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PC-BSD: Set For Serious Growth?
Artem Tashkinov writes: Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a serious desktop OS contender by year 2020, since Linux so far has failed to grasp any serious market share. He writes, "Consider this: In the past 10 years has the distribution you run changed significantly in what it offers over other distributions? I think you'll find the answer is largely no. I do have to give a shout out to openSUSE for the OBS, but otherwise I've used my desktop in the same exact way that I have always used it within the continuity of distribution X,Y, or Z since I started using them. Distributions simply aren't focused on desktop features, they're leaving it up to the DEs to do so." He continues, "PC-BSD on the other hand in fitting with the BSD mindset of holistic solutions is focused on developing desktop features and is moving rapidly to implement them." What do you think?
Make KDE into a full OS. Fork Kubuntu, tell all other distributions that KDE will provide them access to the sources and patches, but KDE intends to become a full competing desktop and tablet OS. Ubuntu vs Mint vs Fedora makes no sense to the casual users I know. If I could hand them a copy of KDE and say "run this" that would improve things tremendously.
That is a good point. OS X is indeed Unix, officially certified. I've run all Linux for many years. When someone handed me a Mac Pro I thought I'd dislike it, based on my experience with iOS. I was surprised how comfortable it was to use, just like my familiar Linux for day-to-day work at a bash shell. For coordinating with my coworkers, I also have all the Microsoft Office, all of the Adobe developer products, etc. Not bad at all.
Whenever I mention I'm a Linux guy who actually likes OS X, someone goes "no true Scotsman" on me. Open the Linux kernel changelog. See my name, Ray Morris. Look around at some of the Linux storage stack. You'll notice I'm the maintainer for Linux::LVM, for example. So yeah, I'm a real Linux guy - perhaps more so than any other regular commenter on Slashdot.
Actually you can do exactly this in PC-BSD, which is one of my dislikes of this desktop BSD effort. Its repository leans heavily on the linux compatibility layer instead of ported software.
The desktop is increasingly unimportant, or mostly an adjunct to where people do their primary computing which is portables.
Maybe my viewpoint is skewed by overexposure to the real world where people need to get stuff done, but when people have work to do, they use laptops or desktops.
Right now is the perfect time for linux (or BSD) to attack desktop exactly because everyone else is attacking portable. Apple is a side case, having never taken the desktop world either, but Microsoft is making a strategic blunder that we've sadly already need from another actor in the last decade: Blackberry.
Microsoft owns business. They don't own server, they don't own portable, they don't own entertainment, but they damn sure own productivity.
That's not new, or jazzy, or flashy. However, it is profitable. Businesses have pockets. The last time I needed a license for visual studio, my employer said "as long as you're going through the acquisition process, get three copies so we have some spares and don't have to do this next time we want one". Business, people. It's where the money is.
Blackberry had that, once. They owned the phone you use when you're on a deadline. They used to be the only phone company whos devices had certification to be used by the USDoD, because although they lacked myspace integration, they did have strong disk encryption.
But then do you know what they did? They lost it. To Apple, of all people. Apple got the encryption certification, and now only iPhones can be used by the USDoD, no Blackberrys allowed. Blackberry spent so much time trying to be a competitor to Apple and Android in the "phone you use all the time" field, they neglected a key business feature that gave them total monopoly over a department with nearly bottomless pockets, and now they have nothing because newsflash, Blackberry isn't apple and never will be.
Microsoft is now busy doing the same thing. Turns out that voice recognition software that listens to and uploads everything in case you talk to it and file uploading software that syncs everything in your my documents folder without asking aren't features that the business world wants. I'm sure consumers want them, but consumers have never been the mainstay of Microsofts income.
If Microsoft had any brains, they'd take a leaf from Adobes book. They'd return to boring and invisible, but comfortable and indispensable, totally ignore piracy by individuals (or better yet, free for non-commercial & non-educational use) for all their software, and aim to sell exclusively to businesses. Photoshop is the premiere editing suite because everyone knows how to use it because it's freely available on torrent website and Adobe never bothers to crack down on it, so all the tutorials are for Photoshop. BAM, lock-in.
As it stands, it's looking increasingly likely that businesses will start moving to Apple, because Linux is still too hard for most people, but Microsoft is compromising business needs. I'm already beginning to see the transition happening.