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Linux 3.11 Officially Named "Linux For Workgroups"
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds decided to change the code name for Linux 3.11 and even submitted an alternate Tux Logo. Heise reports: 'For this release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting: it now depicts a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993.'"
If they're smart they will simply smirk at the jab and do nothing. It's a small piece of free advertisement.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
When I read the headline, I checked my calendar to make sure today wasn't April 1st........
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The term "Jumped The Shark" has jumped the shark as well.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Okay, haha, cute joke.
I hope he reverts this before release. The last thing I need is clients calling me up and demanding an explanation as to why their diskless terminals are booting to the usual penguin + the windows logo (they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11).
And yeah, before anyone tells me how stupid that is, I'm aware I can disable that feature entirely- it's still handy to see the number of CPUs during boot because the APIC stuff scrolls off the screen almost instantly. And yeah, I'm aware I can change it. The point is that I shouldn't have to because Torvalds thinks he's being funny. It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.
Why ? Because Linus has a sense of humor. Remember it was Microsoft that gave Linus a lot of grief in years past. This is just Linus having a little fun at Microsoft's expense. Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
its not windows envy it a joke. loosen up man
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Also, you just KNOW everyone was going to be calling it that anyway, so no point in not getting in on the fun.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I hope the experience will be better than MS Windows for Workgroups.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
For people unfamiliar with Linux, but familiar with Windows, this is exactly what they take out of this:
No, that's ridiculous. To most people outside the tech world Windows 3.11 for Workgroups is at most a very distant memory and probably something utterly unknown.
This is definitely a symptom of the Linux mindset: they don't care (or don't understand) that they need to keep it simple and explicit if they want to get out of the niche and reach the larger crowd of potential customers.
Keep what simple? It's a kernel. The only people who care about the kernel are distro maintainers, system administrators and hackers. Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".
It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers
No one is a customer of the kernel development team.
And finally, I do not want to live in a world or community so ruled by corporate blandness that anything vaguely amusing is excised from life entirely. Thankfully the F/OSS community hasn't suffered from that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No sorry, we don't wish to appease humorless morons.
If I had to guess, most of the Windows team members would chuckle at it, while the legal department runs around screaming "fire!"
Why uncomfortable? Keeping the GUI out of the kernel is the right thing to do. It's one of the reasons Linux has a better reputation for security and stability than Windows.
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
Actually, I get concerned when projects/products come from people without humor. Because my experience is that the more "serious" they are, the lower the quality of what they deliver.
Even stodgy old IBM's best products seemed to come accompanied by technical docs written with geek quotes in them.
While not strictly a developer, I am doing technical stuff (statistics, reporting, Business Intelligence). My customers are sometimes needing explanations and I simply can't make those explanations simple enough, because my behavior is defined by how much I understand and know in this area.
The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages, for example. It's easier to (generally) work in C than ASM, and easier to (generally) work in WYSIWYG HTML editors (e.g. Dreamweaver) than in lathe HTML text filed directly.
I learned to value a "middleman" which can talk to both customers and developers and provide the link between them without pissing all off. Jokingly, I call them "human code interpreters". But I value them as such.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Or, because they have a sense of humor. Something sorely lacking in most MS apologists.
Have you heard of Windows Server Core? It's almost console mode, since it boots you to a command prompt window with available GUI for applications like Notepad. I guess they accepted the fact that all the commonly-available monitors are at least SVGA-compatible by now, and built it accordingly.
The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.
Recursion jokes never end.
Having a graphical system outside the OS is a desirable feature and not a drawback. It means that people that don't like Gnome3, Unity, CDE (yes, the old Sun thing) or twm are not forced to use any of those if they don't want to. The main thing we learnt years ago about a Common Desktop Environment is that nobody wanted one if they didn't have a stake in it themselves.
so accessibility could be assured from virtually any OS
The problem aren't OSes, it's everything else that has an USB port. Try as you might, but your car MP3 player, old DVD player, TV etc. don't support anything except FAT32. Having flash drives come formatted in anything different would cause tons of support calls, returns due to them being "defective" etc. For better or worse, it's best to provide them in FAT32 and let the user himself reformat it to their preferred file system if he so wishes and doesn't need the device to work in legacy devices.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
It got panned by people who didn't know what they were buying, but knew enough to not like something different. It's that treacherous middle-ground of kinda-sorta-ish knowing what they're doing and hating anything that isn't exactly what they learned on. High- and low-level users got exactly what they wanted.