With what? Windows is essentially idiot proof. It's far harder to go from windows to Linux than vice versa.
How so? With just about any distribution you go through the same login process that you would on Windows and then you have a set of icons on the desktop or in a menu that allows you to start applications.
Since we're discussing the corporate environment all your updates are going to managed by the IT department so you don't even have to worry about that...but in most distributions that's not particularly difficult anyway.
GNU hitched their wagon to Linux instead of building Hurd and that has been markedly poor decision for a couple of reasons:
Firstly it means that the core component of the system used to advance the FSF ideology is one that not only does not share that ideology. Linus is in favour of Tivoization and against the idea of the GPLv3 for example. Also the kernel's license preamble explicitly overrides parts of the GPL that would make applications that use kernel services derived works so it isn't actually GPLv2. In addition, unlike many other GPL free software projects, kernel contributions are not subject to copyright assignment to the FSF.
Secondly the valuable piece in terms of the operating system is the kernel, that is what hardware vendors write drivers for and what ultimately gives Linux operating systems such a wide variety of hardware support making it so versatile. GNU does not provide that fundamental functionality and can be replaced, as we have seen with Android and ChromeOS. So while Linux systems have seen explosive growth in users over recent years GNU has not.
It would be an uphill battle but the FSF should really put all effort behind building Hurd and getting industry support for it before GNU is completely marginalized in the context of Linux.
Chromebooks don't run Office and I need to operate in a Windows world.
Sure they do, previously they used to only run the mobile version of Office but since the end of last year they've been running the full Office 365 suite.
But you're reinforcing my point that just because a particular machine might be fine for somebody it doesn't mean that's right/enough for everybody.
A simple MacBook Pro with 8GB and an i5 is more than enough for me to load RDP, terminals for SSH, and the applications I might be using locally.
You'd probably be just fine with a Chromebook.
Honest question, being I'm doing 100% of my development on remote machines either at the data center or in the cloud, how many people require actual big horsepower on their machine to get their jobs done?
You mean given what you do how many people do something else? Not everybody is managing computers, computers are used for a *lot* of things, if you're doing CAD, CAM or CAE, 3D or 2D content creation, animation, rendering, audio production, video production, gaming, etc... you're going to need performance on the local machine particularly in a laptop if you want to be mobile.
That's right. The Linux project doesn't do assignments of copyright to the FSF so going from the GPLv2 to GPLv3 would be complicated, but that's an aside to the fact that Linus views Tivoization as a good thing.
It couldn't be about other people, people who don't want their community to find out they're gay (or atheist).
We have been trying to explain this to the RIAA/MPAA for well over a decade now: If you put information out there you cannot control it, you can threaten lawsuits or try implementing various forms of DRM but ultimately you do not control it. If you don't want it out there publicly then don't put it out there publicly. That's the nature of the internet.
So why was he selling them for a profit in the first place then if people could just download them for free? And more to the point why was he going to so much effort to try to make them look like genuine products produced by Microsoft/Dell if it was just a physical copy of something downloadable free on the internet? The fraud charge was because of the fraudulent behaviour in trying to make the product he was selling look like a genuine product from somebody else.
You're right, this has always been the way and many people (particularly on sites like this) seem to struggle with the concept that users do not care about the operating system. People will switch from Windows if their applications stop running on it or if they move to applications only available on other platforms.
Even for Web browsing and Email a phone or tablet suck balls.
That's really a subjective view, you can quite easily say "well i don't like browsing on touchscreens therefore web browsing on mobile and tablet sucks".
tablets and phones appear like they will always augment rather than replace desktops as they just don't provide the same experience.
Yes that's my point. If you look at the tasks that have declined percentage-wise on desktop it's things like web browsing as they have moved to mobile (regardless of whether you say that sucks or not) but looking at the various industries the professional content creation remains on the desktop.
You can say the writing is on the wall, the PC will die on the desktop while computing moves on.
The PC will always be relevant on the desktop, despite 10 years of the modern smartphone (and 8 of the modern tablet) we still have a vast array of applications from image, video and audio editing and composition along with CAD, CAM, CAE, BIM, simulation, 3D modelling, etc. applications that just don't work in a smartphone/tablet formfactor.
The desktop is mostly dead for things like simple web browsing, email and general social networking as well as doing tasks like taking audio notes or the most basic video composition. Smartphones and tablets have become the core device for personal computing while the desktop PC remains for professional computing.
I didn't misunderstand; you didn't demonstrate hyperbole in the way you think you did.
Actually I did, with a very clear, specific and real example that you demonstrably cannot disprove. That's the reason I used a specific scenario rather than trying to paint broad strokes like you (and the FSF) have. While I agree with what you say being true in some circumstances it clearly is not true in all circumstances so your broad assertions are dishonest at best.
I don't subscribe to an absolutist view on this sort of thing, but I do understand that when absolutists put a stake in the ground it's very hard to walk that back and admit they were wrong or perhaps overzealous. But then people are more likely to be on your side when you admit you've made a mistake rather than when you continue flogging the dead horse.
Ok I think you misunderstand. What I said is that the idea that proprietary software "subjugates users" is nonsense, it is just simply hyperbole as I demonstrated with the example. Use of hyperbole like this undermines the whole free software movement as a whole because it is so demonstrably false and so easy for users to immediately see that it is false because they have freedom of choice.
Defending software licenses, be those free or proprietary is the right thing to do, you seem to think I disagree on that point but I do not. However saying that companies that aggregate data freely available on the internet (subject of this story), like Facebook, are not allowed to do that is an affront to a free and open internet.
proprietary software is rightly identified as user-subjugating by rms.
That's just rubbish, it's the sort of hyperbole that causes people to not take the free software ideology seriously. If I want to edit an image I am not "subjugated" if I choose to use Photoshop to accomplish the task any more than I am if I use GIMP to accomplish the task. Even worse is his assertion that proprietary software takes away users' freedom, which is again wrong and is the same silly notion used by the MPAA affiliates to describe their "stolen" profits. Something that was never granted cannot be taken away.
Free software certainly has its merit and advantages but the hyperbole and half-truths that RMS engages in just makes him sound like a complete kook and it's no better than the sort of idiotic arguments the **AA folks make about piracy.
A free and open internet means you don't restrict that information or what can be done with it, if you don't want it on there then don't put it there but don't try and use lawyers to prevent the existence of the free and open internet.
They would by definition not exist because laws would either prevent them form existing (as was RMS's desire) or be so cumbersome to actually use due to various laws that in fact no-one would use them so they would not exist.
Which is basically Diaspora...you would have to create laws to kill competition in order to have a hope at making it successful.
Sure, but "most people don't care" isn't always a reason in favor of, or against, a particular policy desire. That's tyrrany of the majority.
And it's tyrannical to suggest that it should be taken away 'for their own good' because people can't be trusted with their own information.
If you're saying that what Stallman should be doing is explaining why people should care, he's been doing that for 30 years.
The issue is the dishonesty and hyperbole, we all know that your freedom is taken away when you use proprietary software, sure you're not granted the freedom to modify the software but that is a very different thing and it is freedom of choice as to whether you use it and for how long. If I go to your house I don't have the freedom to just change things and do whatever I please, but then I'm also not imprisoned there, I can leave whenever I want.
I don't think he's advocating a Whac-a-Mole approach. He's advocating sweeping legal changes that wouldn't just affect Facebook, they'd affect any company taking a similar approach.
Restricting the freedom of what anybody can do with the information freely available on the open internet is exactly the kind of tyrannical approach groups like the MPAA take. The hyperbole of taking away profits that never existed is also analogous to Stallman's argument of taking away a freedom you were never granted in the first place.
Why do we need a law when using Facebook or any of the other Social Media application and services are non-mandatory?
Because of the notion of freedom of choice, RMS wants to make that choice for you rather than you be free to make it yourself. His logic is that you shouldn't be free to give up your freedom or privacy, now maybe that would be true if 'freedom' was a blanket definition but it isn't.
If you use proprietary software the concept that you have "given up your freedom" is not really true, you just haven't been granted specific freedoms and even then that is only for a very narrow definition of "freedom" and only in a very specific context and for a specific time (which is almost always at the behest of the person involved), for example yes, when I use Photoshop to edit an image I wasn't granted the freedom to modify Photoshop but I never had that in the first place and - much like pirates can't take away the profits that MPAA affiliates never had - nobody can take away the freedom to modify Photoshop that I never had. More to the point, freedom of choice means I can use GIMP if I want to but that doesn't mean my freedom to use Photoshop should be taken away simply because I can't modify it.
Google isn't "selling your data" either; it's way too valuable to let out. They're both selling you instead.
No they're selling the ability to possibly show you something, where 'you' is a loosely defined demographic and if you have an ad blocker the thing they are selling is of no value whatsoever.
It's also the proprietary NVidia driver, not the open source driver that most Linux users would be using in their dist.
The default nVidia driver in SteamOS is nvidia, not nouveau. Also nVidia does not produce the open source nouveau driver so when you say "NVidia / AMD push out frequent Windows driver updates that optimize performance or fix issues for specific games" obviously the driver in question is the proprietary nVidia driver and not the open source one and your assertion about that driver is wrong as they do indeed optimize performance and fix issues for specific games on Linux.
Not to mention that anybody concerned with gaming on Linux is going to be using the proprietary nVidia driver and not the nouveau driver because of its far superior performance.
Besides that, if your complaint is actually about the open source driver then there's certainly no reason that nouveau developers couldn't work closely with game developers to optimize their drivers for specific games.
You don't want to know how many accidents there were in cars with autopilot, that doesn't matter. What you want to know is miles per accident *with autopilot engaged.* Using the other number is highly misleading.
If it's going to veer into a lane divider that's a problem. So what you want to know in this case is how many times Teslas with Autopilot engaged have successfully navigated past lane dividers.
Many of the Linux ports are shoddy and it showed in the number of issues they suffered. It's not the fault of Linux or of some inherent superiority of Windows but of time, resources, effort on behalf of the developer.
It's economies of scale. Obviously developers aren't going to put the same effort into servicing a very tiny portion of the market as they do into servicing the majority of the market. Most gamers also don't care about the OS at all, they'll play on whatever it runs best on because you can always just dual boot.
And not just of the game dev, but also the graphics driver. NVidia / AMD push out frequent Windows driver updates that optimize performance or fix issues for specific games. Linux gets none of that.
That's just completely incorrect. The changelog on one of the very recent linux drivers for nVidia's GPUs shows multiple fixes for specific games:
SPIR-V bytecode still has to be interpreted by the driver and ultimately vendors can also extend SPIR-V themselves so in general vendor-specific problems still exist. As to your specific question you can have GLSL shaders that compile fine through glslangvalidator but a particular vendor driver might choke on the SPIR-V due to vendor or even architecture specific vkPhysicalDeviceLimits for example so you can find yourself using one buffer type on one vendor and a different buffer type on another vendor which starts to complicate things.
Aside from that I have had a couple of complex shaders that run fine on AMD but crash on nVidia - AMD has always been more strict on the spec but it's probably worth noting that these were all GLSL shaders compiled to SPIR-V. So sadly things don't seem to have gotten better by having an intermediate representation, though I can't speak to HLSL and don't have that much experience with it.
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People coming from Linux/MAC to Windows struggle.
With what? Windows is essentially idiot proof. It's far harder to go from windows to Linux than vice versa.
How so? With just about any distribution you go through the same login process that you would on Windows and then you have a set of icons on the desktop or in a menu that allows you to start applications.
Since we're discussing the corporate environment all your updates are going to managed by the IT department so you don't even have to worry about that...but in most distributions that's not particularly difficult anyway.
GNU hitched their wagon to Linux instead of building Hurd and that has been markedly poor decision for a couple of reasons:
Firstly it means that the core component of the system used to advance the FSF ideology is one that not only does not share that ideology. Linus is in favour of Tivoization and against the idea of the GPLv3 for example. Also the kernel's license preamble explicitly overrides parts of the GPL that would make applications that use kernel services derived works so it isn't actually GPLv2. In addition, unlike many other GPL free software projects, kernel contributions are not subject to copyright assignment to the FSF.
Secondly the valuable piece in terms of the operating system is the kernel, that is what hardware vendors write drivers for and what ultimately gives Linux operating systems such a wide variety of hardware support making it so versatile. GNU does not provide that fundamental functionality and can be replaced, as we have seen with Android and ChromeOS. So while Linux systems have seen explosive growth in users over recent years GNU has not.
It would be an uphill battle but the FSF should really put all effort behind building Hurd and getting industry support for it before GNU is completely marginalized in the context of Linux.
Chromebooks don't run Office and I need to operate in a Windows world.
Sure they do, previously they used to only run the mobile version of Office but since the end of last year they've been running the full Office 365 suite.
But you're reinforcing my point that just because a particular machine might be fine for somebody it doesn't mean that's right/enough for everybody.
A simple MacBook Pro with 8GB and an i5 is more than enough for me to load RDP, terminals for SSH, and the applications I might be using locally.
You'd probably be just fine with a Chromebook.
Honest question, being I'm doing 100% of my development on remote machines either at the data center or in the cloud, how many people require actual big horsepower on their machine to get their jobs done?
You mean given what you do how many people do something else? Not everybody is managing computers, computers are used for a *lot* of things, if you're doing CAD, CAM or CAE, 3D or 2D content creation, animation, rendering, audio production, video production, gaming, etc... you're going to need performance on the local machine particularly in a laptop if you want to be mobile.
That's right. The Linux project doesn't do assignments of copyright to the FSF so going from the GPLv2 to GPLv3 would be complicated, but that's an aside to the fact that Linus views Tivoization as a good thing.
It couldn't be about other people, people who don't want their community to find out they're gay (or atheist).
We have been trying to explain this to the RIAA/MPAA for well over a decade now: If you put information out there you cannot control it, you can threaten lawsuits or try implementing various forms of DRM but ultimately you do not control it. If you don't want it out there publicly then don't put it out there publicly. That's the nature of the internet.
So why was he selling them for a profit in the first place then if people could just download them for free? And more to the point why was he going to so much effort to try to make them look like genuine products produced by Microsoft/Dell if it was just a physical copy of something downloadable free on the internet? The fraud charge was because of the fraudulent behaviour in trying to make the product he was selling look like a genuine product from somebody else.
You're right, this has always been the way and many people (particularly on sites like this) seem to struggle with the concept that users do not care about the operating system. People will switch from Windows if their applications stop running on it or if they move to applications only available on other platforms.
Even for Web browsing and Email a phone or tablet suck balls.
That's really a subjective view, you can quite easily say "well i don't like browsing on touchscreens therefore web browsing on mobile and tablet sucks".
tablets and phones appear like they will always augment rather than replace desktops as they just don't provide the same experience.
Yes that's my point. If you look at the tasks that have declined percentage-wise on desktop it's things like web browsing as they have moved to mobile (regardless of whether you say that sucks or not) but looking at the various industries the professional content creation remains on the desktop.
By 'dead' i mean not a growth market, in fact it's rapidly declined in the last decade.
You can say the writing is on the wall, the PC will die on the desktop while computing moves on.
The PC will always be relevant on the desktop, despite 10 years of the modern smartphone (and 8 of the modern tablet) we still have a vast array of applications from image, video and audio editing and composition along with CAD, CAM, CAE, BIM, simulation, 3D modelling, etc. applications that just don't work in a smartphone/tablet formfactor.
The desktop is mostly dead for things like simple web browsing, email and general social networking as well as doing tasks like taking audio notes or the most basic video composition. Smartphones and tablets have become the core device for personal computing while the desktop PC remains for professional computing.
I didn't misunderstand; you didn't demonstrate hyperbole in the way you think you did.
Actually I did, with a very clear, specific and real example that you demonstrably cannot disprove. That's the reason I used a specific scenario rather than trying to paint broad strokes like you (and the FSF) have. While I agree with what you say being true in some circumstances it clearly is not true in all circumstances so your broad assertions are dishonest at best.
I don't subscribe to an absolutist view on this sort of thing, but I do understand that when absolutists put a stake in the ground it's very hard to walk that back and admit they were wrong or perhaps overzealous. But then people are more likely to be on your side when you admit you've made a mistake rather than when you continue flogging the dead horse.
- Openbook will run out of money (yes, it costs money to run servers for hundreds of millions of users)
Part of the challenge is coming up with a sustainable business model. Nobody is pretending this is going to be free and cost nothing to run.
Ok I think you misunderstand. What I said is that the idea that proprietary software "subjugates users" is nonsense, it is just simply hyperbole as I demonstrated with the example. Use of hyperbole like this undermines the whole free software movement as a whole because it is so demonstrably false and so easy for users to immediately see that it is false because they have freedom of choice.
Defending software licenses, be those free or proprietary is the right thing to do, you seem to think I disagree on that point but I do not. However saying that companies that aggregate data freely available on the internet (subject of this story), like Facebook, are not allowed to do that is an affront to a free and open internet.
proprietary software is rightly identified as user-subjugating by rms.
That's just rubbish, it's the sort of hyperbole that causes people to not take the free software ideology seriously. If I want to edit an image I am not "subjugated" if I choose to use Photoshop to accomplish the task any more than I am if I use GIMP to accomplish the task. Even worse is his assertion that proprietary software takes away users' freedom, which is again wrong and is the same silly notion used by the MPAA affiliates to describe their "stolen" profits. Something that was never granted cannot be taken away.
Free software certainly has its merit and advantages but the hyperbole and half-truths that RMS engages in just makes him sound like a complete kook and it's no better than the sort of idiotic arguments the **AA folks make about piracy.
A free and open internet means you don't restrict that information or what can be done with it, if you don't want it on there then don't put it there but don't try and use lawyers to prevent the existence of the free and open internet.
They would by definition not exist because laws would either prevent them form existing (as was RMS's desire) or be so cumbersome to actually use due to various laws that in fact no-one would use them so they would not exist.
Which is basically Diaspora...you would have to create laws to kill competition in order to have a hope at making it successful.
Sure, but "most people don't care" isn't always a reason in favor of, or against, a particular policy desire. That's tyrrany of the majority.
And it's tyrannical to suggest that it should be taken away 'for their own good' because people can't be trusted with their own information.
If you're saying that what Stallman should be doing is explaining why people should care, he's been doing that for 30 years.
The issue is the dishonesty and hyperbole, we all know that your freedom is taken away when you use proprietary software, sure you're not granted the freedom to modify the software but that is a very different thing and it is freedom of choice as to whether you use it and for how long. If I go to your house I don't have the freedom to just change things and do whatever I please, but then I'm also not imprisoned there, I can leave whenever I want.
I don't think he's advocating a Whac-a-Mole approach. He's advocating sweeping legal changes that wouldn't just affect Facebook, they'd affect any company taking a similar approach.
Restricting the freedom of what anybody can do with the information freely available on the open internet is exactly the kind of tyrannical approach groups like the MPAA take. The hyperbole of taking away profits that never existed is also analogous to Stallman's argument of taking away a freedom you were never granted in the first place.
Why do we need a law when using Facebook or any of the other Social Media application and services are non-mandatory?
Because of the notion of freedom of choice, RMS wants to make that choice for you rather than you be free to make it yourself. His logic is that you shouldn't be free to give up your freedom or privacy, now maybe that would be true if 'freedom' was a blanket definition but it isn't.
If you use proprietary software the concept that you have "given up your freedom" is not really true, you just haven't been granted specific freedoms and even then that is only for a very narrow definition of "freedom" and only in a very specific context and for a specific time (which is almost always at the behest of the person involved), for example yes, when I use Photoshop to edit an image I wasn't granted the freedom to modify Photoshop but I never had that in the first place and - much like pirates can't take away the profits that MPAA affiliates never had - nobody can take away the freedom to modify Photoshop that I never had. More to the point, freedom of choice means I can use GIMP if I want to but that doesn't mean my freedom to use Photoshop should be taken away simply because I can't modify it.
Is this the "Embrace" or "Extend" step in the sequence?
How does that apply to open source, free software like we're discussing here?
Google isn't "selling your data" either; it's way too valuable to let out. They're both selling you instead.
No they're selling the ability to possibly show you something, where 'you' is a loosely defined demographic and if you have an ad blocker the thing they are selling is of no value whatsoever.
Very recent? That link is to 2012.
In any case your assertion is wrong.
It's also the proprietary NVidia driver, not the open source driver that most Linux users would be using in their dist.
The default nVidia driver in SteamOS is nvidia, not nouveau. Also nVidia does not produce the open source nouveau driver so when you say "NVidia / AMD push out frequent Windows driver updates that optimize performance or fix issues for specific games" obviously the driver in question is the proprietary nVidia driver and not the open source one and your assertion about that driver is wrong as they do indeed optimize performance and fix issues for specific games on Linux.
Not to mention that anybody concerned with gaming on Linux is going to be using the proprietary nVidia driver and not the nouveau driver because of its far superior performance.
Besides that, if your complaint is actually about the open source driver then there's certainly no reason that nouveau developers couldn't work closely with game developers to optimize their drivers for specific games.
You don't want to know how many accidents there were in cars with autopilot, that doesn't matter. What you want to know is miles per accident *with autopilot engaged.* Using the other number is highly misleading.
If it's going to veer into a lane divider that's a problem. So what you want to know in this case is how many times Teslas with Autopilot engaged have successfully navigated past lane dividers.
Translation: We couldn't be bothered to get off our ass and work on this before now because we make all our money from iPhones these days.
The Mac Pro is just a computer to build iPhone apps with.
Many of the Linux ports are shoddy and it showed in the number of issues they suffered. It's not the fault of Linux or of some inherent superiority of Windows but of time, resources, effort on behalf of the developer.
It's economies of scale. Obviously developers aren't going to put the same effort into servicing a very tiny portion of the market as they do into servicing the majority of the market. Most gamers also don't care about the OS at all, they'll play on whatever it runs best on because you can always just dual boot.
And not just of the game dev, but also the graphics driver. NVidia / AMD push out frequent Windows driver updates that optimize performance or fix issues for specific games. Linux gets none of that.
That's just completely incorrect. The changelog on one of the very recent linux drivers for nVidia's GPUs shows multiple fixes for specific games:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-304.37-driver
Moreover shader compiler optimizations are shared across platforms as they aren't related to the OS.
SPIR-V bytecode still has to be interpreted by the driver and ultimately vendors can also extend SPIR-V themselves so in general vendor-specific problems still exist. As to your specific question you can have GLSL shaders that compile fine through glslangvalidator but a particular vendor driver might choke on the SPIR-V due to vendor or even architecture specific vkPhysicalDeviceLimits for example so you can find yourself using one buffer type on one vendor and a different buffer type on another vendor which starts to complicate things.
Aside from that I have had a couple of complex shaders that run fine on AMD but crash on nVidia - AMD has always been more strict on the spec but it's probably worth noting that these were all GLSL shaders compiled to SPIR-V. So sadly things don't seem to have gotten better by having an intermediate representation, though I can't speak to HLSL and don't have that much experience with it.