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Why Do Commercial Offerings Use Linux, But Not Support Linux Users?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Sep 27, 2007 01:43 PM
from the seems-like-a-fairly-easy-step dept.
from the seems-like-a-fairly-easy-step dept.
Michele Alessandrini writes "Having bought several TomTom One navigation systems at work, I was browsing their web site to find information about maps.
There are several pages of documentation about their devices.
In one of them, they proudly inform you that their devices use Linux, as a warranty of power and stability. They even prominently display their GPL compatibility. But, when you come to the software (the one used to manage updates, set locations, etc), they only support Windows and Mac OS. Not that surprising, and not a real necessity. Just the same, they probably saved millions of dollars using a free kernel and didn't think to support Linux users. As Linux gains ground in commercial applications like this, how often are we going to see actual users of the OS left out in the cold? Why don't more Linux-using shops reach out to the Linux-using community?"
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Submission: TomTom uses Linux, but doesn't support Linux users by Anonymous Coward
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Easy Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Chicken / Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
The over all Linux market share for the desktop is low, but it's not zero. In terms of sheer unit numbers, it's still a lot. As more and more embedded devices use Linux (as well as other platforms (mobile) that are not Windows / IE centric,) the demand will grow for more compatibility / open protocols / etc. and manufacturers / sites / etc. will have to support it. Us Linux users are a patient bunch.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
But wasn't that part of the point of the summary -- they saved a ton by using a premade OS rather than building their own. What's so hard about giving back to the community a tiny little something. After all, it is that very community that made their profits possible in the first place. It's about good citizenship, not an extra two cents profit per device.
Plus, it really is true that linux users probably affect more sales than just the machines we buy for ourselves. I know I have personally influenced the buying habits 5 other users in the last 24 months (all non-linux users). Get the geeks excited about your product, you'll sell to them and everyone they know. So that two cent loss caused by giving back, might turn into an extra dime profit over all.
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Which has a very specific meaning relating to accounting for corporate mergers. "Goodwill" has nothing to do with going out and making people feel good about your company.
Chris Mattern
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
But as I pointed out in my other comment, it is very likely that the folks that developed the firmware have little or nothing to do with those who developed the support drivers and applications, save for a few architecture/API/integration meetings.
I'm not saying the company as a whole shouldn't be trying to give back to the Linux community, just that you may be talking apples and oranges here when it comes to the software developers involved.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, business are run by MBAs. It is about the extra two cents profit per device.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Funny)
Can you also have it second-guess the way you're driving and change its mind about which way you should turn at the last minute? Or how about having it shout "Oh my GOD!!!!" at random while you're driving in traffic, and then telling you that they're putting in a new Banana Republic at the shopping center you just passed.
Until I can buy a GPS that does that, I'll stick with the real thing.
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.ghostwheel.de/viftool/ [ghostwheel.de]
It is indeed very fun and does make my chuckle - at last "She" can read a Map. Also it is fun to have Knife and Fork instead of Right and Left.
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a hilarious conversation with another geek recently (Mac and Linux using one).
He buys wine on the Internet (can't be bothered to go to the shop). The wine shop recently "upgraded" their software and it stopped working for everything but Windows. He wrote to their tech support and asked why. He got the well known answer - that they do not have the resources to support the development and verification for 3% of the Internet user base.
3 months later they called him with a prolonged and sincere apology and asked him to come back and that they have fixed the shop.
Guess what - 97% of the population that buys wine on the Internet by the case at 20+ quid a pop does not run Windows. More likely - windows is under 40% and even that runs firefox or opera. Rest are MacOS and Linux users.
The decision to cut off all non-Windows users was taken by some moron with an MBA who read some "industry press" and did not even bother asking the operations to run browser stats on the logs. As a result their revenue nosedived by 60%+.
So when someone quotes me 97% numbers I usually ask "Which population"?
If the population under discussion is "Buying luxury goods online" - bollocks.
If the population under discussion is "Geeks buying the latest must-have gadget" - bollocks.
Or even if the population is normalised by its buying power - still bollocks.
Parent
lies, damn lies, and statistics. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been trying to find - anything - on Google that backs this up.
Personally, I'd chance a modest wager that anyone buying wine "by the case at 20 quid a pop" is running Windows.
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Internal devs can put up with a beta print driver. Cannon will not support a beta print driver. Make sense now?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The "overwhelming public" would fail to notice that the unsupported Linux driver even existed, much less have a negative reaction to it! The only people who would notice would be the Linux community, which is almost entirely composed of geeks that aren't scared by unsupported code (especially if it was also Free Software itself).
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
The software that runs in the device specifies an interface. The software that runs on the desktop makes use of the interface to interact with the device. How the device implements the interface is completely irrelevant. So the fact that the device uses linux has absolutely no bearing on whether the desktop software supports linux.
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Informative)
I liked the prayer on top of SQLite, actually, for this very reason. Here it is:
** May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
** May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But why should a company support linux just because their gadget has linux running inside it?
Because they are benefiting from a mature, open source, and well understood pre-established operating system. If there was no Linux they would have to spend much more development costs in building their own OS for their devices.
You're assuming that corporations, in general, exist to "do good" and aren't generally motivated solely by the desire to generate a profit. Using OSS in their product is great for them; they get to avoid a large amount of development costs. Supporting Linux users is completely orthogonal; some companies may decide that supporting Linux users generates them a net profit they wouldn't otherwise have, and some won't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are Linux/GPL advocates being hypocritical? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they are benefiting from a mature, open source, and well understood pre-established operating system. If there was no Linux they would have to spend much more development costs in building their own OS for their devices.
I am sensing some hypocracy here, not with respect to this poster but Linux/GPL advocates in general. When BSD folks complain about GPL folks not respecting the spirit of FOSS and "giving back"(1) there is a strong sentiment from the GPL advocates of "too bad, the letter of your license allow us to take and not give back". However when corporation comply with the letter of the GPL and do not "give back" beyond source code GPL advocates complain.
(1) For example in a scenario where a GPL developer takes BSD code, incorporates it into a GPL based project, makes minor fixes or improvements, but does not update the original BSD code with these fixes or minor improvements. Absolutely legal with respect to the BSD license but against the FOSS spirit of giving back to those whose shoulders you stand upon.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in IT and bring in cookies every Friday. I give my cookies to Accounting, IT and HR. Someone from Accounting, who eats my cookies, brings in cookies every Wednesday. However he/she only shares his/her cookies with Accounting and HR. Is the person from Accounting required to share cookies with IT? No, but it is a pretty crappy thing to not share their cookies.
Yeah, cookie analogies are pretty dumb
The way I see it is that TomTom is saving a nice chunk of change by using OSS/GNU/Linux to build the base of their systems. It would be nice if they took a small part of those savings and just... maybe... wrote some software for OSS/GNU/Linux users. Hell, I am sure they saved enough by using Linux in their devices to hire just one Linux GUI developer to build an equivalent GUI software that is available for MS Windows and Mac. It is not like they are making tons of money from Mac users. The majority of their users will being using the devices under MS Windows. At least WRT a Linux GUI, they can say the cost was offset by the savings generated by using Linux.
Parent
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Brand Z starts to ship decent linux drivers, or at least offers up datasheets.
Geek "Y" decides that he loves this company, and recommends them to all of his friends and family, who trust him because he is the family geek. Suddenly, company "B's" sales increase even with non-geeks.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
The company I work for (Sun) makes applications that "support Linux". Perhaps it's a different ball game making enterprise software than it is making desktop software for a consumer device, but it's really rather trivial for us. We nominate a set of distros that dominate the datacenter marker (RHEL, SLES) and say, "We support our software running on versions 2.1, 3, and 4, or 8, 9, and 10, respectively. If you choose to run on another distro, might work, might not, but we don't support it." Maybe I'm missing the thrust of your argument, but we have few complaints about this approach. The advantage is the known kernel version. We even track the updates so we can be sure. I don't see why support for any other app on Linux would be different. Granted it may piss off Gentoo users (I am one!), but it would probably appease 80% of the 3% :-)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's about the programmers. (Score:4, Insightful)
obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
To save money.
For most companies, linux is too small of market to be worth devoting development time to. As companies follow in IBM's and AMD's footsteps, though, I think linux support will continue to increase, but I doubt it will ever match Windows and OS X levels.
Sounds Good but it's Wrong. So's the Question. (Score:3, Interesting)
To save money. For most companies, linux is too small of market to be worth devoting development time to.
They just wrote the interface in GPL'd code, so you know they already have devoted the development time and might be keeping someone on staff that knows what they are doing.
Their GPL'd code is already "supporting" the user. Using reasonable interfaces and releasing specs is a good first step. Sooner or later this will make it's way to the distribution of your choice and your distribution will ha
Because.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine trying to deal with some bumbling idiot with an Ubuntu box?
And then... Which distro(s) should they support?
Re:Because.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of us would be quite happy with "Here's the linux binary; we won't help you with it, but we'll maintain a user support forum and pay attention to bug reports."
Or, "Here's the Windows binary and source code; that should get you started. We won't help you with the Linux port, but we promise not to actively hinder it with malicious firmware updates." After all, for a company making a hardware device, the profit center is the device, not the computer-side software. Why not make it open?
Parent
Re:Because.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Expose the APIs used to access the device. This way the FOSS community can build an interface that will get the job done.
2. Make the interface non-OS specific using standards. An http interface can be programmed once on the backend, and support multiple OSs via web browser (similar to how commodity IP router/switches are configured today).
These are ways of providing value add for the user, while at the same time saving your company money by only having to maintain one code base. WIN-WIN!
Parent
Because.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
And some things about development of commercial apps for Linux are bit of a pain. What widget set do you use? How do you determine if the appropriate libraries are installled, where does the OS mount devices, what device numbers do you get, etc. Nothing insurmountable, just more complexity than with Windows or OSX.
Market considerations (Score:5, Insightful)
answer (Score:3, Insightful)
End of discussion.
Next question!
What about server/client discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, companies which promise a linux client is "coming soon!" and then years later still haven't delivered a damn thing. (I'm looking at you ventrilo on both counts).
There are a lot of factors involved here... (Score:3, Insightful)
With Windows, you can specify "requires Windows XP with SP2 and
The most I could ask of any company in the way of Linux support is a solid driver with good documentation, a wiki to allow the Linux community to fill in the blanks when unexpected problems crop up, and a web forum to facilitate the community and allow developer to monitor/communicate with the users.
it's about their target audience (Score:4, Interesting)
When it comes to providing software for users to load to interface a computer with that device, most are still using Microsoft Windows and far far fewer using Mac. IMO, the Mac gets support because it has a long history in the industry and not supporting it pisses of some vocal users( media, etc ).
With this in mind, do you now understand why Microsoft went all out to destroy the C++ frameworks businesses in the 90s? Why they have done the same when any cross platform development tool gains acceptance in the community? If they were using Qt for their desktop app development then it would be one thing but IIRC, Qt 3.0(2001) was the first time it supported Mac and so many companies were/are still tied to other development platforms. Ones which don't easily port to Linux.
BTW, this was the same thing happening when Sharp release the Linux based Zaurus but it was worst there. Sharp wanted developers to help with application and the dev env was Linux but the QtopiaDesktop PIM/syncing application was only for Windows. How stupid is that? Trolltech did release some version of the QtopiaDesktop for Linux but there wasn't a whole lot of activity and eventually, it became outdated and unable to sync with the newer Sharp ROMs.
Hopefully, as OEMs around the world start providing Linux pre-loaded, vendors like those behind the TomTom will start porting their desktop apps to cross platform frameworks and tools so they can support Linux desktop users. Too bad they don't learn from the router companies and put a web server in the device so any browser can work with it using standard protocols.
LoB
Depends on what you're using... (Score:4, Interesting)
two ways of doing business (Score:3, Informative)
2)develop new markets that look to have some potential down the road, where there is little or no competition right now
We have corporations fixated on the next quarter profits,all the way to the point of abandoning R&D and selling off assets, etc, and those looking for the long haul. Sure, you get a fast fat city bottom line that way, but it's *stoopid*
Detroit in the early 70s vs. Japan, Inc. Who was actually smarter, which set of execs was actually looking out for their investors the best, the old "bottom line"? *Which* bottom line is more important, who's kicking ass now and who keeps having to dodge bankruptcy and junk bond status and so on?
FOSS-you either get it, or you don't, and it really is that simple, and to this day a lot of people even on this site just do not "get it". If you play act at "getting it", you won't receive all the benefits possible. Just try to milk it out short term with no sharing or thought to the users or taking a peek at the long view, again, it proves you don't get it or don't want to get it and in the long run you won't be as successful.
So, to all those folks saying the corporations are only interested in money, sure, I'd agree, but for how long? Do you want to make money for a long time, and just cede potential up and coming markets to squeeze out or cheap out a few extra nickles now in the short run? Is that really all you care about? Is it a good idea to cheap out on R&D, after all, right this quarter it's not "making you any money", now is it? Cheap out on embracing new customers? Slam up a website that bogues out decent double digits of the folks who use "alternative browsers" or OSes besides IE and windows out there, just tell those people to get stuffed?
Choices, business decisions, short range versus long range versus looking at ALL the ranges. Invest in your real business, invest in finding new customers instead of just milking the ones you have now, invest in research and share back because the more who do that the more "you" get back as well. That just seems to be a much better idea than cheaping out for the short run.
It's the hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Because supporting your own embedded version of Linux that no-one outside one small room in the basement of your offices is going to modify, on your own hardware, the spec of which isn't going to change, is relatively easy once you've got the thing working - in fact it's probably easier than supporting a proprietary embedded system. On the other hand, supporting any of a dozen major linux distros running on a thousand different hardware setups, using different sets of drivers for each and every peripheral, with the choice of at least two desktops and millions of permutations of modules, before the user started customising and recompiling, and no standard way to distribute your software to all distros apart from a tarball'd set of source files, isn't easier than supporting Windows or Mac end users. Especially given that at least some linux users are going to be more interested in proving they are smarter than the helpdesk team than in getting the product to work, and that a lot of linux fans will use a OSX or Windows when they have to.
And, as others have said, why would you expect one to follow the other anyway? If my company was making money from using an embedded OSS system, I might be inclined to put $$$ or developer hours into helping the OSS development community, but I really cannot see why I would be under any moral obligation to help the distributors of non-embedded distros I don't use or the desktop users who are consumers just like me.
Re:Why? Here's why. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why? Here's why. (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, Photoshop is a high level application. That has no bearing on what a *developer* might consider unreasonable as a development cost going into their own application. Secondly, I am a developer, I am responsible for an application of Photoshop's approximate class, we're completely debt-free and cashy, and I still wouldn't consider licensing GUI widgets. As far as I am concerned, the day linux gets GUI widgets that are always there and available on the same terms as those in OS X and Windows is the day I'm willing to release a port to the platform. Other people may have other opinions, and I'm not saying they aren't valid, but that's mine. Either the OS provides the GUI, or as far as I'm concerned, there is no GUI. And incorporating anything using the GPL... not a chance on this earth. But we do have a working linux port ready for the eventuality that the OS changes to provide a standard GUI. There are projects running to get that done, thank goodness. All we'll have to do is move the widgetry over and we should be good to go.
Not so. Mac users pay, and pay well, and in large numbers, for good applications. If your app isn't a support problem, every sale is a profitable sale, and the Mac OS, being extremely stable and reliable (just like linux, I might add), is a wonderful platform for selling software into. The linux market isn't even remotely comparable. The GPL is the perfect example of the linux attitude towards commercial software - and it is not commercial friendly. Selling support doesn't work either unless your app is so unfriendly people require help to use it, or else if it is buggy, or has compatibility problems. Applications that "just work", which is our actual goal, have to be sold on initial perceived value, actual value in use, and perceived value of upgrades. Selling someone a "service contract" you know they'll never have to use isn't a very ethical thing to do either.
Oh. I get it. You think the cost of going with a third party widget set is the initial monetary outlay. Well, that's certainly part of it, but what happens when trolltech goes out of business, and linux just keeps evolving? Or the opposite - when Trolltech decides that they're not going to support an older linux, but we want to support our customers? Why should we risk tying our application to a third party? With a better OS design - meaning, one that actually has its own GUI - you can be pretty certain that your stuff is going to continue working. Windows 95 software still works and its been 12 years. Trolltech would never do this, I hear you say? Whoops, wrong. They already have. I can't compile or run the current Gimp on a stock RH9 system, not all that old, frankly. If it isn't complaining about the font libraries or the version of the C compiler, it's having a meltdown over some obscure library I've never even heard of. When I spoke up about this, I was told, "update the linux system"; but that's precisely the wrong answer. A commercial app needs to work on the widest possible number of systems, not only the latest and greatest. At least, as far as I'm concerned. I admit I've run into developers who grab at new OS features like chimps after bright yellow bananas, but we're not one of those. Our objective is to get the app working, and keep the app working. If something shows up we want from a later OS, and we can't special case it in and out based on OS level detection, we just won't use it. Because to lock out our users with old OS's is unaccept
Parent
Re:Which linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really, see, because if you build your app for a very popular linux distro and release the source code, the community will do the rest of the porting for you.
But once again we see how wanting to keep things secret and hush hush this is proprietary stuff just slows down progress.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me, but if your business consists of selling hardware (and not the app that lets you hook it up to a PC), how exactly do you expect linux users to "not pay"?
Release the technical specs for your widget and the community will do the rest. However if you feel you can live without that extra 5% of the market, well, fair enough. Some companies would kill for 5%.