Doesn't always work correctly. (am I just supposed to decide not to use a program if the package manager refuses to install it?)
c. Doesn't have every program known to man. Again, I'm not going to say "Gee golly darn. I'd love to use Avidemux since it seems so nifty, but there's no package. Guess I'll just patiently wait."
Using the package manager is not always a viable option. I use portage (Gentoo) whenever I can, but on some programs it's severely out of date (even when using the masked ebuilds). On other programs it simply doesn't have an ebuild available.
Also, we get into the situation where the user has to learn a new install/uninstall process for EVERY SINGLE DISTRO. People aren't going to bother with that, and companies certainly won't. If they can't crank out Setup.exe a la Windows, then most of them will simply ignore Linux as a platform (part of the problem is that Linux isn't really a platform, but if we want software support weren't going to have to make it into a standard one).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Goodness me...
Yes, I've heard of make. Here's my problem: if I have to start editing a makefile to point to the right libraries (assuming my distro has the libraries) to get a compilation going, and depending on which distro I use the bits I need aren't all in the same place. Make isn't a standard unless there is a standard way of writing a makefile - and if there is, it isn't transparent to me, based on my experience. I have a lot of trouble learning how to do a complex and esoteric thing when I have to do something different today than it was yesterday. I think you'll find that most people, even the smart ones, are like that.
Hey, I celebrate diversity. But if you want to teach people to think for themselves, do it in small steps, mmmmkay? I'm a corporate chemist, not a programmer, and this stuff isn't second nature to me. I respect your superior knowledge; please respect my lack of it and how much my time is worth to me. Peace.
Most of us here know that the choice of desktop systems, KDE, Gnome, other, isn't relevant to what programs we can run. KMail runs fine with GNOME. Gnucash runs in KDE, etc. But users who are considering Linux, and even some developers, don't seem to know this. They seem to equate the choice with choosing a BetaMax or a VHS (I was alive in the 1980's). Each machine couldn't play the other's tapes. Hence, when the general newsmedia reports on the choice of desktops, potential users conclude that the Linux desktop isn't as mature as Microsoft Windows, because it hasn't converged on a consistent way of doing things. Linux advocates should be certain that potential users know that having a choice of desktops doesn't prevent one from running any applications.
If you're trying to persuade a 40 something then tell them that choosing a desktop system is like buying a video recorder that plays both VHS and Beta and doesn't cost any more.