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ESR Says Linux Followers Should Compromise
jpheasant writes "Eric Raymond argues time is running out to win over the iPod generation. To get there, he says the Linux community will need to make 'compromises.' For starters: 'Linux believers will have to reach out beyond self-absorbed geeks who learns Klingon and attends science fiction conventions in his spare time.'" From the article: "I mean that we need to be prepared to go to the rights holders for these proprietary codecs and say, we'll give you money, give us a license; and this is something that the Linux community has a huge antipathy to doing because we've got all this idealism about open source. And in the long run, I think that's true, I view comprising with the proprietary codec vendors as a tactical move designed to get us larger end user market shares, so that in the end we can push more things to the open."
Wireless is all about having the right card. I used to have this cheap-ass unsupported Belkin crap and trying to get it to work under linux was a nightmare. NDISwrapper, install this tool, that tool, blah. So I went to the wiki for my distro (Ubuntu) found the list of supported cards, bought one, and yay autodetection. No more wires under the door for me! :)
Every camera and music player I've ever used has automatically mounted as an external drive. Have I been abnormally lucky?
Picasa (Google's photo manager) is available on Linux, along with a number of open source photo managers. I think we're doing pretty good on the photo managing front.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Isn't the "ipod generation" the same ones who have brought us MySpace? Personally, I'm glad that Linux isn't all that appealing to them at this point.
Well educate people then. If you see someone bitch about Linux tell them to bitch about the shitty hardware. Put the blame where it ACTUALLY BELONGS.
/. about educating you? Do this sort of shit to people elsewhere and in real life.
I mean no amount of bitching at LKML will make Broadcom opensource their drivers. So instead of being a pissy little bitch, actually do something about it. Grassroots man!
See how I'm talking here on
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Canon (proprietary drivers)
Fuji and Olympus (proprietary/expensive memory)
I also sometimes recommend against Sony (proprietary issues again). However, if you're willing to have memory that doesn't work in non-Sony devices, their products still play fair as peripherals.
Right now, the best brand going IMO is Panasonic. Both their cameras and camcorders are great (as long as you buy what you need from their lineup) and seem to play nicely with everyone else.
This is consumer-level advice only -- if you're going Pro, you probably need Photoshop, which doesn't run on Linux. Hopefully this situation will change one day soon, and professional photographers can join professional videographers in using Linux for production.
I don't think you understand the word 'abnormally'. If most work, then to get one that works is not being 'abnormally lucky'.
Did your friend try it on Linux. I have a Canon camera and it was simply because I plugged it into my computer and Linux downloaded all the pictures and then opened up gThumb for me that I was sold. I used to complain a lot about it before then, but since it has become my primary desktop. With Windows I had to install some drivers and a whole bunch of what I consider crap software from Canon before I could get it to do the same. There's also f-spot and picassa if you don't like gThumb. All do more than Canon's garbage and they have the plus that they actually look decent (let alone like they were written for the same OS).
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Well I don't get you people.
You think we're still living in the IBM PC era where all PCs were the same and "supporting it" was easy because nobody really had huge deviations. Nothing is standard today.
You say my hardware doesn't work in Linux, fix Linux. I say fix your hardware.
I don't see how blaming Linux for the problems that lie directly in your hardware is going to fix anything. If you hate that your hardware doesn't work in Linux, buy hardware from companies which respect your rights. DLINK makes fine network cards that work in Linux, CMIPCI sound cards work flawlessly, Hauppage makes good TV cards, Nvidia based GFX cards are well supported, so on and so forth.
There is no reason you can't build a PC [and on occasion find a laptop] that is fully Linux compatible. That is, other than the fact you won't spend the time to research it and demand that it works with YOUR OS.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Fluendo has done exactly that for mp3 playback.
http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php
It is an odd situation because the source is open, but in patent-aware countries, you need to have paid fluendo, who in turn have paid Fraunhofer and Thomson.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
but the truth is that people who installs Linux and really plan on using it as a desktop will mostly download (illegally!) all the proprietary codecs and install commercial software on to it (DeCSS, Flash, Acrobat, MSFonts, NVidia driver etc.)
DeCSS is open-source free software. It's neither proprietary nor commercial. It's also not illegal in free countries.
MSFonts are not software, just like a JPEG image is not software. They're also freely downloadable. Just because they're made by MS doesn't mean there's anything different between them and, say, Adobe TrueType fonts.
There's no reason to use Acrobat Reader any more; xpdf, KPDF, gpdf, and Evince can view PDFs, and much better than Acrobat.
Flash and the Nvidia driver are good examples, although hopefully Flash will be replaced soon by the open-source version Gnash. People use the proprietary Nvidia and Ati drivers because that's the only way to have good 3D performance in Linux.
Some better examples for you are: MP3, WMV/WMA, and Quicktime. And MP3 only applies in one country as well, as the implementations of it on Linux are all open-source, but are illegal to use in one country because of stupid software patent laws. In all other countries, you can use Free MP3 codecs without fear of breaking any laws.