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The Battle That Could Lose Us The War
By Dave Whitinger, dave@wmkt.com (Temporary E-Mail account)
Linux is quickly becoming the operating system of the future, thanks in part to the advanced type of development that we refer to as Free Software, or Open Source, as well as the rock-solid features that are present in Linux. It is the ultimate server platform.
Linux is also enjoying success as a desktop workstation. My wife, Trish, makes the perfect example of the typical desktop user.
When we became married in August of 1996, she was a complete computer illiterate, having never even used a Windows or Unix machine. I presented her with a choice:
- I will give her a Windows computer, but will offer nothing in the way of technical support or training assistance.
- I will give her a Linux box, and will give her complete technical support and training assistance.
A New Hope
Not knowing the difference anyway, she chose the latter, and found herself extremely happy with a rock-solid desktop.
She enjoys her Red Hat Linux 6.1 workstation. Coupled with the K Desktop Environment and various applications that I have installed for her, she's ready to go. She has her TkRat E-Mail program, Netscape Navigator, notepad text editor, licq, games, the Gimp, and a variety of other nice applications, all accessed via a friendly interface.
Finding friends in mailing lists and on-line web-based chat groups, she was happy as a clam. She would fire up her Netscape Navigator and hit any web site she wanted, and was constantly bragging to her friends about this great computer operating system that she had the privilege of using.
The Empire Strikes Back
...Until the day that Netscape Navigator, her web browser, her window to the outside world, the major purpose for using the computer, simply disappeared from her desktop while she was browsing.
Trish turned to me, confusion spread across her face, and opined, "Dave, my Netscape has simply vanished from my screen. Perhaps you have telneted in and did a kill -9 on it?"
Dave responds, "Absolutely not! Why would I do that? Let's examine the problem more closely, that the answer to this perplexing issue will reveal itself."
Upon further investigation, it turns out that Netscape apparantly did not "like" the Java code that was being incorporated into one of the websites that Trish frequents. My solution: Turn off Java.
A very important and critical issue is realized here. At this point, Trish's computer is not as powerful as all of her friends' Windows computers. If they can access certain Java-enabled pages that she cannot, she is being left out, all because she chose to use Linux.
Fade to 2 or 3 weeks later.
Trish: "Dave, this website is telling me that I cannot use their services."
Dave: "What's the URL?"
Examining the website, it turns out that it is using some special kind of plugin that is only available for Windows or Macintosh platforms. I explained to Trish that she simply will not be able to access the services on this website, until they decide to make this plugin available for Linux. A short and polite note to the webmaster later, there was nothing we could do, and the issue was closed, and Trish's computer became even less valuable to her.
Fade to 2 or 3 more weeks later.
Trish: "Dave, this website is telling me that I am using an unsupported web browser, and cannot view the pages within."
Dave: "Okay, this is starting to make me angry. The web was initially created as a completely open environment where multimedia can be viewed, regardless of your platform. It's a platform independant medium, yet here are people making platform dependant websites."
Trish: "That's great that you feel that way, but I just want to access this coupon website! All my friends say they are getting great deals, and I'm missing out! Oh, and now my netscape just froze again! Argh, (killall -9 netscape ; rm ~/.netscape/lock) again. I want a Windows computer like all my friends have."
I hung my head in shame, realizing that if she is going to be able to take full advantage of the web, she will need a Windows computer. Trish, who has used nothing but Linux for over 3 years, and is completely happy with her computer, now feels the need to switch to Windows so that she can get the same web-browsing features as her friends.
Does this sound like a big deal to you, gentle reader? If it does, than I have accomplished my mission. If it does not, read on:
In 1994, I hated Netscape Communications, Inc. The way they were embracing and extending the HTML standards was starting to become very disturbing for me. The more websites that I found that said that it uses Netscape Extensions, the more angry I became.
Then Netscape released Navigator for Linux, and everybody loved them again. They were our saviour, completing the picture of a perfect desktop for Linux users. We were all Linux users, browsing any site we wished, enjoying the satisfaction of having a great web browser for our desktop.
Then Microsoft created Internet Explorer. Then Microsoft won the "Browser War". Then webmasters began using some of the "advanced" features of Internet Explorer, shutting out Netscape users.
Problem yet? Still not convinced? Okay, let's fast forward 1 year:
Microsoft owns 99% of the web browser market share, and they control the HTTP protocol. They start adding a huge variety of features to their "Internet Information Server", their competitor to Apache, to offer advanced features to Internet Explorer clients. At this point, sites being served by Apache become useless. Then Linux becomes obsolete as a web server platform. Then Microsoft wins the war, and we're right back to square one, and proprietary technology wins again.
Return of the Jedi
On April 1st, 1998, Netscape Communications, Inc. made one final redeeming move. They released the source code to Netscape Navigator, freeing it to the Free Software community to do with as they chose.
1 and a half years later, this browser is still nowhere near completion. There is a band of rebels working feverishly on the code, trying to bring it to a usable state as quickly as possible. Plagued with problems and set-backs, Mozilla continues forward, currently at "Milestone 10". Will we see a completely usable web browser for Linux in time to save us from seeing a new monopoly for Microsoft be created?
Attention: This is the battle that could cost us the war. If we come together and push all of our might toward a Free Web Browser for Linux, we have a good chance of winning this battle. If we fail, we will lose the war. This is the issue that Microsoft wants us to overlook.
I am making a personal committment to get involved with the Mozilla project. It is the project with the most potential to become this Free Web Browser that we so desperately need. Netscape is NOT going to save us this time. Netscape has failed us, and it's time to take matters into our own hands.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
Add that to your .signature:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
And repeat it every morning to yourself:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
When you are looking over Mozilla, finding items that could use your contribution, remember:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
The truth of the matter, friends and esteemed members of the community:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
this is the same as getting office released for linux. If we can't read M$Office documents perfectly will we lose. For me and for many others there is no war. I'm using linux full time and I don't care what others use.
If there is enough linux and mac users than many sites will check in those enviroments first.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
The problem is that just having a good browser is not enough. The thing we really have trouble with is all the proprietary plugins that are only available under Windows (and some of them for the Mac). While there are some that are available for Linux, what we really need is some portable plugin architecture. Netscape isn't the be all and end all of browsers, but the main problem I have with Netscape under linux is the sites that it doesn't work for, and that isn't because of (the numerous) flaws in netscape. Solutions?
Visit me on #weirdness on the Galaxynet.
Yes, your experience with Netscape points out a shortcoming, but not in Linux. Those of use who want the functionality you are missing are free to code it.
Mozilla is a dog, but it's open, and the features are coming, I'm sure.
As for certain MS-Specific extensions that Linux doesn't run: Are you actually surprised? Linux also doesn't run VB. BeOS and AppleOS don't either.
It is not a fault of Linux or it's developers, it's a fault of Microsoft. They are 'embracing and extending, and innovating' wizz-bang toys that they keep closed. This is the crux of their monopolistic practises that the FTC is investigating.
I can easily put together a page that excludes all but IE using surfers. I can put together a website that REQUIRES a PIII processor... My doing so does not put the fault on my competition.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Dave is absolutely correct: Mozilla is probably the single most important project for the future of free software. Nearly all technology development for the next decade will be tied to the web in some way, and it's absolutely vital that web technology be kept open.
Hopefully, AOL realizes this. If Microsoft ends up controlling the web, it's only a matter of time before AOL is reduced to insignifance for most purposes. Perhaps they don't realize just how urgent it is, though. AOL needs to make the Netscape Client Engineering Group a very high priority, and get Mozilla into the AOL client as soon as possible. This alone will shift the browser market away from Microsoft in a huge way. Yes, I know about the bundling deal, and I don't think it's worth it.
We do need to focus on more than just the browser, though. While Mozilla is absolutely the most important, we still need to have a diverse array of software available, to give the Linux platform some value, both on the desktop and server side. I personally am working on a replacement for MS Exchange and hopefully will be able to hook up with the developers of some of the better Outlook clones, in order to offer a nice end-to-end integrated solution. Mozilla tie-in? Absolutely. Everything's gotta work with the Web, and I've already got a good web-based front end in place.
Heed Dave's call and spread the word. This is very important.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
There's a real market opportunity there, and Mozilla and Netscape aren't there yet.
And what about all the companies with $200 surfing boxes we keep reading about, do they have some cool browser up there sleeves?
George
I've never understood why browsers are designed the way they are. Basically, all HTML translation capability is built in to the browser itself, meaning that when new features come out you need to download a new !@#$% browser.
Why? Browsers are, for the most part, free these days. There's no competitive advantage for that.
If the browser were _modular_, with the display engine as part of the browser, but the information on all the tags and extras as a series of plugins -- you'd be able to add support for new HTML code ON THE FLY.
That's how XML is kind of supposed to work, isn't it?
I think what we need is a plugin-centric browser... one with a basic display engine that knows how to draw/display stuff, but doesn't come with any specific information. Then plugins with that information -- plugins that can be updated on the fly, or replaced when needed -- are added, and voia! Superbrowser!
So then you get your HTML 4.0, Cascading Stylesheet, XML, and proprietary tag support whenever you need to.
Oh, and you can have a program that sets your browser identification as whatever the hell you want it to say, or even change it on the fly.
Just a thought...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Dave raises a number of excellent points; but I don't think the situation is quite as bad as he suggests.
The major plugins RealAudio, Flash are now available for Linux (albeit beta for Flash) and other major plugins WILL be ported to Linux - at least if their vendors/proponents want them to survive!
Just look at the Netcraft surveys, Apache OWNS the web server space; and Microsoft just took aim at its other foot - if I read the latest Win2k pricing announcement correctly, in addition to an NTAS license you need a $1995 "unlimited web client" license to run a big web site.
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
All I can suggest is:
The only way we're going to break moron webmonkeys out of using noncompatible junk is to be a large enough audience to affect their planning. If we join forces with our differently-abled brothers and sisters, perhaps we can force the issue!
And I wonder if a boycott proxy would be helpful?
Your Working Boy,
Horsefeathers.
100% of the genuinely useful sites I've visited have worked just fine with Netscape.
In fact, probably a good 90% of the genuinely useful sites I've visited work just fine in Lynx.
About the only sites I've had trouble with are the ones that use Shockwave Flash, and I've yet to find anything useful on any of them, anyway. Not to mention that they're not all that common.
But, if web designers are stupid enough to design pages that only render in one browser, or even worse require plug-ins, I'm not sure that Mozilla will help.
We need to keep reminding content providers that there are people using other browsers than IE on Win - there's Opera, Netscape, Mozilla and Lynx being run on Macs, BeOS boxes, and various flavors of Unix, as well as the coming PDAs with browsing capabilities. Forty lashes with a cat5 cable for any web author who depends on proprietary extensions - if you want to say something, why in the world would you restrict who can hear it??
Hopefully, the accessibility lawsuit against AOL will help inspire more broswer neutral, universally accessible web site design.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
... That seem to think that one aspect of Linux can cause us to lose the "war" with Windows. To most of us linux users, its not a war to begin with. I could care less if others use Linux, I know that I can use it, it takes care of my needs, and I never have to reboot my machine. If there is a Desktop war going on, I wonder who's fighting? MS certainly sees us as a threat, but we couldn't care less about them.
Upon further investigation, it turns out that Netscape apparantly did not "like" the Java code that was being incorporated into one of the websites that Trish frequents. My solution: Turn off Java.
I have yet to come upon any problems after extensive testing of Netscape with thousands of pages loaded with Java. There was an initial misconfiguration of Netscape, (actually X) wherein a necessary font for Java was not installed by default, but once installed, I haven't hit any pages with Java which were unviewable.
Then Microsoft created Internet Explorer. Then Microsoft won the "Browser War". Then webmasters began using some of the "advanced" features of Internet Explorer, shutting out Netscape users.
Again, with the ignorance. MS has hardly won the browser war. The problem with many authors of Tech articles today is that they don't understand the computer market AT ALL. They continue to naively think that just because some particular product doesn't have market share in one particular market, then it must not have market share in ANY market. The fact is that Netscape STILL dominates the Browser war for two reasons:
1) Companies use netscape on all their UNIX boxes.
2) Companies use netscape on all their Win95 boxes. IE wasn't free when the majority of companies purchased their licenses, and Netscape continues to dominate the market share in the commercial sector, which is roughly twice the size of the personal or private sector.(After all, everyone who works in virtually any white collar job has at least one machine they have at work, but not all of them have PCs at home.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
When comparing M$ Windows to Linux, let us consider an analogy. You see Windows is kind of like a Trojan horse. Sure, it looks all big and impressive, and when you bring it inside the walls, it opens up and bites you in the rear end.
But linux is like a Juggernaut to the Trojan horse. Every day it gets bigger, more robust, and more difficult to stop. Eventually MS will have to bow out to Linux not because Linux will declare war on Windows, but because Windows will simply pale in comparison.
You see, one of the most important differences between Windows and Linux is that Windows is all smoke and mirrors (marketing) whereas Linux is an product that is actually well made and capable of delivering on its promises. The public will grow tired of the illusion sooner or later, its all a matter of time.
--
"A mind is a horrible thing to waste. But a mime...
It feels wonderful wasting those fsckers."
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Mozilla has a whole page devoted on how to get involved. Get Involved!
I, myself download the milestones and then report bugs I find. It's really easy to do, and most people could probably replace their current browser with Mozilla. (however there is no SSL support -- encryption export problems on source code).
Don't be afraid to help out for windows either. Mozilla isn't going to release on windows only -it's a cross platform development. So if you report bugs for the windows or mac (others too) versions then you're still helping out Linux as well as the rest.
Mozilla has a lot of room for helping hands, in paticular bug reporting, testing, and documentation writing. For the more technically advanced: code writing and bug fixing.
Do your part!
Joseph Elwell.
Before i was very concerned with making websites that were only viewable in one browser or another. There wasn't that much diffentiation in terms of developing for one browser would making my life that much easier. With Cascading Style Sheets, that's all changed.
Let me warn you that I haven't upgraded my Netscape past 4.5, figuring they're all "dot" releases and will probably not have CSS support. If I'm wrong let me know ASAP!
But the fact remains that these days I develop sites primarily with IE in mind, because CSS is easier to develop, and produces much cleaner HTML, in my opinion. I don't know, or care, if MS has extended the CSS standard, but what i do know is that I can't seem to get equivilant functionality from Netscape.
Mozilla really needs to get it's act together, in terms of releasing a reference release, in my eyes. Just bolt on a usuable GUI and call it 1.0. Then start adding features and call that 1.5. Netscape is withering away because of the lack or percieved development. If we wait til Mozilla is perfect, it'll never come. The world changes, and just as Mozilla catches up to it, someone, somewhere, adds something new...
If I had moderator points right now, you'd have an "insightful".
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Most people with computers (ahem, Windows) use their home PC for web browsing. True enough.
To compete in this area, Linux needs a stable, solid, full-featured browser. True as well.
But, IMHO, Linux isn't even ready to take up that challenge. A solid, stable, pretty, glitzy GUI is needed first.
The OS needs to be usable to a new user - on the same level as Windows.
Linux needs to be easy to install, easy to uninstall, able to sense hardware without the user needing to open the PC to read numbers off of chips.
Linux needs to support the latest and greatest hardware, like USB (USB2), firewire, parallel port scanners, WinModems...
Linux needs to have GAMES!
Linux needs all these things to displace Microsoft as the king of the desktop!
But is that what we want? Or do we want the best OS possible. A stable and robust system, architectured to be portable and extensible, to support new hardware easily as opposed to supporting it now. It's the fisherman maxim.
Write in cool hardware support and you play now, write in extensability for new hardware and you play for a lifetime.
Unless of course what we want to do is relegate Linux to the function of WebTV boxes, in which case all it needs to do is run a browser, a mail client, and that's about it.
Let's do this right folks. Let's design it for the future. Let's not get seduced by Microsoft's rapid upgrade cycle of feature glut.
Linux isn't there yet for the desktop. We have other, more important issues to worry about. 64bit is one. IPv6 is another. Parallel multiprocessing is another still...
Fsck conformity with M$! Let's beat them, not join them. Linux has always been about technical superiority and building knowledgable users. Dumbing Linux down will not serve it at all.
If Linux bends over for the lowest common denominator, I'm going FreeBSD, and so will all the people developing for Linux.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
1.I will give her a Windows computer, but will offer nothing in the way of technical support or training assistance.
... the first 3 troubleshooting steps are reboot, reboot, and reboot. *grin*
... hell, I would have given her an iMac and been done with it. (And no, I don't own a Mac.)
2.I will give her a Linux box, and will give her complete technical support and training assistance.
For a user such as her, what is different between training for using KDE or Windows 98? Not much for her purposes of email, web browsing, and ICQ. That's the whole POINT of KDE in the first place.
Also, how hard is it to support Windows anyway
Seriously though, I understand your argument and you have some valid concerns, but I'm afraid the way you presented them makes it seem like YOU stifled her choice of OS by refusing to support both platforms at her expense. Who in their right mind WOULD choose the system that offered zero support and training when they are brand new to the technology?
How much can we blame Microsoft for forcing consumers and OEM's hands regarding OS choice when we do the same thing for no reason other than to spite them?
Give the people what will best suit their needs
Well, it's been a year and a half, and there is no progess in terms of a shippable product. The reviews i've read all say that it's coming along quite smoothly, has a lightning fast page rendering engine, etc...
So, if it can:
bookmark sites
understand plain HTML (even without CSS)
handle GIF, JPEG, and PNG graphics
use at least 40-bit SSL connections
and
not crash very often
I'd say make a usable GUI, ship it, and start adding the parts that didn't make it into the first release. That's all. If it's completely unstable and unusable, then no, don't ship it yet. But from what I've heard, there have been some fairly solid releases.
Web designers are not the problem--W3BD3Z1NR3Z, our version of script kiddies, are the problem. Good Web designers don't alienate large portions of their audience--20% of all users is a HUGE share of the user base.
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
IMHO, the solution is to educate web developers and webmasters.
Their is not a single web functionality that cannot be realized in both Netscape and IE and under all popular operating systems.
The problem comes in when a particular web designer chooses to implement a feature on their site that requires a proprietary Microsoft plug-in or a proprietary Microsoft extension to Java to work.
If we can educate web designers to implement everything on their sites using open standards and protocols this issue will take care of itself.
I cannot think of a single example of a Microsoft proprietary plugin or extension to Java for which there is not a functionally equivalent open solution.
Insist that developers stick to open protocols and MS's monopoly power is severely diluted.
So who wants to vote for this month's most proprietary web pages? We'll make a nice webpage and a link to the lucky webmasters.
Scary thought: Inbox 10,000 emails with the subject, "Can't access your page."
Scarier: 10,000 emails a month until you fix it.
I think people are confused as to what free software is about. Free software is not about bringing down Microsoft, or any other company creating proprietary software, it's not about getting GNU/Linux on all computers world-wide either. The goal was and still is to create a wholly free operating system. I get the feeling that people in our community feel threatened by proprietary software and I don't understand that reasoning. I use exclusively free software on my systems (except for ssh, but that will hopefully change soon); I have no need for proprietary software, so why should I feel threatened by it?
Isn't that interesting (and insulting).
My wife, Kathleen, like Trish, probably represents the typical computer user.
For years she has booted our dual boot desktop machine into Windows and I have booted into Linux.
She is so sick and tired of relentless, constant "blue screens o' death", and "this program has performed an illegal operation" messages that she has asked me for the following favor: Teach her Linux!
You see, she sees me hum along in linux crash free on the same damn hardware!
We plan to buy a more powerful box in the next month or so, anyway. So, what I'm going to do is set her up an account with the newest, slickest, most windows looking configuration of Gnome I can set up, give her a few lessons, install Applixware or Star Office (or both) as her MS Office replacement and see how it goes.
We both predict she'll like the change!
Simply matching the functionality of Windows isn't enough. Even matching the functionality for Free (both beer and speech) isn't enough. If we want World Domination, we have to be BETTER than Windows. WAY better than Windows.
:}
In general, i think X with modern window managers and KDE or Gnome is already superior to Windows as a desktop. And of course, Linux/*BSD totally kicks Windows' ass as an underlying OS.
But Linux falls short of (or barely on par with) Windows on two fronts - web browsers, and office productivity applications. We have a mediocre, obsolescent, buggy version of Netscape (how many other apps do you kill -9 on a regular basis?), and Office imitations like StarOffice and Applix. We *can* do better than that; we *must* do better.
Work on the browser is already in place with Mozilla. They are clearly on the right track, development-wise. If only other Open Source gui apps had such a well-planned design! (are you listening, Gnome?) Don't rush them. Don't insist on some bug-ridden premature 1.0 release to satisfy some artificial market-hype deadline. They're doing it right, and doing it right takes time and patience.
I hope to see the same fundamental-rethinking wisdom applied to office productivity apps too. The tools are becoming available, in the form of XML and other standard technologies (and maybe Mozilla for a display engine!). I have ideas, but that's another story.
When the Open Source community is turning out *better* browsers and productivity tools than MS can make with all their zillions of dollars, we will win. But the battle shouldn't be with MS... it should be with ourselves, constantly challenging the community to do better.
This "war" is pointless. If your goal is simply to beat Microsoft, you need loftier goals.
---
Maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains that you refuse.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
It's not a competition. There is no competition. It's about the user's choice. If the user wants to use MS because it supports more websites, then they will. If they want to use Linux because it doesn't crash and it's free, they'll do that too.
It's about choice for companies too. If they want to develop plug-ins for Linux, they will. If they see a big enough demand for it, they definitely will. Right now that demand just isn't there. Why? Because not enough people have chosen Linux.
Don't get your pants in a bunch because you think this is a battle. It's not. MS doesn't have to lose for Linux to win. Linux is just an operating system. It's people who win -- and they do so by finding a system that works for them. It would be wonderful if Linux was that system, but for most it isn't. Because of browser incompatibilities and other topics that have been discussed into the ground.
And if those problems are never overcome? Then Linux doesn't take the average user's desktop. Oh well. I don't care if it does. I like having Linux on my desktop. I don't have to see it on every desktop, just because I don't like MS. I absolutley refuse to make it personal.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
It is Microsoft's market share that is currently being drained away in all areas but browser; when you're on top, there's nowhere to go but down. As for the browser, the numbers that show IE's total dominance in this area these days are well cooked; I would say that > 70% of the people I know who use Windows still use Netscape.
Considering that a huge chunk of the web browsing populace is still using what is basically a 2+ year old browser despite the fact that a newer one is bolted right into their operating system makes me worry far more for Microsoft's future than Linux or Mozilla's. Don't get me wrong, the ability to go down the drain into obscurity is well within Mozilla's grasp; I don't accept, however, that it's imminent.
As for Linux itself, it's gone over critical mass. It's not going anywhere, and I don't care what Microsoft has to say about it. I have the ability to look at the evidence myself, and what I see lets me rest easy indeed.
Our department briefly wrestled with the problem of different document types and finally came down from on high and said that PDF files should be used to transmit documents. That's fine for me, I can use pdflatex in Linux and gs or xpdf to view 'em (Acroread doesn't work on glibc systems yet.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That way, important sites can brag, "This site uses no wonky extensions that aren't in a blessed form of Java, JavaScript, or Shockwave"
I prefer the works just fine with any browser approach. And by the way, Shockwave currently has no Linux plugin. That's Flash.
But your point about having an attractive button (or set of buttons) for this purpose is a good one. I'm no graphic artist, though, so I can't help there. Perhaps a new Gimp logo contest?
Your understanding of the reality of the Linux community, and of Open Source projects, leaves a lot to be desired. The Linux Community isn't a corporation, no-one has the power to tell others what to work on. Heck, the Linux Community isn't even an orgainsation (as that would mean that there was some order, there's not), it's a community. What gets worked on and what doesn't is entirely up to the people doing the working.
A charactorisitc of the Linux (OS) software development model is that people work on what they currently need. If someone has a single processor system, they're not going to work on improving multiprocessor support - they're going to work on improving single processor support.
Linux is a fully functional computer operating system for almost any possible purpoise, wether it be a desktop workstation, a web server, or a node in a beowulf cluster doing major number crunching.
Linux, as an O/S, has everything it needs to be perfect desktop machine with three or four minor problems. KDE 2, XF86 4, and Mozilla will solve all of these.
The objective of the Linux movement, if you can even say it has one, is not to build a theoretical perfect O/S. It's to build a usefull, free operating system that can be used for anything that people want to use it for. If people want it to be their pretty GUI appliance desktop O/S, that's fine, and they need a webbrowser for that.
The FreeBSD project, although more centrally organized and with more specific objectives than the "Linux Community", is also a project to produce a free, usable O/S. Remember that in application space, FreeBSD and Linux are basically the same, they both run X, they both need a Window Manager, etc. An app for Linux will run on FreeBSD, and an app for FreeBSD will run on Linux.
As you're not doing central OS develpment stuff, no-one could care less wether you're using Linux or FreeBSD.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sorry. The lyrics have been stuck in my head for days now...
Ok. So. the article is rather inflammatory, and there is some debate on this whole browser war issue. But the points that come out of it are very valid. The key one is this:
I am making a personal committment to get involved with the Mozilla project. It is the project with the most potential to become this Free Web Browser that we so desperately need. Netscape is NOT going to save us this time. Netscape has failed us, and it's time to take matters into our own hands.
To sum up: GET INVOLVED
Somehow, somewhere you have some free time. Use that time to find a project that interests you, and help out. If nothing else do it to make you r life easier in the long run.
And if you do go searching for a project, pick one of some significance. We really do not need *another* gtk ICQ program, or *another* mp3 player. We do need a better netscape. An earllier post talked about developing a competitor to Exchange. We do need better UI's.
What would happen if all the little developers hacking away on exactly the same thing, dropped those and decended in a massive horde of mad programmin' skillz upon the big projects? Mozilla would be done in no time. The desktop argument would fall by the wayside.
Is there a central website of some sort for project posting? Show up, stick your project idea on the board and get interested people? If so, why haven't I heard anything about it? The apps repositories don't count. Sticking a sentence in a slashdot comment doesn't count either. I talkin' a purely administrative site. www.lets-code.org or something.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
The team who developed Mosaic gave allowed others to embrace and extended to do the obvious things that were missing, instead of putting the software under the GPL. Both Netscape and Explorer have roots in Mosaic. The base code for Explorer came from Spyglass whom Microsoft cannibalized. Spyglass' wares were derived from Mosaic, IIRC. So you can thank the bungled handling of the Mosaic codebase for the current situation, at least partially.
The W3C guys haven't learned any lessons from all this. They still offer source code that can be embraced, extended and locked away into proprietary machine code. Here is a link to the license for libwww and other w3c freeware like the Amaya browser. Their FAQ says this: Yes, we want people to experiment with and improve our software. It can even be used in commercial software. If you make changes for the better, we encourage you to contact its authors. You may not make changes and continue to call it by a trademarked term or misrepresent the origin, capabilities, or liabilities associated with its use. You may make valid assertions, such that it is based on Amaya code, or that it is compliant with a Recommended Specification of the W3C.
They want everyone to follow the standard, yet they purvey reference implementations that can be molded into whatever proprietary shape that the Microsofts or Netscapes of this world care to dream up. It comes to reason that a reference implementation of a standard should have a license that promotes compliance and prevents it from being used as a basis for proprietary extensions.
It's Dave's time; why should he spend it supporting an OS he doesn't like? I'm sure even his wife would not want him to spend his free time on something so upleasant as fixing windows (taking out the garbage may be another issue.)
.. because it's his wife and he loves her and wants her to have the best experience she can have according to her needs, not his agenda?
... she actually lost value over time and is now in a worse position than she would have been if Windows was chosen in the first place. This doesn't HELP the linux cause ... if anything, it creates resentment in the same way those who "choose" Windows on their OEM'd PC feel when they have to reboot 5 times a day.
... many are so blinded by their own agenda and can't even see the trees, must less the forest or beyond.
Uhhh
Like I said, she gained no real value from the "choice" he forced upon her
This is the same reason people call this community elitist
...many pro-Linux people I know have been grumbling about the lack of the latest RealPlayer support and other niceties that people in the Windows world take for granted
Funny you should say that. I just add/*removed* Real Player from my Windows NT machine today because it has just come to suck too much. As far as a streaming audio player goes it's not particularly impressive, and really it just takes a nice open format (mp3), sticks its own header on it, and tries to pretend it's handling some kind of amazing super-secret format you can't live without. Then, it hits you with the ads you don't want, the channels you don't want, the registration you don't want to do (complete with rectal examination) and provides no way for you to prevent it from starting when Windows starts. So: out it goes. Enough is enough. I'll stick with streaming mp3, thankyou, or use other players for ra-formatted mp3 audio. And I won't have to put up with the file not being saved to disk by default, so you have to download it all again any time you want to rewind. No thanks, Real Player, goodbye.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
By succumbing to using IE for web browsing, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you want to use linux. Any decent size web site tracks what browsers are used to visit their site, and what OS. If you go to sites with a microsoft browser and a microsoft os, you are fighting for the opposite side than what you claim to be on. If you want a site to make itself (netscape/opera)/linux friendly, start hitting with the choice browser and linux. If any decent webmaster sees a growing percentage of hits from linux machines, he/she will make sure that their site works properly for those users. Fight for the good guys.
-Dan
Please explain how ActiveX is superior to Netscape's plugin system. While you're at it, you should try to explain exactly why a system so insecure it can cause web pages to totally erase your hard drive could possibly be superior to one which did everything else ActiveX could do as concerns Web pages, but didn't let pages erase your drives.
Linux has a clear path to a good market share of servers, I think. It's excellent as a small to medium server, and it just makes too good economic sense not to be successful there. It's server capabilities are also increasing rapidly, especially from the commercial contributions to the kernel. So I think Linux can be an extremely successful OS while failing to achieve total desktop domination. But if Microsoft controls HTML it won't happen.
Unix always has, and probably always will, be the most appealing to students, developers, engineers, and scientists. Take it apart and figure out creative new ways to put it back together people. MS Windows on the other hand tends to appeal to businessmen and home users. Don't tell me about it -- I'm not paying to learn -- just make sure it works and all I have to do is push a button people. These are quite different sets of people and *both* have a realistic notion of their needs. The problem is in either Microsoft or *nix trying to force one set to use the other's tools. That should only be possible by satisfying the underlying needs responsible for both choices -- something neither side is fearfully close to yet. All I want to see is that those 10-30% who prefer Unix have that choice, and are supported with drivers and plug-ins.
Now, I'm optimistic about the Linux desktop personally. I'd always been a DOS command line person anyway, GUIs have never impressed me as powerful enough, though I use them. For my money, if you develop software, the best place to do it is in something Unix-like like Linux. It's entertainment like the web and games that keep me dual booting.
The bit about lack of plug-ins is true, but hardly fair. That sort of thing follows desktop success, it doesn't precede it. As hardware drivers are now coming thru for Linux, so I expect plug-ins to follow.
Having to recompile your apps? Well, yes, *having* to can be a pain. Being *able* to can also be wonderful when it's needed. No worse than having to re-install Windows occasionally surely.
The desktop standards thing is interesting. Do you remember when Norton and another company sold competing Win3.1 desktops? Much the same problem there. Microsoft of course settled it in their usual fashion by driving both, though superior, out of the market. I think in the Unix world, there is a possibility for something better, choice of desktop with full interoperability of apps. It won't come soon, but it will NEVER happen with Windows, Microsoft wouldn't permit it.
The issue is one of critical mass. There have to be enough Linux desktop users to make supporting them commercially attractive, or at least feasible. I would like to see fixes for the problems you mention, but I have to agree with the article, the lack of a browser is the most critical problem at the moment on the desktop front and standards front both. It's not an attempt to dominate the desktop, it's an attempt to maintain a foothold in the client space for fear of being embrace-and-extended out of the server space.
Okay, I have a strange idea that might be able to work.
I noted that recently on Freshmeat, someone had found a way to play VQF files in Linux, even though the only way to get a player is through getting a Windows .dll from the Sony website.
How? By using Wine. The plug-in talks to Wine, and Wine passes that on to the (Linux) music player.
Could the same principle be employed for this? The API for Netscape plug-ins is surely basically the same between Linux and Windows. Give the plug-ins a way to be able to execute in the new environment, they may never know the difference.
I suspect this could be achieved through a "wrapper" plug-in, that translates between the plug-in for Windows and the browser for Linux. Even sound could be made to work, I suspect - Wine is pretty nifty these days.
The main problem I see is that only x86 Linux people will benefit from this. This is, however, the main market, and at least having it there will help "win the battle".
If only I knew more about Wine... or had some spare time :) - I'd really like to see this happen, if at all possible.
Comments?
Then AOL will get out of Microsoft's bed (or MS will have court-imposed changes as a result of the antitrust suit) and integrate Mozilla into their client. As it filters down to their members, a huge number of IE users switch to Mozilla -- many without even realizing it.
As I understand it, Mozilla's policy towards standards-compliance is "we'll honor the standards, and if you don't we can't guarantee that we'll handle your crap correctly and it's your problem". Suddenly, a large percentage of the audience of noncompliant sites is using a compliant browser.
The noncompliant crap is fixed when a large number of people can't use it.
End result? Return of the Standards.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
This is why.
Every day it gets bigger, more robust, and more difficult to stop. Eventually MS will have to bow out to Linux not because Linux will declare war on Windows, but because Windows will simply pale in comparison.
Eventually no one (outside the hardcore geeks) wil l use anything other that IE because that's what works on all the web (if current trends continue and they ARE moving this way). A computer without the 'Net is fairly useless (IMHO), the best way the access the 'Net is through a browser. The browser becomes the most important part of the machine. M$ has realized this and is pushing hard to make the browser the OS and build special hooks so that IE/IIS/Windows is the only way to really access the 'Net.
Having surfed the 'Net extensively on both browser on both platforms there is No Question that M$ has a superior product with VASTLY superior third-party support.
You see, one of the most important differences between Windows and Linux is that Windows is all smoke and mirrors (marketing) whereas Linux is an product that is actually well made and capable of delivering on its promises. The public will grow tired of the illusion sooner or later, its all a matter of time.
Every TV show/Movie you have ever enjoyed is mostly smoke and mirrors. Most people DON'T CARE and are more than happy to use smoke and mirrors. Besides, windows (despite it's very many flaws) does work most of the time. I'm a gamer and the doze does games great.
The article illustrated a very good point, people want stuff that "just works", when sites don't they get frustrated and will go back to the herd. Having the pre-eminent browser is the first huge step to desktop acceptance. If you don't want that, then this argument is moot anyway.
+&x
But the whole point is moot because if you want to listen to something that uses Real Player, you're SOL. It's just like once site I can't view in Linux because it uses Quicktime extensivly.
;-)
No, the point is that I personally don't care about Real Player any more because it's gotten way too commercial and annoying to use. Wait for it - Real Player will be superceded soon by something more to our taste, and with the added benefit of being open source and running under Linux.
About 2 years ago I stopped using Hotbot because it got just too annoying, for the same reason, even though it was still the search engine with the best query interface. This year, miraculously, along comes google and is the answer to all (or most) of my prayers. Worth waiting for. In the meantime, I slummed and used altavista (fast seach but horrible interface and lousy presentation of results).
I can see Real Player is headed the same direction - don't get too attached to it. I guess at this point I'll just surf around and find something that can decode streaming ra files. Or I'll wait. It's not that we've got so much time on our hands we have to spend it all listening to ra files
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Ok, I very nearly said this on LinuxToday, but I've decided to be flamed by a wider audience ;-)
Let's assume that the author's "nightmare" scenario comes to pass: IE suddenly becomes the dominant browser and all major websites decide to lock out users of non-IE browsers.
Will gcc's backends all suddenly commit electronic suicide in despair? Perhaps Emacs is going to decide it's Lisped its last? I assume that Linus, Alan, Andrea, and the thousands of other people who've worked on the kernel will pack up and leave. X, of course, will stop working when the Microsoft takeover alters the fabric of reality, as will FTP, SSH, and CVS. And of course every bleeding window manager will suddenly suffer a fatal heart attack (except wm2 which no-one uses anyway) apt will spontaneously combust, ext2fs will cease to function, the RFCs will self-destruct, Python will be a dead parrot, mpg123 will be silenced, GnomeI-See-You won't, and Freeciv as we know it will cease. All SMTP traffic will immediately halt; Exim, Postfix, and Smail will be outlawed; mutt and all lesser email clients[1] will start requiring stamps to be inserted into the floppy drive; and everything will be a general mess. Plus Microsoft will send people over to my house to demagnetize all my disks.
Yes, I can see how this will affect my life in a very significant and direct way.
Daniel
[1] Everything else.
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
> Hey - you just described IE5. Hate to admit it but...all the components of IE are just generally available COM objects.
AND you can script those components with Perl. Or Python. Or Javascript, C++, Delphi, VB, or even freakin Haskell
Unix can only claim superior scriptability at the moment because it has a passable scripting language as its command shell (some better than others, ksh has better typing for example). But what it can't do is script individual components of a program in any language that has a native interface. Want to embed a browser component in emacs and remote-control it with elisp? Fat chance.
Yes, yes, this is all promised with gnome and bonobo and corba corba uber alles. But so far, like mozilla, it hasn't produced any deliverables. I'm not even impressed with the stability of mozilla under win32.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> not crash very often
You lose. I had the displeasure of running M10 on win98. First immediate annoyance: mousewheel doesn't work. Reflow is decent, a damn sight better than netscape, but not as smooth as IE. Some images got placed slightly off, I could actually see the placeholder and a piece of the ALT text where the image should have been.
But when I selected several items off menus, it was always crash, crash, crash. And not from failed assertions, mind you, but invalid page faults. Meaning this thing has null or stale pointers all over the place, possibly even buffer overruns. Does expect that these are just going to all get fixed so long as we just chase 'em out and patch 'em as we hit them? If that kind of ad hoc methodology is driving Mozilla, it doesn't have a prayer.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> As far as the browsers, it would be nice if there were a shockwave player for Linux.
I'm using it now. What would be nice would be Macromedia Director for Linux.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I'm still laughing, and I still think you're a troll.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.