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Rethinking the Linux Distribution?
eldavojohn writes "ONLamp.com is running an interesting article about rethinking how the community distributes Linux and the open source applications that often come with Linux. The author isn't arguing that Linux needs to become a full blown web OS over night but instead, asking if the community should be considering 'Software as a Service' and what he means by that is perhaps many of the open source applications that run on Linux should be available through a browser. The reasons for this are obvious, the code is open so anyone could host it, it would be platform independent so anyone could use it and it might attract more users to the Linux environment. The obvious note here is that many of the enterprise software makers are switching to Software as a Service, shouldn't the open source community investigate the possibility of a Web OS?"
WebOS: Another blathering buzzword for industry gurus in the 2000s. Thank f***ing you, Google.
Isn't that just moving the application from one linux box(the client) to another(the server)? I mean, no sane person would use Windows to host something like that.... But on a more serious note, a lot of OSS developers don't have the money to smack down on bandwidth and machines just to host their projects - where as Google and Microsoft can afford it.
www.isoHunt.com
i really would not like to see this. there have been some attempts at making a desktop run as a service, but in all it's not very fast. the only benefit is that the heavy work, like loading of a office suite can be done in someone else's backyard. don't you just hate it when your network goes down?
Why UNIX?
Is that a good selling point, from the perspective of a potential client? Browser-based applications always bring doubts about security with them, and a lot of people would be reassured in using servers owned by well-known companies, but I'm not sure how many would be enthusiastic about connecting to "anyone"'s server.
I think it would stupid for the AbiWord or OpenOffice teams to down tools and start working on a web-based version of the software. At the minute, a lot of productivity is wasted on browser incompatibilities and AJAX is still rather clumsy in comparison to what it could be. To get even the fairly basic functionality of AbiWord in to a web-app would take far longer to develop than it would for an equivalent desktop application.
I think the free software movement is doing very well. It's getting somewhere. I've used Windows on every PC I've owned since the Windows 3.11 days. In January I made the switch to Ubuntu on a new PC that I recently purchased. I decided to ditch Windows because I thought that Vista was a downgrade to Windows XP.
I was frankly amazed at just how good GNU/Linux really is. It isn't just tolerable, it's out and out better than Windows XP. After installation, the machine is usable in that it has all the software I need to actually start using the computer. Windows by comparison has a basic 'toolset' (if you can even call it that). The file system layout is far more intuitive than the baroque drive lettering system. The firewall is simple, powerful and non-intrusive - compare that to Windows based firewalls. Windows Update only supports Microsoft products. Ubuntu provides updates for all software packages it distributes. In short, it feels better engineered, more robust, consumer centric and easier to use.
Why should the free software movement rethink its strategy when it's just starting to gain traction in a big way? I say keep up the good work! It is no accident that Dell have decided to sell Ubuntu on their machines. This is no longer a hobbyists OS but a baby gorilla eating its way through plenty of fruit and gaining in size all the time. Watch out Microsoft!
Simon.
I still work offline often at school. I also don't like the idea of my applications suddenly not working because of a browser update, nor do I like the idea of application developers having to work around browser incompatibilities. I've also never seen an in-browser MSWord like application that could do everything I needed it to. Some come close but google docs comes up short, as does every other one I've tried.
So basically you want to run the apps on the remote machine and just use the local machine for display and storage. Hmmmm. Sounds familiar. Sounds like X11 or Remote Desktop doesn't it?
The only reason for the 'do it in the browser' meme seems to be set up for web this and web that and aren't set up for giving you Windows TS or Unix Shell accounts....
Oh, and X11 isn't that efficient over a network of course!
Software as a service is irrelevant to the distribution of Linux. If you're running apps over the Internet, you're not distributing them. It's just another Application Service Provider who btw, mostly use Linux anyway.
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No. Next question.
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Yes, that is because Microsoft has a MONOPOLY on the desktop.
So don't use Microsoft's desktop monopoly as justification for changing the current approach. Linux has been gaining marketshare. There is nothing indicating that this will change.
Yes, it MAY. But it also has it's own, unique, issues. Such as having to rely upon:
#1. Your machine.
#2. Your network.
#3. Your ISP connection.
#4. The ISP connection of the service provider.
#5. The service providers hardware.
When running the same app locally means you have to rely upon:
#1. Your machine.
Yep, he's citing "Web 2.0". Usually, when someone cites "Web 2.0" it means that they're pushing more fantasy than Reality. And that holds true in this instance as well.
Why trade the reliability of apps installed on your local machine for the complexity of apps hosted somewhere else? Because it's Web 2.0 and it's cool!
Why do these "online apps" always have to be delivered "through a browser"? Why not have it delivered "through a network transparent windowing system optimized for internet connections", like say FreeNX? If, for some reason, that's a problem, why not fix the problem at the windowing level rather than keep trying to build everyting into an application that started life as a document viewer. Surely "inside the browser" is the wrong leve of abstractio here?
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Why would we ever want to run our word processor in a web browser?
Certain applications make sense on the web. Web search engines, for instance. Even maps, and seeking directions from place to place. Basically, anything that takes large amounts of information and makes it readily accessible. I can understand those being on the web.
But... word processing? Image manipulation? *Why* would I want to do that? What does it gain me?
Nothing.
What do I lose?
Control. If I choose to change applications, or try a new application, I am at the mercy of the host. If the host decides to upgrade, and I hate the new version, I am at the mercy of the host.
The whole idea smacks of, "Let's do it, because we can!"
Corporations like Microsoft and Google want us to go that route, because then *they* get to control even more of our lives. But why would *we* want that?
Collaboration can happen without application hosting. It'd be better if we focussed instead on creating a great P2P collaboration framework, and build that into many applications, such as OOo, or the Gimp, or any other system you might want to use for multi-authored documents.
But the web?
Seriously.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
"Software as a Service" is 100% a marketing term. Trust me, Mr. Newbie Author, the open source community has been thinking of avoiding desktop deployment for a long, long time - just ask the Apache team or anyone who's ever written a web app.
"Linux as a Web OS"? I'm not sure you know what Linux is if that's the best thing that came out of your head the last time you toked up.
You can try one of those WebOS already. EyeOS is one of them ...the thing is that OSS community should start working on this kind of software soon. Fear goes away if we can download and change code for this kind of software. It's not about large companies having more bandwidth. It's about this simple question.. Can we install this software ( OSS ) on our own servers on our local network and then use low power terminals for word processing etc from there?
How is this a good idea? I could totally understand this if server hardware were lightyears ahead of desktop hardware. But, guess what, it's not. Should I really be running my word processor on a machine that is hosting tens of thousands of other users at the same time? Add in network latency and guess what, you've got a useless application that no one will enjoy using. I think the only reason Google has had a little success in this market is novelty topped with a little ease of document sharing. C'mon, make webservers be very, very good at sharing documents/files/whatever then you've got a good platform. Leave the user facing applications on the desktop where they belong.
With Linux, the client and server could be the same box. You could choose whether to install services or whether to use someone else's server.
After-all, Fedora running GNOME is more similar to Ubuntu running GNOME than Fedora running KDE, as far as users are concerned.
But not as far as people who actually care are concerned. Why should Linux pander to the lowest common denominator?
It's ridiculous to have dozens of distros, almost all of which use one of two (or both!) windowing systems.
No, it is not. Many have gigantic differences if you know more about the OS than the windowing system you are using. Try a few flavors without X even installed, and tell me they are the same.
Where is it? I know I saw a fancy bootup screen for a linux based Google operating system. I'm sure by now they have tons of features. I mean they basically have an office suite thats web based. They have photo-management functionality, they've got a huge user base (not to mention cash like friggin crazy).... so where is my Goonix! I want the iso ready for installation on my 1gig flash drive so i can take my Goonix everywhere I go!
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Right now you can run some P2P app on your computer, listen to music and balance your checkbook in between check for new stories on /.
That's because your computer has a LOT more internal bandwidth than external.
Now imagine that you're trying all of that online. All of a sudden your multi-tasking box becomes a single-task box as each of those apps tries to share your limited bandwidth. For most of us, it's easier to buy a faster CPU or hard drive than it is to get a faster Internet connection.
And that's just ONE computer with its own Internet connection. It only gets worse when you start adding more people to your connection.
And the goal is to do what? Get more people to use Free software?
The reason more people don't use Free software is that their workstation already has similar apps installed. Why download AbiWord when 90% of the workstations out there already have Notepad and Wordpad installed?
Find free books.
Yes, it's an inflammatory subject, but it's exactly what needs to happen. "Software as a service" is the wet dream of many corporations right now, because it offers a per use pricing model and offloads an enormous amount of control to the vendor. When their machines run everything, it's DRM heaven.
Certain software works well as a service. Anything that is inherently multi-user, such as social chat, collaboration, bulletin boards (including the so-called Web 2.0, which is really not much more innovative than the dial-up bulletin boards of the '80s) - all those things work well as a network service. The querying of large databases can work well too, depending on what the data is. Google, encyclopedias, etc. Certain software doesn't. OpenOffice will always work best on the desktop.
"Software as a service" is a catch phrase the editors here seem to like to push in articles as it riles up those of us who know better and attracts comments. Comments attract more comments, and this pumps up Slashdot. The thing is, this type of behaviour is self-defeating, as while it does churn the butter, but some spills out. Every time you poke a stick into a hornets nest, sure, the hive will get all riled, but some will just get fed up fly somewhere else, and it does nothing to attract new blood.
So, for everyone's sake, please stop posting crap like this.
Moving to a "software as service" model such as Web applications is a step back to the mainframe days, in which someone else controls the software you use. The benefit of the personal computer was that the software resided on the user's computer, under the user's control. This increased the freedom of the user. The free-as-in-speech software movement further increased the freedom of the user by allowing the user to own, modify, improve and share the software. This can't happen with the "software as service" model.
The free/open source software community in particular should resist this erosion of user freedom. After all, user freedom is what free/open source software is all about. Why should it be lured into giving that up? The question, as always, it who benefits: the company hosting the web applications (who can easily spy on everything you do with their software and even create a EULA in which you agree that they own the material you create with said software; most users just click "OK" and never actually read the EULA) or the user?
Hint: it's not the user.
As far as I can tell the perceived benefit of software as service (or 'web os' as some people cal it) is that it will
cost less. Well how can you cost less than a distribution like Debian or Ubuntu? Granted another benefit is that
you can run software as service on less expensive hardware, but come on, are you trying to tell me that a $250
desktop is too expensive?
News Fash: Hardware is cheap.
It's the software that's the expensive part of business. I don't think FOSS should volunteer bandwidth and server
time like that. Doesn't FOSS already give enough, hosting free software in repositories making it that much more
convenient to use the software you want at any time?
Money is the root of all evil?
Please check your fanboyism at the door
Please take your own advice...
multimedia
Actually, Linux can play all media formats, and convert between them easily. All media players support all formats in Linux. Compare this to Windows, where certain players will only play certain formats, and every player wants you to convert music into their format, and some even require you to pay for the conversion and burning features.
and games spring to mind
On Windows I can't play games from a few years ago, let alone the classic PC games I have. On Linux, I can still play all the old games, and OSS emulators provide methods to play old games from other systems (dosbox, scummvm, agi, qemu). Games that require 3D acceleration just work, and don't require fiddling around and tons of patches. Linux may not have all games running native, but it's clear that when a game is made for Linux, it works superior compared to when a game is made for any other OS.
not to mention a decent-looking UI
Well, obviously that's subjective. But then again, you can customize it to your heart's content on Linux. Not only that but you can choose between different major UIs that are each well supported and tailored to different users. And yes, you can tweak it to look/act just like Windows.
and great desktop performance
I don't recall having to reinstall Linux every 6 months to get rid of system cruft, or having to restart to get rid of dead applications or memory leaks. I've never had to shut down because an application stopped responding. When I uninstall applications, they remove cleanly and completely.
Applications don't try to steal priority over other applications, and don't try to take over each other (i.e., some toolbars that come with applications, applications stealing each others' file associations, applications trying to launch themselves on startup and won't let you turn them off). Applications don't expire without warning and force you to download a new version that may or may not even support your version of operating system. Not to mention that I can even run Linux on older computers that currently supported Windows versions choke on. I can save my home folder to easily back up all my settings and personally installed programs, they're not scattered all over the filesystem. Other users can't mess up my files by default, but I can easily give them permissions to look at, edit select files, or share their own files with me.
I can copy my hard disk install and move it to another computer and it will work fine, and if I upgrade I don't have to reinstall my operating system (the other day I moved one system from an Athlon 64 to an Athlon 64 X2, totally different motherboard, video card, expansion cards, hard drive, audio, etc. I copied the Linux installation over onto the new one and when I started it up, you wouldn't even know anything had changed. Not a single dialog box nagging me that this and that was found, and this is changed, where is that driver, etc). All the required drivers come with my system and I don't need to install every hardware vendor's custom applet to sit near my clock and nag me about updates, promotions, or even just take up space.
If I have a printer, the interface for switching settings and viewing ink levels are the same as every other printer. I don't need to learn anything new to learn how to use my new printer, it just works the same. My sound card doesn't have a billion stupid custom applications that I don't want to use but have to install anyway because the driver updates require that they be there.
Anyway, 'nuff said.
Twinstiq, game news
I suggest the first app to port to the browser to be Apache+PHP.
Once we have the AJAX Apache+PHP, we can run PHP in it, which can generate more AJAX pages.
In those pages, we can host Apache+PHP again.
When someone creates a mechanism to do deployments of just the pieces you need to run an app and installing them in an isolated sandbox - no one will care about the web apps anymore (and by apps I mean apps - word processors, spreadsheets, web editors). The key word here is "just the pieces you need to run". I.e. just the core of the app, 4-5 hundred K of code and relevant parts of libraries. I should be able to literally get up and running within seconds over today's broadband connections and continue working while this mechanism downloads the rest of the app code and data that may or may not get used in the future.
Another key word is "isolated sandbox". I should be able to install apps without the fear that they'll wreck my system. I should be able to remove them at the drop of a hat, too, with no negative consequences. Apps must know how to save both locally and "in the cloud", too, and they must be intuitive with respect to where you save. Once you've fully downloaded the app, you must be able to run it locally.
This just makes sense. You can't run a huge number of apps on the server, because server resources are not limitless. Client resources are pretty much limitless today, though. So no matter how you slice it, apps have to be run on the client and what's missing is a delivery mechanism that would make them as convenient as webapps.
There, I've outlined the strategy for the next 5 years. Now the question is, who will implement it faster, FOSS or Microsoft.
If someone wants to write a conventional wordprocessor they can choose to give it away for free without taking on any costs or liability. If someone wants to use that wordprocessor they can test it to their satisfaction and be fairly certain that it will then continue working. Worst case scanario - it doesn't keep up with some OS update in the future - and obviously they've checked that it uses an open file format, so that they won't lose their data.
OTOH, a software-as-a-service wordprocessor is as much use as an inflatable dartboard unless someone is going to provide that service and make some minumum level of service guarantee (including data backups). That costs.
Now, it would be great if there were Free/Open Source software-as-a-service SERVERS for people or companies who wanted to run their own "personal" centralised system - but as the main source of applications for a "Free" OS it just ain't gonna fly.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
So many comments posted thus far, and nothing about Affero. You can't discuss what free software in a "WebOS" (what a horrible term) means without bringing this up. The fundamental point is that the GPL allows anyone modification without no restrictions or obligations as long as you don't distribute the software to other people. Distribution is generally interpreted as different than running it. Basically, if you GPL a PHP driven website, anyone can take it, modify it, give other users access to "running" it without distributing any changes you've made.
As best I can tell, the Affero license addresses this, by a clause partnered with specific functionality in the program. 'If this software came with functionality to give source code to users, you may not remove it.' or something to that effect. I've already seen one or two sites that have decided that it didn't apply to them, and the development community behind it sounded like "so what?" Which is fine I suppose, but it feels strange to me that they were able to make a site for a client based largely on existing OAGPL'd code, integrate the code with existing technology(that is also widely used and would be interesting to many people), fix bugs, and then turn around and declare yourself unable and unrequired to fulfill the obligations imposed on you by the agreement. This is compounded by the fact that generally its much harder to tell when a site is appropriating OAGPL'd code. With traditional software, strings will usually catch hidden strings, debugging statements etc. Web software only has the output to look at.
I am somewhat comforted by the fact their site is already out of date, so either they or their client will be facing increasing costs in maintaining the site.
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