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Torvalds Takes Issue With De Icaza's Linux Desktop Claims
An anonymous reader writes "Linux creator Linus Torvalds has poured scorn on claims made by the co-founder of the GNOME Desktop project, Miguel de Icaza, that he (Torvalds) was in any way to blame for the lack of development in Linux desktop initiatives. De Icaza wrote in his personal blog: 'Linus, despite being a low-level kernel guy, set the tone for our community years ago when he dismissed binary compatibility for device drivers. The kernel people might have some valid reasons for it, and might have forced the industry to play by their rules, but the Desktop people did not have the power that the kernel people did. But we did keep the attitude.'"
Update: 09/02 18:39 GMT by U L : The original source of the comments (and an exciting flamewar between Free Software heavyweights).
I'm using Mint Cinnamon, and am very happy with it. The "classic" desktop works fine - why the need to reinvent it?
I had a Mac for several years, and didn't find OS X - much less the idiotic Dock - to be any more useful than plain old Windows XP. I ran Ubuntu until Unity, which simply didn't offer any real added utility, just more pointless doo-dads.
The reason why so many people stick with XP, or Vista, or even Windows 2000 is because it just works. They understand it. They don't need added gobbledy-gook flying all over the screen, or the OS "hiding" stuff on the assumption that they don't need it.
Three Squirrels
I got linux on desktop.
It works perfectly.
Seriously, what's the problem?
Agreed, "it" has worked properly for a long time. But someone elses "pet project" doesn't, so we have to hear endlessly about how "it" is broken.
His hammer doesn't install drywall screws very well, therefore we are all supposed to be in a tizzy that the world is not ready for drywall.
Bye bye gnome, bye bye kde, awesome / xfce / ratpoison are the way to go.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
the 'failure' of the linux desktop is basically applications. libreoffice and linux gaming initiatives are the way to win that battle. making a prettier desktop is not.
Thank you, Linus.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I agree, at least partly, with De Icaza's assertion that ABI breakage (binary compatibility) in each kernel release is a problem for vendors, and likely helped push hardware vendors away from supporting Linux. While in the ideal world, every vendor will release their drivers as open-source, this is the real world. There are numerous reasons (legal and others) why companies cannot or will not release their drivers as open-source (ie. Nvidia). With each new kernel release breaking binary compatibility with prior releases, this forces the companies to release a new driver every time the kernel gets updated. This might not be a problem for a big company with resources such as Nvidia; however, for smaller companies, this is likely a big reason they do not support Linux in the first place.
Case in point, Dell paid PowerVR to develop a Poulsbo graphics driver for their Dell Mini netbooks (which at the time were on Ubuntu 10.04). PowerVR developed the driver. As Ubuntu released newer versions, the driver stopped working due to the ABI breakage. Users were entirely dependent upon Dell to pay PowerVR to constantly update the driver for new Kernel releases, which they did not.
This type of continual ABI breakage is not seen in both the Mac and Windows worlds
Then why is Miguel crying about Linux "setting the tone" then? I'll bet that with enough work, Gnome can work on Windows so why the Linux hate? Personally, I like some elements of Gnome and was a huge fan of v.2.x but they flat jumped the shark with 3 and it damn sure isn't Linux's fault. They (the Gnome 3 devs) made the decision to hide buttons on the titlebar. They made the decision to go to the weird hidden menu. They made the decision to remove functionality from fundamental applications like Nautilus. So don't come trying to lay the blame on Linus because your little experiment isn't popular and your losing mindshare. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to use Gnome 3 and realize pretty quickly it stinks. Go back to the drawing board, fellas.
Actually, it's very much a valid point. GNOME 2 supported the BSDs as well, but in GNOME 3, they were discussing making Systemd mandatory for GNOME3, which is not there in BSD. As a result, there is no BSD that supports GNOME 3 as yet - not even a GNOME specific distro like GhostBSD. Theoretically yes, GNOME can exist w/o Linux, but in reality, it sticks to Linux like a leech. If they are so capable, why don't they develop Hurd, which has been taking forever, and port GNOME3 to that? Or port GNOME 3 to Minix? There are 3 unixes that GNOME 3 doesn't seem interested in.
"Linux desktop experience is 20 behind and regressing, while we laugh at upcoming windows releases."
I don't confuse Gnome with the "Linux desktop experience". I can run as many WMs as I like on the same machine and choose between them.
So can you.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This is the STUPIDEST comment I've seen.
I wrote a rant about this within the past couple days in one of the other articles: ABI COMPATIBILITY IS IMPORTANT EVEN IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE!
Why? So you don't end up in the goddamn fucking mess we're in right now, where your code requires a specific gcc version to build, thanks to differences in parsing capability, header availability, etc, due to the era when the code was written, and linking to libraries whose ABI changes based on the compiler used (silently I might add, with, in many cases, no easy way to verify what compiler/toolchain it was compiled against (I'm looking at you libstdc++ v4).
Binary compatibility is important because backwards compatibility is important, and thanks to an ever increasing lack of 'fixing old problems before creating new ones', the errata for open source compilers,toolchains, and apps is ever increasing. Try compiling any non-trivial C++ app. Especially, find one that's got a dependancy that won't compile on a later gcc version (just between 4.0 and 4.7, say at least 3 minor-numbers away), then compile the apps and see what the odds are of a random segfault with a blown stack. wxGTK and pcsx2, or OGRE and OpenMW are some good examples.
Shit comes crashing down.
And for those of you who don't remember, how about the libc5 -> glibc -> glibc 2.2.5 -> glibc 2.3.x fiascos. If you were someone compiling from source during any of those transitions, you no doubt remember the horrors of incomplete, untested, or just plain sloppy backwards compatibility. 2.2.5 btw was the last 386 supporting glibc version, and some early 2.3 version is the last sub 2.6 kernel version (later 2.3.x kernels only support newer 2.6 kernels, despite claiming to the contrary. Go try setting the minimum kernel version when compiling glibc 2.14 or 2.15 for example and see what the odds are it even works correctly.)
While I've got some gripes with Linus' handling of the kernel, the problem is FAR bigger than him, and definitely includes De Icaza's own stupidity as a large part of the pile (Anyone remember how much crap used to depend on EDS, despite it often offering you NOTHING other than wasting disk space and memory?) What about all the BS with mono? Hell, what about all the BS with gnome? Gnome1 gets punted as soon as it started feeling useful. Then like 5 years later when Gnome 2 finally starts maturing, same shit different color. De Icaza: Retire. Seriously we know how much you envied Fonzi, but that shark is gonna get you if you try and jump it again.
- vranash
I got linux on desktop. It works perfectly. Seriously, what's the problem?
Well it is annoying to have to rebuild things when the kernel is updated, vmware comes to mind.
These things add up and explain the many defections from desktop Linux to Mac OS X, as attested to by various long term Linux users in yesterday's article on the subject. The short story is that many Linux users merely wanted a *nix environment, they were not into the politics or crusade. That is desktop Linux's problem, its becoming a less interesting option for those who just want a *nix environment and don't want to join a social movement.
People like to pretend that Windows and OS X don't have their own unique problems... computing environments in general are still overly difficult to use and all have their own obnoxious quirks (given enough time and people think of them as features).
My Grandmother runs KDE on Debian testing... she couldn't fix Windows when it broke, and at least Debian breaks less often... and the solitare game is better I hear. And when my cousins visit her I don't get the "the kids broke the computer with their stupid websites" calls any more ;)
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
because [Miguel is] paid by microsoft
This is a likely possibility. Unfortunately, I almost think he does it all for free. The man has been sabotaging Gnome for a long time and advocating Mono which is pretty much worthless as the ISO certified spec of .Net is only up to version 2 while .Net itself is up to version 4 or 5. I have never gotten a .Net binary to run on Linux despite trying over and over. And that Moonlight shit? I have never seen it work in the wild on a typical website. Not even to show the menu on the deluded restaurant sites that fell for Silverlight. Despite what the naysayers say, even if Moonlight and Mono were 100 percent compatible on the day of a .Net release, if any OS started getting successful and integrated Mono technologies to do so, the lawyers would trip all over themselves in the race to "extract licensing fees". You'd have to be blind, stupid, born yesterday, or a shill to pretend otherwise.
You do realize you just used the classic "works for me" completely worthless answer, yes? Well I have a B&W G3 and an AMD 6 core running Win 7 so OSX and Windows "works for me" so that means that ALL OSes must be just great, yes?
The problem is, and Torvalds can get pissy if he wants but it doesn't change reality, that with everything from the kernel on up constantly in a state of flux maintaining software and drivers for Linux costs waaay more money than it does for Windows and OSX so many simply won't bother. I mean how many drivers does Nvidia have to put up just to keep their GPUs running in Linux? Yet a WinXP driver written by them in 04 will run on XP now, their RTM Win 7 driver runs on 7 now, no need for Nvidia to futz with it.
If you would like some further reading I'd suggest this article by one of the RH devs that says the desktop is "suckage" and that Linux is paying for "mistakes made 10-20 years ago"...kinda like...well kinda exactly like what de Icaza said. Oh and if you'd like to see what is broken here is a list of over 200 problems with both software and drivers. Please note that this is the 2012 edition, I can provide a link to the original list and you can compare and see how many of those problems are over 3 years old now.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Starting with your decision in 1997 to abandon what was the GNU project's official GUI toolkit in favor of GTK.
If you'd stuck with GNUStep, the discipline of compatibility with a written spec (OpenStep) and the pressure for compatibility with a living rival implementation (OPENSTEP, then Mac OS X) would have avoided the "blow everything up and restart" problem. And you wouldn't have spent any time on CORBA if you already had PDO baked-in.
And it would have been actually following the kernel approach. Whatever the kernel might do with its internal structure, in its external interfaces it's been stable. Further, that external interface has been a re-implementation and extension of an existing good-enough interface (Unix/POSIX/SysV), rather than running off and implementing its own ideal of how an OS should work.
I never understood why, if even just in the name of good architectural design, Linus was against it. Maybe it was cause he only thinks like a low level guy.
I'll see your question and raise you another question in about the same vein. "I never understood why, if even just in the name of making software good for end users, Miguel and his former GNOME team kept breaking everything in sight." Remove this option, change this paradigm, make this more confusing, and change this API, etc, etc etc... He switched over to Mono and tried to convince the world how awesome that platform was versus any other development platform out there. Not really worrying about others who disagreed with his stance.
Miguel going on a tirade about people breaking things first chance they get is a little like this conversation I heard this one time between a kettle and a pot. Had something to do with the color black. At no point did Linus say, that in order to to work with Linux you need to break your APIs every three to four weeks, it just needed to work with the exposed interface.
Binary compaibility is important to "closed software" not open source. It's not a priority for FOSS. That's why developers could not care less about it. It's the distros that should be the ones who worry about this kind of stuff. They pander to not only open source, but closed software as well. Trying to blame developers for the inability for commerical software to succeed on Linux, is a little like blaming the people who make the product, for a management team that cannot make up their mind about which product the people making products should be making.
Please note that the above is strictly my opinion and in no way should it be confused with reality, unless you feel that it reflects said reality that you also exist in.
Put a a member of a lost tribe in front of a Windows computer...
People have done exactly that sort of experiment, but with iPads.
And what do you know... the grandmother, toddler, or lost Amazonian tribesman invariably takes to it like a fish to water.
Those who ignore the lesson that's implicit in your snarky comment are in more danger of obsolescence than they can possibly imagine. Being usable by a member of a "lost tribe" is not a joke or a straw-man argument, but a requirement. Miguel shows signs of getting that. Does anyone else?
Free software is very much a threat to software engineers. See, we get paid to write software for systems. It's a nice gig. Gives me income to pay the bills. I'd much rather do this than be a ditch digger who hacks at software in my free time.
Your work arrangement with your employer sucks. My boss pays me to create things that don't already exist because my company needs their output. A good chunk of the time, they then let me release it as Free Software so that 1) we're not the only people in the world maintaining it, and 2) the Free Software ecosystem (which we benefit greatly from) grows.
Software engineers have earned good money for decades. All this free stuff undermines that.
Only if you're not good at it. Lots of software engineers make good money writing Free Software.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Why is this a concern, at least to us evil proprietary engineers? The more free packages incorporated, the less work that needs done. Less work = less employees.
That's weird, I've had a great 15+ year in non-free software development, and free software has *always* plays a central role in:
* faster development of new features by leveraging existing solutions
* use of tools to streamline and rationalize release and operational processes
* standardization in areas like dependency injection, unit testing, configuration
* ability to "use the source" to solve a problem quickly and decisively
All of my work has been in technology solutions for businesses that need it -- web, server-side, message-driven stuff, etc. The requirements are always expanding. I don't know a single developer in this area that is out of work.
On the other hand, if you're selling something to the public and expecting free software to stay out of your playground, that's a different issue. My response to that is adapt or die -- the world does not exist to provide cozy niches for proprietary software.
> Yes yes I can tweak, twiddle to my hearts content and
> somehow figure out that I need to do a polka dance while
> singing the star bangled banner to get audio, or multi-screens
> to work.
I haven't had trouble with Linux audio in about 10 years.
I think you're just full of shit.
I don't care you long you claim you've been using Linux. You sound like a clueless troll using FUD that was outdated in the last century.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Evolution was good, but quite unneeded (Thunderbird was better).
This is still something I have a problem wrapping my head around. Both Gnome and KDE have pet versions of highly successful and complicated types of software that seem to be out of the scope of a DE. I mean, why do they devote precious resources to Epiphany when everybody uses Firefox and Chromium? Why KOffice when everybody uses LibreOffice? Xfce sets a good example by only shipping the bare necessities like a file manager, text editor, etc. rather than trying to compete with the big boys in arenas where they're hopelessly out-manned.
That page is hysterical nonsense.
It conflates "some problems exist" with "nothing ever works for anyone". It also ignores that many of the same exact problems exist for Windows which is a monopoly product produced by a large company and supported by an entire industry of large companies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Ten years ago in an editorial in LinuxFormat I called Miguel de Icaza a "sell-out" and have yet to be proved wrong. His Quisling-esque career would be resigned to the /dev/null of Linux history except for all the damage he has done. Now he serves as a cautionary tale.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
To be fair, it is actually useful for some commercial dotnet (fucking stupid name) software that has been tested against it and so runs on linux. It means you don't have to hotseat an expensive single user at a time bit of software and can just run it over X to wherever the user is sitting (vnc and remote desktop performance sucks for local access and it's more mucking about for the user.
It fills the same compatibility niche as WINE.
We can criticise him for some things but mono provides a benefit. Forcing mono into distributions to support some flaky software is a different story that appears to be somebody else's fault - I don't think mono itself is the unstable part. We can't blame him for that any more than we can blame him for the nightmare of gconf on gnome which was somebody else's bit of abandonware.