That's the difference between psychological and physical addiction:). Developers taste the GPL and get hooked because enjoy it. People use cloud apps and can't leave because they have spent time and effort to upload some data/create their virtual life.
Thus GPL is marijuana and cloud-computing/SaaS is crack.
In fact I used to program a lot in C++ and I loved it. I was very much in Bjarne's school of C++ and programming it just like He said (even among ##C++ freenode helpers/idlers at a point); definitely not programming it like C at all (I still love C). But my points are still valid. Sure, the const modifier in C++ is great to get the typing system to prevent writing on some refs. Sure, the typing system isn't bad for an imperative language. But it is still light years behind ML & fp, and that is something Scala does very nicely and it keeps the object oriented paradigm.
One of the things I love most in fp (and Scala does it right) is that "everything is an expression that returns a value". For example, an "if" is not a statement in ML or Scala, it's an expression and you are guaranteed that both branches will return the same type, so you can write: val x = if (...) y else z
It doesn't look like much but when you get used to it and what you can make of it, it's something that I miss in imperative languages.
I often think of Scala as C++ done right (note: these are EXTREMELY different languages, I'm talking about the feeling): not too much low-level details to care about (for instance, Java's "all objects in the heap, only refs/primitives on the stack", and always have a gc, simplified a LOT programming compared to C++'s static & automatic objects on the stack vs. objects in the heap). But unlike Java (and very much like C++), Scala is fun to program in and gives the developer a feeling of freedom and power.
Anyway I'm not expecting I will convince a C++ programmer over a post -- but I convinced myself that C++ is fundamentally flawed. And whether you trust me or not, I guarantee you that I know C++ very well. A programming language is all about giving you the right tools and abstractions. Quoting Saint-Exupéry, "Perfection is reached not where there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.". In that regard, Scala is a lot closer to it than C++. You should give it a try:).
I know. I didn't imply no other languages allowed this (especially for "high level" data structures such as list). I was just replying to gp that indeed, the article is about scalable infrastructures/systems rather scalable languages.
On the other hand Scala goes quite far in that approach; Ruby and Scala are also often compared for the ability to define embedded DSLs. In Ruby it is handled with meta-programming whereas Scala has made the choice of offering language-level DSLs (that make use of Scala syntax smartly), thus offering the typing system for the definition and usage of DSLs. People coming from Ruby especially enjoy a strong typing system that helps them and doesn't get in their ways.
Here's something I read tonight on IRC, and I read it quite often:)...
<against_logging> i learned ruby for nothing, i found scala
Now, Ruby is nice -- but just like a lot of people didn't care much before Rails came, right now a lot of people are dismissing Scala because "we don't need another language". Scala is not just another language, really. It finally provides an "enterprise-friendly" functional language: enterprise-friendly, because a lot of companies are sold with Java and the JVM, it's easy to let Scala in. But it gives the power of ML and functional languages, all the libraries written for Java, and the lightweight syntax of Ruby or Python (with a much better performance).
Finally, Scala matters because this is the Free alternative to F#, which is basically Ocaml for.NET. OCaml is Free (even if the policy is a bit restrictive with contributions), but it isn't part of a larger platform such as the JVM or the CLR. In the upcoming years, functional languages will get a boost because they handle multithreading better (they make it more practical to use immutable data) and because finally people understand that a typing system makes complex programs easier to re-use and maintain. Scala is very much the contender for the Free Software community -- and it's not only more innovative than F# (which is very similar to Ocaml, which is awesome but has been around for a while), but also in my opinion offers developers from the world of Java & dynamic languages with a stairway to functional programming: they can learn step by step.
A language scales if the language itself (not the "runtime" or whatever) can grow with user constructs to suit the ever-changing needs. For instance, in Python, if you write
l = [a]
you will end up with a Python built-in list. Squared-brackets are part of the language syntax and will always refer to Python builtin lists.
In Scala, which is meant to be a scalable language (as the name implies: SCAlable LAnguage), if you write
val l = a:: Nil
you will end-up with a Scala list only because the::' "keyword" (which in fact isn't) is in the scope, but you could specify another class if you'd like. Use another implementation, yours if you'd like.
All of Scala is made this way and that's why the *language itself* is scalable.
Now, the article talks about scalable architectures, not scalable languages -- they use Scala because they like it:). Yet since Scala compiles to Java bytecode, it offers all the JVM's scability features (clustering with terracotta,...) and it's a great language to write scalable software in:).
Re:Scala seems to be Java+/-
on
Twitter On Scala
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I read between the lines that you call C or C++ solid-code, and if I'm not mistaken, you will find that the kids are doing Scala because the code is more solid. Scala benefits from a typing system close to OCaml's which makes Scala code very, very solid -- especially if you keep away Java specifics (such as nullable objects) in your code and take special care when interacting with Java libs that may do so.
If I'm mistaken and you're not talking about C/C++, I hope you are not talking about dynamic languages which offer no guarantee whatsoever; you know as a developer I enjoy actually spending my time on working on the business side of my application -- and how to make it scalable, rather than working on low-level specifics and on testing if every pointer is null before dereferencing them. A type system that does this for me (which Scala or ML's parametrized type Option allows) is a bliss.
Now, I'm not enumerate every language under the sun to see what code you call solid, I guess your answer would be that the code is solid whatever the language it's written in. In the end, it all comes down to binary instructions, right? The question is: how many guarantees do the tools give you? In the case of Scala's compiler, it gives you a lot AND offers you a very enjoyable, lightweight yet powerful syntax.
What?
Scala is Java mixed with OCaml -- you get an extremly powerful typing system, but it feels like a "dynamic language" such as Python or Ruby. With the performance of Java.
Under the hood, it's a brand-new language, very different from all those: it merges functional and object-oriented programming. Yet, for the regular programmer, it feels like Ruby... until he gets used to more powerful features and learns how to designs more complex libraries as embedded DSLs. All that while running on the JVM and thus giving free access to all Java/JVM libs out there with no overhead.
The really odd part is that not more people are using Scala as a replacement as most languages -- except C for device level and Erlang for distributed stuff.
My only experiences with HP are good. That is, calculators from HP48GX to the HP49 line;). Best calculators ever:P.
The scandals that happened (pretexting, spying and whatnots) have little to do with the engineers. However you're right, HP and Compaq (now merged, that can be only worse) always tried to make their memory incompatible, and their hardware seem pretty cheap (then again, nowadays most hardware is). The problem with HP is that they lack a vision, they don't "Invent". Mainly because it's a management/marketing driven company. So I wouldn't mind having HP "on my side" the day they ditch all the white-collars and have a CEO with a vision. HP's CEOs, including the current one, really suck.
On the other hand, HP is the largest technology vendor in terms of sales (before Dell), and thus probably first Windows vendor. They could hurt Microsoft badly if they made the move:).
HP could do it (or even hire RedHat or Canonical to do it for them). And yes, it would mean more control for HP.
The question is: do they want it? Do they want more control, or do they just want to follow where Microsoft is headed and eat the leftovers?;)
Of course, it would mean that Windows software, that most PC users just expect to run, wouldn't work anymore. But let's look at this differently: the situation is not going to change. Windows software is not going to run on other OS'es (even with Wine or emulators, it will never be perfect). Thus Dell, HP and Lenovo are stuck in a vicious circle: continue selling Windows, because it's what people expect, any it will remain what people expect; or break the pattern: sell another OS and tell people it's different but just as good. You know, most sane people are not fanboys and don't care what OS they have as long as it gets the job done. And guess what, GNU/Linux applications get the job done just as much as their Windows counterparts, and would be even better with some big companies supporting it further. Then, why should HP keep selling an OS that limits them? I can't believe HP is satisfied with selling Windows -- or any other tech company for that matter.
Let's imagine Dell or HP decides to replace Windows with, say, a customized Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distro. Then, only then, people will come to know that PC != Windows, and that just like there is "Mac software" (ie, software for Mac OS X) that won't run Windows and vice-versa, there is a third category of consumer software that runs "Lunix or was it Leenux?" (ie GNU/Linux). The name matters little, because the model of distribution of software on GNU/Linux distributions is very different from what exists on proprietary platforms: the package managers and repositories make it easy. In most cases, you don't try to get a specific application anymore, you try to get the application your distribution has chosen for the task you want to perform. And that model, I believe, if a lot simpler to understand for most people, as soon as they are willing to let go of the unnatural habits they have caught using Windows.
So why HP and why now? Well, the TouchSmart interface sure is cool -- cool enough to warrant a big change. Since people perceive it as a massive paradigm change, you might as well use the opportunity to change OS. Remember, once one of the three big PC manufacturers will truly switch to GNU/Linux for consumer PCs (and that's possible only if they commit to it), the others will have to react in one way or another.
Will it be Dell? They distribute Ubuntu on some PCs, and even ship it with the licensed codecs, but they don't seem to me as willing to take the Apple route and compete with Microsoft frontally. Also, they don't have anything specific to offer, except pretty cheap prices.
Will it be Lenovo? Certainly not. Lenovo, now separated from IBM, does not strike me as a driving force, they are merely followers.
But it could be HP... in a sudden outbreak of common sense, a burst of memories of its past glory, out of pride and fatigue of being Microsoft's dog when it comes the consumer market... Yes it could be. HP is actually very committed to Linux, they are platinum members of the Linux Foundation (same level as IBM, Novell, Intel...). The blog poster thinks TouchSmart (or its next iteration, now) could be the opportunity to make the jump. To commit further. It would be risky but the rewards could be great, not only for HP, but for the whole industry.
Now why is the response so negative here on Slashdot? Easy. I have come to understand that most Slashdotters haven't tried a GNU/Linux distro for years. They still think it's 2001. They still think the "Linux Desktop" year didn't happen -- because in their mind it was to be a year when, magically, half the PCs worldwide would have started running GNU/Linux. No, it's just a question of maturity. There are some rough edges, but Windows has some to. Nothing can't be worked
Reading the comic, it looks like their plan is to use the browser as a thin-client platform for remote desktop applications: that is, what the project Mozilla Prisms tries to achieve with XUL and Microsoft wants to do with XAML. The difference is that Google already has a lot applications to offer (YouTube, Gmail, Google Office suite, etc). Looks like being cross-platform is quite important for these. It will surely be interesting:).
I guess they will make it seamless to the point you can click an icon and get a remote application launched (without having to open the browser at any time).
As for having a beta version released soon, I really doubt Google would release the comic and show their plans to its competitors (mainly Microsoft) if they hadn't something to show very soon.
The main question is: will they have their own engine or use WebKit/KHTML or Gecko? I believe they will use WebKit since they already use it in Android. So this Google Chrome might only be a different interface and a new JavaScript interpreter, plus the Google Brand (and all the monitoring that goes with it).
Using WebKit or a homebrew engine are both cool solutions for the Internet community: if they use WebKit, they become a more active contributor and get Safari and Konqueror to improve. If they use their own engine (unlikely), then we will see the extent of their commitment to standard compliance, and more alternatives can only be a good thing.
The second question is: will Google Chrome run natively under GNU/Linux, and if so, using which GUI toolkit? Well, I doubt it very much it will at all, and since I'm not keen on being monitored even more by Google, I would certainly not use it...
What is wrong with GNU/Linux on the desktop? You said yourself you use it daily. So do I, and I have been doing so for 5 years. It's perfectly fine, user-friendly (GNOME at least), stable and offers a plethora of applications. A lot of people I know, even not really tech-savvy users (like my mom), use Ubuntu these days. Only gamers use Windows in dualboot to get access to their latest games, and corporate workers whose company (big companies, mostly) is a Microsoft site (with Exchange, Monitoring tools, etc). I know things are different in the US, but the GNU/Linux userbase (on the desktop) is growing very fast (at least in Europe). The "year of the Linux desktop" jokes are just that: jokes; or did anybody expect that all of a sudden GNU/Linux's market share on the desktop would go from 5 to 30 percents?
So what's preventing GNU/Linux from having a greater market share (personally I don't care as long as I can use it:))?
- for the gamer type, the problem is having new and visually enticing games. The game industry (and possibly the OpenGL crowd) is to blame; the DirectX suite is one of the few Microsoft products that is really great and ahead of the competition, and with the recent news on OpenGL 3.0 not having the promised features, I don't see a major improvement here, unfortunately. We need some companies (or the Linux Foundation) to set OpenGL back on the right track, put some money to really compete with DirectX and have game developers use it. The best approach, imho, would be to release a BSD-licensed library that works as a wrapper for both DirectX and OpenGL, and make it close enough to DirectX so that game developers adopt it (but use it rather than DirectX to reach the OS X / GNU/Linux userbase). Why do gamers matter? Because it's often the young who decide what computer/OS to get, the parents let them decide. And kids like playing the latest video games, and people in general (kids included) don't like switching OS, they want one global platform for all their applications. The is the first step to get (in the long term) the consumer desktop market.
- for big companies, the problems are that old habits die hard, and the general the lack of competence. Their admins only know Windows and don't want to change. Most universities run GNU/Linux on the desktop very effectively so there is no technical challenge, only the problem of the admins and the cost of switching. To get to the corporate desktop, what's most needed is raising awareness...
Yeah seriously, why the fuck is this on Slashdot? I'm not the "stuff that matters" whiner type but either timothy never used a Linux distro and thinks this is newsworthy, or this is the slowest news day ever:).
He didn't mean dash was made by the Ubuntu team, he said that some shell scripts used non-POSIX compliant bash extensions, and that some Ubuntu devs did rewrite bash specific parts into POSIX counterparts to have those scripts work with POSIX shells, including dash, which benefits to everyone but that no one wanted to.
Random Joe doesn't know the difference between GPL and BSD licences, and what may matter to him is the freedom the program grants to its user (or more like, the freedom it doesn't remove). In this case being "Free Software" is more than enough.
As for the "freer" one debate (which is old), I'll just say, those licenses are two sides of the same coin. Either you give the ability to lose freedom as a freedom, or you put the constraint of keeping freedom as a freedom. You can't have both, the "freer" discussion is just a matter of perspective and a stupid nitpickers and time wasting debate. I think both are just as free, that is they are both Free Software and that's enough for me. I don't know who started this quarrel, but I know who keep it alive and it's definitely the BSD guys.
The truth is that the BSD guys are the angry ones with the GPL because when, in a GPL project, we incorporate BSD code and modify it, it becomes GPL and they can't use it anymore under a BSD license (however they could ask the author of the changes to dual-license them under BSD). So they are the ones with a problem with the GPL. I find it rather strange, because BSD code gets incorporated into proprietary code bases every day, they don't see a line of code of it and they don't complain the least.
The fact that this one-sided article was started by a BSD license guy just confirms my statement (even if you somehow tried to see the GPL point of view, you miss most, like it has been said in other comments: notably the goal of the GPL to have a full Free Software stack by "actively convincing trough effective measures" -- I prefer that than the "viral" FUD:p -- for political reasons like giving a state-of-the-art software stack to third-world countries, educating users,...).
My only advice is: before you use GPL software make sure to understand the GPL fully, if needed ask to people who understand the GPL. Only looking at your few replies here, there's already a mistake (you can't link with a GPL'd program from a non-GPL'd program). As for your question, you can't simply credit the author because he asked for more than credit, he asked for your code to be GPL'd. If the component was closed-source, you would probably have to pay with money, the GPL asks you to pay with code. That's the very purpose of the GPL, making a full GPL software stack.
You are wrong. You can't link with GPL code from non-GPL code, whether it's static or dynamic linking! Please don't spread such false rumors. The only way he can use the code is to invoke it through regular execution() or socket, but it will not work for a software component (could work for a shell utility though).
Richard Stallman isn't imposing his views on anyone, he just makes his views known. He can say he thinks it's wrong to release software under a proprietary license without imposing anything on you. If you can't differentiate when someone says what you do is immoral and when someone imposes, e.g force you to something, then you are the one confused with semantics;).
The developer (or his boss) is *always* free to choose his license, where did you get that weird idea that he wasn't? Stallman fights for the freedom of choice when it comes to the license; he gave a great tool (the GPL) for developers who wish their code to remain Free as in Freedom -- and if the name "Free Software" doesn't suit you, you could call it whatever you want, it is well defined (usage, study, modification, redistribution).
I think you're confused on Stallman's work and message. He doesn't want proprietary software to be legally abolished or anything. He thinks proprietary software (ie, only software that gets distributed, and not internal software) shouldn't exist, but not through imposing or forcing anyone to do Free Software: rather through encouraging them and try to make them change their minds, and change the industry.
No one is forced to do anything. Stallman himself uses the copyright system for credit and copyleft licenses, so he is not (contrarily to many others) trying to make all software free de-facto. If you cannot accept that he fights for his ideals and flags different behaviors as morally right or wrong, this is another problem altogether.
Yeepee, I have a fan here;). What brain-washin are you referring to, the one the society makes us go through and which make us be competitors rather than cooperators, or the one of the FSF which led me to review what I took for granted (and many others, that I know).
I heard about the *BSDs about at the same time I heard about GNU/Linux, and the superior part is solely technical -- but you see I'm not so hardcore because I run GNU/Linux for convenience (more available packages, nothing to compile, more hardware support, etc). I want it to just work, I have spent way too much time tinkering, compiling, including cvs uping the BSD tree, now I just want it easy. As for adhering to different philosophies, if GPL is free market communism, BSD is anarchism or nihilism. I have ran BSD so this is not a matter of system, it is a matter of opinion. I simply agree with the FSF, that's all:).
If you paid more attention to the Free Software philosophy, you would see that Stallman merges the concept of developer and user. This is a common practice even in software development, where the user of a library is a developer. To be honest it is developers who gets most of the GPL and LGPL, since not only it gives freely available libraries and programs with their source code (which is often of no interest to end-users), but the developer of the said libraries and programs get the modifications back, meaning they get work done for free.
Of course, a Free Software developer can't really charge on a copy basis (he could but it's up to the user's good will), but they can still charge the first copy (including making the price high enough to compensate for further unlimited copies). In fact there are many business models (other than support) that work very well like paying for specific features (obviously more than the cost of what would a single copy be).
Slashdot Mirror
That's the difference between psychological and physical addiction :). Developers taste the GPL and get hooked because enjoy it. People use cloud apps and can't leave because they have spent time and effort to upload some data/create their virtual life.
Thus GPL is marijuana and cloud-computing/SaaS is crack.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Woosh
In fact I used to program a lot in C++ and I loved it. I was very much in Bjarne's school of C++ and programming it just like He said (even among ##C++ freenode helpers/idlers at a point); definitely not programming it like C at all (I still love C). But my points are still valid. Sure, the const modifier in C++ is great to get the typing system to prevent writing on some refs. Sure, the typing system isn't bad for an imperative language. But it is still light years behind ML & fp, and that is something Scala does very nicely and it keeps the object oriented paradigm.
:).
:).
One of the things I love most in fp (and Scala does it right) is that "everything is an expression that returns a value". For example, an "if" is not a statement in ML or Scala, it's an expression and you are guaranteed that both branches will return the same type, so you can write: val x = if (...) y else z
It doesn't look like much but when you get used to it and what you can make of it, it's something that I miss in imperative languages. I often think of Scala as C++ done right (note: these are EXTREMELY different languages, I'm talking about the feeling): not too much low-level details to care about (for instance, Java's "all objects in the heap, only refs/primitives on the stack", and always have a gc, simplified a LOT programming compared to C++'s static & automatic objects on the stack vs. objects in the heap). But unlike Java (and very much like C++), Scala is fun to program in and gives the developer a feeling of freedom and power.
Anyway I'm not expecting I will convince a C++ programmer over a post -- but I convinced myself that C++ is fundamentally flawed. And whether you trust me or not, I guarantee you that I know C++ very well. A programming language is all about giving you the right tools and abstractions. Quoting Saint-Exupéry, "Perfection is reached not where there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.". In that regard, Scala is a lot closer to it than C++. You should give it a try
PS: My code has never been evil
I know. I didn't imply no other languages allowed this (especially for "high level" data structures such as list). I was just replying to gp that indeed, the article is about scalable infrastructures/systems rather scalable languages.
:)...
.NET. OCaml is Free (even if the policy is a bit restrictive with contributions), but it isn't part of a larger platform such as the JVM or the CLR. In the upcoming years, functional languages will get a boost because they handle multithreading better (they make it more practical to use immutable data) and because finally people understand that a typing system makes complex programs easier to re-use and maintain. Scala is very much the contender for the Free Software community -- and it's not only more innovative than F# (which is very similar to Ocaml, which is awesome but has been around for a while), but also in my opinion offers developers from the world of Java & dynamic languages with a stairway to functional programming: they can learn step by step.
On the other hand Scala goes quite far in that approach; Ruby and Scala are also often compared for the ability to define embedded DSLs. In Ruby it is handled with meta-programming whereas Scala has made the choice of offering language-level DSLs (that make use of Scala syntax smartly), thus offering the typing system for the definition and usage of DSLs. People coming from Ruby especially enjoy a strong typing system that helps them and doesn't get in their ways.
Here's something I read tonight on IRC, and I read it quite often
<against_logging> i learned ruby for nothing, i found scala
Now, Ruby is nice -- but just like a lot of people didn't care much before Rails came, right now a lot of people are dismissing Scala because "we don't need another language". Scala is not just another language, really. It finally provides an "enterprise-friendly" functional language: enterprise-friendly, because a lot of companies are sold with Java and the JVM, it's easy to let Scala in. But it gives the power of ML and functional languages, all the libraries written for Java, and the lightweight syntax of Ruby or Python (with a much better performance).
Finally, Scala matters because this is the Free alternative to F#, which is basically Ocaml for
A language scales if the language itself (not the "runtime" or whatever) can grow with user constructs to suit the ever-changing needs. For instance, in Python, if you write
:: Nil
::' "keyword" (which in fact isn't) is in the scope, but you could specify another class if you'd like. Use another implementation, yours if you'd like.
:). Yet since Scala compiles to Java bytecode, it offers all the JVM's scability features (clustering with terracotta, ...) and it's a great language to write scalable software in :).
l = [a]
you will end up with a Python built-in list. Squared-brackets are part of the language syntax and will always refer to Python builtin lists.
In Scala, which is meant to be a scalable language (as the name implies: SCAlable LAnguage), if you write
val l = a
you will end-up with a Scala list only because the
All of Scala is made this way and that's why the *language itself* is scalable.
Now, the article talks about scalable architectures, not scalable languages -- they use Scala because they like it
I read between the lines that you call C or C++ solid-code, and if I'm not mistaken, you will find that the kids are doing Scala because the code is more solid. Scala benefits from a typing system close to OCaml's which makes Scala code very, very solid -- especially if you keep away Java specifics (such as nullable objects) in your code and take special care when interacting with Java libs that may do so.
If I'm mistaken and you're not talking about C/C++, I hope you are not talking about dynamic languages which offer no guarantee whatsoever; you know as a developer I enjoy actually spending my time on working on the business side of my application -- and how to make it scalable, rather than working on low-level specifics and on testing if every pointer is null before dereferencing them. A type system that does this for me (which Scala or ML's parametrized type Option allows) is a bliss.
Now, I'm not enumerate every language under the sun to see what code you call solid, I guess your answer would be that the code is solid whatever the language it's written in. In the end, it all comes down to binary instructions, right? The question is: how many guarantees do the tools give you? In the case of Scala's compiler, it gives you a lot AND offers you a very enjoyable, lightweight yet powerful syntax.
What? Scala is Java mixed with OCaml -- you get an extremly powerful typing system, but it feels like a "dynamic language" such as Python or Ruby. With the performance of Java. Under the hood, it's a brand-new language, very different from all those: it merges functional and object-oriented programming. Yet, for the regular programmer, it feels like Ruby... until he gets used to more powerful features and learns how to designs more complex libraries as embedded DSLs. All that while running on the JVM and thus giving free access to all Java/JVM libs out there with no overhead. The really odd part is that not more people are using Scala as a replacement as most languages -- except C for device level and Erlang for distributed stuff.
My only experiences with HP are good. That is, calculators from HP48GX to the HP49 line ;). Best calculators ever :P.
:).
The scandals that happened (pretexting, spying and whatnots) have little to do with the engineers. However you're right, HP and Compaq (now merged, that can be only worse) always tried to make their memory incompatible, and their hardware seem pretty cheap (then again, nowadays most hardware is). The problem with HP is that they lack a vision, they don't "Invent". Mainly because it's a management/marketing driven company. So I wouldn't mind having HP "on my side" the day they ditch all the white-collars and have a CEO with a vision. HP's CEOs, including the current one, really suck.
On the other hand, HP is the largest technology vendor in terms of sales (before Dell), and thus probably first Windows vendor. They could hurt Microsoft badly if they made the move
HP could do it (or even hire RedHat or Canonical to do it for them). And yes, it would mean more control for HP.
;)
The question is: do they want it? Do they want more control, or do they just want to follow where Microsoft is headed and eat the leftovers?
Of course, it would mean that Windows software, that most PC users just expect to run, wouldn't work anymore. But let's look at this differently: the situation is not going to change. Windows software is not going to run on other OS'es (even with Wine or emulators, it will never be perfect). Thus Dell, HP and Lenovo are stuck in a vicious circle: continue selling Windows, because it's what people expect, any it will remain what people expect; or break the pattern: sell another OS and tell people it's different but just as good. You know, most sane people are not fanboys and don't care what OS they have as long as it gets the job done. And guess what, GNU/Linux applications get the job done just as much as their Windows counterparts, and would be even better with some big companies supporting it further. Then, why should HP keep selling an OS that limits them? I can't believe HP is satisfied with selling Windows -- or any other tech company for that matter.
Let's imagine Dell or HP decides to replace Windows with, say, a customized Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distro. Then, only then, people will come to know that PC != Windows, and that just like there is "Mac software" (ie, software for Mac OS X) that won't run Windows and vice-versa, there is a third category of consumer software that runs "Lunix or was it Leenux?" (ie GNU/Linux). The name matters little, because the model of distribution of software on GNU/Linux distributions is very different from what exists on proprietary platforms: the package managers and repositories make it easy. In most cases, you don't try to get a specific application anymore, you try to get the application your distribution has chosen for the task you want to perform. And that model, I believe, if a lot simpler to understand for most people, as soon as they are willing to let go of the unnatural habits they have caught using Windows.
So why HP and why now? Well, the TouchSmart interface sure is cool -- cool enough to warrant a big change. Since people perceive it as a massive paradigm change, you might as well use the opportunity to change OS. Remember, once one of the three big PC manufacturers will truly switch to GNU/Linux for consumer PCs (and that's possible only if they commit to it), the others will have to react in one way or another.
Will it be Dell? They distribute Ubuntu on some PCs, and even ship it with the licensed codecs, but they don't seem to me as willing to take the Apple route and compete with Microsoft frontally. Also, they don't have anything specific to offer, except pretty cheap prices.
Will it be Lenovo? Certainly not. Lenovo, now separated from IBM, does not strike me as a driving force, they are merely followers.
But it could be HP... in a sudden outbreak of common sense, a burst of memories of its past glory, out of pride and fatigue of being Microsoft's dog when it comes the consumer market... Yes it could be. HP is actually very committed to Linux, they are platinum members of the Linux Foundation (same level as IBM, Novell, Intel...). The blog poster thinks TouchSmart (or its next iteration, now) could be the opportunity to make the jump. To commit further. It would be risky but the rewards could be great, not only for HP, but for the whole industry.
Now why is the response so negative here on Slashdot? Easy. I have come to understand that most Slashdotters haven't tried a GNU/Linux distro for years. They still think it's 2001. They still think the "Linux Desktop" year didn't happen -- because in their mind it was to be a year when, magically, half the PCs worldwide would have started running GNU/Linux. No, it's just a question of maturity. There are some rough edges, but Windows has some to. Nothing can't be worked
Yep my mistake, I read TFA but missed that somehow.
Reading the comic, it looks like their plan is to use the browser as a thin-client platform for remote desktop applications: that is, what the project Mozilla Prisms tries to achieve with XUL and Microsoft wants to do with XAML. The difference is that Google already has a lot applications to offer (YouTube, Gmail, Google Office suite, etc). Looks like being cross-platform is quite important for these. It will surely be interesting :).
I guess they will make it seamless to the point you can click an icon and get a remote application launched (without having to open the browser at any time). As for having a beta version released soon, I really doubt Google would release the comic and show their plans to its competitors (mainly Microsoft) if they hadn't something to show very soon.
The main question is: will they have their own engine or use WebKit/KHTML or Gecko? I believe they will use WebKit since they already use it in Android. So this Google Chrome might only be a different interface and a new JavaScript interpreter, plus the Google Brand (and all the monitoring that goes with it).
Using WebKit or a homebrew engine are both cool solutions for the Internet community: if they use WebKit, they become a more active contributor and get Safari and Konqueror to improve. If they use their own engine (unlikely), then we will see the extent of their commitment to standard compliance, and more alternatives can only be a good thing.
The second question is: will Google Chrome run natively under GNU/Linux, and if so, using which GUI toolkit? Well, I doubt it very much it will at all, and since I'm not keen on being monitored even more by Google, I would certainly not use it...
The server was already running slow and you decided to Slashdot it? Brilliant :).
Next time how about you use Coral Cache or something similar instead...
French waiters are rude with everyone. I'm Parisian and they are rude with me. That's the tradition (think "corporate culture"). No harm intended :P.
Winston, your wisdom is infinite :).
What is wrong with GNU/Linux on the desktop? You said yourself you use it daily. So do I, and I have been doing so for 5 years. It's perfectly fine, user-friendly (GNOME at least), stable and offers a plethora of applications. A lot of people I know, even not really tech-savvy users (like my mom), use Ubuntu these days. Only gamers use Windows in dualboot to get access to their latest games, and corporate workers whose company (big companies, mostly) is a Microsoft site (with Exchange, Monitoring tools, etc). I know things are different in the US, but the GNU/Linux userbase (on the desktop) is growing very fast (at least in Europe). The "year of the Linux desktop" jokes are just that: jokes; or did anybody expect that all of a sudden GNU/Linux's market share on the desktop would go from 5 to 30 percents?
:))?
So what's preventing GNU/Linux from having a greater market share (personally I don't care as long as I can use it
- for the gamer type, the problem is having new and visually enticing games. The game industry (and possibly the OpenGL crowd) is to blame; the DirectX suite is one of the few Microsoft products that is really great and ahead of the competition, and with the recent news on OpenGL 3.0 not having the promised features, I don't see a major improvement here, unfortunately. We need some companies (or the Linux Foundation) to set OpenGL back on the right track, put some money to really compete with DirectX and have game developers use it. The best approach, imho, would be to release a BSD-licensed library that works as a wrapper for both DirectX and OpenGL, and make it close enough to DirectX so that game developers adopt it (but use it rather than DirectX to reach the OS X / GNU/Linux userbase). Why do gamers matter? Because it's often the young who decide what computer/OS to get, the parents let them decide. And kids like playing the latest video games, and people in general (kids included) don't like switching OS, they want one global platform for all their applications. The is the first step to get (in the long term) the consumer desktop market.
- for big companies, the problems are that old habits die hard, and the general the lack of competence. Their admins only know Windows and don't want to change. Most universities run GNU/Linux on the desktop very effectively so there is no technical challenge, only the problem of the admins and the cost of switching. To get to the corporate desktop, what's most needed is raising awareness...
Yeah seriously, why the fuck is this on Slashdot? I'm not the "stuff that matters" whiner type but either timothy never used a Linux distro and thinks this is newsworthy, or this is the slowest news day ever :).
He didn't mean dash was made by the Ubuntu team, he said that some shell scripts used non-POSIX compliant bash extensions, and that some Ubuntu devs did rewrite bash specific parts into POSIX counterparts to have those scripts work with POSIX shells, including dash, which benefits to everyone but that no one wanted to.
You mean like that?
The truth is that the BSD guys are the angry ones with the GPL because when, in a GPL project, we incorporate BSD code and modify it, it becomes GPL and they can't use it anymore under a BSD license (however they could ask the author of the changes to dual-license them under BSD). So they are the ones with a problem with the GPL. I find it rather strange, because BSD code gets incorporated into proprietary code bases every day, they don't see a line of code of it and they don't complain the least.
:p -- for political reasons like giving a state-of-the-art software stack to third-world countries, educating users, ...).
The fact that this one-sided article was started by a BSD license guy just confirms my statement (even if you somehow tried to see the GPL point of view, you miss most, like it has been said in other comments: notably the goal of the GPL to have a full Free Software stack by "actively convincing trough effective measures" -- I prefer that than the "viral" FUD
My only advice is: before you use GPL software make sure to understand the GPL fully, if needed ask to people who understand the GPL. Only looking at your few replies here, there's already a mistake (you can't link with a GPL'd program from a non-GPL'd program). As for your question, you can't simply credit the author because he asked for more than credit, he asked for your code to be GPL'd. If the component was closed-source, you would probably have to pay with money, the GPL asks you to pay with code. That's the very purpose of the GPL, making a full GPL software stack.
You are wrong. You can't link with GPL code from non-GPL code, whether it's static or dynamic linking! Please don't spread such false rumors. The only way he can use the code is to invoke it through regular execution() or socket, but it will not work for a software component (could work for a shell utility though).
Richard Stallman isn't imposing his views on anyone, he just makes his views known. He can say he thinks it's wrong to release software under a proprietary license without imposing anything on you. If you can't differentiate when someone says what you do is immoral and when someone imposes, e.g force you to something, then you are the one confused with semantics ;).
The developer (or his boss) is *always* free to choose his license, where did you get that weird idea that he wasn't? Stallman fights for the freedom of choice when it comes to the license; he gave a great tool (the GPL) for developers who wish their code to remain Free as in Freedom -- and if the name "Free Software" doesn't suit you, you could call it whatever you want, it is well defined (usage, study, modification, redistribution).
I think you're confused on Stallman's work and message. He doesn't want proprietary software to be legally abolished or anything. He thinks proprietary software (ie, only software that gets distributed, and not internal software) shouldn't exist, but not through imposing or forcing anyone to do Free Software: rather through encouraging them and try to make them change their minds, and change the industry.
No one is forced to do anything. Stallman himself uses the copyright system for credit and copyleft licenses, so he is not (contrarily to many others) trying to make all software free de-facto. If you cannot accept that he fights for his ideals and flags different behaviors as morally right or wrong, this is another problem altogether.
Yeepee, I have a fan here ;). What brain-washin are you referring to, the one the society makes us go through and which make us be competitors rather than cooperators, or the one of the FSF which led me to review what I took for granted (and many others, that I know).
:).
I heard about the *BSDs about at the same time I heard about GNU/Linux, and the superior part is solely technical -- but you see I'm not so hardcore because I run GNU/Linux for convenience (more available packages, nothing to compile, more hardware support, etc). I want it to just work, I have spent way too much time tinkering, compiling, including cvs uping the BSD tree, now I just want it easy. As for adhering to different philosophies, if GPL is free market communism, BSD is anarchism or nihilism. I have ran BSD so this is not a matter of system, it is a matter of opinion. I simply agree with the FSF, that's all
If you paid more attention to the Free Software philosophy, you would see that Stallman merges the concept of developer and user. This is a common practice even in software development, where the user of a library is a developer. To be honest it is developers who gets most of the GPL and LGPL, since not only it gives freely available libraries and programs with their source code (which is often of no interest to end-users), but the developer of the said libraries and programs get the modifications back, meaning they get work done for free.
Of course, a Free Software developer can't really charge on a copy basis (he could but it's up to the user's good will), but they can still charge the first copy (including making the price high enough to compensate for further unlimited copies). In fact there are many business models (other than support) that work very well like paying for specific features (obviously more than the cost of what would a single copy be).