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."

Comments

H.264

[TheSHAD0W]

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?

Re:H.264

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "OGM codec" you mean Theora I think the answer is yes, H.264 is still vastly superior in terms of a visual quality to size trade off. When people see a Flash video they expect it to play instantaneously so bandwidth matters.

Interesting Article

[MrCrassic]

...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.

Re:Interesting Article

[NormalVisual]

A few of other things to consider:

-- Right now, to have a good conceptual understanding of Linux and to be really effective with it, one has to have a handle on a *lot* of stuff. Too much stuff. Contrast that to Windows where you could almost train a monkey to use it. Common example - if you screw up your video settings in Windows and get an unusable display, you can reboot into safe mode and fix it relatively easily. If you do the same thing in Linux, you're probably looking at directly editing the X config file or, if you're lucky, using the command-line version of SaX or something similar to fix your problem. That's not an acceptable option if you're selling to the unwashed masses.

-- Differences in distros. I think someone actually mentioned this before, but there needs to be a standard fricking way to reconfigure your system. If you want to reconfigure your network card, you need to go to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* if you're running RH, or /etc/network/interfaces if you're running Debian, or /etc/conf.d/net for Gentoo since there's no universal config app for that. There's never going to be a Linux desktop that's popular with the non-geek world unless everyone can decide where everything goes and how it should be configured. Consistency is everything here. Yes, I'm aware of the FHS standard, but there are plenty of distros that don't seem to be.

-- The "RTFM" syndrome. Certainly, I get as annoyed as anyone else when someone bugs me with a question that could easily have been answered by spending 15 seconds in the docs. However, the docs are not in a neat, centralized place - you often have to set off on a damn quest to find what you need. Even if the documentation were more accessible, the sheer arrogance that's shown by a lot of FOSS supporters does a lot to steer people away when they *do* try to dabble their feet in the Linux waters. No one likes to be treated like an idiot (even if they are!), and no one likes to deal with a jerk.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that Linux development and support isn't centralized. Linux is quite popular on the back-end, but when you look at that more closely you see that it's an environment where there are highly trained people who are qualified to easily deal with the crap I mentioned above. Additionally, most of the more popular back-end software packages (Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.) is generally maintained by a single group that maintains tight control, so in that situation it's more like dealing with a vendor than a bunch of individuals. I believe that we'll see Linux continue to hang on to the datacenter because it's simply a good system, but I just don't see it becoming a desktop standard to any great degree unless someone does with it what Apple did with BSD.

Re:Just remove the 'Open'?

[OriginalArlen]

getting stuck on belief in [...] free-software purism guarantees we will lose.

Staying Free is a guaranteed way to lose? Tell me more, you seem to have invented a fascinating new branch of logic, cos it seems to me that if you are forced to use non-Free software (or hardware), you have already lost.

We've got to ship something that works now. For a given value of "works", where 'works' is defined as meeting requirements. My first requirement as a software user is that doesn't steal my freedoms to share, copy, study, modify, redistribute (etc) it. If I can't do that with it, it's not working. There's a saying about he who would swap eye-candy for essential freedoms deserving neither. (Danny O'Brien I think that was.)

"Vista is still 32-bit" -- WTF?

[mad.frog]

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.

ESR's Irresponsible Crusade

[Laven]

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/ 2006-April/msg00118.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/ 2006-April/msg00358.html
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.

Linux ubiquity is more important

[JanStedehouder]

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.