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Shuttleworth Says Ubuntu Can't Just Be Windows
ruphus13 writes "When Mark Shuttleworth was asked what role WINE will play in Ubuntu's success, he said that Ubuntu cannot simply be a better platform to run Windows apps. From the post, according to Shuttleworth, '[Windows and Linux] both play an important role but fundamentally, the free software ecosystem needs to thrive on its own rules. it is *different* to the proprietary software universe. We need to make a success of our own platform on our own terms. if Linux is just another way to run Windows
apps, we can't win. OS/2 tried that ...' The post goes on to say, 'Linux simply isn't Windows (nor is Windows Linux) and to expect fundamentally different approaches (and I'm not just thinking closed versus open) to look, feel, and operate the same way is senseless.'"
The cost is beside the point.
I am a long-time Linux (and much more recently OS X) user, and if I am presented with a piece of software that requires Windows to run it, I usually prefer to just do without.
Fortunately in my discipline (biotech) developers are beginning to realise there are alternatives - for instance, Geneious is a stupendously fine example. It's definitely not free, but it is available on multiple platforms, which is a big step away from where we were a couple of years ago.
Compare this with Endnote which is rapidly losing ground to Zotero because the developers refuse to cooperate with the *nix world.
Look at the history.
If IBM had gotten its shit together and gotten OS/2 out the door in the early 1990s as originally intended, Windows would have been known only as the GUI interface. Windows would have been to OS/2 as Gnome is to Ubuntu: a pretty front end to a powerful and secure operating system.
But OS/2 was crippled by infighting among the divisions of IBM, and was tilting at windmills in its pursuit of true multitasking on the Intel 80286 microprocessor. (One of the best quotes ever from Bill Gates was when he described the 286 as being "brain dead"). While IBM got itself all tangled up trying to do something never done before-- true pre-emptive multitasking on a microchip with all the appropriate security that would need-- Microsoft took advantage of an escape clause in its contract to develop Windows for IBM, and tied this GUI front-end on top of DOS, which could not do multitasking and had no security model at all. Micorsoft also jumped over the 286 and developed for the 80386 microprocessor (then backfilled to provide some limited capabilities on the 80286). Thus Win3.0 came on the scene, complete with "cooperative multitasking"-- which meant no true multitasking at all.
If OS/2 had been released even as late as 1992, Microsoft would have been unable to compete with its technical superiority. We would have OS/2 and not Windows. A lot of things would have happened very differently... the delay in OS/2 was a significant historical cusp.
Will
And with Windows it's Right-click on 'My Network Places' -> Properties. Then pick the connection ->Properties. Pick the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) option ->Properties. All mouse-driven, all GUI, all easy. Adjust away.
That's the difference. With Ubuntu|Linux, you've got to *know* how to get to the Terminal, then you've got to type stuff, then you've got to edit config files. Then restart things. Then something else breaks, which requires not the usual 'Add/Remove' program function to fix it, but a trip into 'sudo aptitude blah-blah-blah'. Then maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. Of course, it's trivially easy to find umpteen tutorials on *how* to do this stuff. Linux-lovers get excited over that. And that's totally cool. And I'll buy the argument that it is "better" to actually learn how your O/S works. But casual users, mainstream users, money-spending users, no way. They just want it to work.
I have three notebooks; one running Vista, one running Ubuntu 9.04, and a Macbook. I use them interchangeably, depending on what I'm doing. Ubuntu 9.04 is the best release of Ubuntu yet, but it's still kludgy compared to Vista or Mac. And when things break in Ubuntu (like when my WiFi simply stopped working after a recommended update & reboot) it required quite a bit of troubleshooting and 'tinkering' to get it working again. After a half-hour, I was back in business. But it required a half-hour of work to fix. Enjoyable fun for the computer nerd. But not for Grandma. People want apps that are easily installed, easily removed, and consistent in their method of installation.
And until some Linux distro figures that out (Ubuntu 9.04 is *damn* close) they'll never capture enough market share to hit critical mass. Based on the improvements I've witnessed from Ubuntu 6.xxx through today's 9.04, they may be there by Ubuntu 10 or 11. Here's to hoping. :-)