This seems like it's follwing on ESR's remarks on CUPS the other day but it's not.
The sad part about all this is that ESR will test only Gnome but will bash ALL open source environments, just as he tested only one distribution but bashed ALL Linux, also those distributions which have seamless CUPS configuration.
I certainly don't agree with much Eugenia sais, but at least she doesn't bash A for mistakes B made.
If he is "just conservative", he's a complete moron because now EV1servers can be sued for GPL infringement and can be more easily sued by SCO as well because they now have contracts with many many clauses that could be violated.
I personally think Microsoft gave EV1servers the money with the order to pay it to SCO because it wouldn't look that good if Microsoft would buy yet another SCO license.
Let's face it. Nobody in their right mind would pay SCO million(s) for their license, especially EV1servers who are RedHat customers and are protected from SCO through RedHats programme:link
The only possibility that makes sense in my opinion is that EV1servers dealings with Microsoft included the SCO-deal as well. Microsoft has a strong interest to channel money to SCO, they have already done so by buying licenses from them they don't need.
So I think EV1servers has essentially become Microsoft's cash pipeline to SCO.
There just is no other way that makes sense. Please don't forget that RedHat protects their customers (like EV1servers) from SCO, so even if EV1servers pretends to think that SCO has a chance and even if they pretend to think that they have to pay before the trial is over, they simply don't need a license.
Actually if the rumors are true that EV1Servers.net has signed a "lucrative" deal with Microsoft, the 7 figures could be true and just another way to channel money from Microsoft to SCO.
First of all, Software is not a business like any other. In software you have pretty much fixed costs, but revenue based on shipped units, which benefits the market leader. Even worse are compatibility problesm which punish all smaller players and again helps the market leader.
So if you dominate a market, like Microsoft does with office suites, Adobe does with Photoshop or Macromedia does with Flash, you earn tons of cash. But if you don't, you can't earn much if anything at all. Effectively upstart software companies don't have any chance of succeeding in the retail market except when a new market opens. The only exception is games where new companies do seem to have a chance - mainly because compatibility between games isn't needed, so you can write a good game and be successful, but you can't write a good office suite and be successful - you would have to reverse-engineer data formats as well.
However, the bulk of programmers don't work for Microsoft or Adobe. I know quite some programmers personally and none are working for MS or Adobe. All I know work either for small companies which program specialized systems for other companies or work in-house to also do such systems.
So what does open-source replace? It replaces Microsoft, Adobe, etc. but can not and will not replace the "in-house" software programmer who creates customized programs for internal use (or for a single customer).
So, frankly, I don't think that open-source will change that much after all. The big software companies like Microsoft and Adobe will go (or more likely change into investment companies), that's for sure, but there will be plenty of paid programming work (open source and closed source).
Given that Linux and BSD are free, how much more level do you want it to be?
Well, a real leveled playing field can't exist in software anyway, market dynamics always favor the market leader.
However, even with that advantage plus many illegal or unfair tactics (like force-bundling Windows to new computers or making their software as incompatible to anything else as possible) Windows can barely hold their position on the desktop and is losing badly everywhere else.
Without their "market-leader" bonus and without being able to pressure hardware makers, Windows is losing consistently marketshare without any hope of ever regaining it. In Germany it's very hard to even find a webhoster that even offers Windows, and when they do, they usually charge a premium and/or are pretty expensive overall. All new Hosters in Germany don't even bother to offer Windows and some webhosters outsourced or discontinued their Windows-lines completely. In that scenario, Microsoft being incompatible to everybody else which used to be an advantage in their dominated markets is turning into a disadvantage everywhere they no longer dominate. So Windows has lost all advantages and is clearly a legacy system already.
And the same thing can and will happen in China on the desktop, too. As soon as Windows is no longer needed because all needed software is available on Linux, Windows will lose marketshare until it's gone completely. Yes, initially, the government will probably spend lots of money to overcome switching costs (but let's be realistic here: China doesn't have that much IT anyway, most systems will be new systems, not systems switched from something. I think they can probably fullfill their 70% ratio even if they keep all their MS systems and use Linux only on new installations), but after that marketforces alone are enough to push Linux even farther. Microsoft's attitude at discontinuing support for older versions will make sure it's headed to 0% marketshare in all markets it cannot dominate with an iron fist.
For Microsoft, losing domination means losing the market. And that's exactly why Ballmer interupted his vacation for the Munich offers. Because even one sinlge city among hundreds of big cities is a serious threat in the goverment niche.
Because when Munich successfully switches, it will be easy for Berlin, Paris, London and Rome to do likewise.
By definition, software must be created by someone.
Yes, but it must only be created once and can be used millions of times afterwards.
Which is exactly the reason why software is not just another product that can be treated by the same laws like other products. It's fundamentally different and models that would fail miserably for most other products can turn out to be the best for software.
First of all, you make the mistake of treating software like hardware. It's not the same.
If some government influence is needed to get Microsoft out and establish Linux as a standard, it will pay off and because the software world is a world with strong network effects, those influence won't be needed once the change has been made and Microsoft will disappear completely without any government intervention once most chinese-language software runs on Linux, most of the workforce is trained on Linux and Linux is preinstalled on most computers. Of course because Windows is more expensive and less flexible, there is no incentive at all to even try to go back to Windows.
On a real leveled playing field, Windows doesn't have a chance against Linux.
Then you seem to forget that the USA itself is using tariffs for steel AFAIK and other products.
All non-x86 versions of Windows are pretty irrelevant because the point of Windows (and the only thing Windows is really better at) is to run Win32 applications.
AMD's chip is the only real possibility for Windows because it offers a smooth upgrade path. But even there Linux was there first and there are much more Linux apps (complete distributions) that support the 64-Bit extensions than Windows apps.
Were Linux in a dominant position instead, we might well be seeing similar stories about a few high profile sites struggling with an attempted switch to Windows...
Completely false. Open source makes it easily possible to create compatibility layers.
Just like they already exist in AIX and BSD already.
Even a moron could understand that choosing a distribution which can be used as a desktop isn't any different than choosing hardware that can be used as a desktop.
If you buy a rackmount-server and try to set it up as a desktop system you might have similar problems as setting up Fedora as a desktop. Still I don't see many Aunt Lillies with rackmount servers...
With anonymous, useless and mindless bashing like "If I actually want to do anything else I have to fire up vi and edit 1,000 conf files" there is no wonder you get unfriendly responses.
You have to be quite a moron to expect otherwise.
When you have a problem, clearly lay out what exactly you want to do ("If I actually want to do anything else" is not enough), what exactly is the problem and if possible a suggestion how to fix it or make it better.
That's the big problem. The bashers (and even though I usually respect ESR, this time it's him, too) try out one server distribution (like Fedora where RedHat's managers even said themselves it wasn't targetted at the desktop!) and conclude that "Linux sucks".
I agree with ESR's analysis, but not with the conclusion: What he found out was the usability problems in Fedora.
I've set up network printers in SuSE many times for years and it has never been a problem.
But what is a problem is that this mindless bashing discourages any improvement. So SuSE and Mandrake solved the issues. Do they get any kudos from ESR? Nope. To the contrary, they are lumped into the same category and it is claimed that they are as unfit as Fedora for the desktop. So those who have worked those usability problems are punished, too and get bad PR for mistakes they didn't make.
This is really sickening.
Nobody expects ESR to try out every distribution, but he should be honest enough to make conclusions and claims only about Fedora and not "Linux".
So how is this any different than today supposedly is?
It's like the PC-platform with many vendors but common standards.
If the only choice is Linux, then the OSS community will have become exactly what it is they purport to be against today.
It's irrelevant who is against what. Windows is doomed, it doesn't matter if you or anybody else is against or for "choice". I just laid down what will happen. It's basic market forces at work.
Personally, I want *choice*. If I choose not to run Linux for some reason, I want to have that as an option, which many of you people seem to not want to allow me
Again, it's irrelevant what you want and what I want to allow you. If it were for me, you could run Windows happily forever. But market forces are bigger than anything I or you can influence. In 15 years, running a proprietary software platform will be as rare and strange as running a proprietary hardware platform is now.
Of course besides Linux there will probably be compatible systems like BSD that will look, behave and feel exactly like Linux, despite technically being not Linux. But of course those can be lumped together into the Linux platform.
If you think that today's PC-market doesn't offer enough hardware choice and you would like to see Atari, Amiga, etc. - irrelevant, all proprietary hardware platforms are dead, severly sick or have opened up, at least partly (like Apple which has adopted PCI, IDE, USB, etc. like anyone else).
Also I think it's rather strange that you seem to accept the domination of common multi-vendor standards for hardware, but are afraid of the same happening for software. Seems a bit inconsistent for me, but maybe you can clear that up.
why should I not be *as* afraid, if not more-so, of the OSS/Linux community than I am of Microsoft?
For one, the OSS community doesn't hide their code from you so they cannot smuggle any malware into the products as it has happened many times with closed source software. Another reason is that nobody can force features against your will like Windows Product Activation or DRM.
But again, it's irrelevant. Neither you nor Microsoft can stop Linux and you will have to live with Linux, no matter if you like it or not and no matter if you are (irrationally) afraid of it or not. Of course the biggest pro-Linux argument is that with OSS the user (for the "average" user substitute "distribution") can remove any "bad" features without any problems. And that's the reason why such features don't appear in the first place. Nobody could enforce "Linux product activation".
At least Microsoft doesn't brag about how much trouble they will cause, or intend to cause, me if I don't agree with their "world vision".
Now you have clearly lost the touch with reality.
It wasn't some anonymous poster who called the GPL "viral", "a cancer" or "endangering capitalism", it was Microsoft top management members Gates and Ballmer. No higher up member of the OSS community has ever said something comparable about Windows. If you can show me anything comparable by any leader of any OSS-project, post it.
You have to be really out of touch to think that the OSS-community is more aggressive than Microsoft. Hell, you have to be out of touch to think that the OSS-community even comes close to Microsoft when it comes to FUD, lies, spin, insults and illegal tactics.
But again, that's irrelevant.
If the Microsoft case has shown us anything, it's that most people don't care about morals and you can do anything as long as you can get away with it.
when the governments of the world learn that this is how capitalism works.
I can't believe something stupid as this can be modded up as "insigutful".
What you describe (ignore all laws) is called an anarchy, not capitalism.
Capitalism is a system depending on a free market where everybody plays by the rules set by the book of laws. Just like murdering the CEO of a competing firm is not "how capitalism works", breaking anti-trust law is also not "how capitalism works". Actually the latter is a law created only to keep up a free market and to protect capitalism.
The GUI is great because you can use multiple monitors with it.
The new GUI combines the best of both worlds: You can put whatever you like in a single window and you can use as many windows (on as many different screens) as you want.
I'd say Gimp 2.0 is put clearly ahead of Photoshop.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad part about all this is that ESR will test only Gnome but will bash ALL open source environments, just as he tested only one distribution but bashed ALL Linux, also those distributions which have seamless CUPS configuration.
I certainly don't agree with much Eugenia sais, but at least she doesn't bash A for mistakes B made.
Use Konstruct (you don't even have to be root) or use a distribution that can be used on the desktop. (Like SuSE or Mandrake)
If he is "just conservative", he's a complete moron because now EV1servers can be sued for GPL infringement and can be more easily sued by SCO as well because they now have contracts with many many clauses that could be violated.
I personally think Microsoft gave EV1servers the money with the order to pay it to SCO because it wouldn't look that good if Microsoft would buy yet another SCO license.
The only possibility that makes sense in my opinion is that EV1servers dealings with Microsoft included the SCO-deal as well. Microsoft has a strong interest to channel money to SCO, they have already done so by buying licenses from them they don't need.
So I think EV1servers has essentially become Microsoft's cash pipeline to SCO.
There just is no other way that makes sense. Please don't forget that RedHat protects their customers (like EV1servers) from SCO, so even if EV1servers pretends to think that SCO has a chance and even if they pretend to think that they have to pay before the trial is over, they simply don't need a license.
So if you dominate a market, like Microsoft does with office suites, Adobe does with Photoshop or Macromedia does with Flash, you earn tons of cash. But if you don't, you can't earn much if anything at all. Effectively upstart software companies don't have any chance of succeeding in the retail market except when a new market opens. The only exception is games where new companies do seem to have a chance - mainly because compatibility between games isn't needed, so you can write a good game and be successful, but you can't write a good office suite and be successful - you would have to reverse-engineer data formats as well.
However, the bulk of programmers don't work for Microsoft or Adobe. I know quite some programmers personally and none are working for MS or Adobe. All I know work either for small companies which program specialized systems for other companies or work in-house to also do such systems.
So what does open-source replace? It replaces Microsoft, Adobe, etc. but can not and will not replace the "in-house" software programmer who creates customized programs for internal use (or for a single customer).
So, frankly, I don't think that open-source will change that much after all. The big software companies like Microsoft and Adobe will go (or more likely change into investment companies), that's for sure, but there will be plenty of paid programming work (open source and closed source).
Well, a real leveled playing field can't exist in software anyway, market dynamics always favor the market leader.
However, even with that advantage plus many illegal or unfair tactics (like force-bundling Windows to new computers or making their software as incompatible to anything else as possible) Windows can barely hold their position on the desktop and is losing badly everywhere else.
Just look at webservers in Germany:
link
Without their "market-leader" bonus and without being able to pressure hardware makers, Windows is losing consistently marketshare without any hope of ever regaining it. In Germany it's very hard to even find a webhoster that even offers Windows, and when they do, they usually charge a premium and/or are pretty expensive overall. All new Hosters in Germany don't even bother to offer Windows and some webhosters outsourced or discontinued their Windows-lines completely. In that scenario, Microsoft being incompatible to everybody else which used to be an advantage in their dominated markets is turning into a disadvantage everywhere they no longer dominate. So Windows has lost all advantages and is clearly a legacy system already.
And the same thing can and will happen in China on the desktop, too. As soon as Windows is no longer needed because all needed software is available on Linux, Windows will lose marketshare until it's gone completely. Yes, initially, the government will probably spend lots of money to overcome switching costs (but let's be realistic here: China doesn't have that much IT anyway, most systems will be new systems, not systems switched from something. I think they can probably fullfill their 70% ratio even if they keep all their MS systems and use Linux only on new installations), but after that marketforces alone are enough to push Linux even farther. Microsoft's attitude at discontinuing support for older versions will make sure it's headed to 0% marketshare in all markets it cannot dominate with an iron fist.
For Microsoft, losing domination means losing the market. And that's exactly why Ballmer interupted his vacation for the Munich offers. Because even one sinlge city among hundreds of big cities is a serious threat in the goverment niche.
Because when Munich successfully switches, it will be easy for Berlin, Paris, London and Rome to do likewise.
Yes, but it must only be created once and can be used millions of times afterwards.
Which is exactly the reason why software is not just another product that can be treated by the same laws like other products. It's fundamentally different and models that would fail miserably for most other products can turn out to be the best for software.
If some government influence is needed to get Microsoft out and establish Linux as a standard, it will pay off and because the software world is a world with strong network effects, those influence won't be needed once the change has been made and Microsoft will disappear completely without any government intervention once most chinese-language software runs on Linux, most of the workforce is trained on Linux and Linux is preinstalled on most computers. Of course because Windows is more expensive and less flexible, there is no incentive at all to even try to go back to Windows.
On a real leveled playing field, Windows doesn't have a chance against Linux.
Then you seem to forget that the USA itself is using tariffs for steel AFAIK and other products.
1990: MS-DOS 4
1995: Microsoft Bob
1999: Windows ME
2005: X-Box 2
Not to be rude, but how is losing 1 billion/year not a failure? Please add XBox1 to the list.
Also you might want to add Hailstorm, Windows/Alpha, MSN and their settop projects.
AMD's chip is the only real possibility for Windows because it offers a smooth upgrade path. But even there Linux was there first and there are much more Linux apps (complete distributions) that support the 64-Bit extensions than Windows apps.
In case you don't know, Kylix is the Linux version of Delphi.
Completely false. Open source makes it easily possible to create compatibility layers.
Just like they already exist in AIX and BSD already.
The transition hasn't even begun yet.
So far, the only thing I've heard is "there are problems" by anti-Windows publicications.
The problem (again) is marketing. Linux-bashing is currently fashinable.
Just witness all the "Linux usability sucks" posts, never providing any examples, just FUD.
If you substitute "Fedora" for everytime ESR has said "Linux", it would be constructive criticism, but this way it's mindless bashing.
If you buy a rackmount-server and try to set it up as a desktop system you might have similar problems as setting up Fedora as a desktop. Still I don't see many Aunt Lillies with rackmount servers...
You have to be quite a moron to expect otherwise.
When you have a problem, clearly lay out what exactly you want to do ("If I actually want to do anything else" is not enough), what exactly is the problem and if possible a suggestion how to fix it or make it better.
I agree with ESR's analysis, but not with the conclusion: What he found out was the usability problems in Fedora.
I've set up network printers in SuSE many times for years and it has never been a problem.
But what is a problem is that this mindless bashing discourages any improvement. So SuSE and Mandrake solved the issues. Do they get any kudos from ESR? Nope. To the contrary, they are lumped into the same category and it is claimed that they are as unfit as Fedora for the desktop. So those who have worked those usability problems are punished, too and get bad PR for mistakes they didn't make.
This is really sickening.
Nobody expects ESR to try out every distribution, but he should be honest enough to make conclusions and claims only about Fedora and not "Linux".
It's like the PC-platform with many vendors but common standards.
If the only choice is Linux, then the OSS community will have become exactly what it is they purport to be against today.
It's irrelevant who is against what. Windows is doomed, it doesn't matter if you or anybody else is against or for "choice". I just laid down what will happen. It's basic market forces at work.
Personally, I want *choice*. If I choose not to run Linux for some reason, I want to have that as an option, which many of you people seem to not want to allow me
Again, it's irrelevant what you want and what I want to allow you. If it were for me, you could run Windows happily forever. But market forces are bigger than anything I or you can influence. In 15 years, running a proprietary software platform will be as rare and strange as running a proprietary hardware platform is now.
Of course besides Linux there will probably be compatible systems like BSD that will look, behave and feel exactly like Linux, despite technically being not Linux. But of course those can be lumped together into the Linux platform.
If you think that today's PC-market doesn't offer enough hardware choice and you would like to see Atari, Amiga, etc. - irrelevant, all proprietary hardware platforms are dead, severly sick or have opened up, at least partly (like Apple which has adopted PCI, IDE, USB, etc. like anyone else).
Also I think it's rather strange that you seem to accept the domination of common multi-vendor standards for hardware, but are afraid of the same happening for software. Seems a bit inconsistent for me, but maybe you can clear that up.
why should I not be *as* afraid, if not more-so, of the OSS/Linux community than I am of Microsoft?
For one, the OSS community doesn't hide their code from you so they cannot smuggle any malware into the products as it has happened many times with closed source software. Another reason is that nobody can force features against your will like Windows Product Activation or DRM.
But again, it's irrelevant. Neither you nor Microsoft can stop Linux and you will have to live with Linux, no matter if you like it or not and no matter if you are (irrationally) afraid of it or not. Of course the biggest pro-Linux argument is that with OSS the user (for the "average" user substitute "distribution") can remove any "bad" features without any problems. And that's the reason why such features don't appear in the first place. Nobody could enforce "Linux product activation".
At least Microsoft doesn't brag about how much trouble they will cause, or intend to cause, me if I don't agree with their "world vision".
Now you have clearly lost the touch with reality.
It wasn't some anonymous poster who called the GPL "viral", "a cancer" or "endangering capitalism", it was Microsoft top management members Gates and Ballmer. No higher up member of the OSS community has ever said something comparable about Windows. If you can show me anything comparable by any leader of any OSS-project, post it.
You have to be really out of touch to think that the OSS-community is more aggressive than Microsoft. Hell, you have to be out of touch to think that the OSS-community even comes close to Microsoft when it comes to FUD, lies, spin, insults and illegal tactics.
But again, that's irrelevant.
If the Microsoft case has shown us anything, it's that most people don't care about morals and you can do anything as long as you can get away with it.
So everybody is in marketing, they just use other names for marketing reasons... ;-)
I can't believe something stupid as this can be modded up as "insigutful".
What you describe (ignore all laws) is called an anarchy, not capitalism.
Capitalism is a system depending on a free market where everybody plays by the rules set by the book of laws. Just like murdering the CEO of a competing firm is not "how capitalism works", breaking anti-trust law is also not "how capitalism works". Actually the latter is a law created only to keep up a free market and to protect capitalism.
I've heard that the latest (or next?) version of MacOSX includes X support out of the box, but I could be wrong. Can anybody confirm?
The new GUI combines the best of both worlds: You can put whatever you like in a single window and you can use as many windows (on as many different screens) as you want.
I'd say Gimp 2.0 is put clearly ahead of Photoshop.
Or Gimp being able to use multiple monitors by using several windows and not just one window?
Gimp is one of the finest graphics apps currently available.