Simply look at the included applications as they compare with Symbian and Java applications. It's not rocket science. Apple took advantage of their limited device distribution to set a higher precedent for what cell phone applications should look like- Apple has a tendency to move the market forward.
I personally hate the iPhone. I think it's an overpriced piece of crap- and I would hate to have my music player and cell phone running off the same battery. But they certainly made symbian look old- and this market is all about look and feel. It's a consumer market.
How do I know it's better for development? Just look at what Apple has developed with it. The proof is in the product.
The rest of this considered- what does hackability matter to the consumer market? Answer: it doesn't. Even linux phones are completely closed and no one seems to care- they're more interested in how the screen flips when you turn it sideways.
I think hardware design fits comfortably within my description of fringe market. The brilliance of corporations is that they can use the "competition" in order to complete a task if it's better for what they need to do- they're not bound by some sort of "religion" like the FSF or open source zealots.
Microsoft's designers and artists use Adobe products, despite offering Microsoft Expression- and many Microsoft coders use vim, instead of Visual Studio. It's just the reality of an enterprise- the employees are developing for the greater market.
I think that's a vast oversight of the creature comforts offered by XP- I used to feel the same way, until I started to take advantage of XP's excellent media/device features- cd burning, media, etc.. Most of the benefits are geared towards the consumer market.
I think at this point, the DRM debate is really not about the companies vs. the consumers- just look at the WGA strike. Writers are demanding a very complex set of royalties for new media online play, etc- their demands are beginning to underline a real need for DRM.
DRM makes new media real to people working in entertainment and production- people who rely on very accurate tracking of views/sales to make their bread. If you are pro linux desktop, you need to be supporting an open DRM option as opposed to no DRM at all- and I mean option. We should encourage open media whenever possible, but allow for DRM in cases where its necessary for artist/production payment schemes.
Linux is about choice, right? If you want to see a version of the linux world that is not compatible with the consumer market, look at Stallman and the FSF. The elimination of the market is not a market viable option.
I don't see how linux operates without company constraints. It is far more constrained in that it is reliant on multiple-company "coalitions" to get any major change done. Apple or Microsoft can simply say "you know, screw our former base" and create a more modern vision for their system in a single generation- they have total platform control with a hierarchy of talent and experience. That's real organization.
There is life outside of unix, you know. There are better ways to do things- some would argue that open standards are incapable of innovation- that's not the point. Their point is to equalize the market after every push forward- they add accessibility, give people non-commercial alternatives. They're the generic pharmaceuticals.
I think the real frustration open source people face with Microsoft and Apple is how much work it is to constantly catch up with them- it's an endless uphill battle- and the companies that profit off of it are not paying their employee base.
I'll eat my words when I see open source solutions that are both A) Not corporate and B) not alternatives.
These are different birds. Microsoft is not even a remotely large embedded player- to say that there are linux-based access points is a moot point, since they don't offer a microsoft based wireless router in the mainstream.
Microsoft does desktop, for the most part. In this, they are enjoying comfortable domination based on their success with XP, and have some time to turn around from the failures in Vista.
My point is simply that he's got it backwards- the cell phone market is much more promising for linux than desktop, at this point. Linux will really rely on the death of the classic PC market to enjoy total market "domination"-- or permeation, if you will- Microsoft is more vulnerable to the linux-based device market overtaking PC's than linux taking the PC market- if you're just arbitrarily anti-Microsoft you might like the see the captain go down with his ship, in this case.
This is smoke and mirrors, of course. Symbian is dying- the most serious nail in their coffin was the Apple iPhone, with which Apple proved that an intelligent and well run software company can simply create a superior platform without an excessive amount of work- because they're simply better.
Google is a classic open source cat wrangler at this point, they probably expect to be more hacking together open source projects than "creating a new platform" or whatever misinterpretation this Symbian fellow made. Microsoft should follow suit, seeing as they also have an excellent alternative platform available for them- the Visual Studio/.NET world would be excellent in the cell phone market, if they might like to try aiming for the consumer market share as opposed to business.
Since it's clear Apple doesn't have nearly the stamina to go cross-hardware (it's an old Apple indian trick to only make one or two target devices for a platform), Google is bucking up to a market where Microsoft does not enjoy total domination.
Google already enjoys a large amount of open source moxie- so they'll get plenty of slave... er... community labor out of "enthusiasts".
This doesn't seem even remotely illogical or crazy to me- and if Google's innovation in the past has been any indicator, the market will be eating out of their hand in a couple years unless Microsoft gets back on the consumer cell phone horse.
Developer support is kind of a big deal in the real world. Real developer support is what open source's open access and fully available documentation pretends to emulate. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of cell phone developers google would need to support. Thousands upon thousands.
When companies work with a corporate OS, they actually get plenty of open access to the platform and documentation- often with full source licenses. The benefit is that they don't have to deal with a customized fork of linux- a fork they may have to pour lots of money into to get through shoddy documentation and inaccessible, often proprietary work from competitors (like nokia-only extensions in X.org)-- they have a platform they can simply implement and get support on from the ground up, with predictable patch and release cycles and supported tools.
Too many open source people think that a device's hackability is the end all watermark if its developer-friendliness. This couldn't be further from the truth. When you're delivering to customers, you want predictable results and a stable platform- hackability is only relevant to students, hobbyists, and software activists. The embedded market is about making a self-contained device, not an unstable wide-open PC.
If you want hackability in phones, why not use something based on Windows mobile? The.NET development system offers developers a stable and fairly accessible alternative to tossing things together in Java or writing native programs without really compromising the system.
Since when has linux won against Microsoft? Mac hasn't even "won". Linux is just gaining a more substantial fringe market. Even Vista's many failures aren't enough to drop the prior market share- considering they have new product out within 2 years.
I would estimate that linux is more prevalent in the cell phone market than in the desktop market, so you're likely backwards here.
What if we created a super fast bootloader like operating system that ran with almost no memory, in real mode, with a nano-pseudo-kernel. We should make some sort of "Disk Operating System" that can run applications straight on the PC's hardware using basic standardized drivers and direct system resources. We could even save on fooling around with needless multi-tasking and mouse-hockey.
Consider making a Disk Operating System, Microsoft- it could be what's next...
Your handle is "linuxgurugamer". Everyone knows that games don't run in linux- unless you're using an embedded application.:(
Let me clarify as not to sound belligerent or stupid:
I'm talking about comparing a Mac to a Vista machine. If you put the compatibility constraints on a windows system that would be intrinsic in using a mac, i.e. stay close to first party, native OSS (no GTK) for anything else, and don't use your machine like a child- it'll be basically the same experience. The illusion of mac as being more stable, etc is simply that of using first party software and hardware across the board.
In the world of games- it's way easier to develop a 360 game than a PC game- because of hardware support. For Apple to fail on the QA end is simply pathetic, their target is so small you could fit their entire product line in a small room.
I have been using all three of the "ONLY OS's ON THE PLANET" plus Solaris for a while now, and I have found OS X to be about as stable as XP or Vista, all things considered. It may not blue screen, but it "pretty transparent restart screen"'s and occasionally just ejaculates console feed all over the screen. Don't be fooled!
Just because windows has an exception handler doesn't mean it's unstable.
Well, friendly "professional"- you should use Program Compatibility Wizard!;)
I find it hilarious that people respond to apparent incompatibility by switching to Mac- a platform that suffers from such serious compatibility issues that you need to refresh your software library on almost a yearly basis. Why don't you equate your mac use with using Vista on newer compatible PC hardware with all brand new applications that are Vista-compatible. It's like your PC IS A MAC NOW.
People just demand so much more from PC's while lauding so much less from Apple- it's just... weird.
If the documents don't convert properly, tell the author to rewrite them in good form, without the stupid bells and whistles. This is not acceptable. Any software engineer should be ashamed of themselves for suggesting that human writers now need to participate in an otherwise automated process- and a format conversion, nonetheless. If you want conversion to be taken seriously, it better be seamless.
If this is an issue that is only relevant to IT, then IT should deal with it in full.
I think the market for the applications you just mentioned is small enough to easily justify Hiser's point. The more intelligent approach would be to use existing standards rather than creating new ones. The convergence of web formats and document formats should be front and center- not some mess of new "Open" formats. At very best, ODF will lead to another confusing dual format market which everyone must now adhere to. Microsoft Office is the real deal- it's here to stay. Just ask someone not actively involved in the Open Office movement. Most people just save open office documents in MS DOC 97/2000/XP.
Just because you mentioned alot of names doesn't mean you mentioned a lot of users.
Incompatibility is not a valid form of activism when providing a consumer product. Microsoft clearly had more to do with the PC revolution because they created the most acccessible development platform, hands down, ever- as well as the cheapest and most customizable(the PC).
How is it a pity that Microsoft got involved in the OS? They went from being a possible sizzle in the past barely touching IBM's radar to the chief provider of operating systems and development tools in the world. They set the pace for the rest of the world.
How is that a shame? If it were all free software's reign, computers would still be stuck as massive mainframes and servers holed up in large corporations and academic institutions. The personal computing revolution was a capitalist, consumerized venture- the idea of putting computers in every household is otherwise non-beneficial to the free software market, and frankly uneconomical.
Now they're merely shadowing the existing market.
Had microsoft simply been another barnacle on corporate unix- and had things only progressed along the lines of open standards we'd be at least 10 years, if not 20, behind the current rate of progression in consumer techniques. Desktop linux competes as a consumer operating system on the same level of Mac OS, Windows, and RISC OS of the past, since it's such an integral part of the market.
If windows and mac vanished, free software would simply fester- it would become more stable, but ultimately it would just rehash old ideas again and again, people finding not the time nor motivation to push things forward with no one to compete with or to inspire them.
Perhaps you would have preferred a different market leader? Microsoft won the technical war, and that's that. Free software now contends- but only because it's not a hobbyist venture anymore.
Saying the GNU/Linux system does anything is so vague it's in the realm of saying the "PC" does it.
Debian does it before GNU/Linux does, and Ubuntu before that. Let's be immediate here- the apt features I am mentioning are debian-based, but quickly becoming the standard. Novell and RedHat have had to force YaST2 and yum to act just like apt in order to catch up in ease of use. Repositories are the way of the future- even Sun is adopting them for Solaris 11.
Kubuntu has similar functionality to Ubuntu- but it's hit or miss, buggy and often downright ugly. XFCE lacks in some important areas, often feeling incomplete- it's closer to Gnome 1.0 in function.
Gnome 2.x is the contender - that's the reason it's been taking out KDE-based distributions left and right, SuSE, Fedora for instance- not to mention being the desktop of choice in Solaris.
The reason Linus doesn't like it is because it has a solid Style Guide/Human Interface Guidelines- whereas he thinks linux is about total customizability or something- he calls it "treating the users like idiots"- horrible analysis. Rigid guidelines make user systems- let the geeks and minimalists use their own custom interfaces, but please leave something for the masses. There's a reason linus only develops system code.
Are you talking about technology or religion? That isn't a very technical perspective.
Microsoft and Apple started the PC revolution by building on the works of Xerox, IBM, and AT&T- they made the systems cheap and accessible. Now the free software movement looks to offer a free(supported by corporations competing with microsoft) alternative- it's going to need compatibility with popular systems in the same way DOS needed to resemble CP/M- these sorts of revolutions are driven by competition and compatibility, not by forces of "good" or "evil".
Stop deluding yourself, they're all consumer products.
From the user perspective, gnome sits somewhere between windows and mac in ease of use and accessibility. Front and center is apt-repositories (ala ubuntu) and easy, automatic handling of devices and hard disks. It's not "windows", it's "modern". It's just recently getting to the point where it can be called a modern operating system alongside Windows and Mac. MSOXML is not locked in to linux or windows- if gnome is able to use the format to the fullest, then more power to them. The interoperability is what will drive adoption, not the "alternative" environment.
The driving difference is that it's free. Almost everything you've mentioned is only apparent to geeks and activists. The use of mono/.NET is nothing but convenient to people who use computers as tools- and they are most certainly free, as well.
And what makes you think that gnome is even remotely compatible with windows outside of mono? In the new version of TextEdit for Apple Leopard, you can use MS-OXML and ODF side by side- open and read and write either. Is there any political motive there? No, they're simply serving the users- same with gnome.
Gnome has made linux a viable alternative for common users by embracing technologies and techniques that embrace popular convenience over sensationalist activism. I hope some random passive aggressive blog attack doesn't do anything to defer them from this path- lest we go back to the dark ages of linux as a curiosity, aka the KDE days.
We're close to something big, and gnome's practicality is the driving force behind it, linux be damned- he is not linux.
I would have mentioned Java, but it seems to be on the decline lately- not that I even remotely doubt that it's more efficient than local AJAX. I am just sideswiped by how stupid of an idea this is. It's like building a log cabin on top of a skyscraper instead of getting an apartment.:p
That doesn't defeat the purpose of web applications AT ALL!
Wait -- this is brilliant. An application that has access to the system resources instead of simply running as a webpage? Why, we could just write our applications as lean, platform-independent C-libraries-- and and -- I GOT IT -- we could create brilliant interfaces by simply hammering in layers of C# on.NET and Mono, so it would be like...... it would be like the application would be USING system resources, but not written specifically FOR that system. We'll call them.... ".NET APPLICATIONS". They could be even faster than AJAX! And you wouldn't even need to be on the internet to use them! Not to mention you could take advantage of existing GTK or WinForms calls in order to get the smoothest fastest interface.
Join me, Slashdot- let us develop "applications"!
But wait- what if they need to be 100% multiplatform. What if I am not smart enough to abstract my code into a library/interface model... perhaps Prizm is for me!
From the user angle, now I can run Gmail on my desktop, because running Apple Mail or Windows Mail and just using the pop server is not Web 2.0 enough for me. I need to have ultra-slow, buggy, server-locked AJAX technology to make my desktop applications seem like desktop applications even though they are not desktop applications but they're acting like them thanks to Mozilla!
Server >> Application >> Web-Interface >> Prizm > Application Web/Server
Now everything will run as slowly and inefficiently as firefox!:):):)
Please stop dropping these weak FSF taglines. This "defectivebydesign" crap. Bitching about Microsoft will not make the linux market seem more valid to anyone- you are PREACHING TO THE CHOIR. Everyone thinks you're nuts, except other FSF idiots-- who are not using Vista. The primary motivator behind recent success in linux is diversion from the FSF lunatic side of things and embracing of mac/windows-based interface concepts with usability and style first approach!
If you'd stop being a bunch of obnoxious sheep, it will be easier for Shuttleworth to make linux go from "geekier" to "easier". Customers don't want to hear activist crap, they want a friendly and approachable image. Something firm and corporate. Safe.
I find it disturbing that- although the most popular consumer linux distro is London-based Ubuntu- the player is targeted only at windows users.
"We need to get the streaming service up and look at the ratio of consumption between the services and then we need to look long and hard at whether we build a download service for Mac and Linux..." So push up those numbers, people. If you're running Linux or mac, make sure to use that web-based iPlayer. Show the BBC that you're not a fringe market. Let your numbers be heard. I assure you they will pay attention to where their hits come from.
It's funny that they switched from one closed source unaccessible technology to another. Flash is just barely linux compliant- even Silverlight will likely beat it in interoperability. If they want to use Microsoft's technology solutions, they should use Silverlight, so Ubuntu users will at least have Moonlight.
This is faulty logic. Paranoia and conspiracy theories do not apply in this case- security patches are an important part of any operating system. There is no perfectly secure, unhackable system. This is a large part of why major enterprises use commercial supported linux distro's with professional security teams.
Assume linux security > windows security.
windows has more security holes than linux- or so you say. This isn't necessarily true in the server market.
Therefore linux has no security holes?
A system is only as good as its admin. The biggest problem is that more amateurs run windows boxes, using wizards to set their junk up. There's no perfect solution to workstation or server security.
Because the Edsel was a flop- Windows is the most profitable and popular software franchise ever. The Edsel would better be compared to a failed linux distro such as (too many to name).
Slashdot Mirror
Simply look at the included applications as they compare with Symbian and Java applications. It's not rocket science. Apple took advantage of their limited device distribution to set a higher precedent for what cell phone applications should look like- Apple has a tendency to move the market forward.
I personally hate the iPhone. I think it's an overpriced piece of crap- and I would hate to have my music player and cell phone running off the same battery. But they certainly made symbian look old- and this market is all about look and feel. It's a consumer market.
How do I know it's better for development? Just look at what Apple has developed with it. The proof is in the product.
The rest of this considered- what does hackability matter to the consumer market? Answer: it doesn't. Even linux phones are completely closed and no one seems to care- they're more interested in how the screen flips when you turn it sideways.
I think hardware design fits comfortably within my description of fringe market. The brilliance of corporations is that they can use the "competition" in order to complete a task if it's better for what they need to do- they're not bound by some sort of "religion" like the FSF or open source zealots.
Microsoft's designers and artists use Adobe products, despite offering Microsoft Expression- and many Microsoft coders use vim, instead of Visual Studio. It's just the reality of an enterprise- the employees are developing for the greater market.
I think that's a vast oversight of the creature comforts offered by XP- I used to feel the same way, until I started to take advantage of XP's excellent media/device features- cd burning, media, etc.. Most of the benefits are geared towards the consumer market.
I think at this point, the DRM debate is really not about the companies vs. the consumers- just look at the WGA strike. Writers are demanding a very complex set of royalties for new media online play, etc- their demands are beginning to underline a real need for DRM.
DRM makes new media real to people working in entertainment and production- people who rely on very accurate tracking of views/sales to make their bread. If you are pro linux desktop, you need to be supporting an open DRM option as opposed to no DRM at all- and I mean option. We should encourage open media whenever possible, but allow for DRM in cases where its necessary for artist/production payment schemes.
Linux is about choice, right? If you want to see a version of the linux world that is not compatible with the consumer market, look at Stallman and the FSF. The elimination of the market is not a market viable option.
I don't see how linux operates without company constraints. It is far more constrained in that it is reliant on multiple-company "coalitions" to get any major change done. Apple or Microsoft can simply say "you know, screw our former base" and create a more modern vision for their system in a single generation- they have total platform control with a hierarchy of talent and experience. That's real organization.
There is life outside of unix, you know. There are better ways to do things- some would argue that open standards are incapable of innovation- that's not the point. Their point is to equalize the market after every push forward- they add accessibility, give people non-commercial alternatives. They're the generic pharmaceuticals.
I think the real frustration open source people face with Microsoft and Apple is how much work it is to constantly catch up with them- it's an endless uphill battle- and the companies that profit off of it are not paying their employee base.
I'll eat my words when I see open source solutions that are both A) Not corporate and B) not alternatives.
These are different birds. Microsoft is not even a remotely large embedded player- to say that there are linux-based access points is a moot point, since they don't offer a microsoft based wireless router in the mainstream.
Microsoft does desktop, for the most part. In this, they are enjoying comfortable domination based on their success with XP, and have some time to turn around from the failures in Vista.
My point is simply that he's got it backwards- the cell phone market is much more promising for linux than desktop, at this point. Linux will really rely on the death of the classic PC market to enjoy total market "domination"-- or permeation, if you will- Microsoft is more vulnerable to the linux-based device market overtaking PC's than linux taking the PC market- if you're just arbitrarily anti-Microsoft you might like the see the captain go down with his ship, in this case.
This is smoke and mirrors, of course. Symbian is dying- the most serious nail in their coffin was the Apple iPhone, with which Apple proved that an intelligent and well run software company can simply create a superior platform without an excessive amount of work- because they're simply better.
Google is a classic open source cat wrangler at this point, they probably expect to be more hacking together open source projects than "creating a new platform" or whatever misinterpretation this Symbian fellow made. Microsoft should follow suit, seeing as they also have an excellent alternative platform available for them- the Visual Studio/.NET world would be excellent in the cell phone market, if they might like to try aiming for the consumer market share as opposed to business.
Since it's clear Apple doesn't have nearly the stamina to go cross-hardware (it's an old Apple indian trick to only make one or two target devices for a platform), Google is bucking up to a market where Microsoft does not enjoy total domination.
Google already enjoys a large amount of open source moxie- so they'll get plenty of slave... er... community labor out of "enthusiasts".
This doesn't seem even remotely illogical or crazy to me- and if Google's innovation in the past has been any indicator, the market will be eating out of their hand in a couple years unless Microsoft gets back on the consumer cell phone horse.
Developer support is kind of a big deal in the real world. Real developer support is what open source's open access and fully available documentation pretends to emulate. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of cell phone developers google would need to support. Thousands upon thousands.
.NET development system offers developers a stable and fairly accessible alternative to tossing things together in Java or writing native programs without really compromising the system.
When companies work with a corporate OS, they actually get plenty of open access to the platform and documentation- often with full source licenses. The benefit is that they don't have to deal with a customized fork of linux- a fork they may have to pour lots of money into to get through shoddy documentation and inaccessible, often proprietary work from competitors (like nokia-only extensions in X.org)-- they have a platform they can simply implement and get support on from the ground up, with predictable patch and release cycles and supported tools.
Too many open source people think that a device's hackability is the end all watermark if its developer-friendliness. This couldn't be further from the truth. When you're delivering to customers, you want predictable results and a stable platform- hackability is only relevant to students, hobbyists, and software activists. The embedded market is about making a self-contained device, not an unstable wide-open PC.
If you want hackability in phones, why not use something based on Windows mobile? The
Since when has linux won against Microsoft? Mac hasn't even "won". Linux is just gaining a more substantial fringe market. Even Vista's many failures aren't enough to drop the prior market share- considering they have new product out within 2 years.
I would estimate that linux is more prevalent in the cell phone market than in the desktop market, so you're likely backwards here.
What if we created a super fast bootloader like operating system that ran with almost no memory, in real mode, with a nano-pseudo-kernel. We should make some sort of "Disk Operating System" that can run applications straight on the PC's hardware using basic standardized drivers and direct system resources. We could even save on fooling around with needless multi-tasking and mouse-hockey.
Consider making a Disk Operating System, Microsoft- it could be what's next...
Your handle is "linuxgurugamer". Everyone knows that games don't run in linux- unless you're using an embedded application. :(
Let me clarify as not to sound belligerent or stupid:
I'm talking about comparing a Mac to a Vista machine. If you put the compatibility constraints on a windows system that would be intrinsic in using a mac, i.e. stay close to first party, native OSS (no GTK) for anything else, and don't use your machine like a child- it'll be basically the same experience. The illusion of mac as being more stable, etc is simply that of using first party software and hardware across the board.
In the world of games- it's way easier to develop a 360 game than a PC game- because of hardware support. For Apple to fail on the QA end is simply pathetic, their target is so small you could fit their entire product line in a small room.
I have been using all three of the "ONLY OS's ON THE PLANET" plus Solaris for a while now, and I have found OS X to be about as stable as XP or Vista, all things considered. It may not blue screen, but it "pretty transparent restart screen"'s and occasionally just ejaculates console feed all over the screen. Don't be fooled!
Just because windows has an exception handler doesn't mean it's unstable.
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/99a95df6-04e6-46eb-bb65-6404cd215e641033.mspx
;)
Well, friendly "professional"- you should use Program Compatibility Wizard!
I find it hilarious that people respond to apparent incompatibility by switching to Mac- a platform that suffers from such serious compatibility issues that you need to refresh your software library on almost a yearly basis. Why don't you equate your mac use with using Vista on newer compatible PC hardware with all brand new applications that are Vista-compatible. It's like your PC IS A MAC NOW.
People just demand so much more from PC's while lauding so much less from Apple- it's just... weird.
If this is an issue that is only relevant to IT, then IT should deal with it in full.
I think the market for the applications you just mentioned is small enough to easily justify Hiser's point. The more intelligent approach would be to use existing standards rather than creating new ones. The convergence of web formats and document formats should be front and center- not some mess of new "Open" formats. At very best, ODF will lead to another confusing dual format market which everyone must now adhere to. Microsoft Office is the real deal- it's here to stay. Just ask someone not actively involved in the Open Office movement. Most people just save open office documents in MS DOC 97/2000/XP.
Just because you mentioned alot of names doesn't mean you mentioned a lot of users.
Incompatibility is not a valid form of activism when providing a consumer product. Microsoft clearly had more to do with the PC revolution because they created the most acccessible development platform, hands down, ever- as well as the cheapest and most customizable(the PC).
How is it a pity that Microsoft got involved in the OS? They went from being a possible sizzle in the past barely touching IBM's radar to the chief provider of operating systems and development tools in the world. They set the pace for the rest of the world.
How is that a shame? If it were all free software's reign, computers would still be stuck as massive mainframes and servers holed up in large corporations and academic institutions. The personal computing revolution was a capitalist, consumerized venture- the idea of putting computers in every household is otherwise non-beneficial to the free software market, and frankly uneconomical.
Now they're merely shadowing the existing market.
Had microsoft simply been another barnacle on corporate unix- and had things only progressed along the lines of open standards we'd be at least 10 years, if not 20, behind the current rate of progression in consumer techniques. Desktop linux competes as a consumer operating system on the same level of Mac OS, Windows, and RISC OS of the past, since it's such an integral part of the market.
If windows and mac vanished, free software would simply fester- it would become more stable, but ultimately it would just rehash old ideas again and again, people finding not the time nor motivation to push things forward with no one to compete with or to inspire them.
Perhaps you would have preferred a different market leader? Microsoft won the technical war, and that's that. Free software now contends- but only because it's not a hobbyist venture anymore.
Saying the GNU/Linux system does anything is so vague it's in the realm of saying the "PC" does it.
Debian does it before GNU/Linux does, and Ubuntu before that. Let's be immediate here- the apt features I am mentioning are debian-based, but quickly becoming the standard. Novell and RedHat have had to force YaST2 and yum to act just like apt in order to catch up in ease of use. Repositories are the way of the future- even Sun is adopting them for Solaris 11.
Kubuntu has similar functionality to Ubuntu- but it's hit or miss, buggy and often downright ugly. XFCE lacks in some important areas, often feeling incomplete- it's closer to Gnome 1.0 in function.
Gnome 2.x is the contender - that's the reason it's been taking out KDE-based distributions left and right, SuSE, Fedora for instance- not to mention being the desktop of choice in Solaris.
The reason Linus doesn't like it is because it has a solid Style Guide/Human Interface Guidelines- whereas he thinks linux is about total customizability or something- he calls it "treating the users like idiots"- horrible analysis. Rigid guidelines make user systems- let the geeks and minimalists use their own custom interfaces, but please leave something for the masses. There's a reason linus only develops system code.
Are you talking about technology or religion? That isn't a very technical perspective. Microsoft and Apple started the PC revolution by building on the works of Xerox, IBM, and AT&T- they made the systems cheap and accessible. Now the free software movement looks to offer a free(supported by corporations competing with microsoft) alternative- it's going to need compatibility with popular systems in the same way DOS needed to resemble CP/M- these sorts of revolutions are driven by competition and compatibility, not by forces of "good" or "evil". Stop deluding yourself, they're all consumer products.
From the user perspective, gnome sits somewhere between windows and mac in ease of use and accessibility. Front and center is apt-repositories (ala ubuntu) and easy, automatic handling of devices and hard disks. It's not "windows", it's "modern". It's just recently getting to the point where it can be called a modern operating system alongside Windows and Mac. MSOXML is not locked in to linux or windows- if gnome is able to use the format to the fullest, then more power to them. The interoperability is what will drive adoption, not the "alternative" environment.
The driving difference is that it's free. Almost everything you've mentioned is only apparent to geeks and activists. The use of mono/.NET is nothing but convenient to people who use computers as tools- and they are most certainly free, as well.
And what makes you think that gnome is even remotely compatible with windows outside of mono? In the new version of TextEdit for Apple Leopard, you can use MS-OXML and ODF side by side- open and read and write either. Is there any political motive there? No, they're simply serving the users- same with gnome.
Gnome has made linux a viable alternative for common users by embracing technologies and techniques that embrace popular convenience over sensationalist activism. I hope some random passive aggressive blog attack doesn't do anything to defer them from this path- lest we go back to the dark ages of linux as a curiosity, aka the KDE days.
We're close to something big, and gnome's practicality is the driving force behind it, linux be damned- he is not linux.
I would have mentioned Java, but it seems to be on the decline lately- not that I even remotely doubt that it's more efficient than local AJAX. I am just sideswiped by how stupid of an idea this is. It's like building a log cabin on top of a skyscraper instead of getting an apartment. :p
That doesn't defeat the purpose of web applications AT ALL!
.NET and Mono, so it would be like... ... it would be like the application would be USING system resources, but not written specifically FOR that system. We'll call them.... ".NET APPLICATIONS". They could be even faster than AJAX! And you wouldn't even need to be on the internet to use them! Not to mention you could take advantage of existing GTK or WinForms calls in order to get the smoothest fastest interface.
:) :) :)
Wait -- this is brilliant. An application that has access to the system resources instead of simply running as a webpage? Why, we could just write our applications as lean, platform-independent C-libraries-- and and -- I GOT IT -- we could create brilliant interfaces by simply hammering in layers of C# on
Join me, Slashdot- let us develop "applications"!
But wait- what if they need to be 100% multiplatform. What if I am not smart enough to abstract my code into a library/interface model... perhaps Prizm is for me!
From the user angle, now I can run Gmail on my desktop, because running Apple Mail or Windows Mail and just using the pop server is not Web 2.0 enough for me. I need to have ultra-slow, buggy, server-locked AJAX technology to make my desktop applications seem like desktop applications even though they are not desktop applications but they're acting like them thanks to Mozilla!
Server >> Application >> Web-Interface >> Prizm > Application Web/Server
Now everything will run as slowly and inefficiently as firefox!
What are you even replying to? You people are a bunch of drones! Are you an FSF-enthusiasm perl script?
Please stop dropping these weak FSF taglines. This "defectivebydesign" crap. Bitching about Microsoft will not make the linux market seem more valid to anyone- you are PREACHING TO THE CHOIR. Everyone thinks you're nuts, except other FSF idiots-- who are not using Vista. The primary motivator behind recent success in linux is diversion from the FSF lunatic side of things and embracing of mac/windows-based interface concepts with usability and style first approach!
If you'd stop being a bunch of obnoxious sheep, it will be easier for Shuttleworth to make linux go from "geekier" to "easier". Customers don't want to hear activist crap, they want a friendly and approachable image. Something firm and corporate. Safe.
Approximately 36, I believe. Maybe more.
That's a really basic approximation based on 150 GFlops per PS3. I mean, this machine would have to be running in perfect harmony.
It's funny that they switched from one closed source unaccessible technology to another. Flash is just barely linux compliant- even Silverlight will likely beat it in interoperability. If they want to use Microsoft's technology solutions, they should use Silverlight, so Ubuntu users will at least have Moonlight.
This is faulty logic. Paranoia and conspiracy theories do not apply in this case- security patches are an important part of any operating system. There is no perfectly secure, unhackable system. This is a large part of why major enterprises use commercial supported linux distro's with professional security teams.
Assume linux security > windows security.
windows has more security holes than linux- or so you say. This isn't necessarily true in the server market.
Therefore linux has no security holes?
A system is only as good as its admin. The biggest problem is that more amateurs run windows boxes, using wizards to set their junk up. There's no perfect solution to workstation or server security.
Other than integrity.
No, but seriously- hypervisors, virtualization.
Perhaps if the Edsel was the Model T...
Because the Edsel was a flop- Windows is the most profitable and popular software franchise ever. The Edsel would better be compared to a failed linux distro such as (too many to name).
Terrible metaphor. C-