You don't peer at interpersonal relationships to sell more rice or dish detergent. That kind of advanced profiling is suited to creating new desires that hopefully grow into "needs".
I don't think the planet is ready to bear the next great leap in consumerism that social networks like Facebook are trying to bring about.
Let's say that there's a "Great Dying" among humanity before the impact on the rest of the world gets too bad. That's not worst-case, but it's certainly bad enough.
That's part of our political dilemma: We've become so good at exploiting the rest of the biosphere that I fear we won't register the danger until so much of the rest is gone that it'll be too late. Capitalism is an externalizing force that shifts the pain to "other", not realizing much of that other is directly underneath, supporting us.
TPTB are as deluded as anyone else. Their situation engenders the tendency to insulate one self from emerging facts. We saw that during the reign of neoliberalism up through 2008 where they actually seemed to act on their neologisms of "frictionless economy" and limitless growth. Then terrorism, war and bumping up against the supply of fuel spooked them and put them into an increasing pattern of hoarding (running away from investment). Most American consumers today share their group psychology with the uber-rich, unfortunately, although I'd say the preponderance of irrationality still lies with the so-called 1%. The crux of what makes them irrational, to over-value the status quo, is an unwarranted assumption that AGW will be like disasters of the past with plenty of environmental 'high ground' (even outer space) they can buy into as the need arises. They mostly haven't considered the possibility of extinction.
Humans have never adapted to nor lived in the conditions that would occur under a not-so-unlikely Great Dying. Without civilization and the technology that comes with it, our chances are slim to none.
For that matter, why should we care only for our own species? Why should a hand or foot care that the body dies?
Misanthropy also should not be a part of the outlook on the situation. We have a certain chance to avoid 'X' degree of catastrophe; a chance that is narrowing over time. Denigrating our own species prevents us from using the opportunity that's available.
(...I said the alarmists are people who claim that the specific action of purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle will save the world.)
Its you who bandied about the favorite denier straw-man, "alarmists". Toyota may claim hybrids will save the world (though I doubt it), otherwise I don't know who you're talking about. Maybe you take all of your messages about the environment from corporate advertising. Who knows.
Using a hybrid can help. It is a starting point, like light bulbs, to eventually grapple with the enormity of the pollution that we are generating. It is an attempt to do something while the big environmental problems are being evaded by the political sphere.
That is misrepresenting what climatologists are saying, in high "Neocon Weatherman" fashion.
First, the science doesn't have to be "exact". It only needs a significant probability that the climate and ecosphere will be destabilized: in this case, causing a runaway greenhouse effect. What climatologists have presented appears to be way beyond a significant probability. We are seeing positive feedbacks already and it's only 2012.
Second, the longer timescales that are involved, the greater the certainty for predictions. That's a big part of what makes climatology different from meteorology, the latter being much more chaotic due to short time scales. Don't confuse climate with weather, or apply assumptions from the latter onto the former.
Third, the great preponderance of archeology and paleontology supports AGW in that we appear to be heading toward a Permian-like extinction event via extraction of fossil fuels instead of a burst of volcanism. I know we're on Slashdot, but do you think humans can survive a "Great Dying" of 90% of all living things? It would be the height of hubris to think so, whether you think we have "high technology" on our side or not.
Fourth, there is no "test" other than to stick with the status quo and watch temperatures and extremes rise according to prediction (and predictions from the 1980s are looking remarkably accurate). We could theoretically keep watching until 2100 to meet a denier's idiotic requirement of 'testability'. One problem... The basis for our entire existence cannot be corralled into a test nor can it be re-tried. For this reason, the Precautionary Principle applies as much as it does for the theory of nuclear winter. The stakes are too high to let the scenario play out.
There will certainly be winners as well as losers in climate change.
Honestly?! Presenting the outcome of massive pollution as a zero-sum game?
This isn't 'Monopoly' we're discussing. I suppose the onset of the Dark Ages had its "winners and losers" too, with many more of the latter. But that was childs' play compared to what we may be setting ourselves up for this time.
You're wrong. Conscience has to come into it at some point.
Insinuating that Hansen is some kind of vested interest is pretty ironic, considering that the small number of climatologists who denied AGW have received funding from the fossil fuel industry.
The reason a storm could even break up the ice is because of the trend in thinning of the ice. If you look at animation on the Arctic front page of the site you linked to, it debunks your (incorrect) interpretation of their chart. The ice progressively gets thinner from 2000 to 2009. So 2012 is not a fluke.
As for the chart, it does show significant additional atmospheric warmth in the cooler seasons which indicates additional heat was stored in the ocean and some of that released to the air. If both air and sea temps were shown it would paint a very different picture from what you claim.
Slashdot has made the mistake of publishing denier articles from the elReg a couple of times, and they've been called on it. Please stop pedaling doubt for its own sake.
The Antarctic expansion is a small negative feedback that nowhere near compensates for the loss of ice reflectivity in the Arctic.
If you take a little time to read science journals and environmentalist sites on this subject, you'll see that the "alarmists" are actually some of the most respected researchers in climatology. And note they are not focused on telling people to "buy a new Prius". Policy wonks create rebates for things like hybrid cars in large part because they know a huge chunk of their constituency won't reconsider the consumer "growth" lifestyle they inherited from 100-year-old industrial technology.
yet I'm the one being blamed
You and I are part of the problem, but the only place I see climatologists and enviros blaming the average consumer is in the results at the polls. The solution requires collective responsibility and so it has to be done in the political sphere. But we keep voting for people who scarcely ever mention the greatest environmental problems.
(OTOH, someone who believes the solution to global warming is primarily one of individual responsibility then get going and buy that Prius!)
The statistic you cite refers to refined petroleum products (the US has a very large refining capacity), not crude for which we are still very much in the negative. The problem you point out is one of the downsides of globalization, and enviros are very much in conflict with big industry over the tendency toward excessive shipping.
within the same paragraph, can you use up all the oxygen in the room?
The term is misused in much the same way as "conspiracy theorist" is used to denigrate anyone holding suspicions against the wealthy and the powerful (even while the latter have their professional conspiracy theory corps working full time to fill the prisons) no matter how well founded in fact.
In this case, its a bias against individuals who become very reputable/trusted among a subgroup without any accompanying transition to society's inner circles.
Its also interesting to see who gets a pass in this regard, despite their cult-like behavior. Ayn Rand required ideological purity from her associates, and made pronouncements of excommunication of individuals from her Objectivist movement but I don't recall any persistent charges of personality cultism against her and her followers.
First off, Windows and Apple ecosystems are quite similar. The main exceptions are that 1) OS X has significant chunks that are FOSS, 2) OS X has to run on Apple hardware as opposed to the effort that Microsoft and OEMs make to ensure they are compatible/well integrated, and 3) Windows is encrusted with money-making schemes (even ISPs and breakfast cereals are in on it) whereas Apple shuns the crapware ecosystem entirely.
Other than that, both commercial platforms try to provide a familiar (feature-stable), powerful (vertically-integrated) and rich environment where app developer and consumer interests meet.
Desktop Linux doesn't have this goal at all and the result is that the wannabe-platform (I am restricting my comments to the desktop PC context) is too chaotic to inspire people to learn app development and to stick with their endeavors in that environment. Yes, we have seen a few examples of ISVs who tried to cut through the chaos to deliver really interesting apps but they had to restrict themselves to limited functionality to achieve wider compatibility among different distros.
Furthermore, if I'm selling and doing tech support for an app or a service (like an ISP) on Linux desktops, then how do I tell users to navigate their system and change system settings and peferences? For my purposes, Desktop Linux is virtually formless and un-navigable.
Hardware has something to do with it, of course: Apple automatically supports built-in features of its computers, and MS makes an effort to work with OEMs (although the result isn't as good or smooth as with Macs). Then there is peripheral hardware -- Here both Apple and Microsoft have programs that let mfgs reach for compatibility in a systematic way and then license a trademark symbol they can put on their product packaging to assure the consumer that a peripheral works with OS X or Windows.
Or rather, without the cellphone. (I have my reasons, no need to question them.) Naturally whatever I choose will probably have cellular equipment in it. I just want to make sure cellular doesn't switch on. Limiting my phone calls to Wifi is perfectly fine.
Also preferably without the Microsoft tax, which probably limits my selection to Motorola....any suggestions?
They'll still use FB mostly, but if FB starts getting bad publicity for their actions, then your family know they can use your website as a refuge where they can continue to interact with each other.
First, a lot of people here are assuming that everyone who wants a Diaspora presence has to run it themselves. AFAIK that isn't the case.
I think of it as being more of a Wordpress, but for people who want 'friends', a 'wall', chat and some games in one place. People could choose sites that are less commercial or surveillance-minded, or do so based on other factors that become important to them.
If you access a Wordpress-based site, you expect a certain minimum of features to be there, though that does not limit the site operators from adding more. The same could be true for Diaspora.
A personal computer is a general purpose tool that is supposed to be easy to use with third-party (that means independently written and distributed) software and hardware. It is a creative medium for techies and non-techies alike. It needs tight vertical integration and feature-stability.
The Desktop Linux subculture has repository managers with a lot of power over how popular your program can get (because most users can't bear the hassle of installing something from outside the repo), and they get into your code (reconfigure and tweak it). This falls short of independent app development and it gives budding app developers the heebie geebies. Identifying a core, 'always there' set of rich functionality is very difficult, and the expected result is to use one of GTK|Gnome|QT|KDE but many users will shun your app because you made a choice. Also, horizontal integration seems to dominate in place of the vertical kind, and features remain in flux because you can't keep your cadre of hacker-developers unless they are continually encouraged to tinker with the system.
This subculture can't bring creative app developers and users together. It's not the only thing that matters, but nothing matters more.
Outside of projects like Firefox and OpenOffice, the FOSS developer community do not seem to understand personal computing and insist that everything good for the server and hacker environments must also be good for 'Grandma' -- an almost strawman-like demographic that Desktop Linux advocates latched onto, but who are unlikely to ever challenge bad habits within typical FOSS enclaves anyway. 'Grandma' seems happy with a thick client marketed as a personal computer.
The car is still a much better analogy: It does many different things (here computing == moving) and most people who drive cars can even drive small-med trucks with little or no extra coaching.
I also agree w/ Miguel (OMG!) to some extent here, esp. since he is taking responsibility for a good chunk of the failure.
From my perspective, it wasn't just the major Gnome upgrades (I didn't sorta-like Gnome until KDE 4 made a mess of things) it was the KDE upgrade to V4, and to begin with Gnome's existence and their mission to get KDE out of the way for the sake of license purists. Their vision was somewhat negative and it reflected in their decisions: mainly the feature-cauterization (the opposite of feature-bloat) and the boring-at-best technology they based the project on.
Then D'Icaza declares that a whole pile of new-ish Microsoft-patented technology is the great must have thing for Gnome.
I'm no license purist, but that last one kept me away for sure. At that point with Gnome/Mono and KDE4 to choose from, I beat a path straight to OS X for my desktop needs and I stopped doing Linux-based desktop installs even for people who were pining to get away from the Windows Pain.
Torvalds (Firefox spellcheck recognizes his name) shares the blame for desktop failure in the way D'Icaza says, and then some. One of the aggravating factors in switching away from Linux was that it not only had the worst desktop multitasking at the time, but couldn't even multitask as well as my old Amiga performing the same tasks (copying lots of files should not cripple mouse responsiveness or the playing of a network audio stream). That debacle was down to the cliquishness and recalcitrance of the Linux kernel devs.
It took a scandal over the task scheduler performance (which I'm sure was great for servers, but they wouldn't accept any attitude other than Servers > Desktops) to see some degree of change. A good server kernel did not, it turns out, supply desktops with everything they need from a kernel. And I suspect things didn't really get much better until a many-multi-billion-dollar corporation in the form of Google forked the kernel for its other consumer-oriented focus, mobile... and AFAIK some of that temporary split was about vertical integrations that the kernel devs didn't want.
Your arguments presuppose that I want something which I do not... I'm pointing out where your expectations do not match the Linux ecosystem or are misguided.
That is all about you; other people only come into it when they are elite users like yourself (the current "ecosystem"). Perhaps without realizing it, you are trying to refute the goals of many distros like Ubuntu.
My take differs in that I am pointing out (from my experience) what these distros are missing in trying to reach their intended wider audience. Like most others here, my posts contain a recognition of that audience and what TFA is trying to accomplish, whereas yours are assuming that the overall goal not only of the author, but also that of the distros you write software for, is invalid. In that you're being obnoxiously off-topic.
Good question. Why would I care? I can't think of any reason to.
OK, then would it matter if the new platform were called "Linux Standards Base Desktop" instead? I don't advocate it at this point, but... Supposing LSB Desktop were suddenly to define a particular desktop environment and many other things that are expected on Windows and OS X, including the mechanics of package handling and dependency resolution... Would that suddenly cause you to say 'Get off my lawn' because the platform name has "Linux" in it?
Package managers do not solve the problem of compatibility across different distros.
That's correct. That's not the aim.
Then stop referring to "Linux" as if it were a single desktop OS.
The subject here is "Desktop Linux" in the sense that a typical consumer can use it with confidence. The term isn't intended to mean "Linux for workstations and people with IT skills". It has to fit in with personal computing culture, which demands that a typical user can realistically install/manage/uninstall a typical application, with a GUI, and do so independently.
The tarballs that Mozilla has available for "Desktop Linux" users do not fit the expectations that go along with personal computing, and the obtuse response you gave about this exemplifies what is wrong with the Linux aficionado mentality (and also what's wrong with the rest of your reply). The fact that your defense of the status-quo didn't even mention RPM is all sorts of wrong, because RPM is one of the few standards defined in LSB that is relevant to software installation. If you like the idea of users getting the latest Firefox by untarring as root into a location in/usr (part of the OS), overwriting the rpm/dpkg-managed version that came with the OS, and being left with no way for auto-updates to occur (remember, this is the Linux version which doesn't auto-update for the same reason that Mozilla doesn't provide a *real* package) that's your prerogative -- just keep in mind that what you're advancing may be closer to a circus than a healthy desktop environment.
But hey, users should just rely on updates from the repository. It only took the better distros 5+ years to start supplying major application updates to a handful of titles like Firefox without having to do a complete OS upgrade.
I personally like the way linux works and find development on it much easier. If the penalty for attracting app developers like you is to make it more Android/Windows/iOS like, then please, stay well away for ever.
The list of OS undesirables in your world is pretty substantial (though its interesting you omitted OS X). In any case, I predict that anything capable of breaking out of the distro-asylum model would as a prerequisite *not* be called Linux. This has actually happened with Android.
Does (Linux-based) Android give you sleepless nights or ruin your ability to compute the way you wish? If not, then why would you care if another Android-like phenomenon were to come along, only this time for x86 desktop hardware?
How does FOSS get any better just because a lot of people who can't contribute anything back are using it?
Really? Do you know what virtue is? Can you imagine FOSS as a benefit to society, as opposed to only an elite self-serving 'community'?
The problem isn't that an OS succeeds or fails with 'Grandma'. Its all those workaday and creative people who are *quite* knowledgeable but have no time for wallowing in the many disparate forms that an xorg.conf file can take (or figuring out which ones will cause their distro's inadequate display settings panel to barf).
'Grandma' should have been nothing more than an interesting (and fleeting) test case to see if the basic GUI semantics (or lack thereof) didn't send people running away from the computer. We've been talking about her for almost a decade now and she is starting to look like a very different demographic. I think the FOSS crowd latched onto 'Grandma' because it was the user-concept that was most amenable to manage-PC-as-thick-client bait and switch mentality that took hold.
This is exactly why the thrust of TFA is wrong. Sure, OS X didn't directly matter in "Linux" being adopted by the general public. But OS X did directly steal most of the techies and early adopters away from "Linux".
The Mac put out Desktop Linux' pilot light. And Apple had plenty of leeway in accomplishing that (though without trying) because what the FOSS community thought was hydrogen was really helium.:-P
Android contains a Linux kernel. But northern lights above, it isn't "a Linux distro".
Android's identity is not "Android Linux" and any regular smartphone consumer (heck, even an Android developer) would be perplexed if you referred to it that way.
The topic you complain of (complexity of installing software) is a topic that can be mastered in very little time. Gaining a working understanding the linux filesystem, paths, editing config files, and basic use of make would take the average person only a few hours of study.
I disagree with you completely on this. The mechanics of doing these things by themselves may not be very hard, but doing them in a coordinated way that gets working results is another matter entirely. You're say its simple because you are so damned used to it, no other reason.
However, instead of learning how to do these things, you'd prefer that someone develop some amazing automated installation system that Just Works. I can understand the appeal, but I just don't see any motivation for anyone to create such a thing. Most open source software exists because some capable person needed or wanted or was just interested in something and decided to make it.
OK, we get it: FOSS people aren't interested in committing to features (and feature-stability) that engender a friendly personal computing environment. I have agreed with this for a long time and its clear to me that the sysadmin/hacker culture will reign supreme on x86 for the foreseeable future. In the process, it will miss the opportunity that Android is taking on mobile platforms (in offering a popular, robust alternative) and effectively shoot us all in the foot.
And I think that is also why the Linux Foundation's Desktop specification doesn't come close to cutting the mustard: It defines RPM as the standard file format, but you need a lot more than that to make it a working standard. Mark Shuttleworth used to campaign to get different distros to synchronize on some of the more common library versions (seems like he gave up though).
I think desktop distros would do us all a service by dropping "Linux" from their monikers and short descriptions. Just take the kernel and make a different OS with it, and observe what most platform purveyors do to foster adoption: offer an SDK, standardize on an IDE, offer only one GUI and desktop environment and make it your own, work with hardware vendors so that hardware and software are a good fit for each other, vertically integrate features to the point where GUI 'power users' feel like they can control most system functions, etc.
This stuff is far from trivial, but its being steadfastly ignored by FOSS system designers. So app developers and the public justifiably ignore them back.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't peer at interpersonal relationships to sell more rice or dish detergent. That kind of advanced profiling is suited to creating new desires that hopefully grow into "needs".
I don't think the planet is ready to bear the next great leap in consumerism that social networks like Facebook are trying to bring about.
Let's say that there's a "Great Dying" among humanity before the impact on the rest of the world gets too bad. That's not worst-case, but it's certainly bad enough.
That's part of our political dilemma: We've become so good at exploiting the rest of the biosphere that I fear we won't register the danger until so much of the rest is gone that it'll be too late. Capitalism is an externalizing force that shifts the pain to "other", not realizing much of that other is directly underneath, supporting us.
TPTB are as deluded as anyone else. Their situation engenders the tendency to insulate one self from emerging facts. We saw that during the reign of neoliberalism up through 2008 where they actually seemed to act on their neologisms of "frictionless economy" and limitless growth. Then terrorism, war and bumping up against the supply of fuel spooked them and put them into an increasing pattern of hoarding (running away from investment). Most American consumers today share their group psychology with the uber-rich, unfortunately, although I'd say the preponderance of irrationality still lies with the so-called 1%. The crux of what makes them irrational, to over-value the status quo, is an unwarranted assumption that AGW will be like disasters of the past with plenty of environmental 'high ground' (even outer space) they can buy into as the need arises. They mostly haven't considered the possibility of extinction.
Humans have never adapted to nor lived in the conditions that would occur under a not-so-unlikely Great Dying. Without civilization and the technology that comes with it, our chances are slim to none.
For that matter, why should we care only for our own species? Why should a hand or foot care that the body dies?
Misanthropy also should not be a part of the outlook on the situation. We have a certain chance to avoid 'X' degree of catastrophe; a chance that is narrowing over time. Denigrating our own species prevents us from using the opportunity that's available.
(...I said the alarmists are people who claim that the specific action of purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle will save the world.)
Its you who bandied about the favorite denier straw-man, "alarmists". Toyota may claim hybrids will save the world (though I doubt it), otherwise I don't know who you're talking about. Maybe you take all of your messages about the environment from corporate advertising. Who knows.
Using a hybrid can help. It is a starting point, like light bulbs, to eventually grapple with the enormity of the pollution that we are generating. It is an attempt to do something while the big environmental problems are being evaded by the political sphere.
That is misrepresenting what climatologists are saying, in high "Neocon Weatherman" fashion.
First, the science doesn't have to be "exact". It only needs a significant probability that the climate and ecosphere will be destabilized: in this case, causing a runaway greenhouse effect. What climatologists have presented appears to be way beyond a significant probability. We are seeing positive feedbacks already and it's only 2012.
Second, the longer timescales that are involved, the greater the certainty for predictions. That's a big part of what makes climatology different from meteorology, the latter being much more chaotic due to short time scales. Don't confuse climate with weather, or apply assumptions from the latter onto the former.
Third, the great preponderance of archeology and paleontology supports AGW in that we appear to be heading toward a Permian-like extinction event via extraction of fossil fuels instead of a burst of volcanism. I know we're on Slashdot, but do you think humans can survive a "Great Dying" of 90% of all living things? It would be the height of hubris to think so, whether you think we have "high technology" on our side or not.
Fourth, there is no "test" other than to stick with the status quo and watch temperatures and extremes rise according to prediction (and predictions from the 1980s are looking remarkably accurate). We could theoretically keep watching until 2100 to meet a denier's idiotic requirement of 'testability'. One problem... The basis for our entire existence cannot be corralled into a test nor can it be re-tried. For this reason, the Precautionary Principle applies as much as it does for the theory of nuclear winter. The stakes are too high to let the scenario play out.
There will certainly be winners as well as losers in climate change.
Honestly?! Presenting the outcome of massive pollution as a zero-sum game?
This isn't 'Monopoly' we're discussing. I suppose the onset of the Dark Ages had its "winners and losers" too, with many more of the latter. But that was childs' play compared to what we may be setting ourselves up for this time.
We need scientists to report not react.
You're wrong. Conscience has to come into it at some point.
Insinuating that Hansen is some kind of vested interest is pretty ironic, considering that the small number of climatologists who denied AGW have received funding from the fossil fuel industry.
The reason a storm could even break up the ice is because of the trend in thinning of the ice. If you look at animation on the Arctic front page of the site you linked to, it debunks your (incorrect) interpretation of their chart. The ice progressively gets thinner from 2000 to 2009. So 2012 is not a fluke.
As for the chart, it does show significant additional atmospheric warmth in the cooler seasons which indicates additional heat was stored in the ocean and some of that released to the air. If both air and sea temps were shown it would paint a very different picture from what you claim.
Slashdot has made the mistake of publishing denier articles from the elReg a couple of times, and they've been called on it. Please stop pedaling doubt for its own sake.
The Antarctic expansion is a small negative feedback that nowhere near compensates for the loss of ice reflectivity in the Arctic.
If you take a little time to read science journals and environmentalist sites on this subject, you'll see that the "alarmists" are actually some of the most respected researchers in climatology. And note they are not focused on telling people to "buy a new Prius". Policy wonks create rebates for things like hybrid cars in large part because they know a huge chunk of their constituency won't reconsider the consumer "growth" lifestyle they inherited from 100-year-old industrial technology.
yet I'm the one being blamed
You and I are part of the problem, but the only place I see climatologists and enviros blaming the average consumer is in the results at the polls. The solution requires collective responsibility and so it has to be done in the political sphere. But we keep voting for people who scarcely ever mention the greatest environmental problems.
(OTOH, someone who believes the solution to global warming is primarily one of individual responsibility then get going and buy that Prius!)
The statistic you cite refers to refined petroleum products (the US has a very large refining capacity), not crude for which we are still very much in the negative. The problem you point out is one of the downsides of globalization, and enviros are very much in conflict with big industry over the tendency toward excessive shipping.
Pavlov.
within the same paragraph, can you use up all the oxygen in the room?
The term is misused in much the same way as "conspiracy theorist" is used to denigrate anyone holding suspicions against the wealthy and the powerful (even while the latter have their professional conspiracy theory corps working full time to fill the prisons) no matter how well founded in fact.
In this case, its a bias against individuals who become very reputable/trusted among a subgroup without any accompanying transition to society's inner circles.
Its also interesting to see who gets a pass in this regard, despite their cult-like behavior. Ayn Rand required ideological purity from her associates, and made pronouncements of excommunication of individuals from her Objectivist movement but I don't recall any persistent charges of personality cultism against her and her followers.
First off, Windows and Apple ecosystems are quite similar. The main exceptions are that 1) OS X has significant chunks that are FOSS, 2) OS X has to run on Apple hardware as opposed to the effort that Microsoft and OEMs make to ensure they are compatible/well integrated, and 3) Windows is encrusted with money-making schemes (even ISPs and breakfast cereals are in on it) whereas Apple shuns the crapware ecosystem entirely.
Other than that, both commercial platforms try to provide a familiar (feature-stable), powerful (vertically-integrated) and rich environment where app developer and consumer interests meet.
Desktop Linux doesn't have this goal at all and the result is that the wannabe-platform (I am restricting my comments to the desktop PC context) is too chaotic to inspire people to learn app development and to stick with their endeavors in that environment. Yes, we have seen a few examples of ISVs who tried to cut through the chaos to deliver really interesting apps but they had to restrict themselves to limited functionality to achieve wider compatibility among different distros.
Furthermore, if I'm selling and doing tech support for an app or a service (like an ISP) on Linux desktops, then how do I tell users to navigate their system and change system settings and peferences? For my purposes, Desktop Linux is virtually formless and un-navigable.
Hardware has something to do with it, of course: Apple automatically supports built-in features of its computers, and MS makes an effort to work with OEMs (although the result isn't as good or smooth as with Macs). Then there is peripheral hardware -- Here both Apple and Microsoft have programs that let mfgs reach for compatibility in a systematic way and then license a trademark symbol they can put on their product packaging to assure the consumer that a peripheral works with OS X or Windows.
Or rather, without the cellphone. (I have my reasons, no need to question them.) Naturally whatever I choose will probably have cellular equipment in it. I just want to make sure cellular doesn't switch on. Limiting my phone calls to Wifi is perfectly fine.
Also preferably without the Microsoft tax, which probably limits my selection to Motorola. ...any suggestions?
Just tell your family that you have a website.
They'll still use FB mostly, but if FB starts getting bad publicity for their actions, then your family know they can use your website as a refuge where they can continue to interact with each other.
Facebook is a DataVampire that sucks the info-juices out of peoples' interpersonal interactions.
First, a lot of people here are assuming that everyone who wants a Diaspora presence has to run it themselves. AFAIK that isn't the case.
I think of it as being more of a Wordpress, but for people who want 'friends', a 'wall', chat and some games in one place. People could choose sites that are less commercial or surveillance-minded, or do so based on other factors that become important to them.
If you access a Wordpress-based site, you expect a certain minimum of features to be there, though that does not limit the site operators from adding more. The same could be true for Diaspora.
A personal computer is a general purpose tool that is supposed to be easy to use with third-party (that means independently written and distributed) software and hardware. It is a creative medium for techies and non-techies alike. It needs tight vertical integration and feature-stability.
The Desktop Linux subculture has repository managers with a lot of power over how popular your program can get (because most users can't bear the hassle of installing something from outside the repo), and they get into your code (reconfigure and tweak it). This falls short of independent app development and it gives budding app developers the heebie geebies. Identifying a core, 'always there' set of rich functionality is very difficult, and the expected result is to use one of GTK|Gnome|QT|KDE but many users will shun your app because you made a choice. Also, horizontal integration seems to dominate in place of the vertical kind, and features remain in flux because you can't keep your cadre of hacker-developers unless they are continually encouraged to tinker with the system.
This subculture can't bring creative app developers and users together. It's not the only thing that matters, but nothing matters more.
Outside of projects like Firefox and OpenOffice, the FOSS developer community do not seem to understand personal computing and insist that everything good for the server and hacker environments must also be good for 'Grandma' -- an almost strawman-like demographic that Desktop Linux advocates latched onto, but who are unlikely to ever challenge bad habits within typical FOSS enclaves anyway. 'Grandma' seems happy with a thick client marketed as a personal computer.
The car is still a much better analogy: It does many different things (here computing == moving) and most people who drive cars can even drive small-med trucks with little or no extra coaching.
I also agree w/ Miguel (OMG!) to some extent here, esp. since he is taking responsibility for a good chunk of the failure.
From my perspective, it wasn't just the major Gnome upgrades (I didn't sorta-like Gnome until KDE 4 made a mess of things) it was the KDE upgrade to V4, and to begin with Gnome's existence and their mission to get KDE out of the way for the sake of license purists. Their vision was somewhat negative and it reflected in their decisions: mainly the feature-cauterization (the opposite of feature-bloat) and the boring-at-best technology they based the project on.
Then D'Icaza declares that a whole pile of new-ish Microsoft-patented technology is the great must have thing for Gnome.
I'm no license purist, but that last one kept me away for sure. At that point with Gnome/Mono and KDE4 to choose from, I beat a path straight to OS X for my desktop needs and I stopped doing Linux-based desktop installs even for people who were pining to get away from the Windows Pain.
Torvalds (Firefox spellcheck recognizes his name) shares the blame for desktop failure in the way D'Icaza says, and then some. One of the aggravating factors in switching away from Linux was that it not only had the worst desktop multitasking at the time, but couldn't even multitask as well as my old Amiga performing the same tasks (copying lots of files should not cripple mouse responsiveness or the playing of a network audio stream). That debacle was down to the cliquishness and recalcitrance of the Linux kernel devs.
It took a scandal over the task scheduler performance (which I'm sure was great for servers, but they wouldn't accept any attitude other than Servers > Desktops) to see some degree of change. A good server kernel did not, it turns out, supply desktops with everything they need from a kernel. And I suspect things didn't really get much better until a many-multi-billion-dollar corporation in the form of Google forked the kernel for its other consumer-oriented focus, mobile... and AFAIK some of that temporary split was about vertical integrations that the kernel devs didn't want.
wax virtuous.
Its the ones with the more self-serving attitudes that often become chronically unpopular and needlessly impenetrable.
That is all about you; other people only come into it when they are elite users like yourself (the current "ecosystem"). Perhaps without realizing it, you are trying to refute the goals of many distros like Ubuntu.
My take differs in that I am pointing out (from my experience) what these distros are missing in trying to reach their intended wider audience. Like most others here, my posts contain a recognition of that audience and what TFA is trying to accomplish, whereas yours are assuming that the overall goal not only of the author, but also that of the distros you write software for, is invalid. In that you're being obnoxiously off-topic.
OK, then would it matter if the new platform were called "Linux Standards Base Desktop" instead? I don't advocate it at this point, but... Supposing LSB Desktop were suddenly to define a particular desktop environment and many other things that are expected on Windows and OS X, including the mechanics of package handling and dependency resolution... Would that suddenly cause you to say 'Get off my lawn' because the platform name has "Linux" in it?
Package managers do not solve the problem of compatibility across different distros.
That's correct. That's not the aim.
Then stop referring to "Linux" as if it were a single desktop OS.
The subject here is "Desktop Linux" in the sense that a typical consumer can use it with confidence. The term isn't intended to mean "Linux for workstations and people with IT skills". It has to fit in with personal computing culture, which demands that a typical user can realistically install/manage/uninstall a typical application, with a GUI, and do so independently.
The tarballs that Mozilla has available for "Desktop Linux" users do not fit the expectations that go along with personal computing, and the obtuse response you gave about this exemplifies what is wrong with the Linux aficionado mentality (and also what's wrong with the rest of your reply). The fact that your defense of the status-quo didn't even mention RPM is all sorts of wrong, because RPM is one of the few standards defined in LSB that is relevant to software installation. If you like the idea of users getting the latest Firefox by untarring as root into a location in /usr (part of the OS), overwriting the rpm/dpkg-managed version that came with the OS, and being left with no way for auto-updates to occur (remember, this is the Linux version which doesn't auto-update for the same reason that Mozilla doesn't provide a *real* package) that's your prerogative -- just keep in mind that what you're advancing may be closer to a circus than a healthy desktop environment.
But hey, users should just rely on updates from the repository. It only took the better distros 5+ years to start supplying major application updates to a handful of titles like Firefox without having to do a complete OS upgrade.
I personally like the way linux works and find development on it much easier. If the penalty for attracting app developers like you is to make it more Android/Windows/iOS like, then please, stay well away for ever.
The list of OS undesirables in your world is pretty substantial (though its interesting you omitted OS X). In any case, I predict that anything capable of breaking out of the distro-asylum model would as a prerequisite *not* be called Linux. This has actually happened with Android.
Does (Linux-based) Android give you sleepless nights or ruin your ability to compute the way you wish? If not, then why would you care if another Android-like phenomenon were to come along, only this time for x86 desktop hardware?
How does FOSS get any better just because a lot of people who can't contribute anything back are using it?
Really? Do you know what virtue is? Can you imagine FOSS as a benefit to society, as opposed to only an elite self-serving 'community'?
The problem isn't that an OS succeeds or fails with 'Grandma'. Its all those workaday and creative people who are *quite* knowledgeable but have no time for wallowing in the many disparate forms that an xorg.conf file can take (or figuring out which ones will cause their distro's inadequate display settings panel to barf).
'Grandma' should have been nothing more than an interesting (and fleeting) test case to see if the basic GUI semantics (or lack thereof) didn't send people running away from the computer. We've been talking about her for almost a decade now and she is starting to look like a very different demographic. I think the FOSS crowd latched onto 'Grandma' because it was the user-concept that was most amenable to manage-PC-as-thick-client bait and switch mentality that took hold.
This is exactly why the thrust of TFA is wrong. Sure, OS X didn't directly matter in "Linux" being adopted by the general public. But OS X did directly steal most of the techies and early adopters away from "Linux".
The Mac put out Desktop Linux' pilot light. And Apple had plenty of leeway in accomplishing that (though without trying) because what the FOSS community thought was hydrogen was really helium. :-P
...Android is Linux.
Android contains a Linux kernel. But northern lights above, it isn't "a Linux distro".
Android's identity is not "Android Linux" and any regular smartphone consumer (heck, even an Android developer) would be perplexed if you referred to it that way.
The topic you complain of (complexity of installing software) is a topic that can be mastered in very little time. Gaining a working understanding the linux filesystem, paths, editing config files, and basic use of make would take the average person only a few hours of study.
I disagree with you completely on this. The mechanics of doing these things by themselves may not be very hard, but doing them in a coordinated way that gets working results is another matter entirely. You're say its simple because you are so damned used to it, no other reason.
However, instead of learning how to do these things, you'd prefer that someone develop some amazing automated installation system that Just Works. I can understand the appeal, but I just don't see any motivation for anyone to create such a thing. Most open source software exists because some capable person needed or wanted or was just interested in something and decided to make it.
OK, we get it: FOSS people aren't interested in committing to features (and feature-stability) that engender a friendly personal computing environment. I have agreed with this for a long time and its clear to me that the sysadmin/hacker culture will reign supreme on x86 for the foreseeable future. In the process, it will miss the opportunity that Android is taking on mobile platforms (in offering a popular, robust alternative) and effectively shoot us all in the foot.
And I think that is also why the Linux Foundation's Desktop specification doesn't come close to cutting the mustard: It defines RPM as the standard file format, but you need a lot more than that to make it a working standard. Mark Shuttleworth used to campaign to get different distros to synchronize on some of the more common library versions (seems like he gave up though).
I think desktop distros would do us all a service by dropping "Linux" from their monikers and short descriptions. Just take the kernel and make a different OS with it, and observe what most platform purveyors do to foster adoption: offer an SDK, standardize on an IDE, offer only one GUI and desktop environment and make it your own, work with hardware vendors so that hardware and software are a good fit for each other, vertically integrate features to the point where GUI 'power users' feel like they can control most system functions, etc.
This stuff is far from trivial, but its being steadfastly ignored by FOSS system designers. So app developers and the public justifiably ignore them back.