I don't disagree with what you said, but in your original post you didn't say that "Linux" *ins't* easy to use - you said it's not *supposed* to be "super" easy to use. I disagree with that. Linux is not supposed to be anything. People chose not to make it as easy to use as it could be, but there's nothing to say that things are supposed to be this way.
There are solutions to these problems, but everyone's so busy bashing Win and Mac that they fail to figure out what those OSes got right about software installation and maintenance. As soon as someone realizes Linux distros don't have to be this complicated, at least one of them will stop being complicated.:)
Some of us do care, know all too well, and haven't been afraid to try - but our apps just aren't on Linux. In my case, one remarkably lovely music app keeps me using Windows.
You know, to be honest, many apps with great usability run on Mac or Windows, and those developers need to be convinced to go cross-platform. The open source "clones" usually miss out on a lot of the usability issues and only succeed when cloning so well as to get sued for it.:) Right now developing and packaging for Linux distros is hard, and most developers who want to get the most bang for their buck (i.e. users or money) just don't see the value in it.
The thing that Linux distros really need to "get" is that people aren't going to write Linux-only apps if they want to have a large audience for their software. Developers could probably be convinced to go cross-platform if it were fairly easy to do (wxPython, anyone?), but Linux vendors want to push Linux-only solutions (if they don't ignore the entire app development aspect entirely...). That's not going to work for the desktop, and in fact cross-platform apps are in general seeing more success than Linux-only apps. Firefox and OpenOffice are critical components of any Linux distro, but the truth is that they owe some part of their success to the Windows versions of the software. People just don't want lock-in anymore and cross-platform apps ease migration and comfort. The apps running on the platform don't need to be "better" than their Windows counterparts, they can be "just as good" or even "just the same". But the underlying OS has to be better (easier to install, manage, and keep secure), and to be able to run those apps. That, I think, would be more than enough to motivate switchers.
Any of those efforts would help (and I'd definitely welcome a good GUI package builder), but in the end a distro is going to have to make it clear what does and does not come with the distro. Dependency tracking is one of the more complicated parts and there's just no way out of it with current systems. In fact, I half think a large number of 3rd party package developers would be a problem, because if someone accidently puts a bug into the dependency tracking and messes up a dependency in some way or another, it could lead to a real mess. (i.e. what recently happened to Debian)
BTW, what is wrong with the Apple install? (Well, most Apple apps aren't installed, the apps are simply treated like any other file.)
I don't know of a distro of Linux that deliberately disables functionality, requiring you to pay the distributing company in order to re-enable that functionality through the purchase of the "Super-Double-Plus-Good Edition".
Then look harder. Click-n-run warehouse? And that's subscription-based, meaning you have to keep the $$$ coming! Outside of this kind of thing, Linux distros obviously can't do this because they have very little software that's actually their own IP. They make most of their money off support, not sales, so it's mostly apples and oranges.
I don't like MS at all, but it is Microsoft's IP and it's not 'evil' to offer tiered levels of functionality depending on what the user pays for. Don't like it? Don't buy it. That's the only message Microsoft's gonna hear.
These Windows 'distributions' are the same ideology, but just w/ features added or removed, to force users to choose and pay for the features they think are important to them.
Really, take away the "packaging system" (of course, most distros use either RPM or apt-get anyways...) and the "control panel" management interfaces and you can pretty much say the same thing about Linux distros. The take the same software packages, tweak them in various little ways, and then release their distro as 'unique'. I don't see huge ideological differences bewteen most of the distros at all. In fact, I see hardly any differences whatsoever, except slightly different target markets and perhaps install/configuration experiences.
The thing about Linux is that there is no "thing about Linux." I honestly, sincerely hope that one day, a majority of people will stop referring to this etherial "Linux" that is some hive-like borg with a singleminded goal and focus. "Linux" only truly is a kernel whose development is overseen primarily by Linus and primarily a few other folks. And I don't think Linus cares how easy or difficult the OSes that run the Linux kernel are.
So let us please abandon using the term "Linux" as an abstract concept used to refer to the goals, motivations, and actions of all sorts of people who use and develop open source software that runs on the Linux kernel. I know, I know, it makes the discussion *so* much more complicated because the goals of RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu, and countless other open source projects and software differ. But they are separate projects, with separate goals, and they should be referred to as such.
And holding Windows to a higher standard than Linux distros is, to me, a double-standard. Windows offering choices? Just confuses customers. Linux distros offering (tons of extremely similar) choices? Now that's its selling point. Because you know customers just love evaluating 20 distros and trying to figure out what the heck actually makes any one of them different from the others (except their bugs, point version of OOo and Firefox included, and supported hardware devices). Why make one really good Linux distro when you can make 95 mediocre ones? People who proclaim the dearth of choices in open source do so on ideological, not practical, grounds. But most people who own computers own them for practical reasons.
I believe too much choice IS bad, because I think an OS should be a core which customers build on, not a collection of various software bundles which customers have to weigh against each other. But Windows and Linux both are failing to make things simple for customers by making too many confusing differences between versions.
I must ask you about one thing though: if a new distro on the block does no include a package manager then how would it get popular enough to get people to package things for it?
Make it easy and they'll do it. Look at Linux, or Apache, or GNU software, or any number of other things. These are things that when they started and began growing support had NOTHING to offer over existing software solutions, except that they were free and open. They were pet projects, nothing more. But students, along with people fed up with existing solutions and yes, people who saw business opportunities all started pitching into these projects, and now on the server side they're giving MS a run for their money. Why did the early users ride out the tough part? The only answer I can come up with is that some thought it was fun and wanted to play a part in changing the world, others wanted to make a name for themselves, and others eventually wanted to make money off it.
The more you lower the barrier, the more who will jump in to participate. Imagine if, to create an "app bundle", all you had to do was the following:
Make sure you specify a prefix to./configure, like prefix=/opt/mydir
Do the usual make & make install
run a script, like "make_dist_bundle/opt/mydir ~/my_bundles" that creates an app bundle (or simple installer) from what's in/opt/mydir and put it into your my_bundles folder
Upload that bundle to your web site and maybe add it to some downloads web site
Then the effort of sharing the package is only marginally more work than just building it. And if you check p2p networks, you'll find that when it's easy, people will share with each other to get what they want.;)
I guess now you can kinda already get what you want- use something like Gobolinux and only install things through autopackage (there are a lot of those now).
I've tried GoboLinux and for a brief moment thought it was in fact what I was looking for. Unfortunately those developers are completely stuck on throwing everything into one big programs folder. GL handles the concept of an "Applications" folder, and self-contained applications, which is great; unfortunately, "KDE" is in your applications folder, as is "glib", etc. And you have to browse through your Applications folder to find the program you want to run, like Firefox, so you have to 'ignore' all the programs you'll never run yourself every time you check for a program. There's no way an average user would know what they are 'allowed' to run and what they should never touch. And people screamed bloody murder when I suggested changing this. They suggested manual fixes that a user can apply themselves, but that's not very user friendly, and requiring the user to make the distro user friendly kinda defeats the purpose anyways... With GoboLinux, at least, the issue again is a 'policy' one.
ROX, another option, is on the right track, but it has never really gone beyond a distro add-in and hasn't gotten much top-level support by distros, so there are very few people using it. And it doesn't integrate with the GNOME and KDE filemanagers, but uses its own filemanager to support those application bundles. However, its filemanager is just a far cry from the GNOME and KDE ones at this point... So really someone needs to just take the GoboLinux and ROX efforts a step further, and integrate them with GNOME/KDE.
A desktop Linux can't have good commercial support until its popular, but so far no desktop Linux has gotten popualr without providing good software support themselves.
I don't develop commercial software, but I do develop open source software, and frankly all these package managers are just a major PITA to work with. Learning curve is way more complex than it needs to be, very few GUI package builders exist, and the only alternative is going around petitioning people in various distros to include your software. (And I won't e
At such a level package management is just a term. You could correctly call a Windows' package repository "the software section at Best Buy." But I guess you are saying "don't call it that!" Sure.
I'm referring to a package manager as a centralized repository of packages maintained by the OS vendor. The key is that it's maintained by one, or a small number, of people. The "Best Buy" package management is maintained by hundreds or thousands of disparate developers who never even work directly with MS, and who foot the bill for package creation and management. That's the difference.
As long as Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu and the like stay in business they are not failing.
Red Hat and SuSE are the two main distros which do seem to actually have developers making packages for them, and they're both primarily geared towards servers and the enterprise. Ubuntu is reliant upon the funding of Mark Shuttleworth, donations, and volunteers, so failing is a matter of perspective. From a perspective of really bringing in new users (instead of switching existing Linux distro users over) I doubt Ubuntu is yet having any significant impact on the marketplace. I know there's tons of people talking about it and trying it out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Linux distro marketshare is being affected in any real way.
And you saying things like "gang up" while telling me in your first paragraph why this can't be the case.
No, I mean everyone from one distro to "gang up". If the developers of one distro put all the "package building/testing" resources into improving the desktop, I firmly believe it would make great strides - and quickly. (Assuming they fix the real problems and focusing on usability.) I think if you actually looked at the man hours put into package building and testing, you'd be astonished at how much of a burden it is to any particular distro. Have you ever noticed that most distro 'updates' are simply package updates, and maybe a few desktop tweaks? I'm pretty sure that's about all they can afford to do.
Maybe because its really hard. Maybe if you have 1% of less desktop marketshare it might be smarter to bundle programs rather than depend on that marketshare to bring developer support.
Solving the packaging issue would not be hard at all. That's the thing that makes this so frustrating. Commercial vendors (i.e. Linspire) want to sell "software update" solutions, so they want package management so they can charge people to actually put stuff on their computers. Non-profit vendors are so pleased as punch with package management that to even suggest anything other would be abhorrent. But, if someone WERE to actually attempt this, it would involve the following:
Determine a list of packages that come with the OS, and have the installation routine install all those, and only those, packages.
Let developers know what packages come with the OS, and require them to bundle everything else.
Done. Now, what would be really nice would be an app bundle-type solution like Mac has, which could be done easily and quickly (using the relocatable app support from autopackage) with a couple additions to GNOME/KDE to detect and recognize such bundles once the above solution is in place. Drag and drop install would really look cool and simple, and then free up all sorts of resources to fix the real usability issues with the GUI desktop. Really, all this could be done with (max) 100-200 hours worth of work, and any given distro has way more than that level of resources that it could put into it. This is not so much a technical obstacle as a policy one, and that's the shame of it. For all the claims of the innovative nature of open source, a vast majority of developers out there think incredibly alike. (i.e. most distros, again, simply change the circumference of the wheel rather than doing something truly 'different'.)
And if you want to pretend that Linux can come from a single controlling entity like OSX on Windows does, be my guest.
And finally through all the debating we get to the misconception that is the crux of your arguments. Your problem is that you see "Linux" as some etheral being that just doesn't exist in reality. Linux is a kernel, nothing more. (Which itself has a controlling entity called Linus, along with a few other people.) And most Linux-based distros out there already *do* have a single controlling entity behind them (the successful ones, at least). RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu - they all have project teams that make design and functionality decisions that affect *only* their distro. They make changes that affect *only* their distro. They test binary packages *only* for their distro. RedHat doesn't call up Ubuntu, or the entire "Linux" community before it makes each change does it? No. They make whatever changes they feel need to be made when they see benefit to their customers. Ubuntu, or other distros, are no different. They may incorporate software from various places, sure, but so does Windows and Mac (particularly). But what software they use and how they use it, and how they change it, is their business and they're not beholden to anyone except perhaps to make a change patch. So could we please stop talking about how "Linux" works, please. There's no such concrete thing in existence so I haven't the slightest idea of what you are really referring to, and the discussion of making dozens of disparate OSes, that happen to contain a Linux kernel in them, dance to the same tune is just crazy.
You problem is assuming that what works for MS and Apple can work for Linux. It can't. Because there is no one desktop Linux. There are at least ten. And many of them lack libraries and such the others have.
It doesn't matter how many desktop Linux-based distros there are. When one distro figures out how to do things right (which includes ditching package management) and goes beyond re-inventing the wheel with a slightly different circumference, it will skyrocket into the mainstream. It will no longer have to worry about package management because people will actually WANT to make packages for it, like they do on Win and Mac. (What a concept!) The other nine, or twenty-nine, desktop contenders can keep fighting over the 0.3% of Linux distro 'desktop' users who refuse to use the "winning" distro.:)
You basically admit Linux distros need package managers because they can't get developers to make packages for Linux. This should be seen as a "red alert - we are failing" signal to the distro/OS. Instead, there is this impression that really, nothing is actually wrong with our distro, we just need to put 5000 software packages into our distro and then it will be great. Let's not all gang up and fix the problems with the desktop software, instead let's package up broken and poorly written software to run on top of it so that people can install it via a searchable GUI.
But that is the attitude that people have to deal with when they want to improve Linux. I mean, it's just software. Do you want it to be easy? Make it easy! The GPL will let you. Don't just say "that's just the way it is". Wake up. Someone MADE it that way. Perhaps doing so was a mistake? Perhaps those design decisions about filesystem design and library management were made 30 years ago, when there was no such thing as a 'desktop' and the average program was one 20K binary and maybe a man doc? Perhaps that same design is outdated in the face of what today's users need, and their average computing power/disk space? But this lack of interest in even asking these questions, again, is the attitude that keeps a Linux-based distro off the desktop. It's that attitude of: "Linux" just is what it is, whatever that is, and it can't be changed. The response I get to changing how things are done - even in just one distro - is almost revulsion. It's silly. Go ahead and believe what you want to believe if it makes you feel better about the design decisions made by open source developers. But it simply isn't true.
Ubuntu after a nerd sets it up just works really nicely.
Not only must a nerd 'set it up', but for any number of changes the nerd must be on call to help. Any Linux desktop, even the "good" ones, need an on-call techie. And that makes the actual computer user feel helpless and stupid. Even more so than with Windows. (And that's saying something.)
Of course, you cannot backup one of your major premises (how Linux can exist without package management) so I guess we are just wasting each other's time anyway...right?
I was going to let it go, but this is just plain silly, and if you think about it you'll know it's the case. Not only can I prove it, it has already been proven. Look at Mac OS X. It is a Unix OS, which has very similar underpinnings to Linux and includes many of the base utilities, shared libraries, etc., yet does not require a package manager. Windows doesn't need one either. Do you think they don't have shared libraries, or dependencies, or any of the other "challenges" that Linux/Unix has? Do you really?
Think about OS design. Mac and Windows simply addressed the same challenges in a different way, one focused on ease of use for the end user. They don't say to their users "which of these 2000 packages would you like to install?" because most users wouldn't have a clue about it nor would they care. Instead, they just included all the commonly-used packages a user might need onto the computer, greatly simplifying issues for user and developer alike. They say to developers - "you know what comes with the OS - bundle anything that doesn't." No script needed to analyze your OS, find missing bits, look them up on the web, install them, resolve conflicts and ensure compatibiltiy with other programs needed. Just simple, drag and drop install. (On Mac. Windows is a bit dumber here, but I digress.)
But, if you want to (without thinking about the issue seriously) just sit back and claim that package management is the only solution, and that any other solution must work with every *nix-based OS/distro on the face of the planet - be my guest. Just don't expect to ever get very far on fixing anything that way. This is the exact attitude that keeps the commercial vendors, new users, and the community that could help you resolve these hardware and vendor support problems, away from Linux.
Oh well, forget it. Your basic premise is that any desktop OS must be a spitting image clone of Windows, which is silly. Not to mention wrong, considering that the computer vendor experiencing the largest growth in userbase is selling computers that don't run Windows or Windows programs. As this shows, a lot of people do *not* want Windows. They want something that *works*!
But you're just rattling off opinion after opinion with nothing to back it up. Your base premise that "Linux must be Windows to beat it" is wrong and everything flows from there. So long as you are fixed in that opinion, there's nothing to discuss because you will continually respond with the mantra "Linux is not Windows" to any comment I make. As proof I offer the fact that you're already doing precisely this.
Again, you prove my premise to AKAImBatman. You've already constructed a fictional argument where the only way for Linux to succeed as a desktop OS is to actually be Windows, and since that is of course impossible, oh well, no reason to bother with a Linux distro for the average user. Linux is for geeks only.
And I told AKAImBatman that the average Linux user would just balk at his changes, didn't I?:)
First, no package format will ever "win". If a distro does "win" on the Desktop it will be in part because it removed the need for a package manager. Package managers are useful for people who heavily customize their OS. Of all the computer users in the world, a very small portion actually need to do this. That small portion of users think package management is the bomb and indispensible. The rest of users see it as nothinig but another thing to learn.
As for "it is not Windows", well, what makes you think most computer users know they're running Windows? Most people neither know nor care about what their OS is - they don't want Windows, they want an OS that provides an experience that is easy, comfortable and secure/reliable. An easy, comfortable and secure/reliable user experience SHOULD be a goal for any OS, but you're basically confirming the point I made earlier about people not wanting this for Linux. "If you want an easy to use OS, look to Windows. That's not Linux, nor should it be."
Re: alternatives, Linspire is a cheap clone; it has horrible security with its login as root mentality (cloning Windows) and charges you a subscription for the ability to easily install programs. Cha-ching. All told, it's MORE expensive than Windows XP home. Xandros choked on my test PC. Ubuntu does what it does well, but there's a whole lot it doesn't do, and you have to get through the circa 1983 installation interface first.
Not much more that I can say than if you actually HAD consumer demand for Linux compatible devices, well, there would be Linux-compatible devices. It's a lot easier when the hardware vendors do the work for you. It's really hard to create device drivers when none of the vendors want to and force you to reverse engineer them.
But I get your point. Linux is not Windows, and cannot hope to match its user experience for non-geeks, and thus can't build up the community necessary to get proper hardware support. Shame you feel that it has to be that way, though.
I kinda agree with some of your points (except for the thing about package management- if you have a better way to manage the chaos that is the Gnu operating system I would love to hear it- large binaries don't work when the only common thread between distros is nothing).
Look at non-GNU OSes. Do Microsoft and Apple package up third-party applications? Do they test and QA them? No. But how can developers build software for their platforms then? The answer is simple: Microsoft and Apple provide a complete OS, rather than letting you pick from a buffet. Why? Because this is *so* much cheaper to do, and frees up money and time to improve the OS rather than making sure OpenOffice runs on it when packages X and Y are installed but not Z.
There is no reason for any "normal" user to switch to Linux on their desktop. If Microsoft's products were not good enough they would not be popular. Heck, there isn't a big reason to switch to Macs either for the same reason. Windows is good enough.
Wow, I take it you don't use Windows much. Security, for one. Windows is swiss cheese. The badgering of anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, privacy management, and other programs is practically maddening, and if you don't keep up with it, day by day, your PC will get hosed. I have a sister whose kids cannot email me because if they even try to open their browser, sex ads pop up all over the screen. (Their provider uses webmail.) I try to give them the 3-hour security pep talk about why they need to get software programs A to D to keep their computer safe, and how they should be updating those programs and scanning regularly, but for some odd reason they missed out on "network security" day at school and expect that their computer should be able to do this stuff for them without purchasing a bunch of software add-ons.
The people I know using Windows hate it, and would love something better, but Linux requires way too much fiddling with and Macs require buying a whole new computer to go with that OS. They WANT an OS like Linux, they just can't *use* it.
There's nothing nerdy about wanting an OS which is easy to use, not full of security holes, and doesn't require you to have a Ph.D. in network security to keep safe. There's no reason why Linux by definition can't do these things. It just doesn't, and for the reasons I mentioned, there's little incentive to make it do those things. But make no mistake, home users would eat this up if it could be made usable for the average user.
Believe it or not, there is potential for making money off of software. It's just not in the Microsoft sense. More in the Apple sense. And that's all I got ta' say about that.;-)
Oh, I totally agree. But most of the establishment is so used to poorly written software that *can't* be sold that the message I keep hearing is "subscriptions" and "services". It's practically a mantra now. Apple doesn't sell much of either, and they're succeeding and growing just fine (well, a LOT more than fine!), but still the majority of the computing community argues that software can't be sold anymore. In short, as usual, Apple's changing the world but the world's got blinders on. So my concern is that it's going to be an uphill battle for you to find someone who can appreciate your ideas. Steve Jobs could, but I don't think *this* particular project would be up his alley.:)
I do wish you the best of luck, and if I do ever win the lottery this would be a fun project to contribute both time and resources to.:) And your distro will be the one I switch to when it comes out - make no doubt about that!
Unfortunately, what you're suggesting doing is taking away everything that many Linux users love about Linux. In short, you're talking about:
- Making things easier (no fun, no elitism!)
- Making Linux more common (losing the 'status' of using Linux)
- Becoming more like Microsoft, or a commercial software package in general (becoming instead of fighting the establishment)
- Removing the need for package management (which many people feel is the coolest over-engineered solution to a problem ever created)
In other words, you're making Linux everything the Linux community stands against. You're making software for people who need to get work done, not software for people trying to make a statement. Consider trying to sell a fuel-efficient hybrid car to a man in a mid-life crisis who's looking for something to bring in the chicks or give his friends the impression he drives into the mountains regularly. Your wise words of efficiency and cost savings will be lost on this man.:)
As a similar situation, when Japanese animation started becoming popular, the existing fanbase became appalled at the thought of 'dubbing' anime into English. Many of them thought it would never work. If it had been up to that community, it would have been just fine that most people never experience anime, even great classics like Miyazaki's films, because they felt most people couldn't even appreciate them, especially in "Americanized" (aka dubbed) form. So is their cause to promote Japanese animation, or to create a small, tight-knit community of people that is unique and non-mainstream? I'd say more the latter than the former. Who DID promote anime to the masses? Companies, who saw money to be made from doing so.
Your ideas are great. You're really on the right track about what Linux needs to expand the market for Linux software, but I think you're going to need to look to non-traditional sources for help. I've been following your progress, but I'm not sure what to suggest as:
- most Linux users who'd support your ideas are probably already employed and have "bread and butter" jobs limiting their ability to contribute
- commercial Linux distros like selling subscription services, so removing the need for a package manager is probably going to turn them off to this idea
- Venture Capitalists are going to ask how you'll make money from this, but the idea is to make Linux so easy that it doesn't really need extra support, and since it's Linux, most people can just burn CDs for each other without having to pay for anything
So boiling everything down, the question becomes - outside of a genuine desire to improve Linux and give alternatives to Microsoft, who can you find who'd be willing to put resources into the project, and how can you motivate them to do so?
After I thought about this quite a bit, I came to the conclusion that Linux on the desktop was going straight for the enterprise, where vendors can charge big companies huge subscription fees just to ensure their Linux keeps working. Home users are strapped for cash and won't be seen by companies as a large growth market, so those users'll keep their Windows box or move to Mac next time they buy a computer. Linux for the average user will remain, as it has been, a hobbyist OS, and I'm not sure that even if you developed these great tools that such hobbyists would adopt them.
So in short, I think it's a great idea, but I'm not sure how you can make it real.;-/ Except maybe base it off FreeBSD and sell it.:)
Unfortunately wxWidgets isn't very mature on the Mac OS X platform. I've tried it, and it works well for very simple interfaces, but it's a bit buggy. It's definitely not for production level code.
Which version were you using when you tried it? If you were working with the 2.4.x branch, then you're missing out on a ton of work that has been done over the past two years to bring the OS X port in line with other ports. If you haven't tried the 2.6 versions yet, then you may really want to consider taking a second look. I work on at least 3 wxPython apps (none of them simple - I only wish!) with Mac versions either released or in progress, and they all run quite well on Mac when using the 2.6 branch.
That being said, there is, of course, more work to be done, and if you point out what problems you had, I'll be happy to try and help get it resolved. The main reason these things haven't all gotten resolved yet is that we are, of course, a community project, and our community of volunteer Mac developers has only recently started to grow to match that of other ports, just as support for the Mac platform in general has grown considerably recently.
Because all mainstream personal computers will use the same x86 processor in the next two years, certain programmers who deal with assembly issues will be relieved. However, we still have Carbon/Cocoa, Win32, and GTK/QT/POSIX to deal with.
Only if you want to deal with all that.:) If you'd rather not, you could use wxWidgets (or wxPython) which give you cross-platform native interfaces without doing theming and emulation. I think those who want to do cross-platform have it pretty good these days (although it can always, of course, be better).
As for the Intel announcement, I think the only real impact will be the first thing I heard of when I read it - speed boost for MacTel apps! (if you can afford it, that is...)
Depending on the album, at 150 or 200 yen per song, albums can become quite a bit cheaper. For example, singles CDs, which typically cost anywhere between 800-1200 yen in Japan, are about 400-500 yen on iTunes. That's a nice discount! A 12 song album would be between 1800-2400 yen, which is also significantly cheaper. Jack Johnson's 14 track album was actually 1500 yen, which is a really good deal.
The unfortunate part, though, is that their selection is really just so-so. I couldn't find X-Japan, Tube, or Southern All Stars, all very big bands in Japan. I also couldn't find many newer favorites, like SMAP, Orange Range, L'Arc en Ciel, Aiko, etc. And anime fans would be disappointed to know that there really aren't many anime songs on there, aside from "Sonic X" songs.:) Well, they're just starting so hopefully things will improve, but it does give the impression that the Japanese market is even more hesitant to embrace an online download service than the US market was.
Oh, god, yes. Demographics are a huge part of market research. Very, very few games appeal to more than three years of a kid's age; most of them only two. If your business proposal doesn't discuss what demographic you're targetting, you're immediately taken much less seriously.
Designing a game to appeal to an age demographic is one thing (and good business sense), but it's another thing entirely to create a game that will appeal only to that target demographic. i.e. Mario appeals to kids, but there's nothing in it that would not appeal to adults that like playing platformers or that type of game. That's more important these days, IMHO, as you finally get a generation of people who grew up playing video games and who won't immediately dismiss them as 'kids stuff'.
Super Mario Brothers has entirely too much nostalgia to be seen with clear eyes.
If the game sucked, there'd be no nostalgia in it. The thing is, it was, and still is, a fun game. Go back and play it and see if you don't enjoy it. Heck, people are buying the game for Game Boy! I have even more "nostalgia" for Mike Tyson's Punch Out, or Side Pocket, where the originals were funner to play than their clones/sequels.
How many adults do you expect to play Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron, Animal Snap, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon or the surprising current Nintendo #1 seller, Lego Starwars?
Actually, my wife is a big fan of Harvest Moon games. She played Animal Crossing and thought it was okay, but she seemed to be at a loss for what to do next much of the time with that game. So honestly I don't know how to answer that question because my wife probably isn't part of your expected demographic. And are my wife and I part of the SM Sunshine demographic? Because we both put tons of hours into that one. (And this is making me start to think about playing it again.:)
Now, most of the other games you identified are, obviously, tie-in games that would appeal only to people who watch the show or whatever. If you don't like Spongebob, you're not going to even look at that game. I bet there are a lot of adult Star Wars fans who would try out Lego SW though, if just for the laugh factor. Heck, I even thought about playing the game, and I'm not a big SW fan at all. In fact, do you KNOW that all or even most of those Lego SW games are going to kids?
Demographics are absolutely critical to this industry. If you get a broad-acceptance game - and I can count the non-clones on that list in history on both hands (kids don't play solitaire) - then you're making a mint. But you'd better be damned able to either explain it at the business pitch of show user testing results, because that's a total holy grail; it never, ever happens in this line of work.
Well, as a game player, all I can really say is that there used to be a lot of really fun games out there with unique premises and/or gameplay behind them, but these days the market is mostly filled with clones of the same old games. I don't think anyone (outside of Nintendo, perhaps) even cares about broad acceptance or bringing in new target markets anymore. It's all about "how can I sell a new game to the exact target market I sold the last game to". Hmmm... Maybe make the same game?:)
But that's what demographics, user testing, etc. are all about. Making a profile of the 'target market' and their desires so clearly that sales can virtually be assured. And then repeating that success over and over. Hollywood has done this for a long time. Of course, inventing new gameplay or unique concepts doesn't cater well to this. But oh well, there are a LOT of people who don't seem to miss those things. Ready for my next FPS, sirs!
We are the ones that played Nintendo when we were kids, we are older now and we want more mature games.
I never realized Nintendo games were geared towards any particular age range. They are kid-friendly, but hell if I don't find the games just as fun as I did when I was 6. When do you become too 'mature' for Super Mario Brothers, exactly? To me, Mario Party is just so much funner than 'yet another multiplayer frag fest', but I guess that's probably because I feel more thought was put into making the game fun. (They couldn't just give you a choice of 6-10 weapons and have you run around and shoot people.)
Whenever I hear this criticism about "more mature games", it seems more a request for Nintendo to play to gamers' insecurities than anything. When I play a Mario, or Zelda, etc. game, I don't think "geez, Nintendo's treating me like a kid! Where's something that plays to my need for raw violence, bloodletting and gritty realism?" I think - gee, the gameplays really good, the game is huge, and all the best parts aren't cut-scenes. (Unlike most other games out there.) But apparently many gamers don't agree. Games have to be complicated, be badass and 'realistic', or be like movies, to be playable. Not to worry, Sony and Microsoft have got those folks covered. FPSs and sports (i.e. racing) games are flooding those platforms.
Personally, I don't see this as cause for alarm. When Nintendo's in the red, and the other two vendors are making gobs of cash (at least up until recently, MS was bleeding cash on XBox) then let me know. But hey, I'm a Mac user and so I'm quite used to people predicting the imminent death of a profitable company.:)
I do think they considered putting it into the game from the start. They no doubt removed it thinking about what the probable AO rating would do to sales.
Let's face it - the "M" rating doesn't count for much (parents still think it's just a game), but AO for a major console game like GTA would get big headlines which would no doubt mention the sex games in it, and that content would have put it right off of many parents' Christmas buying list. (And yes, this would hurt Rockstar, probably more than they care to admit.) And, no, I don't think now most retailers will be able to sell it like they used to. (They have to worry that a 'investigative news reporter' might try to have their son buy the game then plaster that all over the 10 o'clock news.)
Leaving it in the game was probably 1) easiser, and 2) the developers thought it wouldn't hurt too much if someone did hack it (and furthermore probably thought it'd be 'cool' if someone did), because they probably didn't realize how far it would spread.
To be honest, though, I think the ESRB did the right thing here. (Though frankly, I think the violence is just as deserving of the rating as the sex is.) Otherwise, game developers could put all the nasty content into a 'locked' hack that they could later 'anonymously' have someone post the patch to. Voila, an easy way to get a T rating or less and put things like sex in it. The ESRB really did have to react in order to prevent these kinds of things from happening or being commonplace.
Here's an idea for developers: make and sell a T and AO version of the game. An "Uncut" version, so to speak, with more gore and nudity and/or sex, or whatever. This way kids can't complain that they can't play cool games because they're only for adults, and adults can't complain that all the games out there are 'censored' for kids.
... in most cases the PCs we're talking about are not that old. Yeah, if you're running some old Win98 PC, this does make sense. But if you're running an XP machine that's reasonably fast, and just not updating it or not protecting yourself, replacing the machine is nothing but a temporary fix. I've seen people wipe their PCs clean only to find, 6 months later, their computers were in the very same position.
Replacing your computer might make Michael Dell happy, but it often isn't a solution; it just makes you feel better for a little bit. The reality is that in today's world, users need to either get with the program in terms of securing their computer, or buy a computer/OS that offers better security out of the box. (Mac or Linux)
But that's a bitter medicine to take, so people are trying to find ways around taking the medicine. Good luck to them. What I'd be interested in seeing is the follow up to this 1-2 years from now to see if this approach "worked" in the long term for them. I bet within two years they'll ditch their PCs or move to something else out of pure frustration.
I'm not saying low quality I'm saying lots of vertical apps, "covering every possible niche". And while it is true that the average person may only use a 1/2 dozen apps or so (though I'm not sure) they certainly will all need 1 or 2 that aren't mainstream.
I know what you're trying to say, but you're not really thinking it through. Exactly how do you plan to have a bunch of free, high quality niche market apps? You can't take for granted that open source just "does" this. Mozilla and OpenOffice succeed becuase 1) they have real money coming in and devs on their payrolls and 2) they are NOT niche apps so they have tons of people testing them and reporting bugs every day. Niche market apps will not have either of those two.
So vendors will have to test and QA themselves, which will cost them money. And how will they make up that money? Linux desktops don't considerably reduce costs (~$50/comp), and it will be hard to convince users to pay such a high premium for their Linux desktop that will justify all the QA costs that went into creating their software library CD.
And lastly, some distros already come with TONS of apps, so why haven't they taken off?
That's a bit like saying you just need to add 100 hours of public domain DVDs with each DVD player to sell them better.
People want quality software, and most people don't need more than 5-6 packages. Who wants to sift through 20 GB of software to find 10 different programs that do what they're looking for, then sort through them to find out which one is least likely to crash, most intuitive, and supports their needs? People who are this cheap and place such a low value on their time aren't going to buy anything over a $300 computer so the profit margins are going to be small anyways. Why bother working to making these people happy? These people will take the time out to learn to scour the web and find their free software.
The value of Linux doesn't exist for the last two market segments (both home segments).
You've said this far more clearly than I could. This hits the nail on the head. Unlike OS X, a Linux desktop cannot be sold to value concsious markets (like the home) because they can legally get it for free due to Linux licensing. Not to mention, unlike the enterprise market, the home market won't buy into 'subscription' models for support, or to be able to install programs/manage desktops, which leaves little to no revenue stream for Linux as a desktop OS.
It's nice to think that maybe the community would step in and fill the gaps, but realistically they don't have access to the hardware vendors, they can't afford usability studies, and they don't have access to marketing or distribution channels to really gather resources to fight with MS or anyone else.
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I don't disagree with what you said, but in your original post you didn't say that "Linux" *ins't* easy to use - you said it's not *supposed* to be "super" easy to use. I disagree with that. Linux is not supposed to be anything. People chose not to make it as easy to use as it could be, but there's nothing to say that things are supposed to be this way.
:)
There are solutions to these problems, but everyone's so busy bashing Win and Mac that they fail to figure out what those OSes got right about software installation and maintenance. As soon as someone realizes Linux distros don't have to be this complicated, at least one of them will stop being complicated.
You know, to be honest, many apps with great usability run on Mac or Windows, and those developers need to be convinced to go cross-platform. The open source "clones" usually miss out on a lot of the usability issues and only succeed when cloning so well as to get sued for it. :) Right now developing and packaging for Linux distros is hard, and most developers who want to get the most bang for their buck (i.e. users or money) just don't see the value in it.
The thing that Linux distros really need to "get" is that people aren't going to write Linux-only apps if they want to have a large audience for their software. Developers could probably be convinced to go cross-platform if it were fairly easy to do (wxPython, anyone?), but Linux vendors want to push Linux-only solutions (if they don't ignore the entire app development aspect entirely...). That's not going to work for the desktop, and in fact cross-platform apps are in general seeing more success than Linux-only apps. Firefox and OpenOffice are critical components of any Linux distro, but the truth is that they owe some part of their success to the Windows versions of the software. People just don't want lock-in anymore and cross-platform apps ease migration and comfort. The apps running on the platform don't need to be "better" than their Windows counterparts, they can be "just as good" or even "just the same". But the underlying OS has to be better (easier to install, manage, and keep secure), and to be able to run those apps. That, I think, would be more than enough to motivate switchers.
Any of those efforts would help (and I'd definitely welcome a good GUI package builder), but in the end a distro is going to have to make it clear what does and does not come with the distro. Dependency tracking is one of the more complicated parts and there's just no way out of it with current systems. In fact, I half think a large number of 3rd party package developers would be a problem, because if someone accidently puts a bug into the dependency tracking and messes up a dependency in some way or another, it could lead to a real mess. (i.e. what recently happened to Debian)
BTW, what is wrong with the Apple install? (Well, most Apple apps aren't installed, the apps are simply treated like any other file.)
Then look harder. Click-n-run warehouse? And that's subscription-based, meaning you have to keep the $$$ coming! Outside of this kind of thing, Linux distros obviously can't do this because they have very little software that's actually their own IP. They make most of their money off support, not sales, so it's mostly apples and oranges.
I don't like MS at all, but it is Microsoft's IP and it's not 'evil' to offer tiered levels of functionality depending on what the user pays for. Don't like it? Don't buy it. That's the only message Microsoft's gonna hear.
Really, take away the "packaging system" (of course, most distros use either RPM or apt-get anyways...) and the "control panel" management interfaces and you can pretty much say the same thing about Linux distros. The take the same software packages, tweak them in various little ways, and then release their distro as 'unique'. I don't see huge ideological differences bewteen most of the distros at all. In fact, I see hardly any differences whatsoever, except slightly different target markets and perhaps install/configuration experiences.
The thing about Linux is that there is no "thing about Linux." I honestly, sincerely hope that one day, a majority of people will stop referring to this etherial "Linux" that is some hive-like borg with a singleminded goal and focus. "Linux" only truly is a kernel whose development is overseen primarily by Linus and primarily a few other folks. And I don't think Linus cares how easy or difficult the OSes that run the Linux kernel are.
So let us please abandon using the term "Linux" as an abstract concept used to refer to the goals, motivations, and actions of all sorts of people who use and develop open source software that runs on the Linux kernel. I know, I know, it makes the discussion *so* much more complicated because the goals of RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu, and countless other open source projects and software differ. But they are separate projects, with separate goals, and they should be referred to as such.
And holding Windows to a higher standard than Linux distros is, to me, a double-standard. Windows offering choices? Just confuses customers. Linux distros offering (tons of extremely similar) choices? Now that's its selling point. Because you know customers just love evaluating 20 distros and trying to figure out what the heck actually makes any one of them different from the others (except their bugs, point version of OOo and Firefox included, and supported hardware devices). Why make one really good Linux distro when you can make 95 mediocre ones? People who proclaim the dearth of choices in open source do so on ideological, not practical, grounds. But most people who own computers own them for practical reasons.
I believe too much choice IS bad, because I think an OS should be a core which customers build on, not a collection of various software bundles which customers have to weigh against each other. But Windows and Linux both are failing to make things simple for customers by making too many confusing differences between versions.
Make it easy and they'll do it. Look at Linux, or Apache, or GNU software, or any number of other things. These are things that when they started and began growing support had NOTHING to offer over existing software solutions, except that they were free and open. They were pet projects, nothing more. But students, along with people fed up with existing solutions and yes, people who saw business opportunities all started pitching into these projects, and now on the server side they're giving MS a run for their money. Why did the early users ride out the tough part? The only answer I can come up with is that some thought it was fun and wanted to play a part in changing the world, others wanted to make a name for themselves, and others eventually wanted to make money off it.
The more you lower the barrier, the more who will jump in to participate. Imagine if, to create an "app bundle", all you had to do was the following:
Then the effort of sharing the package is only marginally more work than just building it. And if you check p2p networks, you'll find that when it's easy, people will share with each other to get what they want. ;)
I guess now you can kinda already get what you want- use something like Gobolinux and only install things through autopackage (there are a lot of those now).
I've tried GoboLinux and for a brief moment thought it was in fact what I was looking for. Unfortunately those developers are completely stuck on throwing everything into one big programs folder. GL handles the concept of an "Applications" folder, and self-contained applications, which is great; unfortunately, "KDE" is in your applications folder, as is "glib", etc. And you have to browse through your Applications folder to find the program you want to run, like Firefox, so you have to 'ignore' all the programs you'll never run yourself every time you check for a program. There's no way an average user would know what they are 'allowed' to run and what they should never touch. And people screamed bloody murder when I suggested changing this. They suggested manual fixes that a user can apply themselves, but that's not very user friendly, and requiring the user to make the distro user friendly kinda defeats the purpose anyways... With GoboLinux, at least, the issue again is a 'policy' one.
ROX, another option, is on the right track, but it has never really gone beyond a distro add-in and hasn't gotten much top-level support by distros, so there are very few people using it. And it doesn't integrate with the GNOME and KDE filemanagers, but uses its own filemanager to support those application bundles. However, its filemanager is just a far cry from the GNOME and KDE ones at this point... So really someone needs to just take the GoboLinux and ROX efforts a step further, and integrate them with GNOME/KDE.
A desktop Linux can't have good commercial support until its popular, but so far no desktop Linux has gotten popualr without providing good software support themselves.
I don't develop commercial software, but I do develop open source software, and frankly all these package managers are just a major PITA to work with. Learning curve is way more complex than it needs to be, very few GUI package builders exist, and the only alternative is going around petitioning people in various distros to include your software. (And I won't e
I'm referring to a package manager as a centralized repository of packages maintained by the OS vendor. The key is that it's maintained by one, or a small number, of people. The "Best Buy" package management is maintained by hundreds or thousands of disparate developers who never even work directly with MS, and who foot the bill for package creation and management. That's the difference.
As long as Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu and the like stay in business they are not failing.Red Hat and SuSE are the two main distros which do seem to actually have developers making packages for them, and they're both primarily geared towards servers and the enterprise. Ubuntu is reliant upon the funding of Mark Shuttleworth, donations, and volunteers, so failing is a matter of perspective. From a perspective of really bringing in new users (instead of switching existing Linux distro users over) I doubt Ubuntu is yet having any significant impact on the marketplace. I know there's tons of people talking about it and trying it out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Linux distro marketshare is being affected in any real way.
And you saying things like "gang up" while telling me in your first paragraph why this can't be the case.No, I mean everyone from one distro to "gang up". If the developers of one distro put all the "package building/testing" resources into improving the desktop, I firmly believe it would make great strides - and quickly. (Assuming they fix the real problems and focusing on usability.) I think if you actually looked at the man hours put into package building and testing, you'd be astonished at how much of a burden it is to any particular distro. Have you ever noticed that most distro 'updates' are simply package updates, and maybe a few desktop tweaks? I'm pretty sure that's about all they can afford to do.
Maybe because its really hard. Maybe if you have 1% of less desktop marketshare it might be smarter to bundle programs rather than depend on that marketshare to bring developer support.Solving the packaging issue would not be hard at all. That's the thing that makes this so frustrating. Commercial vendors (i.e. Linspire) want to sell "software update" solutions, so they want package management so they can charge people to actually put stuff on their computers. Non-profit vendors are so pleased as punch with package management that to even suggest anything other would be abhorrent. But, if someone WERE to actually attempt this, it would involve the following:
- Determine a list of packages that come with the OS, and have the installation routine install all those, and only those, packages.
- Let developers know what packages come with the OS, and require them to bundle everything else.
Done. Now, what would be really nice would be an app bundle-type solution like Mac has, which could be done easily and quickly (using the relocatable app support from autopackage) with a couple additions to GNOME/KDE to detect and recognize such bundles once the above solution is in place. Drag and drop install would really look cool and simple, and then free up all sorts of resources to fix the real usability issues with the GUI desktop. Really, all this could be done with (max) 100-200 hours worth of work, and any given distro has way more than that level of resources that it could put into it. This is not so much a technical obstacle as a policy one, and that's the shame of it. For all the claims of the innovative nature of open source, a vast majority of developers out there think incredibly alike. (i.e. most distros, again, simply change the circumference of the wheel rather than doing something truly 'different'.)And finally through all the debating we get to the misconception that is the crux of your arguments. Your problem is that you see "Linux" as some etheral being that just doesn't exist in reality. Linux is a kernel, nothing more. (Which itself has a controlling entity called Linus, along with a few other people.) And most Linux-based distros out there already *do* have a single controlling entity behind them (the successful ones, at least). RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu - they all have project teams that make design and functionality decisions that affect *only* their distro. They make changes that affect *only* their distro. They test binary packages *only* for their distro. RedHat doesn't call up Ubuntu, or the entire "Linux" community before it makes each change does it? No. They make whatever changes they feel need to be made when they see benefit to their customers. Ubuntu, or other distros, are no different. They may incorporate software from various places, sure, but so does Windows and Mac (particularly). But what software they use and how they use it, and how they change it, is their business and they're not beholden to anyone except perhaps to make a change patch. So could we please stop talking about how "Linux" works, please. There's no such concrete thing in existence so I haven't the slightest idea of what you are really referring to, and the discussion of making dozens of disparate OSes, that happen to contain a Linux kernel in them, dance to the same tune is just crazy.
You problem is assuming that what works for MS and Apple can work for Linux. It can't. Because there is no one desktop Linux. There are at least ten. And many of them lack libraries and such the others have.It doesn't matter how many desktop Linux-based distros there are. When one distro figures out how to do things right (which includes ditching package management) and goes beyond re-inventing the wheel with a slightly different circumference, it will skyrocket into the mainstream. It will no longer have to worry about package management because people will actually WANT to make packages for it, like they do on Win and Mac. (What a concept!) The other nine, or twenty-nine, desktop contenders can keep fighting over the 0.3% of Linux distro 'desktop' users who refuse to use the "winning" distro. :)
You basically admit Linux distros need package managers because they can't get developers to make packages for Linux. This should be seen as a "red alert - we are failing" signal to the distro/OS. Instead, there is this impression that really, nothing is actually wrong with our distro, we just need to put 5000 software packages into our distro and then it will be great. Let's not all gang up and fix the problems with the desktop software, instead let's package up broken and poorly written software to run on top of it so that people can install it via a searchable GUI.
But that is the attitude that people have to deal with when they want to improve Linux. I mean, it's just software. Do you want it to be easy? Make it easy! The GPL will let you. Don't just say "that's just the way it is". Wake up. Someone MADE it that way. Perhaps doing so was a mistake? Perhaps those design decisions about filesystem design and library management were made 30 years ago, when there was no such thing as a 'desktop' and the average program was one 20K binary and maybe a man doc? Perhaps that same design is outdated in the face of what today's users need, and their average computing power/disk space? But this lack of interest in even asking these questions, again, is the attitude that keeps a Linux-based distro off the desktop. It's that attitude of: "Linux" just is what it is, whatever that is, and it can't be changed. The response I get to changing how things are done - even in just one distro - is almost revulsion. It's silly. Go ahead and believe what you want to believe if it makes you feel better about the design decisions made by open source developers. But it simply isn't true.
Not only must a nerd 'set it up', but for any number of changes the nerd must be on call to help. Any Linux desktop, even the "good" ones, need an on-call techie. And that makes the actual computer user feel helpless and stupid. Even more so than with Windows. (And that's saying something.)
Of course, you cannot backup one of your major premises (how Linux can exist without package management) so I guess we are just wasting each other's time anyway...right?I was going to let it go, but this is just plain silly, and if you think about it you'll know it's the case. Not only can I prove it, it has already been proven. Look at Mac OS X. It is a Unix OS, which has very similar underpinnings to Linux and includes many of the base utilities, shared libraries, etc., yet does not require a package manager. Windows doesn't need one either. Do you think they don't have shared libraries, or dependencies, or any of the other "challenges" that Linux/Unix has? Do you really?
Think about OS design. Mac and Windows simply addressed the same challenges in a different way, one focused on ease of use for the end user. They don't say to their users "which of these 2000 packages would you like to install?" because most users wouldn't have a clue about it nor would they care. Instead, they just included all the commonly-used packages a user might need onto the computer, greatly simplifying issues for user and developer alike. They say to developers - "you know what comes with the OS - bundle anything that doesn't." No script needed to analyze your OS, find missing bits, look them up on the web, install them, resolve conflicts and ensure compatibiltiy with other programs needed. Just simple, drag and drop install. (On Mac. Windows is a bit dumber here, but I digress.)
But, if you want to (without thinking about the issue seriously) just sit back and claim that package management is the only solution, and that any other solution must work with every *nix-based OS/distro on the face of the planet - be my guest. Just don't expect to ever get very far on fixing anything that way. This is the exact attitude that keeps the commercial vendors, new users, and the community that could help you resolve these hardware and vendor support problems, away from Linux.
Oh well, forget it. Your basic premise is that any desktop OS must be a spitting image clone of Windows, which is silly. Not to mention wrong, considering that the computer vendor experiencing the largest growth in userbase is selling computers that don't run Windows or Windows programs. As this shows, a lot of people do *not* want Windows. They want something that *works*!
:)
But you're just rattling off opinion after opinion with nothing to back it up. Your base premise that "Linux must be Windows to beat it" is wrong and everything flows from there. So long as you are fixed in that opinion, there's nothing to discuss because you will continually respond with the mantra "Linux is not Windows" to any comment I make. As proof I offer the fact that you're already doing precisely this.
Again, you prove my premise to AKAImBatman. You've already constructed a fictional argument where the only way for Linux to succeed as a desktop OS is to actually be Windows, and since that is of course impossible, oh well, no reason to bother with a Linux distro for the average user. Linux is for geeks only.
And I told AKAImBatman that the average Linux user would just balk at his changes, didn't I?
First, no package format will ever "win". If a distro does "win" on the Desktop it will be in part because it removed the need for a package manager. Package managers are useful for people who heavily customize their OS. Of all the computer users in the world, a very small portion actually need to do this. That small portion of users think package management is the bomb and indispensible. The rest of users see it as nothinig but another thing to learn.
As for "it is not Windows", well, what makes you think most computer users know they're running Windows? Most people neither know nor care about what their OS is - they don't want Windows, they want an OS that provides an experience that is easy, comfortable and secure/reliable. An easy, comfortable and secure/reliable user experience SHOULD be a goal for any OS, but you're basically confirming the point I made earlier about people not wanting this for Linux. "If you want an easy to use OS, look to Windows. That's not Linux, nor should it be."
Re: alternatives, Linspire is a cheap clone; it has horrible security with its login as root mentality (cloning Windows) and charges you a subscription for the ability to easily install programs. Cha-ching. All told, it's MORE expensive than Windows XP home. Xandros choked on my test PC. Ubuntu does what it does well, but there's a whole lot it doesn't do, and you have to get through the circa 1983 installation interface first.
Not much more that I can say than if you actually HAD consumer demand for Linux compatible devices, well, there would be Linux-compatible devices. It's a lot easier when the hardware vendors do the work for you. It's really hard to create device drivers when none of the vendors want to and force you to reverse engineer them.
But I get your point. Linux is not Windows, and cannot hope to match its user experience for non-geeks, and thus can't build up the community necessary to get proper hardware support. Shame you feel that it has to be that way, though.
Look at non-GNU OSes. Do Microsoft and Apple package up third-party applications? Do they test and QA them? No. But how can developers build software for their platforms then? The answer is simple: Microsoft and Apple provide a complete OS, rather than letting you pick from a buffet. Why? Because this is *so* much cheaper to do, and frees up money and time to improve the OS rather than making sure OpenOffice runs on it when packages X and Y are installed but not Z.
There is no reason for any "normal" user to switch to Linux on their desktop. If Microsoft's products were not good enough they would not be popular. Heck, there isn't a big reason to switch to Macs either for the same reason. Windows is good enough.Wow, I take it you don't use Windows much. Security, for one. Windows is swiss cheese. The badgering of anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, privacy management, and other programs is practically maddening, and if you don't keep up with it, day by day, your PC will get hosed. I have a sister whose kids cannot email me because if they even try to open their browser, sex ads pop up all over the screen. (Their provider uses webmail.) I try to give them the 3-hour security pep talk about why they need to get software programs A to D to keep their computer safe, and how they should be updating those programs and scanning regularly, but for some odd reason they missed out on "network security" day at school and expect that their computer should be able to do this stuff for them without purchasing a bunch of software add-ons.
The people I know using Windows hate it, and would love something better, but Linux requires way too much fiddling with and Macs require buying a whole new computer to go with that OS. They WANT an OS like Linux, they just can't *use* it.
There's nothing nerdy about wanting an OS which is easy to use, not full of security holes, and doesn't require you to have a Ph.D. in network security to keep safe. There's no reason why Linux by definition can't do these things. It just doesn't, and for the reasons I mentioned, there's little incentive to make it do those things. But make no mistake, home users would eat this up if it could be made usable for the average user.
Oh, I totally agree. But most of the establishment is so used to poorly written software that *can't* be sold that the message I keep hearing is "subscriptions" and "services". It's practically a mantra now. Apple doesn't sell much of either, and they're succeeding and growing just fine (well, a LOT more than fine!), but still the majority of the computing community argues that software can't be sold anymore. In short, as usual, Apple's changing the world but the world's got blinders on. So my concern is that it's going to be an uphill battle for you to find someone who can appreciate your ideas. Steve Jobs could, but I don't think *this* particular project would be up his alley. :)
I do wish you the best of luck, and if I do ever win the lottery this would be a fun project to contribute both time and resources to. :) And your distro will be the one I switch to when it comes out - make no doubt about that!
Unfortunately, what you're suggesting doing is taking away everything that many Linux users love about Linux. In short, you're talking about:
:)
;-/ Except maybe base it off FreeBSD and sell it. :)
- Making things easier (no fun, no elitism!)
- Making Linux more common (losing the 'status' of using Linux)
- Becoming more like Microsoft, or a commercial software package in general (becoming instead of fighting the establishment)
- Removing the need for package management (which many people feel is the coolest over-engineered solution to a problem ever created)
In other words, you're making Linux everything the Linux community stands against. You're making software for people who need to get work done, not software for people trying to make a statement. Consider trying to sell a fuel-efficient hybrid car to a man in a mid-life crisis who's looking for something to bring in the chicks or give his friends the impression he drives into the mountains regularly. Your wise words of efficiency and cost savings will be lost on this man.
As a similar situation, when Japanese animation started becoming popular, the existing fanbase became appalled at the thought of 'dubbing' anime into English. Many of them thought it would never work. If it had been up to that community, it would have been just fine that most people never experience anime, even great classics like Miyazaki's films, because they felt most people couldn't even appreciate them, especially in "Americanized" (aka dubbed) form. So is their cause to promote Japanese animation, or to create a small, tight-knit community of people that is unique and non-mainstream? I'd say more the latter than the former. Who DID promote anime to the masses? Companies, who saw money to be made from doing so.
Your ideas are great. You're really on the right track about what Linux needs to expand the market for Linux software, but I think you're going to need to look to non-traditional sources for help. I've been following your progress, but I'm not sure what to suggest as:
- most Linux users who'd support your ideas are probably already employed and have "bread and butter" jobs limiting their ability to contribute
- commercial Linux distros like selling subscription services, so removing the need for a package manager is probably going to turn them off to this idea
- Venture Capitalists are going to ask how you'll make money from this, but the idea is to make Linux so easy that it doesn't really need extra support, and since it's Linux, most people can just burn CDs for each other without having to pay for anything
So boiling everything down, the question becomes - outside of a genuine desire to improve Linux and give alternatives to Microsoft, who can you find who'd be willing to put resources into the project, and how can you motivate them to do so?
After I thought about this quite a bit, I came to the conclusion that Linux on the desktop was going straight for the enterprise, where vendors can charge big companies huge subscription fees just to ensure their Linux keeps working. Home users are strapped for cash and won't be seen by companies as a large growth market, so those users'll keep their Windows box or move to Mac next time they buy a computer. Linux for the average user will remain, as it has been, a hobbyist OS, and I'm not sure that even if you developed these great tools that such hobbyists would adopt them.
So in short, I think it's a great idea, but I'm not sure how you can make it real.
Which version were you using when you tried it? If you were working with the 2.4.x branch, then you're missing out on a ton of work that has been done over the past two years to bring the OS X port in line with other ports. If you haven't tried the 2.6 versions yet, then you may really want to consider taking a second look. I work on at least 3 wxPython apps (none of them simple - I only wish!) with Mac versions either released or in progress, and they all run quite well on Mac when using the 2.6 branch.
That being said, there is, of course, more work to be done, and if you point out what problems you had, I'll be happy to try and help get it resolved. The main reason these things haven't all gotten resolved yet is that we are, of course, a community project, and our community of volunteer Mac developers has only recently started to grow to match that of other ports, just as support for the Mac platform in general has grown considerably recently.
Only if you want to deal with all that. :) If you'd rather not, you could use wxWidgets (or wxPython) which give you cross-platform native interfaces without doing theming and emulation. I think those who want to do cross-platform have it pretty good these days (although it can always, of course, be better).
As for the Intel announcement, I think the only real impact will be the first thing I heard of when I read it - speed boost for MacTel apps! (if you can afford it, that is...)
Depending on the album, at 150 or 200 yen per song, albums can become quite a bit cheaper. For example, singles CDs, which typically cost anywhere between 800-1200 yen in Japan, are about 400-500 yen on iTunes. That's a nice discount! A 12 song album would be between 1800-2400 yen, which is also significantly cheaper. Jack Johnson's 14 track album was actually 1500 yen, which is a really good deal.
:) Well, they're just starting so hopefully things will improve, but it does give the impression that the Japanese market is even more hesitant to embrace an online download service than the US market was.
The unfortunate part, though, is that their selection is really just so-so. I couldn't find X-Japan, Tube, or Southern All Stars, all very big bands in Japan. I also couldn't find many newer favorites, like SMAP, Orange Range, L'Arc en Ciel, Aiko, etc. And anime fans would be disappointed to know that there really aren't many anime songs on there, aside from "Sonic X" songs.
Designing a game to appeal to an age demographic is one thing (and good business sense), but it's another thing entirely to create a game that will appeal only to that target demographic. i.e. Mario appeals to kids, but there's nothing in it that would not appeal to adults that like playing platformers or that type of game. That's more important these days, IMHO, as you finally get a generation of people who grew up playing video games and who won't immediately dismiss them as 'kids stuff'.
Super Mario Brothers has entirely too much nostalgia to be seen with clear eyes.If the game sucked, there'd be no nostalgia in it. The thing is, it was, and still is, a fun game. Go back and play it and see if you don't enjoy it. Heck, people are buying the game for Game Boy! I have even more "nostalgia" for Mike Tyson's Punch Out, or Side Pocket, where the originals were funner to play than their clones/sequels.
How many adults do you expect to play Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron, Animal Snap, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon or the surprising current Nintendo #1 seller, Lego Starwars?Actually, my wife is a big fan of Harvest Moon games. She played Animal Crossing and thought it was okay, but she seemed to be at a loss for what to do next much of the time with that game. So honestly I don't know how to answer that question because my wife probably isn't part of your expected demographic. And are my wife and I part of the SM Sunshine demographic? Because we both put tons of hours into that one. (And this is making me start to think about playing it again. :)
Now, most of the other games you identified are, obviously, tie-in games that would appeal only to people who watch the show or whatever. If you don't like Spongebob, you're not going to even look at that game. I bet there are a lot of adult Star Wars fans who would try out Lego SW though, if just for the laugh factor. Heck, I even thought about playing the game, and I'm not a big SW fan at all. In fact, do you KNOW that all or even most of those Lego SW games are going to kids?
Demographics are absolutely critical to this industry. If you get a broad-acceptance game - and I can count the non-clones on that list in history on both hands (kids don't play solitaire) - then you're making a mint. But you'd better be damned able to either explain it at the business pitch of show user testing results, because that's a total holy grail; it never, ever happens in this line of work.Well, as a game player, all I can really say is that there used to be a lot of really fun games out there with unique premises and/or gameplay behind them, but these days the market is mostly filled with clones of the same old games. I don't think anyone (outside of Nintendo, perhaps) even cares about broad acceptance or bringing in new target markets anymore. It's all about "how can I sell a new game to the exact target market I sold the last game to". Hmmm... Maybe make the same game? :)
But that's what demographics, user testing, etc. are all about. Making a profile of the 'target market' and their desires so clearly that sales can virtually be assured. And then repeating that success over and over. Hollywood has done this for a long time. Of course, inventing new gameplay or unique concepts doesn't cater well to this. But oh well, there are a LOT of people who don't seem to miss those things. Ready for my next FPS, sirs!
I never realized Nintendo games were geared towards any particular age range. They are kid-friendly, but hell if I don't find the games just as fun as I did when I was 6. When do you become too 'mature' for Super Mario Brothers, exactly? To me, Mario Party is just so much funner than 'yet another multiplayer frag fest', but I guess that's probably because I feel more thought was put into making the game fun. (They couldn't just give you a choice of 6-10 weapons and have you run around and shoot people.)
Whenever I hear this criticism about "more mature games", it seems more a request for Nintendo to play to gamers' insecurities than anything. When I play a Mario, or Zelda, etc. game, I don't think "geez, Nintendo's treating me like a kid! Where's something that plays to my need for raw violence, bloodletting and gritty realism?" I think - gee, the gameplays really good, the game is huge, and all the best parts aren't cut-scenes. (Unlike most other games out there.) But apparently many gamers don't agree. Games have to be complicated, be badass and 'realistic', or be like movies, to be playable. Not to worry, Sony and Microsoft have got those folks covered. FPSs and sports (i.e. racing) games are flooding those platforms.
Personally, I don't see this as cause for alarm. When Nintendo's in the red, and the other two vendors are making gobs of cash (at least up until recently, MS was bleeding cash on XBox) then let me know. But hey, I'm a Mac user and so I'm quite used to people predicting the imminent death of a profitable company. :)
I do think they considered putting it into the game from the start. They no doubt removed it thinking about what the probable AO rating would do to sales.
Let's face it - the "M" rating doesn't count for much (parents still think it's just a game), but AO for a major console game like GTA would get big headlines which would no doubt mention the sex games in it, and that content would have put it right off of many parents' Christmas buying list. (And yes, this would hurt Rockstar, probably more than they care to admit.) And, no, I don't think now most retailers will be able to sell it like they used to. (They have to worry that a 'investigative news reporter' might try to have their son buy the game then plaster that all over the 10 o'clock news.)
Leaving it in the game was probably 1) easiser, and 2) the developers thought it wouldn't hurt too much if someone did hack it (and furthermore probably thought it'd be 'cool' if someone did), because they probably didn't realize how far it would spread.
To be honest, though, I think the ESRB did the right thing here. (Though frankly, I think the violence is just as deserving of the rating as the sex is.) Otherwise, game developers could put all the nasty content into a 'locked' hack that they could later 'anonymously' have someone post the patch to. Voila, an easy way to get a T rating or less and put things like sex in it. The ESRB really did have to react in order to prevent these kinds of things from happening or being commonplace.
Here's an idea for developers: make and sell a T and AO version of the game. An "Uncut" version, so to speak, with more gore and nudity and/or sex, or whatever. This way kids can't complain that they can't play cool games because they're only for adults, and adults can't complain that all the games out there are 'censored' for kids.
... in most cases the PCs we're talking about are not that old. Yeah, if you're running some old Win98 PC, this does make sense. But if you're running an XP machine that's reasonably fast, and just not updating it or not protecting yourself, replacing the machine is nothing but a temporary fix. I've seen people wipe their PCs clean only to find, 6 months later, their computers were in the very same position.
Replacing your computer might make Michael Dell happy, but it often isn't a solution; it just makes you feel better for a little bit. The reality is that in today's world, users need to either get with the program in terms of securing their computer, or buy a computer/OS that offers better security out of the box. (Mac or Linux)
But that's a bitter medicine to take, so people are trying to find ways around taking the medicine. Good luck to them. What I'd be interested in seeing is the follow up to this 1-2 years from now to see if this approach "worked" in the long term for them. I bet within two years they'll ditch their PCs or move to something else out of pure frustration.
I know what you're trying to say, but you're not really thinking it through. Exactly how do you plan to have a bunch of free, high quality niche market apps? You can't take for granted that open source just "does" this. Mozilla and OpenOffice succeed becuase 1) they have real money coming in and devs on their payrolls and 2) they are NOT niche apps so they have tons of people testing them and reporting bugs every day. Niche market apps will not have either of those two.
So vendors will have to test and QA themselves, which will cost them money. And how will they make up that money? Linux desktops don't considerably reduce costs (~$50/comp), and it will be hard to convince users to pay such a high premium for their Linux desktop that will justify all the QA costs that went into creating their software library CD.
And lastly, some distros already come with TONS of apps, so why haven't they taken off?
That's a bit like saying you just need to add 100 hours of public domain DVDs with each DVD player to sell them better.
People want quality software, and most people don't need more than 5-6 packages. Who wants to sift through 20 GB of software to find 10 different programs that do what they're looking for, then sort through them to find out which one is least likely to crash, most intuitive, and supports their needs? People who are this cheap and place such a low value on their time aren't going to buy anything over a $300 computer so the profit margins are going to be small anyways. Why bother working to making these people happy? These people will take the time out to learn to scour the web and find their free software.
You've said this far more clearly than I could. This hits the nail on the head. Unlike OS X, a Linux desktop cannot be sold to value concsious markets (like the home) because they can legally get it for free due to Linux licensing. Not to mention, unlike the enterprise market, the home market won't buy into 'subscription' models for support, or to be able to install programs/manage desktops, which leaves little to no revenue stream for Linux as a desktop OS.
It's nice to think that maybe the community would step in and fill the gaps, but realistically they don't have access to the hardware vendors, they can't afford usability studies, and they don't have access to marketing or distribution channels to really gather resources to fight with MS or anyone else.