As of today, you are asking this guy and all his Mac-using friends to DL and install Apple's X11 package and then DL and install OpenOffice.org's suite (which is a significant upgrade behind the x86 versions).
Wrong, there is a packaged MacOSX version that includes and installs X11 right along with OpenOffice. No extra download required, no extra installation required.
Also MacOSX.3 aka Panther will include a X11 server, too.
Do you think his daughter or father even know what X11 is?
Once upon a time, webpages were using the entire window, but who would want that if you can instead show columns of 800-pixel wide contents bordered by seas of white?
Microsoft has yet to reveal their "photorealistic" interface codenamed Aero that is supposed to revamp the entire Windows interface. They're considering keeping it secret until release so that nobody steals their ideas. KDE, look out.
Either that or Bill Gates needs more time to sell the rest of his stock or time to copy features from Unix-GUIs like multiple desktops.
Re:Keep putting it off. Please !
on
Longhorn in 2006
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· Score: 1
I've locked my company into W2K until I have a very, very good reason to switch.
Maybe the lack of security updates?
Or maybe WinXP users no longer get activation keys? (Micrsoft promised nothing about activation keys ever. If they wanted to, they could refuse WinXP activation on the day after Longhorn's release.)
Maybe Microsoft will just refuse to give you any other version? (Try to buy WinNT4 to see what I mean)
In the end, it's just a matter of time how long the users can no longer hold out.
the minimum hardware needed to run your app doesn't run an OSS OS, like if all you need is a 6502 at 4Mhz it makes little sense to buy a 386SX so you can run Linux (of corse int he low end case you frequently write the OS on your own, you need to make sure you will ship enough units to that the $10 cheaper hardware will cover the extra NRE of working in such constrained hardware and maybe writing the OS as well)
With that hardware you have no OS in a classical sense at all, you implement your apps right on the hardware. Of course nowadays nobody does that anymore anyway.
The CSS might perform better
It might. However 1) you can tweak Linux a lot and 2) some x0% improvement is usually not worth the extra cost in license fees or implementation time.
If the alternative isn't magnitudes faster (anything slower than twice as fast just isn't worth it), the added costs (licensing, future risks) outweight the saved hardware ressources, especially with today's chips.
The CSS's vender might be attempting to break into a market and not only match OSS's $0 per unit price, but throw in some resources like marketing money and maybe programmers or something to help sweeten the deal.
Never heard of anyone doing that, also such a deal is highly unusual and will raise eybrows as everybody will ask how and when the vendor will want to make money off you.
The CSS has more people that you can hire at lower wages to work on it (maybe more people have MS Access on their resume then MySQL, and they work for less...of corse in that case you may end up needing far more of them for far longer to make a less stable product, but hey it looks good on paper)
Plain wrong because of 2 reasons: 1) In the embedded market Linux is the standard and much more people have experience in Linux/embedded than WinCE and 2) Linux/embedded is much closer to Linux/desktop than WinCE resembles WindowsXP. A reasonable skilled Linux/desktop developer can do Linux/embedded stuff, a WinXP developer is nearly useless on WinCE.
Your company makes CSS OSes that can run on the hardware you are using. I mean would MS ship a wrist watch running Linux even if it was in all ways better then "WinCE for wrist tops"?
I agree here. Although I don't see Microsoft getting into that market...
In my previous posting I forgot to mention the biggest advantage of OSS and especially Linux in the embedded market:
You get hold on a huge library of applications which are easily ported/compiled for your target. I have myself compiled dozens of apps for ARM, some of which weren't designed for any non-x86 architectures, nevertheless it wasn't that hard.
With Linux, you get a full OS with utilities. With anything else you get merely a development platform.
The whole 'the provider will screw you' argument is dubious. Windows and Mac OS X boxen are commodities, so its not as if Apple or MS will be able to apply pressure to some community using store bought machines to give them more money.
What if your not-connected-to-the-Internet machine doesn't work because of WPA? What if it turns out that some servicepack "alters the deal" and you now need thousands of CALs?
I'm sorry that I don't have a link, but something similar happened to an airline: They wanted to implement some ticket-tracking system, wanted to use Windows but couldn't because they would have needed an insane number of CALs. What if (you will hate me for saying that impossibility) the new Windows-version doesn't work with your product or a new flaw introduces performance problems or crashes?
Windows adds a single point of failure into your system, that's a fact. That point of failure can be of technical nature (bugs that MS doesn't care enough about to fix) or fiscal nature (License costs change) or even a lifecycle nature (product or needed part of product gets discontinued)
Please, dear Jherico, tell me what great advantages can outweight all these risks?
It can be argued that it wasn't the only possible choice for reducing the cost of such systems by an order of magnitude.
Sure, if you go from fully proprietary to commodity hardware and proprietary OS, it reduces costs. Going to a fully commodity system will reduce the costs even more.
First off, the only company making this software right now is Vanu, so its probably going to sell the system as a turnkey solution, so while Vanu isn't stuck with any one provider, the customers may be.
Since Vanu made the decision what OS to use, the only thing that matters is what is good for Vanu. Your point is moot.
Second, this is specifically targeted at rural or underdeveloped areas, places where technical expertise in Linux (or indeed any OS) isn't likely to be as common as in areas that already have cell phone coverage.
First you say that Vanu will sell a turnkey system, then you make ridiculous claims that Linux expertise is needed?
First, these stations are fully automated, so it doesn't matter where they are, the maintainers will come from the central, not from a farm nearby. Second, no end-user will need any Linux expertise, it will be matter of entering a command or selecting an icon, if even that.
If it will make you feel better, you know, "Hooray for linux!", but don't kid yourself into thinking that linux is the perfect solution for every problem,
OSS (not necessarily Linux) is indeed the best solution in all cases in which 1) you need an OS and 2) need only an OS and no special apps/drivers/niche-features/etc (because you create all your apps yourself).
Yes, I said in all those cases.
Linux combines the advantages of proprietary OSes (it's there, you don't have to reinvent the wheel) and of in-house OSes (you control everything about it)
That's why 5 years ago about 2/3 of embedded systems with OSes used in-house OSes, while now the majority of embedded projects already use Linux.
or that joe farming community in Bumfuck, WI needs to use linux because it will defeat communism and create utopia. overenthusiastic linux zealotry has probably done as much to hurt linux as MS could ever hope to do.
How exactly is your blathering connected to cellphone stations?
This has nothing to do with Linux zealotry. Ask anyone in the embedding-industry. Linux is the best solution in cases where you need just an OS and develop all/most apps for it yourself. (Just like in this case)
If you take a step back and look at the big picture, it shows exactly that.
If you build something really new (or replace something from the ground up as in this example) Linux is the way to go. There are no "switching costs" holding it back, there are no desktop apps or games needed. Open Source is the only sane choice.
I believe in Linux as much as anyone, but I don't doubt they could have done the same thing with a windows box, or an OS X box.
Wrong. The goal was to build a cheap solution that is not dependent on a single provider (because that provider will screw you). That is impossible with Windows or MacOSX, get it through your skull already.
This project has built a solution in which all parts are interchangeable and available through many sources. You can build a Debian/Intel system and switch to SuSE/AMD next time or vice versa.
Pardon me for narrowing the scope down to a scant tens of millions of machines.
McDonalds sells more hamburgers in a day than Microsoft sells Windows licenses in a year.
Hamburgers are about as important to embedding computers as your game-bootloader. So does that make McDonalds ontopic here? Does McDonalds rule embedded systems because they sell more hamburgers than Linux?
But I even responded to your extreme off-topic comment. That was the part you didn't dare to comment on, you preferred to start a meta-discussion.
I'm such a slimeball.
SLIME: spin, lies & insults by Microsoft employees.
Not necessarily. There are a lot of people out there who feel that there are highly overlooked weaknesses of Linux. Now, I don't hate Linux. I don't 'not see the potential' in Linux. But I do think that it's overrated in many ways. I also don't think that Microsoft will sit still and let Linux be better than them as a desktop OS. There's no reason why others wouldn't see it that way.
So essentially you follow Microserf's discussion rule #1: Reduce all computing to desktops.
So you want to ignore embedded systems in a embedded systems thread and talk about desktops because that's the only market Microsoft still looks good.
Fine.
Microsoft became big because the hardware was cheaper and Windows was good enough. Wherever Linux is "good enough" (read: whereever the needed applications are available) Linux wipes the floor with Windows.
Just look at the 3d-movie market. That's a desktop/workstation market and it's dominated by Linux.
Can't fight the future, or did Linux finally reach maturity? There's a big difference between fighting it kicking and screaming and simply not being able to use it because there's things it wasn't able to do.
Linux reached maturity (= is used in real production environments) a long time ago. And it dominates the embedded market for quite some time already.
Don't assume that everybody who avoids Linux is an idiot.
If you think that 9500 domains going from Linux to Win2K3 in 6 months is a pro-Windows statistic, then I think you Winlots are pretty desperate already.
Funny, I hear that a lot from Windows fanboys (actually the same people who raved how great Windows 95 is, then how great Windows 98 is, then how great Windows 2000.) but never what exactly makes it great.
Face it: Windows2003 is just Windows2000 with security fixes and a lower price for webserving.
Even with that lower price it could get only 0.4% of the market in the first half year, pretty weak for the "best Windows product Microsoft has ever put out".
Windows2003 aka Win2K with security fixes is nothing new, doesn't live up to it's promises (Microsoft promised that it would be possible to run "headless" - but it doesn't.) and has failed to make large inroads.
At that rate (0.4%/half-year) Windows 2003 will reach 5.2% in their 7-year lifecycle.
And that's actually optimistic, because the adoption rate normally slows down after release.
Please tell me how losing 0.0003%/month to IIS/Windows2003 and gaining 0.2%/month from IIS/Windows is "dwindeling marketshare".
If anything, running 0.4% of websites half a year after release is piss-poor performance of Win2003.
In many countries you have a hard time to find a webhoster that even offers Windows anymore. When trends continue, IIS/Windows is a complete niche-product in 5 years and dead in 10.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong, there is a packaged MacOSX version that includes and installs X11 right along with OpenOffice. No extra download required, no extra installation required.
Also MacOSX.3 aka Panther will include a X11 server, too.
Do you think his daughter or father even know what X11 is?
They don't have to.
Microsoft has yet to reveal their "photorealistic" interface codenamed Aero that is supposed to revamp the entire Windows interface. They're considering keeping it secret until release so that nobody steals their ideas. KDE, look out.
Either that or Bill Gates needs more time to sell the rest of his stock or time to copy features from Unix-GUIs like multiple desktops.
In the end, it's just a matter of time how long the users can no longer hold out.
Yes, user a should be able to create a file and user b should be able to modify/change that file.
I'd love to have a SSH-client on my Treo270, please explain.
With that hardware you have no OS in a classical sense at all, you implement your apps right on the hardware. Of course nowadays nobody does that anymore anyway.
The CSS might perform better
It might. However 1) you can tweak Linux a lot and 2) some x0% improvement is usually not worth the extra cost in license fees or implementation time.
If the alternative isn't magnitudes faster (anything slower than twice as fast just isn't worth it), the added costs (licensing, future risks) outweight the saved hardware ressources, especially with today's chips.
The CSS's vender might be attempting to break into a market and not only match OSS's $0 per unit price, but throw in some resources like marketing money and maybe programmers or something to help sweeten the deal.
Never heard of anyone doing that, also such a deal is highly unusual and will raise eybrows as everybody will ask how and when the vendor will want to make money off you.
The CSS has more people that you can hire at lower wages to work on it (maybe more people have MS Access on their resume then MySQL, and they work for less...of corse in that case you may end up needing far more of them for far longer to make a less stable product, but hey it looks good on paper)
Plain wrong because of 2 reasons: 1) In the embedded market Linux is the standard and much more people have experience in Linux/embedded than WinCE and 2) Linux/embedded is much closer to Linux/desktop than WinCE resembles WindowsXP. A reasonable skilled Linux/desktop developer can do Linux/embedded stuff, a WinXP developer is nearly useless on WinCE.
Your company makes CSS OSes that can run on the hardware you are using. I mean would MS ship a wrist watch running Linux even if it was in all ways better then "WinCE for wrist tops"?
I agree here. Although I don't see Microsoft getting into that market...
In my previous posting I forgot to mention the biggest advantage of OSS and especially Linux in the embedded market:
You get hold on a huge library of applications which are easily ported/compiled for your target. I have myself compiled dozens of apps for ARM, some of which weren't designed for any non-x86 architectures, nevertheless it wasn't that hard.
With Linux, you get a full OS with utilities. With anything else you get merely a development platform.
What if your not-connected-to-the-Internet machine doesn't work because of WPA? What if it turns out that some servicepack "alters the deal" and you now need thousands of CALs?
I'm sorry that I don't have a link, but something similar happened to an airline: They wanted to implement some ticket-tracking system, wanted to use Windows but couldn't because they would have needed an insane number of CALs. What if (you will hate me for saying that impossibility) the new Windows-version doesn't work with your product or a new flaw introduces performance problems or crashes?
Windows adds a single point of failure into your system, that's a fact. That point of failure can be of technical nature (bugs that MS doesn't care enough about to fix) or fiscal nature (License costs change) or even a lifecycle nature (product or needed part of product gets discontinued)
Please, dear Jherico, tell me what great advantages can outweight all these risks?
It can be argued that it wasn't the only possible choice for reducing the cost of such systems by an order of magnitude.
Sure, if you go from fully proprietary to commodity hardware and proprietary OS, it reduces costs. Going to a fully commodity system will reduce the costs even more.
First off, the only company making this software right now is Vanu, so its probably going to sell the system as a turnkey solution, so while Vanu isn't stuck with any one provider, the customers may be.
Since Vanu made the decision what OS to use, the only thing that matters is what is good for Vanu. Your point is moot.
Second, this is specifically targeted at rural or underdeveloped areas, places where technical expertise in Linux (or indeed any OS) isn't likely to be as common as in areas that already have cell phone coverage.
First you say that Vanu will sell a turnkey system, then you make ridiculous claims that Linux expertise is needed?
First, these stations are fully automated, so it doesn't matter where they are, the maintainers will come from the central, not from a farm nearby. Second, no end-user will need any Linux expertise, it will be matter of entering a command or selecting an icon, if even that.
If it will make you feel better, you know, "Hooray for linux!", but don't kid yourself into thinking that linux is the perfect solution for every problem,
OSS (not necessarily Linux) is indeed the best solution in all cases in which 1) you need an OS and 2) need only an OS and no special apps/drivers/niche-features/etc (because you create all your apps yourself).
Yes, I said in all those cases.
Linux combines the advantages of proprietary OSes (it's there, you don't have to reinvent the wheel) and of in-house OSes (you control everything about it)
That's why 5 years ago about 2/3 of embedded systems with OSes used in-house OSes, while now the majority of embedded projects already use Linux.
or that joe farming community in Bumfuck, WI needs to use linux because it will defeat communism and create utopia. overenthusiastic linux zealotry has probably done as much to hurt linux as MS could ever hope to do.
How exactly is your blathering connected to cellphone stations?
This has nothing to do with Linux zealotry. Ask anyone in the embedding-industry. Linux is the best solution in cases where you need just an OS and develop all/most apps for it yourself. (Just like in this case)
If you take a step back and look at the big picture, it shows exactly that.
If you build something really new (or replace something from the ground up as in this example) Linux is the way to go. There are no "switching costs" holding it back, there are no desktop apps or games needed. Open Source is the only sane choice.
I believe in Linux as much as anyone, but I don't doubt they could have done the same thing with a windows box, or an OS X box.
Wrong. The goal was to build a cheap solution that is not dependent on a single provider (because that provider will screw you). That is impossible with Windows or MacOSX, get it through your skull already.
This project has built a solution in which all parts are interchangeable and available through many sources. You can build a Debian/Intel system and switch to SuSE/AMD next time or vice versa.
The Windows-GUI is at the level of FVWM, actually not even that because even in FVWM you get virtual desktops.
Anyway, even with a 2 year old machine it's a moot point anyway as there are no performance problems neither in Windows nor in KDE/Linux for me.
McDonalds sells more hamburgers in a day than Microsoft sells Windows licenses in a year.
Hamburgers are about as important to embedding computers as your game-bootloader. So does that make McDonalds ontopic here? Does McDonalds rule embedded systems because they sell more hamburgers than Linux?
But I even responded to your extreme off-topic comment. That was the part you didn't dare to comment on, you preferred to start a meta-discussion.
I'm such a slimeball.
SLIME: spin, lies & insults by Microsoft employees.
So essentially you follow Microserf's discussion rule #1: Reduce all computing to desktops.
So you want to ignore embedded systems in a embedded systems thread and talk about desktops because that's the only market Microsoft still looks good.
Fine.
Microsoft became big because the hardware was cheaper and Windows was good enough. Wherever Linux is "good enough" (read: whereever the needed applications are available) Linux wipes the floor with Windows.
Just look at the 3d-movie market. That's a desktop/workstation market and it's dominated by Linux.
Linux reached maturity (= is used in real production environments) a long time ago. And it dominates the embedded market for quite some time already.
Don't assume that everybody who avoids Linux is an idiot.
In the embedded market? Are you kidding?
Correct, normally the rate of adoption slows down after release.
Anything else is just wishful thinking on your part without any proof.
Windows2003, despite it's lower price, seems to be unable to halt the steady decline of IIS marketshare.
If you think that 9500 domains going from Linux to Win2K3 in 6 months is a pro-Windows statistic, then I think you Winlots are pretty desperate already.
and rightly so.
With less than 1% of the overall market, Linux has failed.
On servers, Linux holds 30-60% depending on which submarket you look and which stats you are looking at.
On embedded systems, Linux holds about 30-50% for newly developed projects.
On desktops Linux runs about 1-2%, which is not much, but also more than 1%.
Funny, I hear that a lot from Windows fanboys (actually the same people who raved how great Windows 95 is, then how great Windows 98 is, then how great Windows 2000.) but never what exactly makes it great.
Face it: Windows2003 is just Windows2000 with security fixes and a lower price for webserving.
Even with that lower price it could get only 0.4% of the market in the first half year, pretty weak for the "best Windows product Microsoft has ever put out".
Windows2003 aka Win2K with security fixes is nothing new, doesn't live up to it's promises (Microsoft promised that it would be possible to run "headless" - but it doesn't.) and has failed to make large inroads.
At that rate (0.4%/half-year) Windows 2003 will reach 5.2% in their 7-year lifecycle.
And that's actually optimistic, because the adoption rate normally slows down after release.
1) Windows2003 performs badly
2) Bribe one hoster to use it
3) Sell it to morons on Slashdot as a great success
With only 0.4% of sites in the first 6 months after release, Windows2003 has already failed.
Sorry got the numbers wrong, IIS lost 0.7% compared to Apache last month.
If anything, running 0.4% of websites half a year after release is piss-poor performance of Win2003.
In many countries you have a hard time to find a webhoster that even offers Windows anymore. When trends continue, IIS/Windows is a complete niche-product in 5 years and dead in 10.
Windows 2003 does so badly that it runs only about 0.4% of webservers half a year after release.
Overall IIS loses about 0.2%/month to other webservers.
And now 8500 domains (= 0.002% !) throughout about half a year (= 0.0003%/month) switch from Linux to Windows and people start to get wet their pants.
And then the FUD gets modded as insightful...
Just look at the latest survey. Win3K2 runs 0.4% of servers.
And IIS lost 0.5% last month alone, and averages at 0.2% lost/month.
To say that 8500 domains going from Linux to Windows are reelvant when hundreds of thousands go the other way is pretty delusional.