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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 got linux on desktop.
It works perfectly.
Seriously, what's the problem? Just because ever-growing bloated software megapackages like KDE and GNOME aren't as successful as they were meant to, even on a platform that is meant not to favor such big packages, the linux on desktop is failing? Come on.
Linux does just fine without GNOME. Does it work the other way?
Yes
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
He's absolutely request. GNOME's compatibility breaking is all GNOME. It's not a cultural norm set by the kernel developers.
Of course, it's much harder to define a good, stable API for upper layer stuff. It's closer to things that need to change frequently. Though X has done a remarkably good job of that.
Maybe, if that's what GNOME wants, they should sit down and think really hard about how to do it. And ignore all the current 'hot' technologies and buzzwords. That's what led them to .NET and CORBA, and those were complete dead ends.
Windows has, more or less, done it. I suspect though that it costs them a great deal. The Windows API has always been an insane mess, and IMHO a great source of the reason it was originally so very unstable.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
FOSS ain't totalitarianism. The point, IMO, of open source is do it the way you think is the best way. If enough people conclude you're right, your way is incorporated. If insufficient do, you reanalyze and improve (at least a couple of times) until your approach gains acceptance. All while keeping an eye out for parallel development efforts that look "smarter", "better", "more efficient", or what have you - and then incorporating those ideas if feasible or abandoning your effort if the general direction you're going becomes a dead end/obsolete before acceptance.
To summarize, when you have complete freedom failure is a decision you choose for yourself - it ain't somebody else's fault. It can be a community's "fault" if you feel you must attribute fault (we call those who attempt to lay blame and isolate all power to themselves "Republicans" in America, and must constantly duck their accusations that community involvement in any and all things is "mob rule"), but hey - that's democracy.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
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
Logic doesn't work that way.
Err... Am I missing something?
Linux && ! Gnome = true / works
! Linux && Gnome = false / doesn't work
Maybe I'm just growing too old...
Your post does not make sense, which is not surprising when Ayn Rand is invoked. Is the GNOME community not creating anything? Did Linux kernel programmers create GNOME? Was the Linux kernel the work of one man?
Its mmazing how fast it runs. I've installed it on one of my laptops some months ago just for nostalgia and man lxde/xfce have nothing on its speed.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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.
I'm gonna make some popcorn.
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.
I really don't like when people are trying to spice up their articles or blog posts with sensacionalist claims (Slashdot mods, you are guilty as Miguel are).
First of all, Linux desktop isn't dead. Millions of people use it. Ok, we are smaller than Windows definitely (can't be sure about OS X). I personally don't see it as a problem, as long developers are keeping fire of competition alive.
What Miguel propably wanted to bring up is regular point of criticism instability of Linux/free desktop based API (window enviroment, sound, graphics). While there have been some little fallouts about this in open source world, in nutshell open source desktop guys *care* about back compatability. And lot of commercial apps which can be easily run on various enviroments and distributions (and most of them even provide compatible packages for mainstream formats like deb and rpm) indicate that it is not that hard.
As always yes, there are hardware driver bugs (Windows aren't also free from this, and it has official vendor support), there are some competition in desktop enviroment (but let's be honest, in general that's not big problem). Problems for small software vendors is that mostly they can't compete with free - we don't need five different file compression applications, we have usually one general for each enviroment. Problems for big vendors - well, market isn't simply big enough (for Adobe for example).
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
It is an ethical issue and the majority fail to understand the position. Just because we make compromises out of strong desires and self interest (raising kids) doesn't make those acts (writing proprietary software to feed ones children) justifiable. Writing proprietary software is not justifiable no matter how much you want to feed your children.
Writing proprietary software is perfectly okay. I don't have to give away my work for free, although sometimes I do.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Binary compatibility doesn't 'further the goals of proprietary software developers'. All it does is ensure that a newer version of an OS can continue to use software that had been developed for a previous platform. It isn't necessarily a given that ISVs who've developed for a platform in the past will continue to develop new versions of the same software for the platform if it is failing, particularly if there is more effort involved. Changes in the ABI, API, other libraries and so on only serve to complicate the development, while on the user end, guaranteeing that something that was written for and worked w/ a previous version of a distro won't necessarily work w/ the successor. End result is that Linux on the desktop remains a pipedream.
Here is the actual discussion on G+ instead of an article that just quotes everything they say.
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 had to try out different versions of ALSA before they would work for different kernels/distro versions. And also, the ultimate sound was anything but smooth.
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.
The Linux version will never be complete and current with the Windows version. If you admire the thing so much, go whole hog.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
because he's paid by microsoft?
again, his comments are in the same category as Florian and should be summarized dismissed as such.
Is C. GNOME is still 98% built using C which is crazy in this day and age. And not modern, pretty nice c99, but ancient c89 because the latest GNOME has to compile on some 20 year old Solaris workstation otherwise Sun wont support the project. Now Sun is gone and Oracle doesn't give a shit. Novell has given up on using GNOME as a way to push Mono and only Redhat remains. Maybe stuff will change now because previously gnome has been incredibly resistant to change that is not initiated from within one of those three companies.
I want to see more changes in Gnome not less. And I want them to finally realize that they are spending 10x as much effort writing gui components in C as they would have in C#, Java or any other managed language.
Football Odds
... mess that computers, particular PCs, are in, blame the peripheral industry. Some of this blame also belongs to Microsoft when they made it easy in DOS and BIOS for peripheral makers to effectively add drivers. But this is a very small blame because the full scope of what we could have had not even been envisioned. Flexibility was needed for new kinds of devices and peripherals. But the peripheral industry abused this by making new devices of the same class operate differently in too many cases. Access to floppies and IDE hard drives escaped a lot of this just because those were boot devices, and adding BIOS drivers increased the price. The peripheral makers could not even establish compatibility standards within their own product lines. So many new models of a device simply failed to be compatible with the previous interface (and driver) even if all you wanted to do was do the same old things of the previous model. This was not just a case of manufacturers trying to protect some kind of intellectual property or lock people in to their own product.
What was needed was a generalized model of how a CPU based host would access peripherals. A message based model would still have provided plenty of flexibility to expand the capabilities of new devices, as well as the ability to move more device drivers into user space, outside of the kernel. Ideally, all that was needed was one message bus controller interface design, and one driver to operate it to send and receive messages and status reports. Beyond that a ring of trusted device driver processes could be used. Combined with some community and market pressure to maintain compatibility over short time frames (about 8 to 10 years), devices could easily be interchangeable with minimal driver changing.
Then every once in a while, a class of device would have its standard message interface/protocol upgraded to a new version, and it would be expected that all new devices would adopt that. And this could still be done with full compatibility with the previous version via a version code in the basic standard message header. The new version would include a standard way to access features that were generally available now and had been implemented via extensions in the previous message protocol version.
Linus is not to blame. He just gets blamed sometimes because his vision of making the Linux kernel more usable for everyone sometimes means others might have to do a little more work to keep up (any vision would, but his is the one we see).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Bonobo, you mean De Icaza's attempt to make a clone of Windows OLE and COM?
It's been replaced by D-BUS.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Bye bye gnome, bye bye kde, awesome / xfce / ratpoison are the way to go.
Nooo! Put the bottle of ratpoison dow....oh...I see....and you say that's a window manager?
*shakes head*
All these young'ns with their confusing softamaware names. Next I'll see a wm called "; rm -rf /" and by golly I'll probably try to apt-get install that sucker.
coding is life
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!
Gnome 3 does not have a hard dependency on PulseAudio, in the sense that it needs to have the server running.
It has a dependency on the PulseAudio libraries, true, but if you do not install the sound server, or deactivate it, Gnome 3 runs perfectly fine on bare ALSA; I am posting this from a Debian Unstable laptop running Gnome 3, and no PulseAudio.
And the only reason I do not run the PA sound server is because I use Skype occasionally, and that does not play nice with anything but ALSA. Otherwise PulseAudio is, just like Gnome 3, perfectly serviceable, and the whining on the Internet is mostly people who last tried it 2 years ago.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
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.
Agree or disagree with Miguel, Linus, Cox, or whomever... The simple point remains that just over a decade ago hardly anyone ran a Unix desktop. Linux looked poised to change that. But today, the most prevalent desktop OS isn't Linux, it's OS X. All the posturing and blaming and theorizing is great and all, but lost in all the bickering is the simple fact that Linux has yet to come out on top in the consumer space (minus embedded), and at this point no longer looks poised to ever do so. That may be fine for some, but for many the dream of an open source consumer PC OS is slipping away. I commend Miguel for at least being willing to say why he thinks so, rather than going on pretending the failure isn't a huge letdown to many of us. He may not be right about the why, but at least he's willing to admit the 'what', which is light years further than many in the community *cough* Stallman *cough* have been able to do.
Because it's a shitty knock off of a shitty knock off of Java.
I disagree. C# seems to have fixed some of the worst problems of Java.
But I still wouldn't use it unless I wanted to be tied to Windows, because Microsoft could kill Mono any time they feel like it.
Bizarre. I keep seeing all this whining about pulseaudio, and two years ago it was justified.. but today it just works on every Linux machine I own, and works better than the older sound systems ever did.
No, it isn't (to quote Monty Python). Remember: your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly.
Then why is Miguel crying about Linux "setting the tone" then?
Because "setting the tone" is something that happens on a social level, and has nothing at all to do with the technical capability of running on one operating system or another?
No, he's blaming the GNOME team, which includes himself, for copying an attitude that is not appropriate for them.
Many years ago, I foolishly attempted to install the "Red Carpet" Gnome on my RedHat system. The install went very well, but the desktop was now so different that I wanted to revert. How to revert? Well, it seems that Ximian did not consider that possibilty. I spent a frustrating few days removing many Ximian packages and then repacing with RedHat packages (without yum and access to up2date a much more difficult task than it would be now)
I am sorry, but if you want people to try your stuff, you need to provide the assurance of a way back to what they had before installing your stuff.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Nobody cares if GNOME3 *EVER* can run on BSD. Last I heard they weren't "discussing" making systemd mandatory - they were dictating it.
Systemd and its dependencies add 2 million lines of code to the early boot process, which on the face of it is a pretty gratuitous burden and negatively affects reliability. It's about 200 times as many lines to support as simple init scripts.
Pretty much any other DE/WM can run on BSD, and many of them are far superior to GNOME3.
Tired of this meme from angry zealots turning on one of their own
Whoah there, tiger. I see you like to use emotionally charged words to try to win people over to a vacuous argument but, a) it isn't a "meme", b) Miguel isn't one of anybody's "own". The man is just a developer that has took positions that are at odds with a significant contingent of the community over the years and when anybody makes extraordinary claims that fly in the face of common sense, they deserve to be taken to task.
someone who did more for Open Source and Linux than you or probably anyone here can ever dream of doing.
Nobody is saying Miguel isn't a talented and prolific developer of open source software but he spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to shove Mono down a collectively unwilling throat. And now he blames the so-called failure of desktop Linux on his pet project's developers misguided attempt at trying to mimic Torvald's development philosophy. Somehow that's supposed to be Linus's fault? How about a common sense intervention that should make it pretty obvious that kernel development and userland development are different with different goals and needs. That should be pretty obvious to somebody as smart as Miguel and trying to point the finger for so specious a reason deserves scorn.
Blaming him is an easy out
I realize that staying on topic might be difficult for you but the person you replied to said Miguel is being paid by Microsoft with little else added to that. He wasn't "blaming" him for anything in particular just stating his opinion and why Miguel shouldn't be listened to.
Blaming him is an easy out instead of facing and trying to fix the fact that the Bazaar model is not the end all and be all of ideal software development in the real world.
Wow, speaking of memes (and strawmen). Do you have evidence that the majority of the Linux community disagrees with this statement? Because as a person that has interacted with a lot of Linux people, my experience is that they tend to be very practical and have never said that the Bazaar model was one size fits all. Just look at the anticipation for Steam by so many Linux users. It's the minority that is saying they don't want Steam because the games aren't Free. The mainstream perspective is Bring it On! and personally I agree with that.
I've read many of your posts both on here and Hacker News over the years and if there's anything you are not it is an advocate of open source in any way so I have to ask you something:
When do you realize that the Cathedral model is not the end all and be all of ideal software development in the real world.
Or does it just soothe your soul to be a hypocrite?
For example, in Win8, the preferred programming environment for GUI apps is whatever-they're-calling-Metro-now, which is based on XAML, but is not the same XAML as either WPF or Silverlight, which were the accepted orthodoxy in the previous release...etc.etc.
So to summarize, everyone should rush to support Metro flavored XAML now as you have only a five year window to get your work out before the next Big MS Thing replaces it!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"No, it isn't (to quote Monty Python)"
Yes, it is. And quoting an aquired taste comedy troupe doesn't exactly add gravitas to your argument.
"your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly."
I hate the break the news to you , but stallman and GNU do not have the last word on software ethics. Its their OPINION , not fact. And its not an opinion all of us share.
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.
And what a wonderful and witty quote it is! Only Monty Python could have come up with that one. I don't think I've ever heard anybody else say "No, it isn't". Thank you.
Because he wants to shift the blame away from himself.
In truth, it wasn't just Miguel's fault. When I used to maintain a sub-project on Gnome, he always seemed to be working on and promoting something else, first his email program, then Mono. Evolution was good, but quite unneeded (Thunderbird was better). Mono is a capable platform and works great for Unity3D amongst other things, but was never useful for Gnome and mainly just pissed people off the Anti-Microsoft nutters who made up a good chunk of the support base. De Icaza had the chance as project founder to lead the project from the core, like Torvalds does and set his own policies that are suitable for Gnome. He chose to work on other things instead.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
That's kind of like expecting everyone to treat Benedict Arnold as a national hero instead of a traitor. Miguel jumped the shark a long time ago. The fact that he was helpful at some point in the past doesn't mean that he's free from criticism in perpetuity.
Besides, being this "great heroic figure" means that he's someone that likely deserves the bulk of the blame here.
Trying to pass the buck to Linus is just sad.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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.
nothing else is as credible a threat to MS on the mainstream desktop as Linux is.
Read it again. I bolded the relevant bits. OS X is a beast in the high-end niche of laptops over a thousand dollars but unless Apple decides to make an inexpensive entry-level general purpose computer, that's where it'll stay. The iPad is very successful but it isn't the "desktop". I've had lots of people come to me with computer problems that I'd have loved to turn on to OS X but they just can't spend the money and I'm not about to make them my Hackintosh guinea pig so it doesn't happen. Since Linux will run on the 300-600 dollar mainstream computers the majority of the market buys it is more of a threat to Windows than OS X is. For different reasons, both OS X and Linux maintaining their respective status quo is what will probably happen in the near term so it's academic anyway.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
If you had actually read the article you would know that what you really don't understand is that you are completely wrong:
... and you would have seen Alan Cox write:
"One of the core kernel rules has always been that we never ever break any external interfaces. That rule has been there since day one, although it's gotten much more explicit only in the last few years. The fact that we break internal interfaces that are not visible to userland is totally irrelevant, and a total red herring."
""However it's not an Open Source disease its certain projects like Gnome disease - my 3.6rc kernel will still run a Rogue binary built in 1992. X is back compatible to apps far older than Linux."
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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
Stallmane and GNU ***DO*** have the last word on what the GPL says. What do you think the "G" stands for?
No. They can say what they hope the GPL says. The courts can/will have the last word on what the GPL says.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I beg to differ. Evolution was for me *the* killer app of Gnome.
As someone who worked on a helpdesk supporting commercial linux software in a 100% FOSS environment I needed a powerful mail client to replace mutt (and all the associated power user features) when the CEO mandated we send all our email in HTML. The only mail client at the time that came even close was Evolution, and it had great features for managing a mailbox where I received 100+ emails a day.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
I don't know. I tried a depth-first evaluation, but it's not done yet!
They didn't learn from their mistakes. The reason enlightenment split from gnome after a brief adoption as the gnome window manager is becuase of the insistance on adopting linux only features that would have completely broken enlightenment on all other platforms. No compromise was allowed, gnome said "my way or the highway" so that was it - leave or throw away cross platform support. That was probably back before slashdot started. Later some sanity prevailed and gnome was built to go crossplatform, but now that idiocy is back.
But that's kind of my point. They don't care to make money on an operating system because they know it's a losing game - the market will continue to drive the cost of an operating system to zero and Apple wants no part in trying to fight an inevitable trend.
If Surface is any indication, someone at Microsoft finally explained this concept to Balmer in a way he could understand. General purpose software is a short term market. There will always be hobbyists and grad students and open source companies to churn out free alternatives.
People don't use desktop Linux for two reasons: 1) Gnome and KDE suck and the alternatives that don't suck are the niche desktops/lack the razzle-dazzle of OS X/Win 7. 2) Microsoft Office.
#2 is nicely being taken care of by LibreOffice and Wine. It can be scratched off the list here in a couple years. #1 is the roadblock (and, getting back to the topic of the original story, a reason De Icaza probably shouldn't be pointing fingers).
People don't have a problem with Linux. If people had a problem with Linux then Android wouldn't be the huge success it is. People just wants something that suits their needs. Desktop Linux will eventually get to that point even if progress has been rather stymied as of late. It'll probably take a long time, but a long time isn't NEVER EVER EVER.
I also don't understand your emphasis on Apple stuff. I agree that they have the right strategy - their strategy strengthens my argument: software isn't a reliable source of income as the price is always driven to zero, so they sell hardware and use software to compliment it. Desktop Linux probably won't affect Apple too much -- it's going to bone MS (their hardware partners would abandon them in a second if they could).
Also, when considering desktop Linux, I think it's important to consider places outside the first-world. I'm willing to bet, in a couple decades, if traditional operating systems are still used, Linux will run on the most computers in the world. Maybe some Unix system, something like Hurd that actually works, but whatever it is it'll be free and based on expired patents.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I also agree w/ Miguel (OMG!) to some extent here, esp. since he is taking responsibility for a good chunk of the failure.
From my perspective, it wasn't just the major Gnome upgrades (I didn't sorta-like Gnome until KDE 4 made a mess of things) it was the KDE upgrade to V4, and to begin with Gnome's existence and their mission to get KDE out of the way for the sake of license purists. Their vision was somewhat negative and it reflected in their decisions: mainly the feature-cauterization (the opposite of feature-bloat) and the boring-at-best technology they based the project on.
Then D'Icaza declares that a whole pile of new-ish Microsoft-patented technology is the great must have thing for Gnome.
I'm no license purist, but that last one kept me away for sure. At that point with Gnome/Mono and KDE4 to choose from, I beat a path straight to OS X for my desktop needs and I stopped doing Linux-based desktop installs even for people who were pining to get away from the Windows Pain.
Torvalds (Firefox spellcheck recognizes his name) shares the blame for desktop failure in the way D'Icaza says, and then some. One of the aggravating factors in switching away from Linux was that it not only had the worst desktop multitasking at the time, but couldn't even multitask as well as my old Amiga performing the same tasks (copying lots of files should not cripple mouse responsiveness or the playing of a network audio stream). That debacle was down to the cliquishness and recalcitrance of the Linux kernel devs.
It took a scandal over the task scheduler performance (which I'm sure was great for servers, but they wouldn't accept any attitude other than Servers > Desktops) to see some degree of change. A good server kernel did not, it turns out, supply desktops with everything they need from a kernel. And I suspect things didn't really get much better until a many-multi-billion-dollar corporation in the form of Google forked the kernel for its other consumer-oriented focus, mobile... and AFAIK some of that temporary split was about vertical integrations that the kernel devs didn't want.
Miguel hasn't done an original project, period; his initial project Midnight Commander was a Norton Commander rip off. Then he got excited and took GTK, Gimp Tool Kit to build a desktop because he found the original non-GPL QT license that KDE used offensive, so Gnome is a KDE work-a-like (well tries to be a work-a-like); after that he did a .net rip-off called mono. After that he went over to the darkside and actually worked for Microsoft.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Writing proprietary software is perfectly okay. I don't have to give away my work for free, although sometimes I do.
Incorrect. Proprietary software is not synonymous with being paid for it, and Free Software (in the GNU/FSF sense) is not synonymous with not being paid for it. Some proprietary software gets provided without financial compensation, some with. Some Free Software is written without financial compensation, some with. And in the long run, Free Software is better for society as a whole than proprietary software is. Unlike Stallman, I do accept that there are exceptions to be made, mostly where networked games are concerned, but hardware drivers should absolutely be Free Software.
Apple markets to, and want to own consumers, and let that fact drive any business they do with the corporate world. It so far, is a successful strategy.
In the world of your "shitbox" systems is a huge sweetspot that Microsoft screwed up. Microsoft figured out the apps needed to do "right", including basic office function replacement apps, basic database, and enough systems security to cover their butts, which were up to a few years ago, dangling in the breeze of bad code.
Tablets aren't a strong data entry device, and lots of people do data entry. They don't store much. They're dependent on "cloud" resources, meaning someplace else. They don't replace desktops and notebooks for these reasons. Microsoft is doing a cross-platform drive to make stuff work together, mindless a task as that might be. Windows 8/Server 2012/Windows Phone 8, RT, are all designed to be a painful transition to the look and feel of their biggest threats: MacOS/iOS and Linux/Android.
Why did Canonical choose to back Unity? Was it because everyone would immediately love it? No. It's because they want the same business ecosystems enjoyed by their competition, hence Ubuntu One, drives to port Unity to tablets and even phones, and so forth. They're not clueless, and their model drives business to Canonical. Look at the other distros, ranging from SUSE, RedHat, even Mandriva-- all trying to keep alive by going corporate and largely avoiding the desktop (save Mandriva, which seems to be running on fumes).
If you want to look to a success, Canonical on the desktop is the most profound, internationally. What did they do? Avoided lots of problems and went their own way atop Debian. LinuxMint adds some flexibility. Both aren't ready for most enterprise uses, but are fine for civilians. Another thread made a point about long term support, and commitment to providing long term code, and this is where Gnome is also perceived to have fallen down badly-- they should have reinvented it all to have made it as seemingly branched as things are turning out. Stick a fork in it? I'm not surprised at the accusations of Microsoft skullduggery.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Arnold
Benedict Arnold (January 14, 1741 [O.S. January 3, 1740] â" June 14, 1801) was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.
Because of the way he changed sides, his name quickly became a byword in the United States for treason or betrayal. His conflicting legacy is recalled in the ambiguous nature of some of the memorials that have been placed in his honor.
I know it is a bit off topic, but I can't be the only non-American who said who? Excellent choice he would have been viewed as an American hero if he hadn't defected to the other-side after becoming disillusioned with the American cause and had to flee before he caused any major damage.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Part of the reason he changed sides is that after a large number of stunning victories and advances for the American side were shat upon by his superiors he realized that his superiors were likely to bone things up.
In short he was _driven_ to the other side and then demonized.
History is never as cut and dried as the books would lead you to believe on casual reading.
--signed, some american who knows history.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press