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ESR's Desktop Linux 2008 Deadline
jesboat noted Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley's essay about what the Linux community must do to achieve dominance entitled "World Domination 201". It says
"Idealism about open formats will not solve our multimedia problem in time; in fact, getting stuck on either belief in the technical superiority of open source or free-software purism guarantees we will lose. The remaining problems aren't technical ones, and none of the interesting patents will expire before the end of 2008. We've got to ship something that works now. If we let this be a blocking issue preventing overall Linux adoption during the transition window, we won't have the userbase to demand changes in the laws to untangle the screwed up patent system, or even prevent it from getting worse. It's a chicken and egg problem, demanding a workaround until a permanent solution can be achieved. We can't set the standards until after we take over the world."
"Idealism about open formats will not solve our multimedia problem in time"
We can have an Open Source Desktop if we just don't make it Open Source! Brilliant!
So... Why did Adobe use H.264 for Flash's codec, considering its patent burden? How much in royalties are THEY paying? Is it really that much better than the OGM codec?
Like a college course? WD201? It's just like ESR to post something so sophomoric as this.
[
Ease of installation. Be it drivers that manufacturers don't bother providing for Linux, or applications that require configuring as root, etc... But the problem of drivers aside, there's a fundamental clash between ease of installation (i.e. something grandma can figure out herself) and security: if you make Linux as easy to use as Windows, then you need to discard the root/user distinction, and that would make Linux as bad as Windows. Yes, I know Windows has a superuser/normal user distinction too, but grandma doesn't use it, and those who do know it's a pain.
The real solution to make Linux more mainstream is to make users more computer litterate. That sort of plan is a 10 year plan at the very least, and requires educating people at school about basic computer security, and the dangers of being a computer idiot. No amount of tweaking will make a good secure OS an easy one.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
He has not posted anything in his blog for six months!
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
How exactly can Linux lose? It's getting better all the time. It can't go bankrupt, it can't be taken over, it can't be bought out.
You could argue it might gain more marketshare if we 'relax' our ideals and principles, but so what? We aren't going to lose linux or anything if we don't.
The various Linux GUI toolkits and APIs are technical and ascetic(hideous to look at) abominations.
e xdesktop20060807.jpg
The silly myth that having multiple desktops is some sort of advantageous competition driving the Linux desktop forward is utter bullshit.
Just clone the fucking major OS X desktop APIs and UI elements and LET'S GET ON WITH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS. And then clone the major iApps.
When you boot Linux, it will look and function as good this:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/leopard/images/ind
The tiny, hardcore 'not invented here' Linux crowd can still waste their time with their oh so productive KDE vs Gnome flamewars and making useless but flashy GL accelerated desktop effects.
"Why can't we work out our differences? Why can't we work things out? Little people, why can't we all just get along?"
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Brain: "Just remember, in order to take over the world -- you have to be brilliant. What better way than turning Open Source into Open-Shut Source? Hmmmm and that's what the OSS could truly end up standing for! (We just won't tell them.)"
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Why is ESR so hellbent on taking over the world? We have a system that works, and that can play multimedia just fine, albeit illegally, why does it matter how many people use it? I, for one, don't see ESR wanting to take over the world as enough of a reason to cave in and use proprietary technologies...
You just gave the reason why we need more people adopting Linux: what you say is that Linux can play multimedia files just fine, only illegally (I'm assuming you're referring to the proprietary mplayer codecs here). Yet you see no reason to "cave in and use proprietary technologies"? Strange line of thought...
If, on the other hand, a significant number of people used OSS, they would have a lote more weight to lobby software manufacturers for more open-source codecs, native ports of their software to Linux, etc... making using Linux perfectly legal when those codecs are available on your favorite platform.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Linux is a kernel. It is up to the X.org people and window managers to worry about the desktop. However, I can't see Linux on the desktop being very important. There isn't any reason why Windows can't be on the desktop. Let Linux do what it was designed to do and use a tool that is better for the job do the job. In that case, Windows is that tool. Conversely, let Linux/*BSD/Solaris/Other related be on the server and not Windows.
In Soviet Russia, sigs read YOU!
5 years ago. Seriously, why are we talking about him? What has he done in the last 5 years?
...but I think in order for them to gain anything close to mainstream status, they have to offer a lot of what the mainstream offers.
There are two things that stand out in my mind as being critical for the success of Linux in the home environment. First, they would have to offer driver support. Lots of it. Microsoft has each vendor test almost all of their hardware for full compatibility with Windows, and even Microsoft tests out some units for compatibility. Apple manufactures their own hardware, which decreases the burden. GNU/Linux would have to rely on "the community" to do this level of testing, but its nearly impossible for this to happen. Linux developers would have to depend on users buying almost all of the popular hardware out there and then test it fully on every popular distribution of Linux. There are several of those: Mandriva, Fedora Core, Red Hat, SuSE, Gentoo, etc. By the time this gets done, Windows Vista would have become the new standard.
Second, Linux really needs a standard GUI. It's very confusing for a new user to learn one desktop interface, say KDE, and then realize that some distributions use another, like GNOME, as a default. Furthermore, not every application "just works" on every window manager; NetworkManager for GNOME has never worked on KDE for me. What makes Linux a pretty amazing operating system is the vast amount of options available, but they really need a standardizing factor for the new crowd.
Linux has made some excellent inroads to prove itself to the crowd as a serious operating system, but I don't think that they will achieve "world domination" by 2008. Even the idea itself is just childish, in my honest opinion. What they should be striving for is pushing it as "an alternative" to Microsoft Windows instead of "the better option." And doing that alone takes a while.
They like to use history is this essay, but backward compatability is by far the biggest factor in the history of desktop operating system software. This essay hardly mentions it, and not in the context of history. The biggest reason Windows 3.1 won was because of its backward compatability with DOS -- and Microsoft never forgot the lesson. Dos -> Win3.1 -> Win 95 -> Win 98 -> NT 3.1 (sort of) -> Win2000 -> XP -> Vista. Microsoft gives you a relatively smooth glide up the chain so that you don't have to throw away all your existing software -- and hardware. Of course, it's not perfect, but it's sure better than throwing away everything to move to Linux or a Mac.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Why is this?
Finally someone of our leaders said what was needed to say - we need to get serious market share, period. No buts, no whys. If you don't get it, you never will be serious about IT, seriously. Because IT don't need only stuff that works now, but which also have serious legacy and support. Don't like it? You bet it, no one likes it, but it is REAL LIFE. Not some dreaming about John Lennon vision of the world, yes, we can try to achieve that, but let's be honest here - we need wilder strategy and understanding about politics here. We need seek out how to get people to our side. For example, I can say honestly that if someone would tried to push me to use FLAC or Ogg instead of allowing to play mp3s on Linux desktop, then I would definitely said good luck and went to study Macs or something else. Only features open me world of "freedom" and "openess" what I value so much now.
We should LEARN and EDUCATE people, not try to PUSH them on our side. It will never work.
This time, ESR got this in the center.
Happy Christmas everyone, go out, meet your dear ones, be with your family.
Peter.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
From TFA:
Uhh... no. Vista is available as a native 64-bit OS for x86-64 systems. The kernel is 64-bit, the drivers are 64-bit, and most applications are 64-bit. Is everything 64-bit? No. Is everything on a typical x86-64 Linux distribution 64-bit? No.
I use linux because it works.
Other people use linux because it works.
Companies (ie google) use linux because it works.
The software keeps getting better, I file my simple user level bug reports and tweaks to various projects.
I'm happy with slow incremental progress with few mistakes. End users don't switch their OS because it's better, they switch because they've gotten frustrated with the horrible quality/performance of the one they've got.
BTW what is this we and leader you talk of. I'm not in your market share seeking we, and ESR isn't my leader.
Why am I not seeing the bloody Monty Python foot?
Also, I am a bit drunk on glögi. Happy Agnostica everybody!
I don't know about other distros, but Linspire/Freespire got around it, pubically acknowledging the suckiness part of software patents, etc, by realising that people want a functional desktop especially with media playback, so they paid the licensing fees, yes, even for DVD playback. (I am talking US here, other nations YMMV on that) That's it, that is what is required for linux on the desktop for the home user, pay the fees for that 1% of code that requires it. They also are trying hard for OEM installs, which is how the vast majority of people get their operating systems in the first place. And before the trolls hit, no, running as root is not mandatory at all so you can stop that, and they do offer fully free downloadable versions, they issue code upstream, and they are trying their best for a polished desktop so that the user experience is as painless as possible and so that the most hardware is detected and working. Near as I can see that's about all a company could do at this time given the situation as it really is.
It's called OpenStep. If the Linux community had any sense they'd kill off GNOME, keep KDE around for a while in maintenance mode, and focus efforts on OpenStep.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
what the Linux community must do to achieve dominance
Uhh, if Linux achieves world dominance, then wouldn't it necessarily follow that Open Source would be evil?
And then Microsoft would be good?
Or maybe I just don't have a proper grasp of the Flemingian eschatology of 007, MI5, and SPECTRE.
I'm sure Linus originally talked about World Domination as a joke. A funny. Everyone laughed. He didn't really mean it. ESR means it. And he has guns.
Why do we want the average users to use linux? Because it is better? Because it is Free softwares? What the linux community can gain from having a larger userbase? Fame? Money? If using proprietary softwares is the way to achieves linux popularity is the way to do it. But are we willing to pay the price of non-freedom? Or we simply don't care? Even if we justify it as a way to gain more freedom in the long term. I fear that we will go down the slippy slopes of being dependent on proprietary softwares. Not good. It is like the bitkeeper scenario that the linux kernel face. I ask you, slashdot audience, is popularity more important than freedom? Or you don't care about freedom?
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-RMS
Yes, but if the only way you can acquire the user base necessary is by making the system interesting to those who don't care about open standard and patent blockages, then how are you going to then leverage your non-caring userbase into political clout?
-josh
So, not that I am proposing this, but the last time I read this ESR proposal/item, I wondered if anyone is suggesting a three year mini, tightly restricted exemption to allow ESR's proposal to fly, or is everyone pushing this suggesting that we must give in and grant and unending exemption?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I don't think the real problem of Linux is the difficulty of installation. Windows is not always straightforward to install either, but for most people it's either done before they get the machine or they get a techie friend to help. It's no biggie.
IMHO, the real problem with Linux is simply a shortage of high-quality applications. This is not intended as a slight against any particular application, and it's certainly not a statement that there are no high-quality applications. But let's be fair: Linux has, as yet, no answer to MS Office at work, and no answer to the range of games available for Windows and/or the latest generation of consoles at home. And that's just step one; there are many more specialist business applications, communications and multimedia software for home users, and the like that will have to follow. Until this sort of thing is available, Linux will never go mainstream, no matter how simple to install it is, how good the driver support may be, or how dedicated its users are to Open Source or Free Software ideals.
This appears, at first sight, to be something of a vicious circle: commercial organisations with the resources to put together that kind of software are unlikely to commit them until there's a market, and the market will not materialise without the software base. But there is light at both ends of this tunnel. On one end, there seems an increasing tendency for the more specialised business applications (or "databases", as we used to call them) to have web front-ends, and since Linux does have decent web browsers available, this reduces the problems in this area. At the other end of the tunnel, Linux itself and several other projects demonstrate clearly that the OSS community is capable of building applications on the scale required. It just needs to grow up a bit, spend less time worrying about philosophical and ethical issues, and kick off some heavyweight projects where the management team have the vision and organisational skills necessary. There's no reason that can't happen; it just hasn't (very often) so far.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
ESR is about as relevant as MC Hammer...
"When you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you."
Ok, so if Linux gains market share most of this are gonna be Windows users who don't care about open source and just want to get things done. So, even though there is a bigger "community", most people in it just don't care.
Hail to the king, baby!
Well... first off, it's got nothing to do with Linux. What we're talking about is a user interface that runs on top of X-windows. As such, it will run comfortably on any flavor of BSD or commercial Unix, and even stranger operating systems.
Second off, we're talking about a vast set of tools. Gnome is nice, KDE is nice, but they're pieces of a larger puzzle that includes X-windowing systems, and all of their assorted tools, drivers, and niceties, window managers, and applications that may or may not be designed to work within the look-and-feel guidelines of anything recognizeable at all. The problem space is way to big for any one person or organization to just decide, "Hey everyone, we're all gonna be doing THIS!"
Open source software grows and evolves as programmers scratch an itch. You can't crack the whip, as the project will just fork as programmers follow whatever their interest is... commercial, educational, political or just for the hell of coding something neat. It would be nice if everyone could assume a role that's perfectly suited for some master-plan to reach some goal... but they won't. Human nature is in the way.
Open Source Software is not a place where a single goal achieved by everyone working in unison is possible. Yes, Linux itself is cool... but how many variants, patches and forks of it are out there? Quite a few... people take what they need, and follow their own interest. This is what open source software is about. Even then, there's more than Linux: there are the three (Four... five?) BSD-based operating systems, and things like SkyOS and Haiku, besides.
In this maelstrom of variation and choice, you want a single standard UI? Not going to happen. What's more, it will likely work against Linux on the desktop rather than for it. Gnome came about because they didn't like KDE, and wanted something with different political and technical goals. KDE came about because the company had a different commercial and technical goal than Motif. Can you imagine how much it would suck if everyone working on KDE and Gnome were forced to work on making a better Motif? We're better off with many projects working for their own ends. Open Source means that the projects cna pick and chose what they like from each other, everyone wins.
Then there's the issue that Gnustep isn't a part of the discussion, despite being an Open Source re-implementation of the UI Apple uses for Mac OS X... so if the best solution isn't going to "win" anyway, it's pointless whining that the third or fourth best solution isn't getting all the attention. (And, as you've figured out, the order from "best" to "worst" won't be the same for everyone... or even a majority.)
In the end, it's up to the commercial distro-makers to decide what works for them, and to pay programmers and project leads and software architects to make it happen. The interface for the OLTP project shows how to get it done, and done on a shoestring budget in a tight time constraint.
Because we want more hardware companies to make their stuff compatible with our OS.
And we want more game companies to produce Linux versions of their games.
I want to be able to take my laptop to places without having to explain that "it's called Linux. It's another operating system, like Windows XP"
... so I'm not sure that I understand your point at all.
MacOSX has the best GUI, hands down. The BSD underpinnings are nice, but Linux has better driver support. So, switch MacOSX from BSD to Linux ;-). Let Linux work out the compatibility with hardware, let Apple run the GUI, and voila, you have your next dominant OS.
Try an old copy of StarOffice. The switch to glibc caused a lot of headaches for that and even the open source developers, new distributions didn't run older software.
The point was that you had to have an operating system that was compatible with software that people already used. It would help if Crossover Office was better.
Not political clout, economic clout. Do you think Microsoft cajoles their user base to political action for DRM? No, this is an issue that the public ranks very low, in these issues, any company/organization with a significant user base is given tremendous clout.
I don't see why this guy has been modded a troll: he's got a point - Joe Public isn't going to know/understand/care about what *we* know that Linux is better at (threading, security, flexibility, adaptibility, customisation etc.) - they're after something that's a no-thought-required interface (after all, what's an OS to the average 'user'?), which works straight away. One of the biggest arguments I have with my friends about Linux is that it takes work to get it going properly: I'm not talking about getting the core OS up and running - that's easy these days; I'm talking about the seemingly silly things, like flash playback, java support, DVD and mp3 support. The kind of things that the great unwashed are going to care about, as soon as they're aware of it presenting a problem.
.ogg is a nicer format, but until Apple 'allows' it, no-one's going to know or care, outside of the geek community.
At the moment, I'm running xubuntu on my old(ish) Athlon system; it's sweet as anything. However, the fact that I had to 1) change the sources.list a bit, 2) independently install Flash on the command line 3) install VLC and then run install-css.sh to get DVDs playing, and then 4) set up xmms to play mp3s - this is trivial stuff, you all know, but it's unnecessary arseache for the average user to do.
Please, please don't bang on about the free alternatives: you'll be missing the point, if you do. I know that
http://xkcd.com/313/
Subliminal messages... detect a good enough graphics card to be able to flash political messages at a quick enough rate so they're not consciously spotted, and then let the reprogramming begin!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
This is the way we are pushing free software at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club, one of the oldest and largest computer clubs around. As much as I favor 100% free systems, the easiest way to move people is through distributions like Xandros, Mepis and others that include non free "add-ons" that give the user those few things free does not: Flash, and accelerated video. I also highly recommend Parallels to those other nasty little things that are left. It's working too. People who use a combination of free and non free come to understand that their pain comes from non free. I can see 15% Linux Desktop penetration this year, followed by the 30% tipping point in 2009. The media content will follow that tipping point because it always courts the audience wherever it can. Free Software has not gone away and it is the future because of it.
The biggest draw right now is that Linux is the easiest way for them to move into the future. Thanks to the porting and popularity of Firefox, Open Office, Gimp and other applications to Windoze, Linux is now the easiest way for the majority of users to keep using these best of class applications. 32 bit versions are good enough for users that just don't want to be forced to spend $2000 on new hardware. The security and stability of free software is very important - current Windoze users are fed up with all of the absurd crap they have to do to keep Windoze working. Commercial Linux gives them what they want right now and does so with much less trouble than an XP install.
Microsoft has done a lot to undermine themselves through DRM and that combined with the usual upgrade is going to wreck them. Vista does not provide the path to media because DRM screws it up. Serious A/V people are going to continue to buy set top boxes to get their media for much less cost and effort than it takes to do things through M$. A $30 DVD player will feed your big screen TV and audio system just as well as an Xbox does right now. Now combine that with Nothing in Vista and Office 2007 being familiar. I watched someone try to save a Word Doc as .doc instead of .docx on a new computer last week. Smoke poured out of her ears as she pushed her usual shortcuts and looked in vain at the remaining menu items. Sooner or later I asked her what the flashing light was and there she found a save as item. She had given up already. I have to wonder if the light would have flashed at all for a patient person like myself who does not know the goofy keyboard shortcut. Open Office is much easier than that and KDE has all the bling Vista does without the pain. Free software has a very good desktop for a very dissatisfied user base. Power users already know this and are looking at Linux as an escape. The other users will follow if we can move those user now. Things have never been easier.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Or more directly...when did ESR's personal agenda become that of the entire OSS/Linux community?
For what it's worth, my 8-year-old daughter thinks Tux is cute, and believes that her desktop looks better with an image of him. Therefor, I predict that unless all distros switch to this new desktop standard than the entire movement will be DOOOOOOOOOMED!
DP
Did you even see the low UID of the poster you're replying to? You even *read* his post doing that flyover, sojer! Turn in your /. card, now!
Try to dance the limbo under that UID! Seriously.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
No im not arguing for everything to be the same, but some back end consistency out of the box would be very nice. While with a bit a jiggery and pokery I can get a workstation up and running and doing all those naughty things like listening to mp3 files after an hour after setup.
OK now - moving from one distro to another is a right pain - depending on who you believe and while i dont mind redoing config files and shifting data, quite why basic things change and what works in the old dont in the new makes things 'fun'
Case in point reiser fs now is 'not good', some distros out there today prefer to format with ext3. I had backups but since the new linux didnt do a few things that the old one did guess which one im using now.
Microsoft made $3.5 billion (net) last quarter alone, and has enough cash on hand to buy a company the size of Home Depot outright.
Absurd. Home Depot is the second largest retailer in the world, with top-line revenue exceeding $80bn and quarterly gross profits of over $6bn. Microsoft has net tangible assets of only $35bn. HD is in the top 20 of the Fortune 500, Microsoft is #48.
In the parallel universe of business that ESR inhabits, Microsoft still has more to worry about from HD than the other way around. What other completely obvious things do ESR and his co-author get wrong in this essay?
Some technical details like licensing for codecs matter but whether a OS is 32 bit, 64 bit just don't matter. Its cheapens his whole argument by even mentioning this. For a user its: "can I click on this movie to watch it" that matters. Or can I open and edit this document without loss of fidelity.
Okay, so if we rerphase the question with economic clout, I still don't see how having a bunch of users who don't care about software freedom using a Linux implementation that doesn't care about software freedom is going to encourage software freedom.
How is this going to work?
-josh
Put more work behind GNUstep. The natural evolution of GNUstep is a viable OSX alternative.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Something to consider is that comparing Linux to consumer operating systems like Windows and Mac OS is like comparing apples to oranges; it's more appropriate to compare Linux to Darwin and Windows' kernel.
Why? One only needs to look at Gaim's download page to understand: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php There are 8 different downloads for Linux-based operating systems.
I personally do not consider Linux to be a complete operating system; instead, I consider it an ingredient for use in creating an operating system. Likewise, Linux-based operating systems tend to be similar, thus allowing programs created for Red Hat to be easily ported to Fedora.
What does this mean: "Linux" can not be successful as a consumer OS, but one of the distributions can. The distributions can compete, and have high levels of compatibility, yet the consumer needs to be shielded from the complexity of the "Linux" brand. Personally, I think the most probable model to follow is to have a Linux-based "Dell OS", and a Linux-based "Compaq-OS". This is a similar strategy that Apple took when they brought BSD to the desktop with "Mac OS."
For example, Turbo Tax could run on Windows, Mac, "Dell OS", and "Compaq-OS". Stating that Turbo Tax runs on "Linux" is confusing because each Linux install has a differing set of APIs.
No, I will not work for your startup
SeaMonkey. Ubuntu. Gimp.
Great applications. Totally unacceptable in corporate settings, just because of their names.
I would wager adoption rates would double if Open Source apps weren't being named by 7-year-olds.
Okay - rule #1 for a manifesto: take a bloody look at it first before posting.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I don't want to be the next "640MB ought to be enough for everybody" guy, but I have a really hard time seeing more than 4GB in low-end systems in just 2-3 years.
That much RAM costs a fair bit today, and it feels to me like RAM prices are not declining fast. I found a lovely history of RAM prices at Sharky Extreme that seems to support that feeling. In December 2004, 2005, and 2006, the cheapest way to get 1GB of PCxx00 RAM is always close to $100.
I think the masses aren't going to be running on much more than $100's worth of memory in 3 years, or ever. So until prices drop to $25/GB, they don't need a 64bit OS. They might as well continue running a 32 bit OS on their 64 bit hardware, just like I do now.
If I'm right, that doesn't necessarily detract from ESR's point. It's natural that once some threshold is crossed, everyone switches to a 64 bit OS even though most don't need to -- they just get dragged along with those who do. I just thought this statement about 4GB low-end systems was a bit suspicious.
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
They know that open source projects CAN'T pay the royalties. This keeps us out.
"I use linux because it works.
Other people use linux because it works.
Companies (ie google) use linux because it works.
The software keeps getting better..."
I've been watching the "experts" argue and grandstand about what linux needs to do for about 6 years now. Some of the stuff happens and some of it hasn't. Regardless, the adoption of linux-type OS's just keeps growing and the software keeps getting better. This ESR rant smells of FUD. I'm not afraid, even if you do have a lot of guns...
The essay is amusing. Not for its content, but for its format. It starts out with a revision history of all things. Only a dweeb would put that at the beginning of an essay intended for public consumption.
Then there's the focus on "64 bit". Microsoft and Apple both had 64-bit operating systems, then backed off. (It was surprising that when Apple went from PowerPC to x86, they went to 32-bit x86, even though 64 bit parts were already out. Which meant Apple users would face an unnecessary 32 to 64 bit transition on x86, and Apple would have to deal with annoying dual-mode issues.)
What does this essay say Linux needs? "Drivers for all existing hardware". "People who buy a new desktop want to plug in their old PCI cards..." Earth to Linux fanatics: 80% of all PCs are never opened in the field during their entire working life. What's important is drivers for what's shipping right now from major hardware vendors.
"Luckily, Windows more or less stopped being a moving target recently." Haven't looked at what Microsoft wants developers to do for Vista apps, have you? There's a big push by Microsoft to get developers using Microsoft-only technologies embedded in Vista, ones you can't run under Wine because they require non-redistributable DLLS.
"To attract enough non-technical end users to make the hardware vendors care about us, we need Linux to come preinstalled on PCs in a configuration that just works." Finally, the right answer. But that's a political and legal problem. Vendors don't offer Linux preloads because Microsoft penalizes them if they do, and Ashcroft's Justice Department rolled over on keeping Microsoft from doing that.
This essay is aimed at making Linux fanatics happy. What it should be aimed at is making low end desktops for office use cheaper. Push on Leonovo to offer something comparable to Red Flag Linux (which they preload for Chinese consumption) for export. Push on WalMart to sell it. The standard low-end business desktop should become Linux. Your call center people don't need Windows.
This hits Microsoft where it hurts - price pressure. Microsoft wants to charge more for Vista than for XP, and that could be derailed.
Look at this painfully ugly mess:
g
http://www.gnustep.org/images/full-screenshot1.pn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gnustep.png
I'm tempted to say that GNU makes **everything** ugly,
but actually GNOME isn't bad if you play with the
settings for a bit. (hint: you can ditch the second
toolbar and thicken up the other one)
SeaMonkey. Ubuntu. Gimp. Great applications. Totally unacceptable in corporate settings, just because of their names.
The "best" names are already trademarked, but it does not matter. Just ask IBM, Chrysler, Lowes, and all of the other big companies that have already jumped on the free software bandwagon. Companies that don't jump will face increasing relative IT costs. Money is the language every company understands. What's important to them is that there are free browsers, databases, image manipulation programs and GUIs they can use. The name is irrelevant, when 95% of user simply push a button to start the application. You can put whatever name or icon on that button you want and most reasonable distributions arrange things by function and purpose.
Your intended flame has brought up one of the better things about free software for ease of use. Menus are reasonably organized in the free software world. This is in great contrast to the Windoze world, where applications are still arranged by company name - Adobe (mud!), Symantic, Norton, Correl. They have to do this in order to promote their brand. Free software coders and distributions have no similar compulsion. Free software will never resemble the commercial billboard that the non free desktop is. Windoze will always end up looking like the ugliest commercial strip mall lined freeway you can think of. Free software will always look like a posh resort town. The contrast is so obvious, you have to be blind of habituated to miss it. Given time, everyone ends up liking the resort more.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, do people who buy CD's care about DRM? As long as Linux leaders care about it, we're fine. If Linux had 50% market share, then when Linux leaders go to congress and say "Current Patent law is seriously harming our bottom line, and the viability of the market", congress will listen.
Let's look at that list:
1. Digital Fax system
2. SharePoint services
3. Remote desktop / assitance
4. Group Policies
5. Exchange
For less than 40 users??? Dude, you need a fileserver appliance
and either an email appliance or outsourced email.
Probably the appliances run Linux internally, but you don't
need to know. You admin them via a web interface. They don't
fail for mysterious reasons involving fuckups or malware.
In a place with only 40 users, desktop assistance is a wonderful
opportunity to get off your ass and do 100 feet (30 meters) of
this excercise we call "walking". It's good for your health,
probably way faster to set up, and provides the human touch that
you need to be providing for career reasons.
In order to lead, it is necessary to be out front.
Trying to open closed source products is all very well, but all that will do is leave Linux trailing behind the front runners.
It's time for "Linux" to establish some open specifications that replace existing closed specs by being better.
http://freedomdrive.org/ has quite some things in common with the strategy he sketches, plus a domainname ready for use
The big-iron stuff, from mainframes right down to UNIX workstations, suffered severely for making this mistake.
He who owns the desktop controls the protocols, and thus the servers.
I like Eric Raymond. As often as people are annoyed about Raymond's opinion and claiming authority on the Hacker culture, he still remains deep at heart a good analysis. I find that when he is honest in truly dissecting an issue he is more rigorous in his logic than a great german philosopher on a bout of depression. This is the quality of projection and reporting you would only get if you had an expert in the industry working for you only for the satisfaction of making your company successful. I'm only through half of the essay but this is what a strategic outlook report should look like if your experts weren't hedging, backtracking, spineless yes men more concerned with covering their ass than telling the whole story. Read the essay.
ESR has been saying that free as in freedom "zealots" are going to hurt Liunux for forever. Well he is still wrong. Because we are free and because we have control, that means that the market is under pressure to cater to us as we grow and expand ... not the other way around. It also means that our growth happenes is spite of proprietary alternatives and inspite of occasional commercial bias against free software. Is is the free nature of Linux that puts pressure on the market to go our way, not corporate idealisim or conformity. Nothing magical about 2008 is going to change that. Nothing magical is going to say "well, the window has passed and now all of a sudden people have no alternative". Yeah, I'm sure he wants to beat Vista to the punch, but that is a personal thing just as is his bias against people who see freedom as the ends and not the means.
Are all the pieces there?
Content production: you need Windows-based professional video authoring tools to support the format. (Is this in their interest? Really? Would acceptance of the format change competition?)
Server: you need an IIS plug-in to serve the video.
Client: you need Microsoft to provide a mapping from MIME type to codec download URL or, better yet, provide the codec with the OS.
Then guess what...? All the closed source people will adopt it then slowly change it over the next 20 years.... Then we have to start over again! Let's face it, The money leads and everything else follows.... Tony
Nobody needs 64-bit processors, and nobody needs a successor O/S to Windows XP. People do word processing, internet browsing, video chat - but they don't need a more powerful computer. Even an old 1Ghz machine works fine if you get at least a gig of RAM in it, and don't bog it down with Norton. There is no transition coming. People do not choose an operating system, nor do they need to. They buy a computer, it comes with Windows. If Vista is bad enough, people may choose to stick with their old computers and not buy new ones. The Linux idea that we will win because we are cheaper than Windows doesn't work. A Dell with Windows is within a few dollars of the cheapest bare system you can buy. The advantage of Linux is no viruses. If we can that that huge advantage, and add ease of use, some people will switch. The author's idea that MacOS will take over is also ridiculous. Macs will always cost twice as much, and because of that they will never get real market share. There aren't enough rich people for Mac to ever get even 15% of market share. On the other hand, at least half of Windows users are having their data stolen and their system slow and unreliable because of malware. If we give them an easy to use alternative and heavily promote it, Linux can gain market share, and could even put Windows out of business one day.
Number of good points in above post that should be addresses rather than buried. This isn't Digg (yet) I hpoe.
I have to disagree with you.
I have had MS Word documents go completely fubar, with no way of figuring out how to fix them. (OK, recently I've been able to fix some of them by opening them in OOo.org) With reveal codes, at least I was able to figure out what was going wrong with WP documents.
I've used Wordperfect 5.2, 6.1, 8, and 11, and various Words along the way. All of them were better than the contemporary MS Words. Many things just work better in Wordperfect including kerning, lists, outline numbering, help, . . .
By the way, for one of the posts farther up, windowsa 3.1 wasn't really backwards compatible with DOS as much as it ran on top of DOS.
"..Linux desktop market share remains stuck below 5%, which is too low to garner support from hardware vendors in some critical areas like graphics and wireless hardware..."
I happen to agree with ESR much of the time, but he's wrong here. We _have_ got support from hardware vendors in critical areas like graphics. nVidia and ATI (and even Matrox, after much grumbling) _have_ released Linux drivers.
The problem is that because they're in binary form, a very vocal subset of Linux users don't want 'em, in fact they SPIT on them and the companies that release them.
While I understand the philosophical (and to some extent practical) objections, the fact is that they're NOT going to release open drivers until Linux use becomes very much more widespread. And Linux won't become more widespread if we're going to insist that people use the dysfunctional open drivers available.
Perhaps the temporary answer is "semi-closed" drivers, developed by proprietary hardware companies in collaboration with respected OSS businesses like Red Hat or Canonical?
For Linux to make significant inroads we just have to come up with some creative and broadly acceptable compromises with the hardware industry as it is now, not as we would like it to be, or Linux will always remain a fringe solution.
[Wacom "assist" the community in writing Linux drivers, but the drivers are fairly simple and Wacom have essentially no rivals]
Methinks this sentence represents exactly why Linux hasn't already hit the desktop mainstream.
damaged by dogma
I have had MS Word documents go completely fubar, with no way of figuring out how to fix them.
That's because you think MS Word documents have codes, when they don't. They have styles. When you realize that everything revolves around styles, it's easy to fix things.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Then you are seeking to buy into Linspire N, not Linspire Media Edition. Most entertainment works that can be viewed only through the proprietary codecs that the article mentions are themselves proprietary anyway.
I agree 100%. Sure, we'd all rather have 100% open source solutions to all our problems, but that isn't possible at the present time. People need computers that work. A Linux computer without closed-sourced components like video codecs, flash plugins and 3D drivers is effectively a computer that doesn't work. People need computers with that functionality and open source doesn't offer it, and it won't in the foreseeable future. If the open source community insists upon idealism and purity, they will make themselves, and their software, useless. A purely open source Linux operating system is useless for a desktop computer. You either have to deal with it and toss ideals out the window, or you have to accept that Linux will never be able to compete in the desktop operating system market. I choose the former.
Maybe 5 or more years down the road we'll finally have open source nvidia drivers and such, and I look forward to that day. Until then, I'd rather use Linux than Windows on my desktop.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Since I started messing around with Linux in 1997, the quality and ease of installation has improved exponentially. There is no comparison between installing Red Hat 5 point (whatever it was) and the Ubuntu ISO I could download today.
:-)
Latecomers like you don't understand how good it used to be. My first Linux distro was Yggdrasil, 1994'ish. It installed fine, it autodetected video, audio, etc. It was clean and easy, no silly questions, no technical knowledge was needed, and the machine restarted with graphics and sound. I was shocked and horrified when I tried other Linux distros a year or two later. Only recently have we returned to this point.
Not a great analogy, but look at the state of modern music.
I'd emphasize your caveat. Music has not really changed, in any generation it is predominantly crap. We are biased because the stuff we hear from a decade or two ago comes from the minority of good stuff. the stuff we hear from a centuries ago is usually only the magnificent. Previous generations have sorted and ranked the music, today's music is undergoing that process, your involvement in this process colors things.
And for those that are entrenched in their current OS, they are terrified to change. Particularly those Apple guys
Huh, I'd say it is the other way around. Apple is delivering UNIX to the masses, not Linux. As Linux blunted Microsoft's advance towards the server, Apple has blunted Linux's advance towards the desktop. Much open source software runs under both Mac OS X and Linux, traditional UNIX apps and tools as well, specialized apps (chem/bio for example) have been ported from Sun/SGI to Mac OS X, etc. Now add the commercial apps and games on top of all that. People coming from traditional UNIX backgrounds are now considering Mac, unlike 4-5 years ago. People getting tired of Windows are far more likely to consider Mac today than Linux. The basic problem is that Linux still has a by nerds, for nerds attitude. Vocal portions of the community think the problem is the user, that the user should know how to download source, compile, and install a wireless driver to get the factory wireless on their Dell laptop working. The average user does not care about the GPL or DRM, they don't care about buying proprietary hardware from a single source, all they care about is functionality working out of the box. Apple wins there.
If Linux has 50% market share, and the additional users do not care about software freedom, then "Linux leaders" who talk about the problems with non-free software will not represent 98% of their user base. I don't think this is how leadership works.
Maybe Linux related companies will be able to still make the point, but I'm betting if such a userbase exists in such percentages, the leading Linux companies will cater to this viewpoint and will not make such a point.
-josh
DRM for linux? Hear me out first before modding me into oblivion. I think this actually has merit.
People in these parts always complain about the current state of DRM - restrictive, intrusive, and physical and/or logical format specific. (I agree with these sentiments, just for the record.)
DRM is here to stay, at least for as long as people want to purchase media content from their computers. Content providers will simply not sell their content digitally unless there is a system in place to 'protect' it.
The current 'killer-app' is generally agreed to be iTunes - but we can't port the full functionality of iTunes to linux. This might be because of legal or technical reasons, but either way we just don't have an equivalent for iTunes. If someone could create an open source DRM system (as counter-intuitive as that seams), there would at least be a possibility of an iTunes-equivalent content delivery system that could work on linux. If I could download/purchase music and video on linux, the last remaining hurdle (in my eyes) would be games. At least acceptable alternatives for most games already exist -xbox360, ps3, wii if you prefer consoles, varying versions of wine if you prefer PC games.
So why not? So why can't we create an open source DRM solution that allows us to actually use our music/videos and still gives some control over distribution to content providers? It would most likely have to work cross platform, otherwise at the moment no content provider would take the effort to implement a delivery system that targets only linux users. It would have to use a half-intelligent algorithm because the closed-source method of security by obscurity will not work with open source.
I don't know if it can be done, but doesn't it make sense to at least try?
Geeks never change :) Slashdotters seem to believe that if Linux will become "better" in technical terms, it may gain popularity. But wait.. lets apply this logic to the current situation... this would mean that Windows dominate desktop because it's the best OS on the market... right? Well.. not exactly. Microsoft are where they are now because of their marketing and because of their heavy handed policy towards OEMs. Now - who is gonna invest huge amounts of money against MS machine in marketing Linux on the desktop? Who is gonna strongarm OEMs into pre-installing Linux?
Linux has got somewhere not because it really became "better" - Linux has got some buzz from media. RedHat, Suse (then, Novell now) invested some money into advertising Linux, so it gained some momentum. BeOS was MUCH better on the desktop then Linux (esp. those days) but it still failed. Jeez, OS/2 by IBM has failed due to lack of push efforts from IBM despite being light years ahead of Windows in most aspects - and yes, it supported both DOS and Win3.1 applications, so "backward compatibility" factor mentioned here is a BS too. Look at the history - you may find some lessons there.
Lots of desktop computers, especially those on which video and gaming matter (per the article), are kept in a house that has more than one person living in it. So you'd have a user account for Mom, Dad, Chester, Hester, and Lester.
Why do people want linux to take over the world so badly? Aside from a few corporations most people on here have no vested interest in seeing linux "win".
I run linux on some of my computers, its fun to mess around with as a hobby. But that doesnt make me some evangelist who wants Linux to run on a huge number of computers. Why do other people want that? Why do we even care?
Ive known people who would push linux onto the computers of relatives who were completely technically illeterate. To me this seems like putting the best interests of your relatives below the desire to spread linux everywhere.
As for literacy levels, one part of the blame can be put on whoever decided that high school English curricula should stress literature over linguistics. They teach the plots of specific novels, many of which address themes that don't fit into an adolescent's not-yet-fully-developed brain (e.g. anything by the Brontë sisters) and many of which are still subject to a monopoly on derivative works (e.g. anything by Salinger), instead of teaching how the English language actually works and why it works that way.
You need to pick the 3 parts separately to get something nice.
Start with Clearlooks, then choose to customize it. Make the
following choices:
controls: Clearlooks
window border: Lush
icons: GNOME
Probably Red Hat has a different name for "Clearlooks".
I think they trademarked the name they use.
Various distributors located in WTO member states.
I think SCO has, if anything, shown that lawsuits are insufficient when the development of Linux (kernel OR applications) is done by so many people and organizations across so many countries (each with their own legal systems).I think WIPO has, if anything, shown that lawsuits are sufficient when the development of Linux (kernel OR applications) is done by so many people and organizations across so many countries that are parties to the same treaty (each with legal systems that have been harmonised to an extent).
Recently I tried Ubuntu to see if Linux had improved, Ubuntu from reputation is supposed to be people friendly, so lets look at the ease of installation.
Try to install Linux on a primary slave 40gb drive, doesn't work setup randomly crashes evntual fix is to remove the SATA drive.
Installed ok, keeps freesing with grub 1.5 loading screen with error message 15, solution is removing the primary master drive and switching the Primary slave to a master, but as soon as the old master goes in as master system locks up. SOlution to reload drive again this time with it being primary master, then turn it into slave.
Download video driver from Nvidia break Xwindows, after spending a few hours talking to a Linux fan boy give up and reload AGAIN.
Got Nvidia driver installed, trying to figure out why there is no sound, after a few hours looking at a blank wall I realise the sound manager lists things by chipset and my motherboard onboard sound chiptset is selected.
See Beryll start googling for information on Beryll, after following the Wiki I reach a point which seems to be a known error but nothing more is said. Give up reload, try again no sucess.
Ask Linux online friends how to access NTFS drives in linux after 45 minutes of a MSN conversation, anouther hour browsing forums give up.
I didn't even reach the stage of trying to get some of my Games working on WINE. Linux is good to install if all you want is a corporate desktop with word,outlook style of things. It Linux isn't easy to install, my 12 year old near computer iliterate sister can install windows XP (she also can install the sims.) It was only my desire to see Ubunutu and three solid days of browsing forums which got a semi working version of linux on my machine. open source sounds great it is a great idea but if all Nvidia are going to release is closed source drivers give me a distro with them on, give me a distro which lets a heavy windows user switch to and maintain their applications.
As for improving computer literacy sorry your missing the point, we could improve peoples understanding of how their car works but people aren't interested they have a grasp of whats going on and can change the oil but ask them to swap spark plugs.... Thats all you can hope for with PC's which, are much more complicated and scary. Make the desktop more user friendly and people will learn and move over you need a majority of people to be running Linux to be able to force Nvidia or ATi to give you your open source driver.
Linux is hopeless. They'll never get their act together on the desktop. Just buy a Mac if you want workable Unix for the desktop. I gave up on Linux years ago and have never looked back.
OO.org, and the Gimp are NOT "best of class". Microsoft Office and Photoshop totally demolish both of your mentioned applications. I don't know what delusion you are in, but we welcome you back whenever you want.
You forgot to mention Firefox, which like Mozilla and Netscape, are superior to the M$ offering in every way. Konqueror is my favorite and has even more features like divisible tabs and excellent file system integration.
I'm in that delusion where the only difference between the other two is in how much money I have to spend to get what I need. OO and Gimp do everything that I need to do and cost nothing. I get to spend the money on hardware instead. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on software licenses for a single shared computer, I have multiple desktops, everyone in my house has a nice laptop and all of those computers have all the software they want. Name me a feature I'm missing and you might start to errode my "delusion" of happiness.
People actually doing things with their computers at the CCCC tend to share my delusion.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
MacOS X is beating the crap out of everybody right now on the desktop and I for one don't see the point in chasing that market. Why is everyone so obsessed with desktop Linux anyways? Having a huge desktop userbase would be a quantum leap for Linux and the principles of OSS, yes, but the amount of resources that would have to be expended to beat Apple at its own game would make it a Pyrrhic victory. I look around and I see all sorts of smart, tech-savvy people who would have been running Linux five years ago, running Mac. If Linux can't attract those people, what's the use courting the rest?
And what more would desktop Linux offer anyways? The Mac OS I can buy today is stable, fast and runs Unix. Add to that a kickass, extremely well thought-out GUI that's years ahead of anyone else (don't agree with me? They do.) and I just don't see the point.
I'm not trying to diss on open source. I have all the respect in the world for the smart developers who gave me millions of dollars worth of free software which I employ on a daily basis. But let's admit it: usability has never been its strong point. And that's fine, because the tradeoff is increased power, and many of us are happy taking extra time to learn complicated tools that enable us to do, well, everything. My vote is for sticking to what we know best: stable, reliable software that looks great on an 80x25 text console.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Lord knows I'm no fan of Vista, but ESR is plain wrong on this one.
I have a machine running Vista 64 in my cubicle.
It has weird, funky compatibility issues, yes, but is definitely faster than running Vista-32 on the same hardware.
He's been central for a very long time. He's coined terms you and I take for granted (Open Source?) and been involved in the fight much longer then most of us. Sure, he may be largely a pundit but dismissing him seems foolish and short-sighted. He's been a pivotal part (The Cathedral and the Bazaar) of this legacy we've picked up and he's been a surprisingly even-handed one (OSS certainly would have had a much more up-hill fight without a little moderation by the likes of ESR and, I don't know...say, Linus).
/. lately that show a surprising A) disregard or B) ignorance regarding the actual figures behind the movement we fallen into. I wish people would take the time to actually read about the events. Linus Torvalds biography (Just For Fun) should be considered required reading for anyone who wants to pontificate on the subject. I read the Cathedral and the Bazaar on a trip to SF about 6 years ago (on my old Franklin eBook!). Hell, watch some of the documentaries like Revolution OS or The Code.
Anyway I've been reading more and more comments on
Seeing these people speak has definitely helped me understand their motives and inspiration. I've gained respect for people who started a fight for ideas long before it was trendy or smartly debatable. Deriding them now seems kind of sad.
If ESR has something to say I'll listen to it. He's proven himself already. I don't have to agree (although I do tend to) but I will respect it. He's worked for most all of us long before we even existed.
Quack, quack.
"Waxing eloquent about the implementation, licensing, or development model is like touting the benefits of dual overhead cams with a manual transmission. If grandmother ever has to pop the hood, she has the wrong car."
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/ 2006-April/msg00118.html/ 2006-April/msg00358.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list
Read about ESR's ridiculous attempts to troll the Fedora Project into violating the GPL and shipping proprietary software. ESR continues his irresponsible crusade. This is NOT in the best long-term interest of the community. Please do not give this "leader" any credence.
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Rosco P. Coltrane wrote:
> But the problem of drivers aside, there's a fundamental clash
> between ease of installation (i.e. something grandma can figure out
> herself) and security: if you make Linux as easy to use as Windows,
> then you need to discard the root/user distinction, and that would
> make Linux as bad as Windows.
Distributions like Fedora, which ship with SELinux enabled by default
on installation, fix this problem in one of the best possible ways.
Mike
(as usual in this web forum, remove spaces in sig to verify)
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Ship something that works, he says? Has he looked at Ubuntu? I say, that is the answer to his question. It is easier to install and administer graphically than Microsoft Windows itself.
Don't believe me? Try it.
I think the problems can't/shouldn't be placed at the feet of the users (clue: it won't fly). The problems is idealogical almost as much as it is functional at this point. Linux is a patchwork. It works like a patch work. Thats a functional flaw for its use as a mainstream desktop.
Microsofts offerings are also 'good enough'. Its what your family and friends use so sharing systems are data is relatively simple between systems. Its a big mostly monolithic piece of software that can provide a (nearly) seamless environment for people to do basic work in. And being pre-installed (so seemingly, free), easy to use, well supported with a huge user and software base (we talk frequently about quality/quantity of games for new consoles being the make/break point, why would this be different for an OS?).
Ease of installation is certainly a component, but one of many. Its been years since I've had much trouble, maybe just my good fortune (not to say server installations are the same, with sloppy hard/soft raid chips with no support being something that regularly creeps up). I think Linux has come far enough though that focusing on the big picture is were its at now. But that might not be something we really want to do. Our patchworks desktop systems provide choice and choice is something many of us relish.
Quack, quack.
There is hardly enough valid opinion in the comment to mod it 5 insightful so I suspect copious amounts of Microsoft FUD at least from the moderators.
Let's examine it carefully.
"people" in general want to use whatever everyone else is using
Yup. And that's why the killer linux desktop app will make people switch. When it fulfills a need that their current desktop doesn't then they'll switch. Look at Apple. They are hardly winning the war despite having the vastly superior OS.
a. Exchange replacement
This one is right. There's no 1-for-1 replacement and Outlook makes this extremely difficult to do anyway.
. Policy management like Active Directory
This is wrong. Horribly so. As someone that deals with policy objects every day they are a nasty hack. I can do the same thing a couple of different ways in Linux where someone else can come along and figure out what I did easily. Active directory? Not so much.
Microsoft compatibility
Clearly you have never dealt directly with Microsoft. Please don't make such foolish statements. Microsoft doesn't want it to happen.
Security updates that really are without question
Sadly, you aren't kidding and you must like Microsoft's update routine. As a system administrator I WANT to know if the update is replacing a critical file and any sysadmin worth half her salary will want the same thing.
Educational Facilities
These comments clearly show complete ignorance when it comes to abusive Microsoft licensing practices. Please don't comment so authoritatively on something you know nothing about.
More shades between "root" and "user".
This one is particularly humorous. There are many, many ways to do this. If you are too lazy to edit a sudo file, then this http://csrc.nist.gov/rbac/ won't do you any good either.
Somewhere to put "common documents
I don't know what the hell this is about but it sounds like you are just too lazy to do it because it's not hard.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Some people just don't get it, do they?
The journey is the important thing. If you follow the path with passion and genuine fascination, then the end goal will take care of itself. However, if you make the goal the goal, if you make winning your priority, then you might as well run a dark-side Windows box. You'll gain power fast, but it will corrupt you in the process.
-FL
I know this idea hasn't got a shot in hell of working, but the reason that Microsoft is the monopoly it is, is because so many companies support it.
If "A" government is serious about breaking up the monopoly, what they need to do is not bring them to court, what should happen is once a hardware company has enough market share then they should be legally obligated to provide quality drivers for multiple operating systems. If companies find this to be a hardship they could always work with open source programmers who would be willing to develop binary drivers in return for the information necessary to do so.
Doing the same for software shops would be the nail in the coffin, though I imagine software shops will be able to scream hardship alot easier than hardware companies.
Basically though, Microsoft is a monopoly due to other companies supporting them, Microsoft alone would not be a monopoly with out that support.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Mr Raymond quotes the advantage that Linux has in terms of drivers including their source code. Well, if Microsft needs they can distribute those too. They don't want to, but if there is an advantage, they will.
Plus they can lower the cost of their OS considerably.
Another advantage Windows has is the vast amount of System Administrators, that can only work with point-and-click setups and configurations. I've seen them in action. Tell them a log file has some lines of interest and they are all marked with a unique identifier, e.g. "6266626-72772-92388", and they don't immediately think of using grep.You show friendly patience and suggest grep, they don't know what you're talking about. So these quite incompetent people are on the Windows side, and are a huge hurdle all by themselves. They don't even grasp the advantage and are completely stumped to leverage the additional features.
Windows based programmers -- the same holds. An absolute shame in terms of competence, vis-a-vis the power of contemporary computing equipment.
If all other points of the article hold, then it woun't be Linux that will win.
In other words, his advice as to what needs to be done can be safely ignored.
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Wow. An interesting response without the "me too" /.ism. :)
/etc/network/interfaces exists is a flaw. We rely on our old (comfortable) ways so late in the game and act like users are simple too stupid to understand what a great free OS we are offering them.
And critical to the pseudo elitism to boot! Too bad real discussion is becoming less frequent here. I appreciate your counter-points. The whole F you attitude seems to be kind of back in vogue and I'm guessing its probably more of new generation who haven't really been watching this whole thing unfold (and repeat itself!) over the past decade.
The fact that you should even know
Traditional Linux systems (say, everyone on the market?) are servers. Work great as servers and have a GUI cobbled together and clamped into place.
Quack, quack.
There's another effect here like the memory size one in which people want to take advantage of all the memory that comes with their machine.
People also want to take advantage of the storage space.
The NTFS filesystem kinda sucks by today's standards. It gets incredibly slow over time, probably due to fragmentation in the MFT or something like that. Even repeated runs of NTFS defrag software (the kind you pay for, not mentioning names here) will not solve the performance problem and you're looking at a costly (time=money) re-install to speed it up again.
Enter Linux with a wide variety of file systems that don't seem to slow down your machine just because you've created and deleted tons of files over time. And the Linux filesystems can handle MILLIONS of files. When you do that to NTFS, you're really just asking too much...
So what are people going to do when they have to store millions of files on enormous filesystems in the enterprise or Internet services space? They're going to switch to Linux because there's no alternative to NTFS on Windows.
So there's also a filesystem window opening up, in addition to the 64bit hardware / >4GB memory window. Lets hope this takes place in the consumer space as well.
Do you think that most computer users care (much) about DRM/proprietary formats? Ultimately, they just want to watch their DVDs and load the AAC-files they purchased from iTunes onto their iPods. Right now, many digital activites require proprietary and encumbered software: games, DVD playback, online music/movies/tv/etc., graphics cards, wifi chipsets, and a slew of other things. If Linux users want to partake in these activities, they NEED the backing of these software and hardware vendors. ESR is suggesting that the 64-bit transition (among other things) will shake things up a bit, and if the Linux community can get its act together before 2008, Linux could become the dominant consumer operating system. If that happens, then the hardware/software/content providers will have to develop for the Linux market, and they will have to play BY OUR RULES. Right now, Linux has less than 5% marketshare, so we need them more than they need us. ESR (and company) are attempting to turn the tables, and then they will need us! If Linux had a higher marketshare, the core developers (kernel hackers, distribution developers, etc.) could bandy together and DEMAND open-source drivers, unencumbered codecs, etc.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Gnustep is already available for Linux. We essentially already have OSX for Linux.
http://www.gnustep.org/
Deleted
Thanks replying inline to sound like you know something important.
The parents posts were valid points, and you truly added nothing to them.
The sad truth though is that you both miss the point about the article being directed towards taking over the desktop. Not the server domain -- which is already fine for people like you.
Let take a look at that though, shall we...
The backend mail system and file security system should be interchangable. A good admin can make that happen if they work at it enough on Linux. A mediocre (read cheaper labor) admin can do the same task on Windows.
Ubuntu is remarkably good. Much better than Windows.
NextStep/OSX though...
Deleted
Assumption number one: there is no administrator.
Assumption number two: the user wants a perfect experience (not even one moment of: "huh? How do I do that.")
Which means: the machine must be completely self-managed, and completely self-configured.
Now, that means the system must be able to accurately identify all its hardware, peripherals, and whatever might be shoved into the cd/dvd drive, USB, firewire, or esata. Also, the system needs to accurately be able to go download, from trusted sources, all drivers, on demand, as needed, to make the system work completely optimally. The system must also be able to automatically recognize, configure, and optimize the experience of all wireless, monitors, video cards, printers, scanners, cameras (both still and video).
The key word is AUTOMATICALLY.
Remember, there is no administrator.
Now, of course, if the computer does not have a reliable connection to the internet, none of this is going to happen. It's a given requirement.
The owner of the computer should not have to read a manual (at all) to use it. He should plug it in, turn it on, and use it. Because it will Just Work.
Anything short of that and Microsoft remains the dominant software platform.
"Piter, too, is dead."
The chart is all wrong. HP and Dell are still selling new computers with 256MB of RAM. It is absurd to say that in 2008 low end computers will have 4GB, so that people are forced to need a new O/S. It may happen someday, but it won't be 2008. If we say that the lowest end in RAM doubles each 1.5 years, we are still 4 doublings away before we get to 4GB. That means 6 years, so not until 2012 or 2013 will the low end require 64-bit.
Aha, the discussion continues. Eric S. Raymond released the fox in the hen house when he started promoting the inclusion of proprietary drivers and codecs in Linux distributions in order to increase the critical mass of users. Without such a critical mass companies will not be inclined to provide open source drivers and/or codecs. As far as I understand there are two main arguments. One, in 2008 the transition to 64-bit computing will be complete (or at least reached a critical mass). Previous hardware transitions also saw a definite shift in main operating systems. If Linux can not dominate the 64-bit market this window of opportunity closes. Second, the average desktop user is spoiled with his/her multimedia experience (either under Windows or Mac OS X) and this will determine the succes or failure of Linux on the 64-bit hardware platform. The story is not all bleak though for Linux. When it comes to driver support, the strength of the developer community and legacy emulation Linux has a head start. Multimedia is a serious weak point, mostly the result of the strong root and presence in the server market. ESR is no fool and he is certainly someone we should listen to. I don't agree with his choice for Linspire as the flag bearer for Linux in this regard, but I do agree that the inclusion of proprietary drivers and codecs would benefit adoption on a larger scale. Larger than now that is. I also feel that far more is needed to reach the large scale adoption that ESR wants to achieve. The inclusion of proprietary elements would improve the first impressions of W2L migrators and make life easier. But will this alone convince Auntie Agatha or Joe Smith to install Linux on the box? Nope, it removes but one obstacle. ESR treats the issue of desktop domination as a technical issue, but he fails to take into account a much larger ecosystem perspective. Yes, the technological side is important, as is user exeprience. But without childhood adoption, without teaching and educational aids for schools, companies and individual, without ubiquity of Linux in all facets of life, without decent promotion or marketing only a small niche of new W2L migrators can be reached. Mac OS X is a great operating system with all the nice things ESR wants in Linux and even that never led to mass adoption. Yes, the iMac and the iPod are icons, but most people use the iPod in conjunction with their Windows PC's. They are not buying iMacs in droves. So far -and this for a long time already- desktop computing equals Windows, both in the 16 bit as in the 32 bit world. No, forget about the 2008 deadline. Forget about the hardware issue. Focus on ubiquity. Create digital playgrounds and internet café's in the neighborhoods, in pubs, in libraries, in schools, supported and maintained by local Linux user groups. This costs money, so set up an international infrastructure for funding, for buying used hardware and redeploying them as Linux boxes. Companies like HP, Sun and IBM will have to be convinced to put their weight behind it as part of a long-term strategy. Realizing a paradigm shift takes time and effort.
Umm, half your point are "Microsoft doesn't want that to happen". Well, I guess we should all go home then, eh?
"Security updates that really are without question"
Sadly, you aren't kidding and you must like Microsoft's update routine. As a system administrator I WANT to know if the update is replacing a critical file and any sysadmin worth half her salary will want the same thing.
Security patches should never ever touch a configuration file IMO. It should fix whatever vunerability is in the application code, not ask me if I want to go back to the maintainer's version (as debian's security updates have). If my configuration was valid before the security update, it's valid after the security update (unless it explitly relied on the security hole, which is silly) and it has no business changing it now, that should only happen during upgrades. If you change the format of a configuration file during a security patch, it's so fundamentally broken I don't even know where to begin.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except there still isn't as much momentum behind free content as behind free software. Another problem is that the Creative Commons licenses, commonly used for free content, cannot be combined into free software distributed under the GNU GPL because all Creative Commons licenses require downstream distributors to remove the author's credit from further copies upon notice from the author, and the GPL does not allow authors to make this requirement.
See What's new on Eric's website.
Fix these and you've got a winner. Neglect them and it'll stay a nice product for no-lifers who are used to feeling inferior and for sysadmins whose idea of a workstation is a box with an xterm window.
(says someone who hasn't bothered with Linux on the desktop since 1997 - and no, this is not a flamebait, it's just a honest opinion - correct me if you think I'm wrong)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Even if the emulator's installer configures your distribution's file/program manager to associate the program type with the shell so smoothly that you can't tell it's emulated at first glance? That's what Mac OS 7.12 through 8.x on PowerPC does for Mac OS 68K apps, and that's what Windows NT and 9x do for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x apps, and that's what Windows XP and Vista 64-bit do for Win32 apps, and that's what some distributions with bundled Wine do for Win32 apps, and that's what Mac OS X Intel does for Mac OS X PowerPC apps.
Then why does the World Wide Web use something just like reveal codes?
On which computer would grandma install it? And why would she need it, when it can only be reached from the home network due to the ISP banning and blocking inbound HTTP connections to protect the ISP's other customers from viruses and the ISP's web hosting services from residential competition?
With Vista's release freedom is suddenly going to become very important when people realise they are not in control of their PC. This is going to reach a crescendo with frustrated users scurrying for altenatives. Linux is defintely going to play a very important role in personal computing because of mainstream industrys' obession with content protection, as if that's the only thing consumers use their PCs for, and alternatives will become very important. I just read Peter Gutmann comment of Vista's content protection linked from The Inquirer and more such articles will definitely lead to increased awareness of Vista's insidious nature.
Open Office and GIMP aren't "Best of Class" applications. Maybe in the top 5. MAYbe.
Sooner or later I asked her what the flashing light was and there she found a save as item. She had given up already. I have to wonder if the light would have flashed at all for a patient person like myself who does not know the goofy keyboard shortcut.
I have no clue what you are talking about.
Comment of the year
Can't this all be done with a shell script? Next time you need to install a bunch of multimedia at once on install, write all the steps down and write a script that installs it for that distro, in a safe (read: not Automatix) manner. In fact, I plan on doing this next time I install a distro. If you want, contact me through e-mail or /. message, and I'll discuss this further with you.
Care about privacy? Read this!
You say ruthless monopolist like anyone cares. Like it rises to the level that AT&T or US Steel were monopolists. Those were REAL robber barrons.
.com days when they were close to getting OEM install deals. That OS for all intents and purposes is dead. The fact that a few people continue to tinker on it does not make it "alive". The lack of interest in the OS has caused development to lag and its pretty much unusuable as a modern OS anymore. The same fate awaits Linux if action on the multimedia front, yes idealistically compromising action is not taken quickly.
Why change strategy? ESR already laid it out. There's a time limit for how long people will wait for Linux to become a "good enough alternative" to Windows. Its closing, closing fast. Without solving this multimedia issue the chance for Linux will be lost. Linux will continue to exist of course, its just its chance of ever over-taking Windows will be forever lost.
Its like the BeOS. Did you know there's still people working on free BeOS clones? Thats great and all but their user/developer base has shrunk to very very tiny levels. Their chance was their heyday during the
I personally have very little confidence in the ability of extrmely introspective, idealistic and sometimes aspergers/autistic open source developers to see/understand this. I fully expect them to say "Well we don't need them anyway! I'm not gonna compromise my values for Free Software for ANYTHING!" and then as a consequence have Linux fade into irrelevance. Its a sad sad turn of events but with this kind of people as your developer core was any other outcome ever possible in the first place?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
ESR does make some good points, despite everyone here trying to say he's wrong because of [insert personal pet peave]. He is correct that Linux (and FreeBSD) is far ahead of the competitors on x86-64 hardware. Unfortunately, he doesn't really provide any solutions, just little bits and pieces here and there.
Open Source software really is right there... it can do 99% of everything people need. The problem is: "some assembly required." ALL distros of both Linux and BSD, that I've seen (and I've seen just about all of them), cop-out on actually putting together an operating system, rather than just a random collection of various software. The current problems are numerous, but they could *all* be worked-out by a small team of perhaps 5 people who know what they're doing:
Configuration:
-- First and foremost is GUI configuration. There should be a handful of applications in the menu, which allow you to configure every possible aspect of the system. From your network card profile, aliases, etc., to GRUB/Lilo boot-up options. Many projects/distros have done tiny bits and pieces, but they usually don't work properly, and certainly don't cover all cases. And those that do exist are too often just a glorified text editor, requiring you to already know the option names, and type them into some dialog yourself. EVERYTHING needs to be there. With this small step, configuration could be easier than Windows/Mac.
-- Second is command-line configuration. BSD has it all over Linux on this one. Where on Linux you're editing a dozen files, FreeBSD has this down to effectively 1 (2 other are very rarely, if EVER, needed), and has example files with every possible option listed. The only mistake FreeBSD makes, IMHO, is listing the defaults in a seperate file, rather than including the common ones (commented-out) in the main config file itself. In other words, Linux distros really need to have configuration in a standard location, and everything should be configurable in 2 or 3 files, rather than requiring people to edit several of the their rc.XYZs. Ironically, Slackware was closest to BSD simplicity around v9, but has started moving torwards more and more complexity...
Default Configuration:
-- The default configuration all too often completely sucks. Options that 99.999% of users are going to want, for some reason aren't enabled by default. The distros just pass the buck, and leave it to the users to every time configure things from scratch. For example, take Firefox... Why don't distros set a minimum font size, correct DPI, Download locations, etc.
-- Why must everyone be an expert on modules.conf just to get their hardware working? A nice long default modules.conf packed with EVERYTHING, and sane default options, should be included.
-- Why do included filemanagers so often have no associations? I realize GNOME and KDE's methods are somewhat iffy and not commonly used, but even with the most brain-dead filemanager, you could easily pre-associate file types with all possible applications, so the user need only look at what apps could open the file, and install one of them. You could go slightly further and launch the package manager, opened to the proper section, if none of them are yet installed.
Desktop:
-- Select a toolkit in the beginning, and use it. That means if you select QT, and no QT versions of an app are available, don't install one, nor make an available package. Mixing different toolkits, different desktop environments, different button layouts, etc., just makes for a confusing mess, which can be easily and benefitally avoided. Even if the toolkit you select isn't the one the user may like, the simplicity and other benefits will likely make them happy to accept it anyhow. eg. I may prefer driving on the left side of the road, but I would rather have _everyone_ driving on the right, rather than people chosing for themselves, and therefore having to constantly switch from one to another...
-- The above means you pick your desktop environment, and s
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In the course of your life....has anyone ever told you to fucking grow up?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Actually most (all?) commercial software I have seen for Linux copies the Windows model of putting the program under a subdirectory named after the company (if indeed they actually put anything on the menu, but that is another problem). That's copying a mistake, I think. With the level of submenus used on Linux (ie Graphics/Text/Games) and the smaller amount of available software, compainies could probably work fine by installing the item "SuperFoo(TM) by ProductCo(R)" on a top submenu, because the menu would not get really big.
Don't get me wrong: I have no problems with doing all of these things: if anything, that's part of the reason that I enjoy Linux. However, will your average user understand all of this, is my question? Microsoft's great victory is in removing the thought process from software installation and configuration. Linux has much ground to recover, if it is to capture the attentions of the general public.
http://xkcd.com/313/
I think their analysis is spot on in most respects.
/. demonstrates how they hit the "geek" attitude on the nose, as well. The OSS "religious freaks" will sink their concept. The only way around this will be to entice the NON-religious freaks who are only interested in winning and money to outmaneuver the religious freaks. This ought to work well, since this is the way it's gone in every other human endeavor.
The first post here to
Humans ALWAYS make the wrong decision. They will ALWAYS choose the path that GUARANTEES they won't achieve the goals they've explicitly said they want to attain. The knee-jerk OSS religious freaks will sink Linux before they see their "morality" infringed upon. The non-religious freaks will sink Linux in order to make money from it.
In this case, however, the only way to get truly OSS is to suck it up and accept non-OSS binaries for a few years. Since everybody except the OSS religious freaks are doing that NOW, this seems to be an acceptable solution.
However, I suggest another approach, which they glossed over - the "killer app" approach.
TFA considers the "killer app" to be a PROBLEM from the Linux side - one Linux has to "survive" - not a SOLUTION.
What if, however, somebody develops a "killer app" that only runs on Linux - or is licensed under an OSS license that prohibits Apple or Microsoft from appropriating it on their platforms? If enough people decided to switch to Linux to run this app, that might provide the upsurge in Linux adoption necessary to give the hardware vendors incentive to ship Linux preinstalled.
And if the app had something to do with media content, and was agnostic as to media content, perhaps even the media vendors who want per-copy royalties could be enticed to start supporting Linux. (Microsoft and Apple might be a problem still here, though, unless they thought they could make enough money out of it and not threaten their main lines to go along.)
The only problem with this scenario is: predicting the "killer app". What would qualify? And of course, it has to be developed to at least 1.0 status and shippable within the next two years.
Any ideas?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Who cares? At the end of the day, its all just markup language.
... except for copying it into notepad and then copying that text back into word without the formatting garbage ... then reformatting it correctly ... Oh, wait, that's easy isn't it. My bad.
And, anyone that has used Word for a long enough period of time gets screwed over by it occasionally. So, it probably isn't becuase the parent is dumb.
It's just upsetting when it breaks and there is no easy way to fix it
Let the reality of Vista sink in.
First of all, I am in no position to profit from increased usage of Linux. There I've laid it out. I have no personal vested financial interest in it. So no one needs to bend over for me to profit at "your" expense. I don't own or work for a software company nor do I write it myself. Where the fuck did THAT assumption come from?
No there will not always be people motivated to solve problems for free. Where's the free solution to the crappy WPA solution on Linux Laptops? Where's the free solution to the crappy video game situation on Linux? Huh? Just because a few people will continue to tinker does not mean they'll be successful. You are under some crazy delusion that acceptable progress can continue to be made without corporate support and or involvement. Its a daydream, a fantasy. Do you get it? Organized corporate development is greater than and not equal to distributed amatuerish open source development. Paid people work, volunteers piss away time.
Without a large userbase, corporations won't be involved. Without corporate involvement then Linux development is confined to tiny sporadic contributions by amatuers. That means the OS for all intents and purposes is dead. Most of the development going on today in Linux is from corporate involvement from Red Had, IBM, Suse, Mandriva, Novell, Linspire, Conexion (Ubuntu)...etc. Subtract all of their contributions and sure you could replace them with community volunteer efforts......in a few decades. By then we'll have AI and won't give a shit about Linux.
So, dumbfuck, let me brake it down for you how that hurts YOU. With fewer users and less corporate involvement Linux starts to suck badly and quickly. No more ATI drivers, no more NVIDIA drivers, no more wifi drivers. No more video game ports or support for Windows games under Wine and VMWare. You'll have a bare bones shitty OS that will barely be able to surf the web. No flash plugins, crappy to non-existent Quicktime/WMA support. Oh but you'll be "keeping it real" of course so none of that will matter. THIS is the impending future ESR is trying to warn us all against. Right now while interest in Linux is still adequate things are still progressing nicely, but people's patience on Linux is wearing thin. Once its gone, Linux is a dead man walking. Development will drop off and eventually it will come to resemble those pathetic BeOS clones that are still being developed. Did ya hear that? Yes, people are still working on BeOS clones. About 5 people per project. They still suck and have sucked for years but I guess that doesn't matter since in the year 2540 when they finally finish you'll be proven right that corporate involvement isn't necessary or beneficial.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
If you want the apps and games, you use Windows.
If you want something more secure and you use a particular set of apps, you use OS X.
There honestly isn't a clear reason to switch to Linux. Even open source zealotry no longer applies, because you can run The GIMP under both Windows and OS X. Ditto for Firefox, Inkscape, Wings 3D, and numerous other popular open source applications.
Windows, OS X, and Linux are generally on a convergence path. There's no big differentiator any more.
Any more than the wars taught in history class are accidents? Understanding the history of English is important for understanding phenomena such as doublets. For instance, Grimm's law connects the English prefix "centi-" to the English word "hundred" and the root of "fraternity" to "brother". Much vocabulary comes from the same set of accidents, and teaching students to understand these accidents and generalize from them helps them learn vocabulary more easily.
Note that by the time one is a freshman, the whole of English grammar can be taught in a year. Would you want students to be taught the same material, year after year?If they keep getting F's and D-minuses, yes. Grammar without history is like civics without history.
In addition to being a new and essential skill, literary analysis is helpful. Literature exposes students to literary style.So why the overemphasis on particular works of particular authors? The typical high school English curriculum around here requires six of William Shakespeare's tragedies and none of his comedies or histories, and none of his contemporaries' plays.
Grammar might help one frame correct sentences, but will not help one write a readable paragraph, page, chapter, or book.Most people out of high school aren't going to be writing tragic plays in pentameter, so why are they reading six tragic plays in pentameter by the same author? Why is there such an emphasis on style in fiction and drama and little emphasis on style in other literary forms?
Nevermind that you have to read to become a confident reader. And that includes reading material that is initially over one's head.Initially? Try all four years. Consistently pushing children to read what is intended for an audience twice their age contributes to a dislike of reading in general. (See Learned helpnessness.) A dislike of reading in general contributes to lack of practice, which contributes to uncertain maintenance of literacy. It's like making a casual player of Tetris play Shirase.
the authors claim a universal formula for what sets low end apart from high end exists in the market. they then apply the formula to come up with the wrong assumption that low end systems will have 4G ram and high end will have 16G sometime in 2008.
wrong.
low end will remain at 512mb-1gb where any of the existing and future major OSes, web browsers and email readers all run just fine.
what happened?
the low end just got a lot lower. the high end will continue to expand but there isn't anything that can fill it yet. microsoft is trying hard to consume all available ram and cpu but even with a bloated OS that executes 3x as many instructions to perform the exact same tasks that XP did (and 6x when compared to 2000) they're falling behind.
intel and microsoft have at war for the past decade. only two items inside of any end PC earn the manufacturers any money: the CPU and the OS. all other components are low-zero profit margin commodities. intel has been working to turn all non-CPU components into commodities for over a decade. Thats why intel supports open source better than most any other hardware vendors. computers sold with a free OS on them mean that the cpu manufacturer is the only one making a notable profit. that means more profit for them in their "natural" monopoly while having higher sales and lower consumer prices.
microsoft has been trying to turn the CPUs into a commodity. thats part of the reason they dissed intel and hp's itanic and worked with AMD to make sure x86-64 was suitable for their future needs. Seed competition in the CPU business and it could turn CPUs into a commodity making the OS the only notable profit center on the sale of a computer.
"The geeks of the world would like a moonbase too".
geeks do -not- want a moonbase. geeks are smart. they know that the moon has no resources and cannot provide fuel and oxygen needed to live there.
geeks want to go to mars. getting to mars is much easier if you -do not go to the moon- first. If you enter the moons giant gravity well first, doing so would mean that you need to carry enough fuel to stop yourself on the moon and enough fuel to escape from it again. All of which is much better spent on your acceleration and deceleration to visit mars. mars has CO2 and H2O. combined with solar power you can generate both fuel and oxygen on the surface. try doing that on the moon!
Having tried to use Scribus, GIMP and other free tools for creating printing posters and fliers, I am now running to Photoshop and Indesign screaming and tired of the mess of "free tools". Just to list the major problems:
*) Scribus is unstable and has a messy GUI
*) GIMPs GUI is a GTK-mess and ugly multiple windows. Why not use some more standard file-dialogs for instance?
*) And #1 problem in ALL of these are lack of CMYK support. Yes, Scribus claims to have it, but my printing shop couldnt use whatever CMYK Scribus was faking. I ended up having to export to picture-files and then converting these to CMYK in Photoshop! Oh, the pain of having to export to 50MB * X worth of pictures!
I actually finished the job using free tools for the most part, but _no more_. Im now going proprietary as these tools actually caters to professional results, which you need, even if its for charity volunteer organizations. Having colours messed up is just not acceptable. Period.
And I need programs to WORK for me, not working with the programs!
Sorry. As much as I would like to, I cannot work with these free tools and I dont see any progress worth mentioning in 5-10 years unfortunately. Yes, I could improve these tools myself, but alas there is now a limit to how much time I would like to devote to computers. I think there is a huge benefit in having corporations working on boring stuff like nice GUI, professional needs, etc. And maybe its not wrong to pay for it either?
I very much love Free Software, but when youve got a job to do outside of programming, and the tools dont work for you, then the middle road is to use unfree programs, unfortunately.
Names are not the hindering block, functionality is.
Dont mind the suckers who cant observe and learn from their own mistakes. It is encouraging to read thought-provoking and life-enhancing knowledge. Stuff like that you cant really read from a book to understand. Only by living life and think outside the box, can you pass this on. I wish more people to get the courage to step up, because theres just so much going on in this world that takes people away from themelves and losing themselves into lifes dramas and ups and downs.
Myself Ive found everything I need in Art of Living. Thats now my way, but not the only way.
I can see the logic behind embracing a few closed components if the point is to amass a large enough user base to then bully the hardware vendors into opening specs (on pain of loosing that big linux market share). But there has to be a deadline, after a certain date, all new components are open source (accepted closed source components are grandfathered of course).
Extending your analogy:
even though hardly killing any bees, the shotgun scares away a whole range of other creatures.
The shit of those creatures is great furtilizer for the flowers bees live on.
The userbase doesn't have to care about the free options. The open source vendors (RH, SuSE, Novell^H^H^H^H^H^HMicrosoft, etc) would then be able to lobby on the part of the installed user base more effectively. That is, you only have to keep the vendors honest, not the users, in order to use leverage the way it's described in the paper.
-knewter
2008 is not "now or never", but Microsoft shifting from XP to Vista certainly brings a significant extra opportunity.
Wouldn't breaking the Microsoft monopoly above all, temporarily accepting some other non-free evils to make it happen, speed up the process towards full computing freedom? I think so: Read/help/comment http://freedomdrive.org/
And the rest will follow. All the driver and free arguments will be pushed to sideline once Adobe releases Photoshop for Linux. Unless we have Adobe with us, Linux will never be a dominant player in the market.
I know kids that like Inkscape for example
Get them hooked on free software before they enter the MS-infested educational systems
Try Ubuntu. My menu looks like:
Applications -> Office -> Word Processor
-knewter
It's damn near unusable for anything other than very limited office-applications with 512MB (i've run a couple of the betas here) - as soon as the home version ships, expect standard RAM capacity to jump to 1gb in short order.
On *average* RAM doubles every 1.5 years, but it's not necessarily smooth steps - it's typically driven by application or OS requirements, which have remained static with Windows XP for quite some time. We've had 256mb as the "standard" for over 3-4 years now. At least, thats the bare minimum our office PCs here at work have, that were purchased in 2002...
Intel/AMD pushing multi-core will also increase RAM usagesignificantly, as tasks will be (further) split into multiple threads - each requiring it's own RAM for it's working data set. Expect BIG jumps in RAM requirements (and hence, standard ram capcity) in the next 18 months.
Besides, whilst you *can* buy a machine with 256MB these days, if you do, you're insane - and I haven't seen a new PC that *shipped* with 256MB for a few years. The norm is 512MB, and dell are always pushing the "Free double memory online" deal...
As to the transition to 64 bit though - I remember the switch to 32 bit for PCs. The 32bit cpu (80386) came out in 1984 from memory. Typical home user PCs started using it in 1988-1989. It was a full 5-12 years before a proper 32 bit O/S was fully deployed for it (depending how generous you are with classifying Windows 95 as being 32 bit).
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What we really need to do is eliminate greed.
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Please tip your waitress.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
When you realize that the computer is the modern equivalent of a printing press, then if you are in the slightest bit interested in history then you will see that our civilization and quality of life as a people have been improved to such a large extent over the last several hundred years in large part through the ease in which knowledge has been transmitted amongst people around the world.
But imagine today having to go to Guttenberg Inc in order to get a printing license. Imagine you had to send them a dollar for every page you printed over and above the actual cost of the resources you used. Now imagine a different world where millions more people have both access to information and the ability to invent and create themselves. The cost for civilization of proprietary formats and proprietary OS software that runs this modern printing press is certainly hard to measure, but it shouldn't take much more imagination to think of many people being prevented from learning and creating just at the time when civilization needs everyone thinking and creating in order to save us from ourselves. We are in a fight for the survival of civilization, if we fail then millions possibly billions more will die premature deaths than need be. We need more renewable and less polluting energy sources, we need ways of producing more and better food for our increasing population, we need more efficient ways of building our homes and places of work, and perhaps most importantly we need to be ever vigilant to prevent the few from corrupting our systems of government to favor the few over the many
I am not against rewarding people for their work creating software, or respecting intellectual property in the short term. But Microsoft and other companies seem hell bent on locking people into their software and hardware by creating artificial incompatibilities through restrictive licensing and buying politicians to create laws which prevent individuals from circumventing restrictive technology in order to exercise individual freedoms. People have a right the their thoughts regardless of what file format it is held imprisoned. Civilization itself will suffer if companies like Microsoft are allowed to impose their intellectual usury on us. And just like other forms of usury, the burden which proprietary formats and artificial restraints on the dissemination of knowledge imposes is one that eventually hurts us all. The inequalities that are exacerbated in such a system lead to human conflict and suffering.
There is nothing trivial about which OS you are running. And this diatribe may serve only to scare people off, but people need to be told. People need to be free.
Anthropologists are used to define past civilizations in part by the tools which they created. And until recent years it was thought that one thing that uniquely and intrinsically defined humanity was our ability to create tools which could make our lives easier. Though better observation shows that several other species do in fact also use tools to make their lives easier, we as humans have created for ourselves and our descendents a large reservoir of tools which have allowed us remarkable abilities to extend our lives and make them better. Science was created, along with concepts of the good of universal public education by society so that we could further develop and refine our tools and ability to make a living using them. So much so that the very existence of hundreds of millions of people would not currently be possible without the current level of understanding.
Computers are at the pinnacle of our technology, they have enabled us to do so much in so little time. We can now collaborate and spread knowledge with rapidity unlike any other civilization that we know. But like previous tools we know that there is a tendency of early adopters to reap the benefits first and most, that is just natural. But what is unnatural and what leads to human conflict is when a segment of humanity chooses to keep to itself all the benefits... when an
>The journey is the important thing.
Very Zen of you, son. However, drifting aimlessly through life is no healthier for projects than it is for people.
Lowest != low. My mother's computer, used for bookkeeping, has a gig of RAM in it. She wishes it had more. The fact that she understands that she needs more RAM is on many levels frightening to me, but the point is that HP and Dell selling computers with too little RAM to even run XP acceptably these days is not the evidence you think you have.
-knewter
(oh gawd emacs users stop reading, it's cool too but it wasn't my example).
vim in windows used to suck. It only JUST got acceptable, but it's still inferior to vim in a free OS.
I don't care if you don't think vim's a cool application. It's where I spend over 80% of my computer time, and it's a necessity that my editor be as powerful as possible.
-knewter
Yes, but they tend largely to be confused, unhappy, and uncomfortable in their own skins, so I think my way is preferable. For me, at any rate.
--There's nothing wrong with setting goals and achieving them, but the intent behind such work is very important.
Happy holidays, btw! It just turned midnight, and Christmas is here. --A silly holiday, but with the right intent and the right people, it can be made into a wonderful time. Best wishes to you and yours!
-FL
Who's drifting, pops? (Though, I suspect I'm probably your senior.)
You can make a project a success, but you needn't make it into a war zone to do so. Market share isn't the point, (especially with something which is not profit-motivated!) --The goal is to make something which satisfies real needs. It is important to invest healthy intent into a work.
Merry Christmas, btw! It just turned midnight. --And while it is a silly enough holiday, if you use the right intent, it can bring warmth and love into many lives. Cheers!
-FL
All linux needs for wider acceptance is seamless WoW and iTunes - that's all. Everything else is secondary. Think of the user base that uses their computers for WoW and iTunes exclsively.
You dont need pre-installed linux, just a better installer.
and ONLY if the hardware is 100% supported by your distro. Otherwise, "easy" turns into trainwreck.
Checking in advance for hardware compatibility is NOT guaranteed to work, but it's the only thing you can really do. A slightly older version of my Biostar GeForce 6100 (939 socket, mine's an AM2) got a good review on one of the Linux compatibility sites.
I spent a frustrating week of online research and Linux forum posts trying to get the Nvidia video running in Fedora Core 6 (which I spent weeks upgrading to specifically to get access to the latest and greatest drivers), only being able to get to the Web or use my computer in any other way via a Knoppix liveCD. I must have tried a hundred different variations on installing kmod-nvidia, the nvidia binary, and modifying xorg.conf , only to get the same FPEexception error every time.
The fix. . . change to Debian Etch, which uses the same installer the Knoppix LiveCD does. Presumably, a Kubuntu install would have worked equally well, but by the time I figured that out, the computer was already running.
Easy install? More like the most difficult hardware installation I've ever done... on a motherboard on which Windows would probably have run straight out of the box.
If your motherboard or video is a couple or so years old, you probably won't have any problem. People who run AMD3500+, dual channel DDR2, and a slightly behind the curve video chipset shouldn't be penalized for trying to run this with Linux, but that's not the situation we've got.
Tech Public Policy stuff
n/t
I know we all get frustrated with how dumb people can be at times, but people are bombarded and manipulated by thousands of ad messages a day trying to make them insecure, superficial and helpless. That's why the average user doesn't care about the same things that free software types do.
Some free software types are following a pied piper just like some corporate consumers. Marketing is about providing information and persuasion, sometimes this persuasion crosses the line and involves gross exaggeration, FUD, etc. This happens on both the commercial and the free software side. Feelings of insecurity and helplessness are effectively leveraged by some free software advocates, hence the occasional hysteria.
The parent *IS* a troll.
Anyone who says that Linux is hard to install has not compared the Ubuntu install to Windows XP Setup. I find the former to be muuuuuch less painful.
So I stopped reading when he said Linux was hard to install. He just hasn't explored the options.
Ubuntu, guys. Give it a shot.
Run for your lives!!! or at least hope that no one is using 30-year old systems for anything critical when the time comes -Right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
"as of 2006, hundreds of millions of 32-bit systems are deployed, many in embedded systems, and it is far from certain they will all be replaced by 2038. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
Unix, POSIX date, time() epoch - January 1, 1970 to January 19, 2038
32-bit posix has to be altered and/or have new date handing libraries for those unlucky enough to still be on 32-bits 20 years from now or there will be problems. And there's still no guarantee that legacy apps will be able to handle the post 2038 dates even if the language does.
I Wonder if Linux could gain share in the embedded world if it were to offer a method to extend the operable date range to keep these embedded systems from doing Bad Things(tm) as that date approaches? Macs are not immune either -the mac epoch ends in 2040 and S/390's ends in 2042. Whoever setup these parameters in DOS did pretty well, as their current epoch does not end until 2108.
By then virtual quantum infinibit computers and robot hookers should be cheap and plentiful....I may not be around that long, but I expect to be involved in remediation work on these earlier epoch-ending events.
-I'm just sayin'
...now, when Linux is running on more desktops than ever, people are saying that TWD is impossible unless we sacrifice some of the holy grails of the whole FOSS concept ?
Funny...
--
Emulated sig. no. 2956438.
So if sw patents is the major hindrance to gain critical mass - why not aim at the 90% of the world who live in countries without them?
Once a notable portion of the world runs an OS that cannot be shipped in countries with software patents, we just might have some lawmakers ears.
Only in the open source community do we make the publicly available...
First, I think that this was a great piece and there was a need to start a serious discussion within the community because, as was pointed out, the last chance for widespread desktop adoption is approaching and development times and community political issues dictate strong action now. I write this as a longtime *nix user(25 years), but also as one who tries not to get caught up in the religious wars that sweep the technical community. So, here goes. I have a few disagreements and a few other comments:
- The article seems to focus mostly on why Windows wins today and its current strengths in the marketplace. There is an assumption here, as often is the case in the Linux community, that Microsoft won't find other features and capabilities that are compelling to the consumer in the next 2-4 years. I think Microsoft has a broad and ongoing effort to find these kind of hooks and they are focused on the consumer and ease of use, as well as in other areas.
Vista comes with the tablet support and voice recognition. Tablet support has improved and I look for it to get better. There is just a huge convenience factor in being able to sit down and write / diagram / etc on a PC. Applicaitons are getting pen enabled. OneNote 2007 is a big step forward. I think it is ahead of Jarnal, and I think we'll see more Office integration of OneNote and additional pen enabling of more applications. The UMPC push is part of this. If they can get a usable and fully capable Tablet PC in that form factor at $500 or less, which they will in 2007, we're going to start to see an explosion in adoption in late 2007 and 2008.
But there is more. I've used the voice recognition stuff that ships in Vista. It is pretty good and it will get better in the next 2 years as well. As more folks walk around with their bluetooth headsets, talking to your computer, just dictating and then using the pen to edit, draw, etc. will become a natural and convenient user experience. On my UMPC it begins to deliver on the digital assistant that can understand me and is connected to the Internet all of the time.
- Don't underestimate the next generation of leadership at Microsoft. Ray Ozzie is one smart guy. He totally udnerstands the corporate user and has consistently delivered technology ahead of its time. AT Microsoft where they have the money and patience to deliver and then try again and again to get it right and hit the market timing, he will be a huge asset. He delivered the first serious commercial P2P application in Groove. A lousy implementation, too early and overhyped, but he gets the power of P2P and other next generation technologies. Vista begins to integrate commercial P2P, Office 2007 adds more stuff for collaboration mixing client and web. Whereas other get religious about all web, Microsoft comfortably mixes Web and desktop and focuses instead on user experience and helpful function. They can do excellent Web work as well - just look at local.live.com. There is a lot of buzz about things like Netvibes, but Microsoft did this kind of interface for a portal first, on their start.com site.
They understand what is happening and are changing and adapting. The key sin in any competitive situation is to underestimate the competition. The open source community underestimates Microsoft.
- The big media guys do not care about open source and freedom of intellectual property. They have been hurt by piracy and a lot of it comes from this community. Yes, they were stupid in not changing their business models quickly enough, but that didn't give anyone the right to steal from them. And no matter the rationalizations, under the law it was theft. Just because you want to give away the things you create for free, doesn't mean you have the right to impose your values on others and violate their rights. Big media would be CRAZY to trust the open source community and I doubt they will.
This means that they'll embrace Microsoft and Apple, the trusted media path solutions and the like. They can he
Only with open source are they publicly available...
... is that if your 13 year old gets some nasty malware and wipes out his home directory (/home/pimplykid), it won't wipe out _yours_ (/home/sysadmindad) because malware running as "pimplykid" doesn't have permission to write to /home/sysadmindad. Yeah, his homework gets horked, but your personal files are safe until that malware gets root access.
I wouldn't be so sure and calm about what you say now that we've seen its effect on Debian. If a few thousand dollars can greatly harm one of the leading distributions, then what damage can cause a certain evil corporation with mountains of cash?
Why is it every linux distro I use lacks support for open source codecs like dirac, theora and xvid?
I use these formats regularly, why are they never supported?
--cros13
Many of the other programs are still available via the package manager over the internet or off a repository CD/DVD for those people who want them, but most users who don't know that those programs exist (and are happy with what the Ubunto people have chosen as best of breed) won't ever install them.
We are pretty much at the point where Aunt Tillie could use an Ubuntu machine that was either preinstalled by Wal-Mart or post-installed by her geek niece or nephew. She can read her gmails, look at the pictures of the grandkids on Picasa, and in general do the things that the average netizen does. ESR points out that if those pictures or movies are in patent-encumbered formats that distros refuse to package, AT will be a Digital Ghetto resident, motivated to move up to a Real Operating System.
I'm not as sure as he is that all distros have the same aversion to the legal threats. Unfortunately, those that are by geography protected from some of the more insane legal problems (Ubuntu in South Africa) have their own philosophical reasons to avoid nonfree software.
But I do agree with his decision to work with the Linspire people to make the Codex a reality. If it can be done in a distro-neutral, userspace manner as he's suggested, it takes away a major impediment to getting that machine on the shelf at Wal-Mart where Aunt Tillie doesn't need a geek in the family.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Dude I have money to burn. HAHAHAHA ;-)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Eric is right. If we keep pissing and moaning the window will pass us by and we'll all be pissing and moaning about that. Look at the disparity of this entire thread and prepare to become even more discouraged.
> WHY would I adopt linux ?
1) Because you don't want your computer to be compromised so it can be used to spy on you and send spam or be used to do distributed denial of service attacks.
2) Because you don't want your computer to be infected by a virus or worm which will delete your data, open annoying popups or makes your computer slow as a snail in wintersleep running in virtualized emulation coming off a steroid addiction.
3a) Because you don't want your computer rebooting when you didn't ask it to.
3b) Because you don't want your computer rebooting when you are running two resource-hungry applications at the same time.
3c) Because you don't want to always have to worry about your computer rebooting whenever you ask it to do something.
4) Because you don't want to have to be asked to reboot your computer after you install some piece of software
5) Because you don't want your data lost in secret undocumented proprietary formats, such as Word "langle" some version "rangle" Document.
How is that for starters? When that has sunken in try:
6) Easy access to thousands of programs which you can install with a few clicks or keystrokes for all your computing needs and more ten times over.
Linux will always be the people's operating system, made by people for people.
No, Linux has never been the "people's OS". It has an entrenched by nerds for nerds culture. It remains the "geek's OS". "People's" implies a far larger segment of the population than are willing *or* capable of embracing Linux.
and it didn't. At least not on FC6, I couldn't make nv, vesa, kmod-nvidia, or the Nvidia binary work. Knoppix ran immediately in vesa. As did Debian Etch (hardly surprising, uses the same installer) Luckily, somebody told me about Etch. And I now have a working box several times the speed of the old one.
As for preinstalled Windows, the last time I had one of those was on a 286 box I was given after my homebrew MacPlus died.
I make a living on this box writing Linux how-to articles, so 10 days of downtime because an installer couldn't get my computer to a Desktop certainly qualifies as a disaster from my point of view. I would have waited until after I'd finished my article in progress if I'd known how bad it was going to be.
I was expecting the same kind of new hardware install you described. I now know that it just doesn't always work that way in Linux.
Tech Public Policy stuff
There are several market niches where Linux is used as a desktop OS. I know this from my experience with selling a desktop app for Linux.
Knowing these niches can be important for increasing the market share of Linux in other areas because I think that it's much easier to let one successful niche trigger the use of Linux in another niche than to start from scratch in each market niche.
Since I have some insight into this, I share this info here with you in the hope that it will be useful for increasing the market share of Linux on the desktop. Through experience with interaction with (potential) customers I know the following about these niches:
These are high end users who typically use specialized apps which typically have a Motif GUI. More than 50% of these users use OpenGL through hardware acceleration. Nvidia is the dominant player with respect to graphics hardware.
There are at least the following three industries in this niche:
This niche may be a good start for introducing Linux in other professional areas because it shows that Linux works extremely well for mission critical stuff.
Also, these industries are kind of cool, so it's easy to get attention with mentioning them.
These people like to try out the newest things like Xgl+compiz etc.
They are probably good at promoting Linux themselves but I am not sure whether they are able to promote it outside of their niche because when asked what they actually accomplish productively they might say that they just play with it as a self-service.
But they may be catalysts on decisions for introducing Linux in their workplace. (at least they won't oppose it...)
They primarily use it for training people on Linux.
This is a very good niche for increasing the market share of desktop Linux because because it naturally induces a lot of promotion for Linux in the jobs which people get after finishing their education.
Especially non-US governments like Linux because it is not controlled by a US-entity. Due to it being open source they can control it themselves if needed. Plus there are some cost savings involved with Linux which are always welcome by governments.
This is actually a very good market niche for Linux as it gives us direct access to the people who decide on issues like patents and DRM which are very important for Linux. (If they like their Linux computer they won't support decisions which makes it illegal to use it, if they are being informed about that fact.)
Even parts of institutions controlled by the US-government use Linux, so we may even have good chances to get more Linux friendly legislation in the US. In addition to the direct political implications,
They use and support Linux because it is free as in free speech.
This is an important market niche for Linux where MS and Apple cannot enter by definition.
These people guarantee that Linux is here to stay no matter what other market niches decide to do.
This is good for Linux market share because it can be used in promotions of Linux by stating that an inv
Even if you achieve that, you still have the problem of Microsoft remaining the dominant software platform.
The Mac has always had that going for it and it couldn't even compete against MS-DOS.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You're right. You'd still need the Killer App.
Of course, I see the killer app be something of a VIOP asterix-like solution that integrates mesh cell/wireless and cell-phones/pdas, essentially making your home machine into a mini cell-phone carrier for you, friends and family, with full text, audio and video transfer, forward, attach, and detach capabilities. When's the last time you were able to link a voice message left on a answering machine with a uri or a video file?
"Piter, too, is dead."
From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy
"Open Source" I knew that was bullshit all along. Its Free Software. Here's where Eric S Raymond and the rest of his lot cash in. By undermining Free Software and linux by pushing software patents and DRM, etc. I knew these fuckers were thin-end of the wedge types. Oh, there are lots of ways of being free, don't be so dogmatic about Freedom, lets let some little bits of non-freedom in and call it open source.... Oh by the way, heres an Open Source DRM, yeah, here's an open source PGP but there is a CIA backdoor in this one non-free lib...... don't worry. Lets Dominate, throw your Freedom away so you can Dominate. Fuck you, I don't need to dominate anyone. I don't really give a shit what other people run, I run Free Software. The only way they'll take the linux and gnu is from my cold, dead hands. GPL Forever!!!!!
Just for the fun of it, I've written a quick reply : http://www.telegraph-road.org/writings/linux_deskt op.html
From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy