Slashdot Mirror
The Economist Suggests Linux For Netbooks
Trepidity writes "In its roundup of how to choose a netbook, The Economist suggests that users 'avoid the temptation' to go for a Windows-based netbook, and in particular to treat them as mini laptops on which you'll install a range of apps. In their view, by the time you add the specs needed to run Windows and Windows apps effectively, you might as well have just bought a smallish laptop. Instead, they suggest the sweet spot is ultra-lite, Linux-based netbooks, with a focus on pre-installed software that caters to common tasks. They particularly like OpenOffice, which they rate as easier to use than MS Word and having 'no compatibility problems,' as well as various photo-management software." Besides which, does Windows offer spinning cubes for coffee-shop demos?
The target market for netbooks is generally "normal people", who are more or less by definition not editing Word documents with mathematical formulas in them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In my experience, OpenOffice certainly does open some documents in a way that looks strange. In the vast majority of those cases, those documents also look strange when moving between different versions of Word. So, compatibility isn't absolutely 100% perfect with a specific version of word, but it is damn near 100% compatibility if you consider "Word" as a whole, rather than "Word" as the exact specific version of Word you happen to have installed on the specific system you use most.
And, most of those documents are indeed stuff like formulae which aren't widely used, and for which Word is sometimes not really the best tool for the job. When I worked in academia IT, I had the insane good fortune to work in a department where everybody was comfortable with the idea of using latex for their papers. I think I had to deal with fewer than half a dozen issues related to latex in the whole time I worked there. OTOH, when I was in Windows support, I'd call half a dozen MS Word issues a light week!
I'm not quite as cynical as you in that I don't think Microsoft can stop this revolution.
In order to make money they have to charge something for their software. Linux will always be cheaper than a Windows machine.
Apple were smart in positioning themselves as the luxury computer brand.
Linux has made inroads in cheap ultra-portables. Windows has no-where to go. It's too slow for ultra-portables, it's too low quality for a luxury product.
Ultra-portables are probably the future of computing. We're getting to the point where mobile contracts are being sold with a free ultra-portable.
To me, it's much like what happened when the RIAA got in bed with Walmart. The RIAA stabbed record stores in the back by dealing with Walmart.
The record stores had their interests aligned with the RIAA. The more music they sold, the more money they made and the more money the RIAA made.
However, Walmart was a different animal. To Walmart, music was just something that took up shelf space. Suddenly the RIAA was competing with every other product.
The RIAA found that it couldn't dictate the terms any more because Walmart had no qualms about dropping their product if they couldn't get a good deal. The RIAA, owing a good chunk of its revenue to Walmart, suddenly found itself to be Oliver saying: "Please sir, can I have some more?"
In the past Micrsoft could bully system builders because they are like the record stores used to be . They have a vested interest in selling units which is mutually beneficial for both the system builder and Microsoft.
However, computers are now becoming so cheap that they're being given away as a part of other deals. The people crafting these deals don't give a crap if it's Microsoft or not. They can't be bullied because their main line of business has little to do with Microsoft.
Economics is a force more powerful than any individual company. Microsoft is not above this. Vista, to me, just confirmed that Microsoft is just another company. They don't need to make too many more mistakes before it starts to hurt really badly.
I think we're beginning to see the end of the Microsoft monoculture.
No, just flying chairs
There really should be a screen saver for that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The big problem here is whether you'll be allowed to buy a mini notebook with 1GB and a 120-160 MB hard disk without Windows. Microsoft certainly does not want notebook vendors selling them that way, and has effective strategies to induce them not to do so.
I expect they start with legal bribes, price structures effecting both the vendors larger systems and the smaller ones, and if that doesn't work the patent portfolio comes out and they discuss whether you'd like to cross-license on their terms or be sued.
That won't mean anything to a chinese company willing to sell a netbook online for a hundred bucks.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It means more people will view the web through a browser that is not IE. More people will use an office suite that supports ODF. More people will want music and videos without DRM. Even if not a single extra Linux app will be written (which I doubt), Linux as a platform will be supported better.
People can make a living writing applications that have depth, like PhotoShop, or are timely, like TurboTax for the specific tax year, or that have tremendous liability and accuracy issues, like TurboTax, or that, again like TurboTax, aren't written for love, and aren't written by programmers at all but by accountants.
If your software doesn't have depth, or timeliness, etc., it's too late to make money from it. This isn't particularly an Open Source issue.
That leaves us with games, and netbooks aren't game machines, and all of the content you vend via web sites, which is probably where any money to be made will come from.
Bruce Perens.
LaTeX
Typesetting system well-suited for typesetting math
This is a package you can install on ubuntu to add support for typesetting math-rich documents. Havee you tried this?
I'm the sort of person who's always getting asked to help people with their computers. (I guess all geeks have this experience, but I think I do it more than most, because I'm good at explaining things, which is also what I do for a living.) My experience with this is that most people who use computers outside their jobs use them three things, and three things only: web surfing, email, word processing. Unless they become interested in the technology for its own sake and are in danger of turning into computer geeks (and that's certainly a growing demographic!), they're not interested in expanding their skill set much past this point. Indeed, they tend to resist getting in deeper than they actually have to.
Now, I could be mistaken, but it's my perception that these are the people who are driving the growing popularity of Linux-based netbooks. It's hard to see who else could be driving it — previous attempt to get people to adopt Linux as an alternative to Windows have failed miserably. We all know why: there's too much application lockin on this platform. But if the only applications you're running are the three I just mentioned, application lockin ceases to be an issue.
Maybe I'm wrong, and it is all about the form factor and battery life. But I don't think so.
I absolutely beg to differ...
Office Open XML is as from being open as we are from getting into another galaxy.
First, the bad news. Office Open XML has several thousand pages of documentation for the file format, some of which refers to proprietary ways older Microsoft products operated (e.g. implement feature X of Office 97) without giving code or direct examples. Second, Microsoft ended up attempting to go through ECMA to race against ODF to be the first to be an industry-standard. During this process, Microsoft was accused of encouraging certain voting irregularities. Based upon their past history including their case with the DOJ, some credence might be lent to that train of thought.
Second, the good news... ODF has been ratified as the ISO 26300 standard, in 2006. The documentation was on the order of several hundred pages long. In addition, very little resistance was present during the adoption process, as the OpenDocument folks went through the proper channels and made sure that all involved parties were aware of their steps.
Do you honestly think that a standard controlled by a company who has historically focused on proprietary products is more open than one which was built from a grassroots effort and industry coalition?