In a clear threat against open-source users, Ballmer repeated his earlier assertions that open source "is not free", referring to the possibility that Microsoft may sue Linux vendors. Microsoft has suggested that Linux software infringes some of its intellectual property, but has never named the patents in question.
How about you come clean, tell us what it is, steve and we'll fix the problem - rather than simply threatening us all with lawsuits?
Personally the only thing I can think of that could *possibly* fall into that boat is SAMBA, but even so I reckon there's plenty of prior art in NFS, etc to make any patents in that pretty hard to enforce.
Virtually every other technology in Linux has been around for decades, or was on *Nix before it was available in Windows...
Given the number of issues in Microsoft's operating systems, and basic single-user-hacked-to-multiple-user/insecure-by-de fault design philosphy, the "defectivebydesign" tag applies most of the time Microsoft are mentioned. And no, i'm not the one tagging it.
If you can show me a single microsoft software product that was released without showstopping MAJOR bugs being revealed within the first 6 months (ie, it was defective by design), I'd be very interested to see what you come up with.
any desktop user who is competent enough to use Linux isn't going to settle for a prefab box, they're going to build theirs themselves)
Not necessarily. You're excluding business users there. You're excluding laptop users. You're also excluding a lot of ubuntu users. You're also excluding those of us who have built systems for the past 15+ years and really can't be arsed with it any more (for a standard no-frills box), if there's a reasonably cheap warranty-supported option out there.
My next system is going to be a Mac, or a laptop. Both of which I can't build myself and are pre-fabbed. Both of which will at some point run Linux.
FTA:
Quality free and open source software drastically lowers the cost of new PCs, and helps prevent software piracy. For example OpenOffice.org, the Microsoft Office alternative, can shave hundreds of dollars off the price of a new PC.
With PCs starting from $360 to $650, can you really expect to shave "hundreds" off the price of a new PC? The $650 machine doesn't come with Office, and Dell probably only pays $60 or so per Windows license (anybody got firmer numbers?)
More importantly, how were you able to actually quote something that you did not read (or perhaps, comprehend)?
It specifically states that OpenOffice instead of Microsoft office will save hundreds of dollars on a new PC. It is implied that if you're using OpenOffice instead of MS-Office, you would have either paid for Microsoft office or pirated it. Of course it won't save hundreds if you order a PC with no office suite... that is not the situation described by the original statement.
I can guarantee that most of the linux based studios in the CGI industry run Gnome. It's simpler, faster and more stable than KDE.
In my 10 (or so, since pre-v1.0 of both desktops - have been a gimp user since an early alpha too) years of using Gnome/KDE this has never been the case.
So, how many languages do you speak and read/write fluently then? Given the dudes name on the end of his post, the NL on the end of his post, and his general "accent" being dutch, my bet is that he speaks more than you do.
I realize that some KDE users are happy to see Linus flaming GNOME because they absolutely hate any other desktop other than their beloved KDE. (I'm not saying you are of this opinion... I am generalizing.) However, what if the shoe was on the other foot? If Linus was attacking KDE, the attitudes of many KDE users would be much different (as well as GNOME users).
The thing is, that would never happen, because KDE presumes the users is at least somewhat competent, and does not try and restrit what you can do. For the record, I use KDE over gnome, but am more partial to OpenStep and would rather that actually took off. I last used Gnome about 3 months ago. If KDE assumed it's users were brain damaged, I would be right there flaming it myself.
As for the whole patch situation, Linus just sounds like a 2 year old. "Take my patches now, or you are obviously suck doodoo!" Honestly Linus, this is ridiculous. I haven't seen the patches, so maybe they should be included. However, just because GNOME doesn't hold the same goals as you Linus, doesn't mean that it sucks. Most of the default options on GNOME are those that I would choose, so I don't have the need to do much configuration. And if I did, I would use another window manager. It is as simple as that.
The window manager is only a small part of the problem. The file requestors suck. Most of the options are buried/hidden. The whole point is that it (Gnome in general) makes life awkward for people who want to do more than very very basic tasks with it. And as I keep saying, there are 2 types of users in my experience: those who start out noob and become competent, and those who start out noob and refuse to learn, regardless of interface because they just aren't interested. Why compromise functionality for users who refuse to learn and cripple those who actually become competent? I have yet to find a user who was incapable of working in KDE, or even DOS for that matter if required. If you treat your users as being retarded, they will become so...
That's what his patches fix. The readable code aspect was a side-effect.
Given that noob users will either 1) stay incompetent, regardless of software design; or 2) learn and become competent, I full believe that we should focus on making software more usable for competent users.
What's my basis for this? The huge number of users who have asked me in the past stupid shit like "I got a box saying to reboot my computer, what should i do?!!", or - you can try and make things as easy as shit for people to use, and for the most part it will make no difference... other than piss competent people off who now have to jump through hoops to achieve anything, or are restricted in what they can do.
*spent 4 hours last night getting my cd-rom to work right in linux*
*spent 4 hours last week getting my video card to work in linux*
*spent 2 hours last night getting my video card to work again after the fix to the cd-rom broke it*
*spent another 2 hours last night getting my sound hardware to work in linux*
*going to spend a couple hours tonight getting my NDAS hardware to work in linux*
Hey there mr stuck in 1996! In an office environment presuming the government was to purchase teh standard "cheap" intel type box (as most larger corps/governments i have worked for seem to), they'll have no issues - open source 3d video, common as shit sound driver, etc. CDROMs have not been a problem on any machine I have seen since 1996 when i started using Linux. I had more problems with CDROM drives in Windows 95/98 to be honest (some would only work if MSCDEX was loaded, in 16 bit slow as shit compatibility mode).
Or, if required, the government will spend a minuscule portion of it's prior licensing fees to pay a programmer to write a driver if required.
I might actually check out gnome again if these patches are either submitted or available in a forked "linus" type tree.
I agree 100% with Linus on this one, the "gnome way" they seem to be going is a pain in the ass for anyone remotely competent, hence I ditched it some time ago.
Hypothetical situation: i have pre-existing nvidia hardware. Canonical decides to not support closed drivers. My hardware is now less functional. How the hell is canonical "sacrificing my freedom" if they simply support a working driver for my hardware? I'm either going to use the driver anyway (despite the *inconvenience* imposed by the canonical/fsf zealots) or simply drop Ubuntu/Linux altogether because it's broken on my hardware - and be forced back to a proprietary o/s.
OK, background - been a linux user since 1996. I've done the "compiling all my apps from source" shit back in the mid-late 90s with slackware. And by that I mean manually downloading/compiling dependencies, not the "emerge foo" shit that apparently makes gentoo users so 'leet.
My first experience with ubuntu was 5.10. It installed fine, apt-get install nvidia got my video sorted, and it played MP3s, etc out of the box. Excellent.
6.06, didn't play MP3s out of the box, and i spent some time (half-assed) rooting around to get my favourite MP3 playing app in KDE to work to no avail. 6.10 shipped with a broken installer that required script hacking to even get it to install on my machine.
Yes, I could have fixed it, but that's not the point. The point is, I couldn't be bothered, and I'm a fairly experienced linux admin - the distribution is, after all supposed to be the "so easy, your grandma could do it" distro. If i have to fuck with it to get it to work i may as well go back to something like slackware/freebsd (which is surprisingly easy to set up these days really).
Now they're removing support for closed drivers? Way to go....
Agreed. Solution: don't ship telnetd any more. If someone wants to enable inherently brain damaged 1970s daemons, then let them compile/install them by themselves...
There's a term in software development called the tarpit.
Basically the idea is that adding more developers will not speed development of a project that is stuck in the doldrums - they'll simply be absorbed into the "tarpit" along with the rest of them and get bogged down in details.
I think one of the reasons apple is doing so well with OS/X is BECAUSE they do not have the same size team working on it.
"We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don't know what it is... Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers. It's too early for me to talk about it... But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."
In other words, "we have no fucking idea or direction, but we need another cash cow"...
Because i spend a lot of time looking at it? No its not a major factor, but it *IS* a factor. Build quality/fit and finish also seems to be a lot higher on the apple gear.
When you get out of your parent's basement and into your own place, and stop worrying about getting 10 more fps in quake 3 timedemo benchmarks, you might understand:D
Well, you "can", but a sample size of *1* is statistically insignificant. Yes, she was "representing apple", but "representing" and "being representative of typical behavior" are two totally different things. Presuming that this is typical or apple reps worldwide based on one phone call is unwise.
Claiming that apple are bad because of one experience with an employee is like me saying that all free software is shit based on my experience with a single alpha version project. Or that all microsoft managers throw chairs because Steve Ballmer did it. Etc...
Whilst I agree that sort of thing is vile, you can hardly take on isolated pissed off employee as representative of an entire multinational corporation.
Whilst i'm a fan of free unix in general, and FreeBSD in particular (though I will use Linux on a desktop instead of FreeBSD if appropriate) - if you're buying a new PC and want proper support it's hard to go past apple at the moment. You don't have to resort to sorting out hardware compatibility issues yourself, you'll be able to run virtually any open-source software via the X11 compatibility and you get better commercial application support.
Is linux usable on the desktop? Certainly.
Can it hold a candle to OS/X in terms of polish and ease of use? Not yet. Is dell's hardware as aesthetically pleasing and stylish as Apple's? No way...
As a Windows/DOS user since the late 80s, and a Linux/BSD user since the mid 90s - my next computer is going to be a Mac.
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How about you come clean, tell us what it is, steve and we'll fix the problem - rather than simply threatening us all with lawsuits?
Personally the only thing I can think of that could *possibly* fall into that boat is SAMBA, but even so I reckon there's plenty of prior art in NFS, etc to make any patents in that pretty hard to enforce.
Virtually every other technology in Linux has been around for decades, or was on *Nix before it was available in Windows...
If you can show me a single microsoft software product that was released without showstopping MAJOR bugs being revealed within the first 6 months (ie, it was defective by design), I'd be very interested to see what you come up with.
In the words of the great chopper, you lot need to "harden the fuck up", if that's all you've got to whinge about us for :)
Not necessarily. You're excluding business users there. You're excluding laptop users. You're also excluding a lot of ubuntu users. You're also excluding those of us who have built systems for the past 15+ years and really can't be arsed with it any more (for a standard no-frills box), if there's a reasonably cheap warranty-supported option out there.
My next system is going to be a Mac, or a laptop. Both of which I can't build myself and are pre-fabbed. Both of which will at some point run Linux.
"Base" (the db component) is actually written in Java. So it's not a totally true statement that is isn't :D
More importantly, how were you able to actually quote something that you did not read (or perhaps, comprehend)?
It specifically states that OpenOffice instead of Microsoft office will save hundreds of dollars on a new PC. It is implied that if you're using OpenOffice instead of MS-Office, you would have either paid for Microsoft office or pirated it. Of course it won't save hundreds if you order a PC with no office suite... that is not the situation described by the original statement.
In my 10 (or so, since pre-v1.0 of both desktops - have been a gimp user since an early alpha too) years of using Gnome/KDE this has never been the case.
So, how many languages do you speak and read/write fluently then? Given the dudes name on the end of his post, the NL on the end of his post, and his general "accent" being dutch, my bet is that he speaks more than you do.
The thing is, that would never happen, because KDE presumes the users is at least somewhat competent, and does not try and restrit what you can do. For the record, I use KDE over gnome, but am more partial to OpenStep and would rather that actually took off. I last used Gnome about 3 months ago. If KDE assumed it's users were brain damaged, I would be right there flaming it myself.
The window manager is only a small part of the problem. The file requestors suck. Most of the options are buried/hidden. The whole point is that it (Gnome in general) makes life awkward for people who want to do more than very very basic tasks with it. And as I keep saying, there are 2 types of users in my experience: those who start out noob and become competent, and those who start out noob and refuse to learn, regardless of interface because they just aren't interested. Why compromise functionality for users who refuse to learn and cripple those who actually become competent? I have yet to find a user who was incapable of working in KDE, or even DOS for that matter if required. If you treat your users as being retarded, they will become so...Given that noob users will either 1) stay incompetent, regardless of software design; or 2) learn and become competent, I full believe that we should focus on making software more usable for competent users.
What's my basis for this? The huge number of users who have asked me in the past stupid shit like "I got a box saying to reboot my computer, what should i do?!!", or - you can try and make things as easy as shit for people to use, and for the most part it will make no difference... other than piss competent people off who now have to jump through hoops to achieve anything, or are restricted in what they can do.
Hey there mr stuck in 1996! In an office environment presuming the government was to purchase teh standard "cheap" intel type box (as most larger corps/governments i have worked for seem to), they'll have no issues - open source 3d video, common as shit sound driver, etc. CDROMs have not been a problem on any machine I have seen since 1996 when i started using Linux. I had more problems with CDROM drives in Windows 95/98 to be honest (some would only work if MSCDEX was loaded, in 16 bit slow as shit compatibility mode).
Or, if required, the government will spend a minuscule portion of it's prior licensing fees to pay a programmer to write a driver if required.
I agree 100% with Linus on this one, the "gnome way" they seem to be going is a pain in the ass for anyone remotely competent, hence I ditched it some time ago.
The free NV driver is useless for the purposes one buys an openGL card for.
FreeBSD. Seriously. Less political crap, extremely similar functionality, much nicer/more reliable documentation...
Yes, it does take a little change in mindset to "get" the freebsd way, but once you do, it all just makes sense and feels much "cleaner" :)
Hypothetical situation: i have pre-existing nvidia hardware. Canonical decides to not support closed drivers. My hardware is now less functional. How the hell is canonical "sacrificing my freedom" if they simply support a working driver for my hardware? I'm either going to use the driver anyway (despite the *inconvenience* imposed by the canonical/fsf zealots) or simply drop Ubuntu/Linux altogether because it's broken on my hardware - and be forced back to a proprietary o/s.
That's really helping my freedom, yeah!
My first experience with ubuntu was 5.10. It installed fine, apt-get install nvidia got my video sorted, and it played MP3s, etc out of the box. Excellent.
6.06, didn't play MP3s out of the box, and i spent some time (half-assed) rooting around to get my favourite MP3 playing app in KDE to work to no avail. 6.10 shipped with a broken installer that required script hacking to even get it to install on my machine.
Yes, I could have fixed it, but that's not the point. The point is, I couldn't be bothered, and I'm a fairly experienced linux admin - the distribution is, after all supposed to be the "so easy, your grandma could do it" distro. If i have to fuck with it to get it to work i may as well go back to something like slackware/freebsd (which is surprisingly easy to set up these days really).
Now they're removing support for closed drivers? Way to go....
Agreed. Solution: don't ship telnetd any more. If someone wants to enable inherently brain damaged 1970s daemons, then let them compile/install them by themselves...
Basically the idea is that adding more developers will not speed development of a project that is stuck in the doldrums - they'll simply be absorbed into the "tarpit" along with the rest of them and get bogged down in details.
I think one of the reasons apple is doing so well with OS/X is BECAUSE they do not have the same size team working on it.
In other words, "we have no fucking idea or direction, but we need another cash cow"...
When you get out of your parent's basement and into your own place, and stop worrying about getting 10 more fps in quake 3 timedemo benchmarks, you might understand :D
In fact, i know a lot of ipod owners who are more seriously considering Macs because of their love of their ipod...
Claiming that apple are bad because of one experience with an employee is like me saying that all free software is shit based on my experience with a single alpha version project. Or that all microsoft managers throw chairs because Steve Ballmer did it. Etc...
Whilst I agree that sort of thing is vile, you can hardly take on isolated pissed off employee as representative of an entire multinational corporation.
Is linux usable on the desktop? Certainly.
Can it hold a candle to OS/X in terms of polish and ease of use? Not yet. Is dell's hardware as aesthetically pleasing and stylish as Apple's? No way...
As a Windows/DOS user since the late 80s, and a Linux/BSD user since the mid 90s - my next computer is going to be a Mac.