Can't do Linux? Download it and learn yourself. Anything less is just excuses.
Easing self-teaching is useful, but it's hardly an excuse for poor or sparse documentation. Self-teaching inherently takes more time (and time is money).
It's easy to learn to do simple things (as in your library example), but where complex business needs are involved, things can get more complex extremely quickly. Documentation and tools help greatly at this point.
The fact that one can teach oneself for free is a great advantage of Linux. If one needs to do so, there's clearly a problem, in particular for business use. This is why supported, documented projects are generally the only ones that are touched by business. Now, I can't speak specifically for the quality of Red Hat et al's support or documentation — my *nix work at my work tends to be on Solaris — but if it's of poor quality, that's definately a huge problem for business use of the technology.
While your suggestion to "download and learn it yourself" is fine for building up experience, but if you're the IT technician lumped with a tight deadline to get a system you're unfamiliar with up and running, lack of documentation could lead to time being wasted, and mistakes being made, simply because there's not enough time to trawl through internet boards and the like looking for the "correct way" to do things.
There is, of course, the argument that *nix boxes should only ever be administered by experienced *nix admins, but (especially in small companies), this is not something that it is practical to ensure.
His evidence is that sites are exploited. Could it be that many of these sites aren't properly configured, and also have old versions?
To be fair, MySQL is well-known for having significantly more SQL "gotchas" than its competitors, so one could easily-enough justify his use of the term "misfeatures".
One problem is that people see Windows as essentially "free", since it comes with the computer. Of course, this is not the case, but it'd be near-impossible to get people to realise this. So one has to attempt to compete on the same level. Offer something that XP does not. Security? People don't care. They'd rather call tech support or have their geek friend (cue thousands of/. readers shuddering in harmony) wipe their system and reinstall Windows.
Compare with Apple, who are well-known for their marketing prowess. What do you get there? A pretty box! People want a pretty machine, they can show it off to their friends. Image can be everything, and geeks like me find this hard to understand from time to time. Zoomy-flashy graphics! XGL/aiglx (or whatever it's called)/Compiz isn't particularly stable, in my experience, but it's the beginning of this. You can make music! Newer Macs come with GarageBand — you don't get that with Windows. There's a few other random things you can do right out of the box. They market these things very well, and note how little emphasis they actually put on their "UNIX roots".
I'm really not decided on whether it's more out-of-the-box features (which, in licencing and philosophical terms, might be unacceptable) or better marketing (very few commercial distros cater specifically or primarily to the desktop, and when they do they've often not done it well in the past) that's needed. But something is.
The ability to easily install software as a non-administrative user would be nice (talking specifically about Ubuntu here, but I think this applies more widely) would be nice, too.
Just to keep you updated on this, since it's actually advanced somewhat recently:
- Printing
Essentially fixed, I've found, in more recent times.
- Audio
This is still a problem with a lot of hardware, yes. If it works, it works brilliantly, if not, it can be a pain (or impossible) to fix.
- Movie players
Work very well now, although you often have to download something to play "non-free" codecs. I've found that Automatix (which can now be downloaded and installed automatically by clicking the link to its.deb file) on Ubuntu sorts this out in one stop.
- Device drivers for every device
Unfortunately never going to be practical, and one has to resort to proprietary drivers (which, for video cards, the aforementioned tool and equivalents can install) sometimes. Also, some hardware just isn't supported at all (my network card in one of my systems).
- Games, Games, Games
Cedega has very good support for Windows games now, but you have to pay for that — which, for most end-users, is somewhat damaging to the point. Having games written specifically for the system is largely a function of the popularity of Linux, leading to the proverbial "chicken and egg". I hold out hope that Apple's recent foray into attempting to get games companies to write for their platform will help here, though, since I think that OS X's game APIs are pretty much restricted to OpenGL (which is obviously cross-platform, unlike DirectX, making porting a more realistic proposal).
- Application, Applications, Applications
There has been some movement on this recently, although for native development the problem with games largely applies as well. Still some glaring "gaps" in what can be done, though.
I realise this is largely validation of what you've said, but there is progress being made all the time, and although I'd agree it's not going to take the desktop world by storm any time in the foreseeable future (I just can't see Vista being a failure, and even if it was, I can't see desktop Linux taking its place because of it), it is getting better. It's certainly ready to be used in a workstation capacity in a large company, although I can imagine the setup being more complex (if my experiences with Exchange vs. anything else are anything to go by, although that's really not very many experiences).
XGL/Compiz is a lot buggier than Vista, in my experience, but it is damned pretty, yes. I think that the main advances in Vista are things like WinFX, the improved integration of.NET, and the general improved architecture of the system. The problem is that these are things that end-users just won't notice (other than the fact that developers will be able to develop prettier apps more easily, but whether or not end-users will attribute this to the OS is another matter altogether, particularly when WinFX and so on is available for XP).
I still have some problems with Ubuntu. It's the only OS I (currently) use at home, and I love it to bits, but some things just still don't work as well as it feels like they could. XP still strikes me as (now marginally) easier to use, and I've had to drop to the command-line a few times when using it.
It'll replace most people's computer use (particularly with Automatix there to fill in the gaps) easily enough, I expect, though.
Next time you can't see Bob's computer, just start/run \\bob and his share should appear right away, even if you can't "see" him. If you can't see the shares, it's off the network, for sure.
That or you don't have permission to the share, but this isn't really the fault of Windows.
Eventually, with some more articles like this one and yesterday's Cell piece, people will start to figure out that the x86 architecture is brain-dead and needs to be put out of its misery.
We know it's braindead. This has been known for years. But it's not technical features that drive x86, it's ubiquity. The sheer fact that so many system use x86, and so many demand compatibility, means that enough development has been put into x86 to bring it to its extreme limits.
The people who care about processor architectures already know the problems with x86. The people who control the bulk of demand for processors will probably never understand. A smooth transition is required, if it's ever to be replaced with something better, rather than a simple rise in technical prowess.
The initial capital needed to enter a market is near zero -- I know, I own a number of large businesses that started with no money, no loans and no investments. It took people to do it, and we battled so many licensing requirements that we almost didn't start some of them.
Only works in certain industries (in particular, doesn't work in industries which produce material goods - initial outlay is required in these cases). The fact that the capital to enter some markets is near-zero speaks to the credit of those markets, but it's not something which can be extended universally. Investment is required.
I'm surprised by how blatantly pro-socialism most of slashdot is, and it makes me sad.
Not being pro-anarchocapitalist is not the same as being anti-capitalist. The extremes of capitalism seem like a good idea, but as with all systems, it will have flaws in practice.
I share your disdain for overt governmental control, and politicians in general, but the removal of government from processes is not as obvious a way forward as it may seem.
Probably more of a case of "backwards compatibility" (something MS have shot themselves in the foot to preserve before), but yes. NT has a completely capable security system — a modern and functional one — but as you point out it is quite simply not used on the default home installation.
It's a bit of a sad situation really. The biggest problem is applications which aren't written to work in unprivileged user mode, though, and hopefully those will be largely fixed after Vista is released. No guarantees of that, though.
I'm not convinced of the value of assembly for this over just general experience with coding. Your particular example ("why write a function when you can just code two lines in and do it on the fly") isn't something that you learn in particular from assembly — I think the case here was that you simply had more coding experience than your classmates.
I think that most of the things you learn from assembly that you wouldn't learn from some high-level language concern micro-optimisation (which is usually detrimental if made too much of a coding concern) or memory management (which is not necessary in modern languages).
Definately. Although I don't agree with people who say you should be taught assembly language before normal programming (languages are a fairly full conceptual abstraction of machine code, learning it can be an impediment some of the time, other than perhaps languages with direct memory management, but even then I'm not sold on the idea), you should definately learn your languages first. If you learn the language, then the IDE, it eases your work, and it's easy to learn, because you understand why its features are helpful. If you start with an IDE, changing to another language, or even to another IDE, can be very difficult.
I would agree with this. I think you can't be a professional programmer without knowing what goes on under the hood. On the other hand, you can't be a professional programmer in a language like Java without mastering one of the better IDEs.
In my experience, though, it's easy to learn an IDE if you've been using a plain editor for a long time. I can imagine that the converse is not true. So yes, plain first. Some languages don't have competent IDEs, and some tools are so different that migrating when one IDE's View Of The World is all you know would be difficult. When you know the basics, you have a better understanding of why things work that way, and each IDE just has a different way of helping you.
if everything in the world was managed by gpl folks like richard stallman, it would be against the law to take a shower or wear clean clothes. do you want to live in a world like that?
It's not ATi/Nvidia whose stuff is being infringed, it's the Linux creators. The GPL, which the kernel is released under, states that you can't distribute it as a binary result with proprietary code as you state. Meaning that it's not ATi/Nvidia complaining, rather the Free Software people.
The BSD license restricts the end user, because even though the code running on his device used to be Free, the vendor could chose to close it and cut off his control of his own device at any time. This is done for the benefit of said vendor.
Well, to be fair, that's only different in the case of derivative works to an already-licensed piece of software. The author of GPLed code can close it off at any time, they just can't take any GPLed modifications which weren't written by them with them.
I've no interest in arguing though (I can see the benefit of both licences in different situations, as you say).
I think that, since its result contains the product of GPLed software, that it does. When it's distributed seperately I think this is less of an issue. Could be wrong.
Yeah, but as the sibling post points out, this only applies to some bugs. With many bugs it's a long, infuriating process to find and fix them, and a lot of people just don't have the patience to do this.
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Easing self-teaching is useful, but it's hardly an excuse for poor or sparse documentation. Self-teaching inherently takes more time (and time is money).
It's easy to learn to do simple things (as in your library example), but where complex business needs are involved, things can get more complex extremely quickly. Documentation and tools help greatly at this point.
The fact that one can teach oneself for free is a great advantage of Linux. If one needs to do so, there's clearly a problem, in particular for business use. This is why supported, documented projects are generally the only ones that are touched by business. Now, I can't speak specifically for the quality of Red Hat et al's support or documentation — my *nix work at my work tends to be on Solaris — but if it's of poor quality, that's definately a huge problem for business use of the technology.
While your suggestion to "download and learn it yourself" is fine for building up experience, but if you're the IT technician lumped with a tight deadline to get a system you're unfamiliar with up and running, lack of documentation could lead to time being wasted, and mistakes being made, simply because there's not enough time to trawl through internet boards and the like looking for the "correct way" to do things.
There is, of course, the argument that *nix boxes should only ever be administered by experienced *nix admins, but (especially in small companies), this is not something that it is practical to ensure.
To be fair, MySQL is well-known for having significantly more SQL "gotchas" than its competitors, so one could easily-enough justify his use of the term "misfeatures".
Of course, the GUI update manager installed by default can do this all automatically. Which is even easier.
One problem is that people see Windows as essentially "free", since it comes with the computer. Of course, this is not the case, but it'd be near-impossible to get people to realise this. So one has to attempt to compete on the same level. Offer something that XP does not. Security? People don't care. They'd rather call tech support or have their geek friend (cue thousands of /. readers shuddering in harmony) wipe their system and reinstall Windows.
Compare with Apple, who are well-known for their marketing prowess. What do you get there? A pretty box! People want a pretty machine, they can show it off to their friends. Image can be everything, and geeks like me find this hard to understand from time to time. Zoomy-flashy graphics! XGL/aiglx (or whatever it's called)/Compiz isn't particularly stable, in my experience, but it's the beginning of this. You can make music! Newer Macs come with GarageBand — you don't get that with Windows. There's a few other random things you can do right out of the box. They market these things very well, and note how little emphasis they actually put on their "UNIX roots".
I'm really not decided on whether it's more out-of-the-box features (which, in licencing and philosophical terms, might be unacceptable) or better marketing (very few commercial distros cater specifically or primarily to the desktop, and when they do they've often not done it well in the past) that's needed. But something is.
The ability to easily install software as a non-administrative user would be nice (talking specifically about Ubuntu here, but I think this applies more widely) would be nice, too.
Just to keep you updated on this, since it's actually advanced somewhat recently:
Essentially fixed, I've found, in more recent times.
This is still a problem with a lot of hardware, yes. If it works, it works brilliantly, if not, it can be a pain (or impossible) to fix.
Work very well now, although you often have to download something to play "non-free" codecs. I've found that Automatix (which can now be downloaded and installed automatically by clicking the link to its .deb file) on Ubuntu sorts this out in one stop.
Unfortunately never going to be practical, and one has to resort to proprietary drivers (which, for video cards, the aforementioned tool and equivalents can install) sometimes. Also, some hardware just isn't supported at all (my network card in one of my systems).
Cedega has very good support for Windows games now, but you have to pay for that — which, for most end-users, is somewhat damaging to the point. Having games written specifically for the system is largely a function of the popularity of Linux, leading to the proverbial "chicken and egg". I hold out hope that Apple's recent foray into attempting to get games companies to write for their platform will help here, though, since I think that OS X's game APIs are pretty much restricted to OpenGL (which is obviously cross-platform, unlike DirectX, making porting a more realistic proposal).
There has been some movement on this recently, although for native development the problem with games largely applies as well. Still some glaring "gaps" in what can be done, though.
I realise this is largely validation of what you've said, but there is progress being made all the time, and although I'd agree it's not going to take the desktop world by storm any time in the foreseeable future (I just can't see Vista being a failure, and even if it was, I can't see desktop Linux taking its place because of it), it is getting better. It's certainly ready to be used in a workstation capacity in a large company, although I can imagine the setup being more complex (if my experiences with Exchange vs. anything else are anything to go by, although that's really not very many experiences).
XGL/Compiz is a lot buggier than Vista, in my experience, but it is damned pretty, yes. I think that the main advances in Vista are things like WinFX, the improved integration of .NET, and the general improved architecture of the system. The problem is that these are things that end-users just won't notice (other than the fact that developers will be able to develop prettier apps more easily, but whether or not end-users will attribute this to the OS is another matter altogether, particularly when WinFX and so on is available for XP).
I still have some problems with Ubuntu. It's the only OS I (currently) use at home, and I love it to bits, but some things just still don't work as well as it feels like they could. XP still strikes me as (now marginally) easier to use, and I've had to drop to the command-line a few times when using it.
It'll replace most people's computer use (particularly with Automatix there to fill in the gaps) easily enough, I expect, though.
That or you don't have permission to the share, but this isn't really the fault of Windows.
We know it's braindead. This has been known for years. But it's not technical features that drive x86, it's ubiquity. The sheer fact that so many system use x86, and so many demand compatibility, means that enough development has been put into x86 to bring it to its extreme limits.
The people who care about processor architectures already know the problems with x86. The people who control the bulk of demand for processors will probably never understand. A smooth transition is required, if it's ever to be replaced with something better, rather than a simple rise in technical prowess.
Only works in certain industries (in particular, doesn't work in industries which produce material goods - initial outlay is required in these cases). The fact that the capital to enter some markets is near-zero speaks to the credit of those markets, but it's not something which can be extended universally. Investment is required.
Not being pro-anarchocapitalist is not the same as being anti-capitalist. The extremes of capitalism seem like a good idea, but as with all systems, it will have flaws in practice.
I share your disdain for overt governmental control, and politicians in general, but the removal of government from processes is not as obvious a way forward as it may seem.
Probably more of a case of "backwards compatibility" (something MS have shot themselves in the foot to preserve before), but yes. NT has a completely capable security system — a modern and functional one — but as you point out it is quite simply not used on the default home installation.
It's a bit of a sad situation really. The biggest problem is applications which aren't written to work in unprivileged user mode, though, and hopefully those will be largely fixed after Vista is released. No guarantees of that, though.
Agreed. It's hard to express how glad I am that I learned abstract language concepts, and languages themselves, more than specific languages or IDEs.
I'm not convinced of the value of assembly for this over just general experience with coding. Your particular example ("why write a function when you can just code two lines in and do it on the fly") isn't something that you learn in particular from assembly — I think the case here was that you simply had more coding experience than your classmates.
I think that most of the things you learn from assembly that you wouldn't learn from some high-level language concern micro-optimisation (which is usually detrimental if made too much of a coding concern) or memory management (which is not necessary in modern languages).
Definately. Although I don't agree with people who say you should be taught assembly language before normal programming (languages are a fairly full conceptual abstraction of machine code, learning it can be an impediment some of the time, other than perhaps languages with direct memory management, but even then I'm not sold on the idea), you should definately learn your languages first. If you learn the language, then the IDE, it eases your work, and it's easy to learn, because you understand why its features are helpful. If you start with an IDE, changing to another language, or even to another IDE, can be very difficult.
In my experience, though, it's easy to learn an IDE if you've been using a plain editor for a long time. I can imagine that the converse is not true. So yes, plain first. Some languages don't have competent IDEs, and some tools are so different that migrating when one IDE's View Of The World is all you know would be difficult. When you know the basics, you have a better understanding of why things work that way, and each IDE just has a different way of helping you.
Yeah, I was being a bit stupid there. :)
BSD-licenced things and the like. "Free Software" includes only licences with the "copyleft"/"viral" restriction.
Vorbis and Theora are both supported as DirectShow codecs, but these codecs are not provided as standard.
That patent was filed by Microsoft (Research, so less evil) employee John Platt, rather than Creative, though.
Would obese geeks get laid more frequently?
I'm asking... err... for a friend...
It's not ATi/Nvidia whose stuff is being infringed, it's the Linux creators. The GPL, which the kernel is released under, states that you can't distribute it as a binary result with proprietary code as you state. Meaning that it's not ATi/Nvidia complaining, rather the Free Software people.
Well, to be fair, that's only different in the case of derivative works to an already-licensed piece of software. The author of GPLed code can close it off at any time, they just can't take any GPLed modifications which weren't written by them with them.
I've no interest in arguing though (I can see the benefit of both licences in different situations, as you say).
To be fair, though, that is "more restriction". The fact that the restriction's intent is good isn't really a part of that.
I think that, since its result contains the product of GPLed software, that it does. When it's distributed seperately I think this is less of an issue. Could be wrong.
Sounds like a very good project. :)
Yeah, but as the sibling post points out, this only applies to some bugs. With many bugs it's a long, infuriating process to find and fix them, and a lot of people just don't have the patience to do this.