Thats been my feeling for a while. I have no idea if pushing the system to either extreme would actually fix things but it does seem that the constant pushing back and forth causes significant problems.
That's a good point. Media has way too much influence if they (or Apple voluntarily) can cause an obviously useful system tool to be changed just because it MIGHT be used to circumvent DRM, as if protecting entertainment was the most important issue here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all this DRM crap was to stop the casual pirates, right? How many casual file copiers even know what DTrace is? How many capable DTrace users do you suppose this really stops?
Are we trying to define what content is WORTHY of being in high definition? Or are we saying that media quality has hit a plateau beyond which most people won't care for any further increase?
You missed the point. It would be fine if the split was Gnome/KDE.
The split is between each distros version of those desktops, they change stuff all the time. Where the buttons are on a specific panel, what the app menu looks like, etc. They also have a habit of changing Gnome every few months, panels disappear, configuration options get reduced to single buttons on a small window. Even if the distros weren't changing stuff, the desktops themselves change constantly. When stuff changes this much it becomes difficult to support end users.
The KDE panel for configuring Wi-Fi just changed recently in kubuntu 7.10, you now can only let the system autonegotiate WPA2 and DHCP, or you can manually enter the IP info and enter a WEP key. Yes there is no option whatsoever to choose LEAP, RADIUS, WPA2, WPA, etc. It was there in the past. It's there in suse, gone in ubuntu. Thats a split between the same version of the same desktop just because the distro is different. Ridiculous and unnecessary.
Next, drivers are a bigger problem than they seem. As a developer you have 2 choices, either GPL your driver and hope someone cares enough to develop it to the point that mainline will accept it (Which could take so much time the hardware is obsolete), or you can compile your driver for every version of each distro. It's GPL or nothing and a lot of companies are just going to ignore Linux because of it. Broadcom still doesn't care and they HAVE a driver already developed.
Linux only looks good because Microsoft is incompetent. It's a house of cards on the desktop right now, its quite solid on servers and embedded devices but its going to cave in on the desktop if something doesn't change.
If they would quit with the free love charity work and just agree to sell them to the market that wants them, those people (or others with similar abilities) could be EMPLOYED by the project.
The entire OLPC model is causing problems at this point, EeePC just completely stole the market from them with a better device, quicker.
"Since a single binary cannot work on every distro, each distro must maintain it's own repositories."
The fact that all these programs are open source and thus able to be recompiled for each distro just mitigates the problems that segmentation like this would cause. You start talking about commercial software and then the company must do all the duplication just to get things to work on multiple distros, for little benefit. There is little incentive for a company to develop for Linux if this is the mess they are going to walk in to.
There also isn't enough difference between each distro to justify their existence as separate entities with their own repos in the first place. If the split was about functionality, Desktop vs. media center, that would be one thing, but its not. This is me-too development, and the split is between different groups for no reason. It doesn't justify duplication to this degree.
If if i receive a GPL licensed binary, i get the source, and I can give it to anyone i want, even someone who never paid the original developer. It makes for-pay software development next to impossible, hence the push to fund development with service contracts etc.
Repos are a good way to deal with the mess, but they cause another mess when their functionality is duplicated for no reason but to support each distro.
Unnecessary complication is the phrase that comes to mind. I see little reason for so many distros, each with their own separate-but-equal repos, to exist in the first place.
Thats my point, they need to move away from GPL free software licensing and toward commercial but open source licenses.
The relative absence of GPL'd commercial software says a lot, people don't want to spend time and money developing software in a commercial settings, only to release it GPL'd and literally give the end user the right to distribute it endlessly.
Those sorts of projects would probably do better if they focused more on being Open Source, than being Free Software.
The ability of someone to take GPL code, even expensive purchased software, and give it to anyone, anywhere, for free, hurts development in many cases.
As opposed to the dozens of Linux distros we have now, each with their own repositories of custom compiled software that typically doesn't work anywhere but on that specific version of that specific distro.
Choice is a good thing, but I would say excessive choice with little benefit is a problem. Open source software means one choice is an infinite number of choices because you can change whatever you want, no one is forcing you to do anything. Multiple distros, each with their own separate versions of Gnome and KDE, each using different config panels and menu systems. It's a problem.
If there was at least a baseline common platform for things like apps, drivers, config panels, menu systems, look and feel etc, it wouldn't matter, but every one of them change these things constantly. It doesn't surprise me that mainstream users aren't flocking to Linux on the desktop, its a mess.
Morality isn't going to change the market. When these companies are willing to sell what the public wants, they will win. The public in general wants easy to use, accessible music and movies, without the unnecessary locks, for a reasonable price.
Until then all the morality you can preach won't change a thing.
Net neutrality is not one size fits all network service, if anything the current consumer pricing models are subsidized and not representative of the true cost each user puts on the system. It's statistical multiplexing mixed with a bit of bad advertising.
People should have no problem paying reasonable rates for things like the ability to run an HTTP server, a static IP (with RDNS record for a domain of your choice), SSL certificates, etc. People should also have no problem paying reasonable rates for the transfer they actually use (As opposed to paying for the transfer someone else is using while you aren't), the ISPs walked into this situation with the "pool of money" model and now it is biting everyone in the ass.
A lot of the stuff Apple does is understandable, and overall I've watched them do more good than harm. In most cases the good things Apple does are in areas of technology, resisting the push for "DRM everywhere", attempting to keep the core of their own platform open and devoid of ridiculous activation methods, attempting to adopt real standards where possible, etc. Yes they benefit from those things in many ways but that's not evil.
The bad things they do tend to revolve around things Apple perceives to threaten the company itself or their ability to support their own products. They also tend to go after people for doing things they simply don't like, even when it doesn't involve things they are obligated to protect, like the Apple brand or the iPod brand.
The command interface isn't the problem with IOS, the rest of the platform is. You don't really have to remember every little command and every option in IOS because the entire system provides help for every step of every command.
Linux as a routing platform is in some ways much worse than IOS unless you use some sort of usable interface on top of it. My home firewall is an Astaro box (linux) which I'm quite happy with but i would never dream of editing firewall rules (or anything else) by hand on it, like with the CLI interfaces available, its even worse than IOS for that sort of thing. The sole exception would be XORP, but then thats really just an IOS interface clone anyway.
I would be surprised if they went and developed something else entirely because QNX itself is POSIX compliant and has been in development for quite a while now, i can't think of any reason to drop it and develop something BSD based for the rest of the routers. It would make little sense outside of the realm of "ZOMG BSD is teh kewl".
For a while IOS XR was only on the CRS-1, and the edge devices have been regular IOS, with all its disadvantages like the single memory space, total lack of memory protection, lack of preemption, so it's definitely time to replace it. The QNX based version has been in development for a while now I'm guessing Cisco feels they can move it to the rest of the platform.
Again, if Cisco spent all this time developing IOS XR only to drop it for something BSD based i would be very surprised.
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Thats been my feeling for a while. I have no idea if pushing the system to either extreme would actually fix things but it does seem that the constant pushing back and forth causes significant problems.
Where did you get this information? Quantum mechanics tells us that Bruce Schneier cannot be observed directly.....
In that situation i presume things would unfold such that MS wouldn't have been able to lock the market in the first place.
How dare they! If you aren't willing to use a computer, why exactly do you want a $399 touch screen device, which also happens to be a computer.....
About the time some rootkit does take advantage of this you bet people will be all over Apple for it.
That's a good point. Media has way too much influence if they (or Apple voluntarily) can cause an obviously useful system tool to be changed just because it MIGHT be used to circumvent DRM, as if protecting entertainment was the most important issue here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all this DRM crap was to stop the casual pirates, right? How many casual file copiers even know what DTrace is? How many capable DTrace users do you suppose this really stops?
Fail.
Are we trying to define what content is WORTHY of being in high definition? Or are we saying that media quality has hit a plateau beyond which most people won't care for any further increase?
no no, it'll be ok. slashcode just needs some USE flags.
You missed the point. It would be fine if the split was Gnome/KDE.
The split is between each distros version of those desktops, they change stuff all the time. Where the buttons are on a specific panel, what the app menu looks like, etc. They also have a habit of changing Gnome every few months, panels disappear, configuration options get reduced to single buttons on a small window. Even if the distros weren't changing stuff, the desktops themselves change constantly. When stuff changes this much it becomes difficult to support end users.
The KDE panel for configuring Wi-Fi just changed recently in kubuntu 7.10, you now can only let the system autonegotiate WPA2 and DHCP, or you can manually enter the IP info and enter a WEP key. Yes there is no option whatsoever to choose LEAP, RADIUS, WPA2, WPA, etc. It was there in the past. It's there in suse, gone in ubuntu. Thats a split between the same version of the same desktop just because the distro is different. Ridiculous and unnecessary.
Next, drivers are a bigger problem than they seem. As a developer you have 2 choices, either GPL your driver and hope someone cares enough to develop it to the point that mainline will accept it (Which could take so much time the hardware is obsolete), or you can compile your driver for every version of each distro. It's GPL or nothing and a lot of companies are just going to ignore Linux because of it. Broadcom still doesn't care and they HAVE a driver already developed.
Linux only looks good because Microsoft is incompetent. It's a house of cards on the desktop right now, its quite solid on servers and embedded devices but its going to cave in on the desktop if something doesn't change.
blah
If they would quit with the free love charity work and just agree to sell them to the market that wants them, those people (or others with similar abilities) could be EMPLOYED by the project.
The entire OLPC model is causing problems at this point, EeePC just completely stole the market from them with a better device, quicker.
Being unable to put iTunes music on another companies player doesn't make Apple a monopoly.
"Since a single binary cannot work on every distro, each distro must maintain it's own repositories."
The fact that all these programs are open source and thus able to be recompiled for each distro just mitigates the problems that segmentation like this would cause. You start talking about commercial software and then the company must do all the duplication just to get things to work on multiple distros, for little benefit. There is little incentive for a company to develop for Linux if this is the mess they are going to walk in to.
There also isn't enough difference between each distro to justify their existence as separate entities with their own repos in the first place. If the split was about functionality, Desktop vs. media center, that would be one thing, but its not. This is me-too development, and the split is between different groups for no reason. It doesn't justify duplication to this degree.
How what?
If if i receive a GPL licensed binary, i get the source, and I can give it to anyone i want, even someone who never paid the original developer. It makes for-pay software development next to impossible, hence the push to fund development with service contracts etc.
Repos are a good way to deal with the mess, but they cause another mess when their functionality is duplicated for no reason but to support each distro.
Unnecessary complication is the phrase that comes to mind. I see little reason for so many distros, each with their own separate-but-equal repos, to exist in the first place.
Thats my point, they need to move away from GPL free software licensing and toward commercial but open source licenses.
The relative absence of GPL'd commercial software says a lot, people don't want to spend time and money developing software in a commercial settings, only to release it GPL'd and literally give the end user the right to distribute it endlessly.
Those sorts of projects would probably do better if they focused more on being Open Source, than being Free Software.
The ability of someone to take GPL code, even expensive purchased software, and give it to anyone, anywhere, for free, hurts development in many cases.
As opposed to the dozens of Linux distros we have now, each with their own repositories of custom compiled software that typically doesn't work anywhere but on that specific version of that specific distro.
Choice is a good thing, but I would say excessive choice with little benefit is a problem. Open source software means one choice is an infinite number of choices because you can change whatever you want, no one is forcing you to do anything. Multiple distros, each with their own separate versions of Gnome and KDE, each using different config panels and menu systems. It's a problem.
If there was at least a baseline common platform for things like apps, drivers, config panels, menu systems, look and feel etc, it wouldn't matter, but every one of them change these things constantly. It doesn't surprise me that mainstream users aren't flocking to Linux on the desktop, its a mess.
By not using Windows you are bypassing the DMCA :D
Morality isn't going to change the market. When these companies are willing to sell what the public wants, they will win. The public in general wants easy to use, accessible music and movies, without the unnecessary locks, for a reasonable price.
Until then all the morality you can preach won't change a thing.
Net neutrality is not one size fits all network service, if anything the current consumer pricing models are subsidized and not representative of the true cost each user puts on the system. It's statistical multiplexing mixed with a bit of bad advertising.
People should have no problem paying reasonable rates for things like the ability to run an HTTP server, a static IP (with RDNS record for a domain of your choice), SSL certificates, etc. People should also have no problem paying reasonable rates for the transfer they actually use (As opposed to paying for the transfer someone else is using while you aren't), the ISPs walked into this situation with the "pool of money" model and now it is biting everyone in the ass.
A lot of the stuff Apple does is understandable, and overall I've watched them do more good than harm. In most cases the good things Apple does are in areas of technology, resisting the push for "DRM everywhere", attempting to keep the core of their own platform open and devoid of ridiculous activation methods, attempting to adopt real standards where possible, etc. Yes they benefit from those things in many ways but that's not evil.
The bad things they do tend to revolve around things Apple perceives to threaten the company itself or their ability to support their own products. They also tend to go after people for doing things they simply don't like, even when it doesn't involve things they are obligated to protect, like the Apple brand or the iPod brand.
The command interface isn't the problem with IOS, the rest of the platform is. You don't really have to remember every little command and every option in IOS because the entire system provides help for every step of every command.
Linux as a routing platform is in some ways much worse than IOS unless you use some sort of usable interface on top of it. My home firewall is an Astaro box (linux) which I'm quite happy with but i would never dream of editing firewall rules (or anything else) by hand on it, like with the CLI interfaces available, its even worse than IOS for that sort of thing. The sole exception would be XORP, but then thats really just an IOS interface clone anyway.
I would be surprised if they went and developed something else entirely because QNX itself is POSIX compliant and has been in development for quite a while now, i can't think of any reason to drop it and develop something BSD based for the rest of the routers. It would make little sense outside of the realm of "ZOMG BSD is teh kewl".
For a while IOS XR was only on the CRS-1, and the edge devices have been regular IOS, with all its disadvantages like the single memory space, total lack of memory protection, lack of preemption, so it's definitely time to replace it. The QNX based version has been in development for a while now I'm guessing Cisco feels they can move it to the rest of the platform.
Again, if Cisco spent all this time developing IOS XR only to drop it for something BSD based i would be very surprised.