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If Linux Fails, Blame Jim Zemlin
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Aug 23, 2008 01:27 PM
from the well-that-might-be-a-little-harsh dept.
from the well-that-might-be-a-little-harsh dept.
darthcamaro writes "Everyone asks who runs Linux — to which the normal answer is either Linus Torvalds or 'the community.' But (as Master Yoda once said) — There is another. His name is Jim Zemlin and he is the Executive Director of The Linux Foundation." From the interview linked above:
"'I want to be a thousand percent confident that this organization will be around for the next 30 to 50 years because Linux isn't going away,' Zemlin said. 'It's everywhere, and there is no doubt that Linux will be an important platform in the future and we're only at the beginning on the embedded and mobile side. It will be my screwup if we don't have an organization that can help coordinate and grow the development of the Linux platform.'"
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Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they have a strategy against software patents?
Do they lobby for open standards regulations and vendor neutrality?
Nuff said. ...ah and where is the Desktop LSB gone?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
>Do they have a strategy against software patents?
This is a natural benefit of "twenty year sustainability."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you expect hardware that's made for a Mac to run in a PC?
Actually I expect hardware that's made for a Mac/PC to be clearly indicated as such somewhere. However the Linux Foundation doesn't promote identifying Linux compatibility on the hardware packaging the way MS and Apple do with their respective OSes.
You might say that is so because most of the work for drivers is undertaken by kernel hackers themselves. But said hackers only list the compatible CPUs for the kernel... they do not make any single compatibility reference (HCL) for other devices.
This makes me th
Wow, he does think rather highly of himself... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow, he does think rather highly of himself... (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose he's going to give it 110% so he can be 1000% confident Linux will be on 500% of all mobile devices.
I was going to say something else but I've forgotten his name already.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He's obviously 50% sure about the first 20 years, and not so much thereafter.
Probably quit realistic. I should get out Nostradamus to see wat he has to say about it.
Not useful in 30 years (Score:2, Informative)
I want to be a thousand percent confident that this organization will be around for the next 30 to 50 years because Linux isn't going away,'
That is a bad idea. Think about how much has changed in 30 years with technology. Now accelerate that change with the internet, etc. It is a very bad idea for Linux to still be used in 30 to 50 years. Now, there will be some use for it, to see how much software has changed, etc. But for a system written in 1991 to be useful in 2038 it has to have the fundamental architecture changed.
Will there be an open source OS that is good to be used in 2038? Yes. Is Linux it? Nope. Not unless you still think t
Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Funny)
Well one would hope that Linux would have evolved in 30 years. Maybe not one line of code from now will still be in it, maybe be it will no be written in C anymore, maybe the kernel version is going to be 2.8 (more likely 2.6.5665454871125114-rc89) but it could well be still around.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
With Linux being open source, compatibility shouldn't be much of a problem to port applications to the new kernel.
The problem is, when you rely on ideas made in the '80s and code written in the '90s it doesn't help you solve t
Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, right now it's the '00s, and we're still using hardware architecture created in 1978 (8086 processor).
You could probably go back farther than that. The basic concepts of Von Neumann's digital computer are what, almost 70 years old now?
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Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Look how resistant people are to changing the file hierarchy in any *nix based system. People claim that once you know the *nix standard, you can administer it well enough, but that doesn't change there are several exceptions to it, and unnecessary redundancy. Not to mention it was designed around a precept that directory names should be three characters or less.
If Linux isn't Unix, and has no desire to be certified as Unix, then why fight so hard for all the POSIX standards? At some point, shouldn't Linux say "how do we become the best OS we can be, without tethering ourselves to things that aren't helping us?"
And I'm not suggesting abandoning standards wholesale for no reason, but the file system structure really needs improvement.
Parent
Additional filesystem views (Score:5, Interesting)
While the hierarchical filesystem has been great for programming, it doesn't work so well for end users. I've been coaching customers and my wife on organizing email for decades. Creating folders and filing messages in them is *not* what they want to do. Many are not even capable of it.
What an end users wants to do is not "file" anything any "where". Let the email pile up in the INBOX, and click on columns to sort, or use a query to find emails. Is the imap server not handling that practice efficiently? "Bad imap server", *not* "bad user". (We switched from uw-imap to dovecot since the latter is efficient for multi-gigabyte inboxes.)
In the same vein, users want their desktops to work like email. No folders. Just a desktop view with columns pulled from file content like in thunderbird, instant sorting and searching on any column, and a simple query screen to search by logical combinations of columns. The current filename, filetype, modified, size columns are insufficient. For open office documents, the document properties should be searchable.
So maybe there is not a single set of columns that is useful for all kinds of documents. Maybe the hierarchy should be a class hierarchy. The base class has bare unix file properties (name, modified, size, permissions, etc). Email extends that to add subject, sender, to, etc. Office software extends it to add author, title, subject, lastprinted, revision, template, etc.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
1988 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.
2008 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.
2028 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.
2048 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.
2568 - There comes a time that we have to get rid of UNIX and come up with something better. Today isn't the time to do it, and perhaps 20 years down the road isn't time to do it either, but eventually we have to come up with something that addresses some of the flaws of UNIX.
If not now, when?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe not one line of code from now will still be in it
But it will still be SCO's IP!
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? Windows is still around, after about 20 years. Of course, Windows 1.0 and Windows Vista share almost nothing in common.
But Linux 1.0 and Linux 2.6.26 also share very little (none at all?) code.
Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, Windows 1.0 and Windows Vista share almost nothing in common.
It share new font install dialog
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Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:4, Insightful)
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Linux 2.6 is not Linux 1.0.
In 30 years there may still be Linux, but it will be Linux 5.2.
(or maybe Linux 2.6.4159 if Linus never changes his versioning again...)
Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Interesting)
You are forgetting that Linux is an open source project, which is actively developed. It only supported 386 processors at first, but now the list is too long to be posted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_portability_and_supported_architectures#List_of_supported_architectures [wikipedia.org]
Old versions of Linux won't be usable after 30 years, but recent versions will be.
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I disagree, I'd be surprised if there were as much change to computers in 30 years as there has been in the last 20 or so. And BSD and Linux have been around for most of that. Sure they've changed, but most of the changes left to make are based upon what's already been done or to the UI.
BSD works at least as well now as it did when it was just patches to Unix, and that was decades ago. There've been quite a few significant changes since then, and the OS has kept up fine.
Linux doesn't have quite the maturity
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Any OS which is coded in a forward looking fashion can keep up with changes over the years as long as changes and fixes are made when they become necessary. And there's somebody there to make the changes. Expecting to wait 10 years to fix architecture problems does not lead to good results.
But Linux wasn't coded in a forward looking fashion. It was coded for a specific machine that Linus had. UNIX was coded in a forward looking fashion, but now it is past the machines that it was trying to get in the future. What we need is an OS that improves on UNIX and Linux. For example, Plan 9 tried to do that (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/FAQ/index.html#INTRODUCTION) because some of the flaws of UNIX were too deep to fix with patches, etc.
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Re:Not useful in 30 years (Score:5, Funny)
I always figured HURD will be ready about the same time Linux finally becomes unmaintainable.
Which means Linux needs to last a lot more than 30 more years.
Parent
The desktop years. (Score:5, Funny)
Can we blame Jim Zemlin for every year that hasn't been the year of the linux desktop?
$IsDesktopLinuxYear = false; //this never changes
while(!$IsDesktopLinuxYear) {
Slap("Jim Zemlin"); // omg epic design
Sleep(31536000);
}
Linux is dead, long live Liinux (Score:2, Insightful)
Unix didn't die because Linux came along.
Mainframe isn't dead -- far from it. It didn't die because Unix came along.
Torvalds has about 50 years left on this earth. Something else will undoubtedly come along that will grab mind and market share. Perhaps it'll come during his lifetime. Whether it does or not it probably won't spell the death of Linux.
It's too early to pick who to blame if Linux fails.
It has to be said (Score:2, Insightful)
That thing you usually call Linux is actually GNU/Linux. Hell, GNU alone would be a much better name than Linux alone.
So the real "leader" is Richard Stallman, not that guy.
But will it be on the desktop? (Score:4, Informative)
But will it become an important player on the desktop? I'm using Linux on my laptop every day, and I think it's great. But sadly, desktop Linux has a very small market share these days. In fact desktop Linux is something that people make fun of. Every time something positive about Linux adoption is posted, people respond with "Last year desktop Linux failed, but THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop... really!!111"
People on Slashdot, OSNews and many other places are always criticizing Linux for not being desktop friendly. But sadly, it seems that the Linux community isn't exactly helping. There are developers who are clearly interested in making Linux a viable desktop platform, for both users and developers. For example, the Autopackage project has tried for quite some time now to convince distributions to support /usr/local. Yes you read that right: to support /usr/local, a very basic prefix that everybody expects to work, but practice doesn't! The problems with /usr/local includes: /usr/local are not recognized by GNOME and KDE by default. A lot of distributions refuse to add /usr/local to the default search path for menu items.
- Menu item files installed to
- File associations: ditto.
- A bunch of other problems that I don't remember from the top of my head, most of them related to not being included in the default search path.
Working menu items and file associations are among the basic things required for desktop adoption, are they not? Not having them in the default search path prevents third party software installation to work properly. I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to /usr just to make menu items work, right?
Autopackage has been trying to convince distributions to do just pme simple thing - adding /usr/local to the default search path. Distributors and a lot of people from the Linux community either don't know, don't care, or are actively opposing this effort [tinyurl.com].
What are we, developers who care about Linux on the desktop, to do?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hm something went wrong with TinyURL. Here's the correct URL: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.autopackage.devel/6831 [gmane.org]
Re:But will it be on the desktop? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh, 7 replies later and I'm still getting this kind of one-liner replies. Maybe you people don't care about Linux on the desktop after all?
Nope.. Too busy using it and enjoying myself. And next week I'm going to be installing a Linux distro on an old PC for a friend who wants to connect it up to his TV. So add another Linux user to the tally :-)
You are getting the one liners because you are taking it far too seriously, and people are making fun of you. I have no idea how long you have been a Linux user, but to be honest, you give the impression of someone who has just discovered it, and now sees it as your vocation in life to convert the world.
The year of Linux thing is a running joke. Nobody with any sense takes it seriously. Non Linux users make the year of Linux joke, non OSX users wind OSX users up by suggesting that Apple might not be perfect, and watch the rationalisations. And everyone laughs at Vista. This is the way of things.. forums are hotbeds of petty arguments and ill informed arguments. If a requirement for posting on /. was to have a valid point, then there wouldn't be very many posts.
Linux is not.....
A universal OS that every person on the planet should use..At gunpoint if required.
We want people to come and use Linux, so we talk about it. But only if it is right for them. If it isn't they have alternatives to use. And I hope they have a good time using their computers. researching a motherboard for Linux compatibility is not everyone's idea of a fun time.
The OS that is going to kill Microsoft...
They are far more likely to do that themselves. They lost me and many others at WGA, and quite a few others with Vista. And no doubt, future actions will make even more Linux users.
A cure for baldness..
Although some of the problems that I have had certainly contributed to my lack of follicle count from time to time.
Relax, enjoy Linux. Do cool stuff, and brag about it. Write a howto if you can, so others can do the same cool stuff. And if a distro doesn't do what you want, try another. If you enjoy Linux, by all means help someone to get up and running with it, but don't try to convert someone to Linux because it is Linux. Do it because it suits the individual person's use of their computer better. It's an operating system, not a religion.
Parent
What? (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, isn't the summary contradicting itself?
Jim isn't saying that if he fails, Linux will fail. He's saying that "The Linux Foundation" will fail. Linux will go on with or without him, and that's what he's saying in the quote.
And he's right. Many organizations fail because of bad leadership. The fish rots from the head down.
I thought that editors were supposed to be steeped in English grammar and should be able to diagram a sentence, thus finding the subject, verb, and object, blindfolded, underwater, with sharks with frikkin laser beams swimming all around.
Gott im himmel.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Master Yoda... (Score:3, Funny)
But (as Master Yoda once said) â" There is another. His name is Jim Zemlin and he is the Executive Director of The Linux Foundation."
Another there is. Jim Zemlin his name is ...
Yes but... (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, had to be said.
I don't want any credit but feel free to blame me. (Score:5, Informative)
To be clear. I am only responsible for the "Linux Foundation." We all get that credit for Linux success rests with thousands and thousands of people not any single person or organization.
If the "Linux Foundation" is not helpful then you can blame me for that.
In addition, feel free to blame me for high gas prices, most of the pot holes in San Francisco, and for the crappy wifi at every single Linux Conference.
Jim Zemlin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are serious about being helpful, the Linux
Re:I don't want any credit but feel free to blame (Score:4, Insightful)
How about this - I won't blame you, but I WILL blame some of the egotistical b* who have happily caused harm to Linux and the free software movement in order to plunder corporations and organizations and destroy genuine attempts at real innovation for the sake of raking in the cash and fluffing up their egos. You've probably encountered some, I certainly have. I won't name names because I happen to know they can afford considerably better lawyers, and some accusations are - by nature - rather hard to prove. But if Linux fails, it is because it has been sabotaged from within, it is because innovators and inventors are being given a raw deal far too often.
(Yes, I'm extremely angry. Not at just one person, but many who feel that they are far more important than the free software that they ride the coat-tails of. Over the past 12 years, I've seen enough to convince me that Linux' success is by the fortune of competent, ethical developers outnumbering the highway robbers. The Linux Foundation and its members' biggest contribution will be on how well they ensure it stays that way.)
Parent
Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
That makes Linux better than your girlfriend.
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Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Me too, but Windows goes down on me more often.
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Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Windows goes down on you? Windows usually locks up on me. Rigor mortis ftw.
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Re:linux sucks (Score:5, Funny)
atleast she's tight, everytime I've used Windows lately it's been one open hole after another.
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Re:linux sucks (Score:4, Funny)
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This is why the Linux Foundation should be working with distros to actually support the LSB. Find out why they don't currently support it better now, what their gripes are, and try to draft a new version of the LSB that people can center around.
1 - I'd love to see one major package management system. .deb or a .rpm, though the distinction there shouldn't be necessary anymore. .deb was created because of problems with .rpm that don't really exist anymore, and the LSB
2 - It shouldn't care if the package is a