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Linux Needs Critics
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Apr 02, 2009 09:06 AM
from the that-which-does-not-kill-us dept.
from the that-which-does-not-kill-us dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Keir Thomas berates the fact that the world of Linux almost entirely lacks critics. In fact, he says, Linux people tend to see genuine critical evaluation as a bad thing. FTA: 'The problem with this anti-criticism approach is that it's damning Linux to an eternity of navel gazing. Nothing can ever get any better. The best hope we have are the instances where a few bright sparks, with their heads screwed on the right way, get together and make something cool (as happened with, say, Firefox back in the day). But that's rare and can't be relied upon.'"
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Submission: Linux needs critics by Anonymous Coward
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They are in there (Score:5, Insightful)
The critics in open source world are the young ones that get a big head one day and call your project stupid because it uses language X instead of their favorite language. Then they fork the code, write their own crappy software, get some distribution to decide to use it and then the original project gets dumped one day.
I criticized Linux.... (Score:5, Funny)
...and all I got was this lousy mod rating
Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to admit, the fanbois are making me homicidal.
I LOVE Linux. I love plain old Unix. I love the command line, and the cryptic commands, and man pages, and lynx and apt/yum. I like X windows and MC. I love building from source. The whole environment is clean, somehow. It's got a sort of serenity for me that I don't see very often in my job.
And yet...It's just a tool. It's a good tool. It's my favorite tool. But it's just a tool. There is room for improvement, and, like any tool, there are places where it's not useful.
The thing that drives me nuts is the pure unthinking zealotry. I got started on old proprietary unix, and while linux has more zest and more wild features, there are things that were worthwhile in the old systems. But if you say that, then you get slapped down as a heretic.
Everything benefits from criticism, so in that sense, he's right, but really Linux has plenty of critics. Install linux for someone who is used to something else, and you'll get plenty of criticisms. What I think Linux needs is the same thing I think Mac needs and Windows needs: the people on the inside need to start listening to people who aren't already sold on their product. We have just as many fanbois as the Mac and Windows people, and we've got some of that persecution complex that makes the fanbois extra loathesome.
Just calm down, take a breath, go use something different for a while. Get some perspective. The real zealots make it harder for me to sell *nix solutions to the phbs because they're coming to expect a bias.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Funny)
HERETIC!
Oh I'm sorry, this is abuse. Arguments is in 12a.
Parent
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just Linux though, it's just the fanboy attitude in general.
The fanboy mindset is an odd one. You defend something you love or attack something you hate no matter how little you owe the company or creators, in fact, if you paid for it, they fucking owe you and if they did a shit job then yes they should hear about it. If as an example scenario Nintendo mess something up in a Wii update then people should have every right to complain about it and voice their frustration at the problem - fanboys telling them to stop whining or shut up achieves what? It lets the company get away easier with not fixing a problem. Surely pressuring companies into fixing problems is in everyones interests even if it doesn't effect you personally right now it might in future!
I know OSS is a different beast, people do it off their own backs in their spare time, but as the saying goes, if a jobs worth doing it's worth doing right. What's the point developing an application and releasing it along with the source code for everyone to use if no one wants to use it because you wont listen to their criticisms?
The problem is this, people take criticism as a personal attack even if it's just a product they purchased that someone is complaining about. Similarly people write code are often defensive in the face of criticism.
But you have to step back and look at why you're doing it, if you are just developing something for yourself and release it as a courtesy but without a care of what other people think then yeah, no problem just ignore the criticism and put a note up along with the downloads saying "Not interested in feedback". If you are developing it with the aim of user adoption then you have to accept criticism, sure not all is valid but sometimes we see projects where nearly the entire userbase is up in arms and are still ignored! If half the userbase is up in arms and half are defensive of a change then make it an option but convince people to move over to the change by making it worthwhile and phase it out. Don't just ignore half your fanbase and cut a popular feature out outright!!
Linux does need it's critics, everyone producing something needs their critics in fact. They're valuable for continued improvement and sure sometimes they come up with idiotic ideas but other times it's you, the developer that doesn't understand what your user actually wants and the sooner all developers accept this the better. I know full well I can write good code, I know full well I can design applications, but what I can't ever possibly claim to know is what my users want because I am not them.
Parent
Critics (Score:5, Funny)
On the positive side, there are more Linux critics than Mac critics.
If you are critical of Linux, you are just berated.
If you are critical of Mac, you are mobbed, beaten, lynched and never allowed to buy a cappuccino again.
Er (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think you've heard some of the non fanboi mac users rant..
They are brutal
Especially about the OS X finder which while working isn't where it needs to be yet.
Don't get them started on the Dock.
Parent
Like Dividing By Zero (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux Needs Critics
Oh how true that is. I myself love to criticize things (I'm reading Slashdot, after all). But why don't I constructively criticize Linux?
I think a lot of has to do with what every argument or analysis starts with: base assumptions. So let's start with comparing Linux to the leading commercial operating systems and the most important thing to consumers--price. And the guy mentions this in his blog. But we can't get to questions like "Is feature X really worth Y dollars to me?" Because Linux does not cost money to install. It's like dividing by zero. It makes criticism of a missing component difficult because it doesn't cost me anything! How can I criticize it?! You will see people like Steve Ballmer have to dig and dig into imaginary costs of retraining, supporting and maintaining Linux to give it a "hidden cost" so that Windows can even begin to contend with Linux in price (you'll notice these concerns were suspiciously left out of advertisements when discussing the switch from XP to Vista).
Another important aspect of operating systems (at least to me) is security. And, being a pedantic ass, I cannot even comment on the security of the Microsoft operating system because I have no idea what they are doing. I can get the Linux source code pretty quickly if I felt the need to understand why it is that the userspace/kernelspace concept has failed (although, I have never done this, the option is there). So, again, we enter this point where I can't even get to criticizing Linux for susceptibility to a botnet or trojan because it doesn't practice security through obfuscation like leading operating systems.
On top of this, as a Linux user (and as evidenced above) my priorities and performance parameters are all out of whack and completely divorced from the mainstream (or so my perception goes). If they weren't, I would be using Windows primarily at home.
So I think that unless more free open source operating systems arise to compete with Linux, criticism will remain low. And you've got the cult barrier to break down where people have lived with the burden of paying out their ass for software so how can you criticize something after suffering for so long under the blah blah blah religious spiel blah blah blah.
The problem is more complicated... (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is full of critics (Score:5, Insightful)
There is plenty of disagreement about every aspect of Linux. The kernel, the GUI, the apps, everything. And if you examined Linux, or a distro you aren't familiar with, you would probably find something you didn't like about it and you are quite free to criticise it.
Linux has no deficiency of people who criticise and no deficiency of people who listen and act on it.
Windows has no deficiency of people who criticise and a seemingly complete deficiency of people who listen and act on it.
MacOSX has worse than deficiency of people who criticise as they have people who actively criticise the critics and even attempt to silence them. MacOSX has a deficiency of people who listen and act on it. ...just to put it out the way I see it.
Bullshit... (Score:5, Funny)
...Linux is above criticism. What we actually need is a: "-1, Microsoft fanboy" mod... or how about "-1, Dissing Linux"... or even better "-1, Heresy"...
Critcism == "Wrong vs. Right" (Score:5, Funny)
In order to critique something you must have a baseline of what is correct and what is incorrect. The only thing incorrect in the linux/GNU OSes are coding bugs, not design features, and I think we have enough coders critiquing linux/GNU in that way. If the author wishes a community to criticize Linux, I think he should pick a distro and start there.
You should look into linuxhaters (Score:5, Informative)
Let me attempt to summarize. A) PulseAudio needs to work with existing applications, so it implements an ALSA emulation layer, except, it's not complete. Only 70% of ALSA applications work. So it's like, totally ready. B) So, in the true open source fashion, you should port your app to be a native PulseAudio client. Except that you can't. There's this yet-another-audio-library called libsidney, but it's not ready yet. (Hmm, this sounds familiar...) C) Fedora led the way in incorporating PulseAudio before it was ready, breaking audio for thousands of users. Then because open source is about copying good ideas and bad ones, a ton of other distros adopted it as well. Amazing guys. In a way, you've spread bad code that breaks audio on thousands of computers faster than a virus could have. And it's immune to antivirus! D) so now that we're in this "mess" (as the lead developer of PulseAudio calls it*), LSB comes along and says "we're going to standardize how your write audio apps!" Oh, but wait, ALSA's now "old" (we hardly knew ye), and I can't directly program PulseAudio. Hmm... So the article's brilliant solution? Standardize on the PulseAudio-safe subset of ALSA. WHAT THE FUCK. I can just imagine the future alsa man page. A big listing of functions, with a nice little asterisk next to those functions that you shouldn't use unless you want your app to totally FAIL on a system which has been sodomized by Pulse Audio. I can just see the developers of commercial Linux sound apps (all three of them) jumping for joy. And thus unfolds another chapter in long history of failed sound systems on Linux. Can they make it much worse? I, for one, am excited to see how much worse they can make it until we all go back to listening to square waves on our PC speakers. * BTW, also notice that it's the PulseAudio guy calling Linux audio a mess. Did he forget that it was his project that took the existing mess, and unloaded a giant steaming turd on it? Congratufuckinglations. You've just made it worse. You're a truly a worthy OSS contributor.
He's pretty harsh, but he always has a point behind it.
Re:You should look into linuxhaters (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason which I have yet to understand, they picked option 2 and ALSA was born. Meanwhile, FreeBSD just kept OSS in the tree and kept up to date with (backwards-compatible) improvements to the API (and ABI). To play a sound on FreeBSD I (as a developer) open /dev/dsp, issue ioctls to set the sample rate, number of channels, and so on, and then write the data there. In total, it's around five lines of code (less if you want the default sample rate and number of channels) and uses the standard UNIX system calls so I don't need to link (and worry about the existence of) any libraries. Starting with FreeBSD 4, the kernel did mixing in software if the sound card didn't support it. Starting with FreeBSD 5 (around 2003), the kernel would automatically assign new virtual channels whenever a new app opened /dev/dsp. With FreeBSD 8 (7 if you add some out-of-tree patches) each vchan gets its own volume control and the mixing performance is improved with a new fixed-point algorithm.
Now let's compare this to Linux. On Linux, the OSS APIs may work. For some value of 'work,' because there are four different ways in which OSS may be implemented on Linux:
In some of these cases, only one program can be using the OSS device at once. In others, you get proper sound mixing. In the OSS 4 configuration, you get per-vchan volume controls. Most Linux systems, however, ship with ALSA. Unlike OSS, which is supported on *BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, and so on, ALSA is Linux-only. It is also very poorly documented. Because ALSA isn't ubiquitous (and for a long time didn't handle mixing), a lot of systems started shipping with userspace sound daemons, which did this mixing. These all came with their own APIs, their own client libraries, and a complete inability to work together.
The Linux solution to this mess? Add another userspace sound daemon, but this time call it 'standard'.
Parent
April Fools? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has this dude visited any community involving Linux users... ever?
The standard general Linux criticisms:
1. Driver support. Usually from a lack of manufacturer support.
2. No central focus on meeting business needs (tech support). This complaint is changing with such a large amount of development occurring with programmers employed by business communities for open source development.
3. Have to give up favorite Windows programs (apps & games). This improves over time, but yes, it is a different environment, again with a different historical focus.
Plus lots more, like programmer IDEs, look & feel issues, etc., etc. Criticisms, constructive or otherwise are everywhere Linux is discussed, including countless published sources.
I've certainly encountered folks with an unconstructive beef against Linux who make complaints that it gets unfair praise for being mediocre, merely catching up to Microsoft. With those folks, yes, complaints are sometimes muted because the target of their ire is usually changing so often that their rants are stale before they speak them - so they can become embarrassed by being contradicted in the heat of a discussion too often. But even then, such complaints are still extremely commonplace in both print and online.
I really don't understand where this dude is coming from.
Ryan Fenton
Linux Hater (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is quite right; there is too much groupthink and myopia. The Linux Hater's blog [blogspot.com] is a must-read as an antidote to all that, and he or she has some useful points to make. The articles on Linux Weekly News still have a Linux-centric viewpoint, naturally, but usually aren't afraid to point out shortcomings (especially when quoting the latest Linus flaming on the kernel list).
constructive Criticism. (Score:5, Insightful)
I critisize Linux all the time, and I try and criticize it for very good reasons.
Let me give you an example.
The most wide spread Groupware Suite that is freely availible in the Linux world to challenge Exchange that I can see is eGroupware. eGroupware is an excellent suite in my opinion. Now. Linux has three dedicated Groupware Clients. Kontact, which is part of KDE-PIM. Evolution, which is part of Gnome, and Thunderbird.
Now. To do anything with eGroupware other than E-mail you need XML-RPC.
Kontact has XML-RPC Support, but it has a nasty bug where if it becomes De-Synchronized, it will respawn the same events on the Calendar over and over.
Evolution has no XML-RPC support. You can rig up GroupDAV
Mozilla Sunbird has no XML-RPC Support.
What does it say about Linux's productivity-ware when two of the three Groupware clients produced by Linux developers cannot communicate with its intended native Groupware servers?
Linux loves critics (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux just doesn't love critics who won't roll up their sleeves and fix things.
Ideas are cheap.
Re:Linux loves critics (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is precisely why Linux doesn't get much penetration outside of techies. I'm not saying it's wrong, but that's why Linux is NOT on the desktop.
So if the goal is Linux on the desktop then that attitude has got to change.
Parent
Needs PAID critics - and PAID developers (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some things that simply won't be corrected out of love of the subject. Heck, some of those things won't even be found (and reported).
What a successful software company does that can ONLY be done by PAYING people is persuade people to analyze & create requirements, code, test, and fix ALL of the system. Yeah, the OSS community does most of it pretty well, but they simply won't do it as pervasively or as rigorously as needed unless motivated to, which usually comes in the form of being PAID (to wit: be able to eat).
This is why corporations pay managers: people who are responsible for figuring out what all actually needs to be done, paying other people to get it done, and confirming that it actually has been done. Managers are paid critics who are on the hook for following thru on their criticism. Much of the success of Linux comes precisely from companies like Ubuntu, Red Hat, IBM, Mozilla, and others who actually do pay people to get those annoying unpopular little things right.
In contrast, we end up with the situation that keeps driving me away from Linux: stuff that I need to work just doesn't, and nobody has sufficient motivation to announce the problem, and nobody has sufficient motivation to fix the problem even if known. So instead, I go to someplace like Apple & friends, who - being PAID - are fanatical about making every little thing right (ok, they make mistakes too, but are more motivated to find & fix the little things).
Hence the ultimate failing of "free software": like it or not, money motivates people to do necessary but unpopular jobs, including finding & fixing software flaws.
The problem with Linux criticism (Score:5, Funny)
Things usually go like this:
There are plenty of critics (Score:5, Informative)
I've been complaining about the dumbing down of Gnome (they think gnome users are idiots - just look at the file dialog for one example), the crappy Flash player Adobe puts out for Firefox (why can't DHTML float over flash like it can in MSIE? Is the problem Flash or Firefox? Either way, it's been broken since day one and needs fixing), OpenOffice is spaghetti code and I/O is very slow, *something* needs to be done so more preconfigured systems can be shipped (NVidia & GPL "license" incompatibility creates legal issues when it comes to shipping preinstalled systems), X11 and VNC are horribly inefficient over a WAN, whereas Windows' Remote Desktop Protocol works great even over dial-up connections, oh, and yeah, developers still suck when it comes with users who bother to submit bug reports - especially the OpenOffice folks. They just don't want to fix horrid architectural issues or bugs, because developing new buggy features is more interesting than fixing their previous garbage.
Having said that, I do recommend Linux whenever and wherever it makes sense. I've slowly been convincing the Rabbi at my congregation to go F/OSS at home, the congregation's infrastructure is going to be 90% linux, my business is >90% Linux, and some of my customers run Linux. However, there are many cases where Linux just is not a good fit. It's not the one-size-fits-all BFH. Sometimes a a screwdriver or wrench is a more appropriate tool.
Where is AutoCAD?
Where is the Adobe Creative Suite? (I personally get by with inkscape + gimp + pdfedit + Krita, but my art director NEEDS the Adobe CS (So it's Windows at work and OS X at home for him). It takes me ~3 hours to do a task that takes him under a half hour in Illustrator or Gimp, because to get the same final product requires a lot more manual steps in Gimp and Inkscape; no layer effects, no droplets, Macro recording and playback doesn't exist in any user-friendly way (and no I am NOT about to get into scripting gimp. I'll stick to shell scripting server maintenance and monitoring, and writing installers. thanks anyway!)
Where is Quickbooks for Linux? They have a server component that runs on Linux, but where is the Quickbooks Pro desktop app?
Where are Linux-based embroidery apps? Windows XP is going to be on my new Dell Precision notebook so I can design embroidery patterns. I draw them in Inkscape but I need them to be converted to an embroidery format my machine can understand. So, I do the design AND conversion in Windows, then I don't have to reboot to run the embroidery machine.
Also, more specific to Linux itself (meaning the kernel, not the integrated distro end users refer to as Linux): Where are the merges from RedHat, Ubuntu, Novell, and so forth? Each vendor has incredible extensions to the kernel which makes automounting, user-space drivers, WiFi, and various other features work better than the vanilla kernel. Why can't LSB become a reality, and along with that, a more stable-yet-almost-bleeding-edge kernel come from kernel.org? That would make it much easier for users of $foo and $bar distros to run new hardware without losing fixes and enhancements added by the various vendors? Ubuntu works extremely well with WiFi (but I hate their standard desktops, and I hate ubuntu's administrative GUI) and with 11.x OpenSuse works almost-but-not-quite as well as Ubuntu. DeadRat, er, RedHat/Centos, not so much. Fedora? Every time I've tried it, it's been on bleeding-edge motherboards and would kernel panic or simply not boot, whereas (K)Ubuntu and OpenSuSE would always Just Work(TM). Centos/RedHat? I run it on servers, but hate it for desktops.
I love running Linux, but it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. I can't even use it as my sole OS at home any more because embroidery software I need doesn't exist. :(
Lots of us users are plenty critical of Linux, even though we are Linux evangelists. It's just that while many/most developers take feedback readily (the KDE team is particularly good in this regard!) others
Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Funny)
No it doesn't. Not at all. Suppose you buy a new printer and find it doesn't work with linux. All you have to do is a post a comment on one of the 100,000 different linux discussion sites asking if someone can't produce a driver for it. And then, magically, just a few weeks later, someone with a name like Songeyong Jooeypop will post one for you to download, and it will even come with excellent install instructions like, "Please to be installing driver software for the printing! Always be remembering to install in correct dir or else to be compiling with kernel property. Happiness first! If problems are having to be had, be writing to me at fnordboi@flqoozlepop.xq"
Uh oh. Did I just criticise linux?
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Insightful)
Being serious for a moment, a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense (chicken and egg) - is the fact that Linux developers/proponents tend to be unable to understand that while something is "not their fault", it is still their problem.
For example: I have a DVR box that I put together a few years back. It uses an ATi All-In-Wonder capture board. A "clean rebuild" of the box, including all the recording software and OS (it uses WinXP), takes ~3 hours.
I am consistently told by Linux-using friends that I should "absolutely be using Linux instead", that all Linux software is inherently superior, etc. Yet when trying to install any of the various Linux/MythTV flavors, I've consistently found all sorts of problems. The ATi Remote Wonder doesn't work well for most of them. The recording software either doesn't work at all, or is "spotty at best." Video playback quality is lower.
When I've asked about this on Linux help boards, the response is always the same (and I'm sure I'll get a bunch of raving loons attacking me here for saying so as well): "well it's your fault for having an ATi board you should go spend $$$$$$ on a hauppauge and a nvidia board and buy this and buy that because that's what my box uses and anyways the ati drivers suck because ati sucks."
Now, I recognize that ATi hasn't been as "forthcoming" with driver source / documentation as some other companies. This is where the Linux folks can say it's "not my fault." The reality, though, is that it is a barrier to entry, and therefore it is their problem.
The other problem is that the Linux world lacks consistency. The same command structure, driver package, installation routine often has to be "tweaked" to work - if it works at all - on any given random distribution or even between versions of the same distribution.
Now of course, merely by saying something like this in the open, it's a good chance I'll be branded a Linux heretic. Maybe even a slew of nasty downmods will come my way. After all, criticisms like these are part of the whole "not in front of the goyim" mentality of Linux users whenever there are non-Linux users about.
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude. Just get the nVidia board.
Kidding. Your point is valid -- use the best tool for the job. If you've got an ATI card that works well with Windows but not with Linux, and both OSes provide most of the features you want, then use Windows (assuming the cost of Windows is below the cost of that nVidia card).
Linux remains a server OS. It's coming around very slowly to the desktop and I've no doubt it will get there -- it's doing quite well on the netbooks where people don't want to install everything in their closet: they just want a functional, email-checking, web-surfing laptop and for that almost any OS will do.
Except MacOS X. That only runs on the shiniest of hardware.
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you realize that the problems introduced by incompatible hardware like this makes Linux have MORE PROBLEMS for that particular user THAN WINDOWS? Why would someone switch to an OS that has more problems than their current OS?
Parent
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Well being a programmer myself and using Linux as my main desktop, this is "also" my problem. I'm an end-user as well.
The last irritating things I have found: I just installed opensuse 11, running KDE 4. Well I love it and I don't understand all the fuss around it. Anyway I had to zip several files. I had to send them by email to a client....So simple is it? I openned this new dolhpin. I selected them, right click,actions and then the list appeared:
What kind of paranoid menu is this ? I've got 4 encryption features out of six. I simply need a very simple "compress..." or "Archive" like KDE 3.X to make a simple "zip file" or a tar.gz, I will attach it to my email and that's it. I couldn't find it, so I openned terminal and I typed the proper command line...
See how stupid it is?
Sometimes you feel like what Linux lacks the most is simply "common sense". Sure I will customise that annoying/stupid action submenu when I will have the required time to document myself...But It is truly annoying, even if you are a developer. Some guy out there was so proud of his encryption scheme that he puts 4 commands.
Not all problems are driver related, user-friendliness is also a "big" problem.
Parent
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If a manufacturer makes a MOBO that doesn't support a type of HDD that PC World is selling, it isn't the manufacturer's fault, but it is their problem. At least, it is their problem if they want more people to buy their MOBOs. If you support a fraction of the hardware out there, you get a fraction of the customers. That fraction consists of people that bought pieces specifically to work with your product and people that just happen to have pieces that work with your product.
Its not about fault. Its about figuring out a goal. If your goal is to get more desktop users to run Linux on their DVR, then available hardware thats incompatible with your software becomes your problem. It becomes a challenge you have to overcome to reach your goal.
As far as linux spreading on the desktop, I couldn't guess at how many developers actually have a goal of making an OS for the average desktop user. I've spoken with a few that set goals of making the platform stable, or fast, or capable of doing a specific task they are interested in. All of that is fine and, I believe, necessary. But if there are people that actually want linux to gain market share on the desktop, they will have to face the problems of achieving that goal, even if its not their fault the problems exist.
Parent
Re:Let me be the first critic (Score:5, Insightful)
But what you are saying is exactly what his point is, if I have it right.
You don't care if Linux works right for someone else. However, if Linux proponents want people to adopt their OS of choice, they have to deal with the fact that they have to do more than provide their part of the bargain. They have to go the extra mile to make it work for *the other person*.
Is it fair? No. But fairness doesn't matter in the slightest. It's not really fair that Microsoft has to support legacy junk too, but they do in their own crappy way.
People want their stupid video card or whatever to simply work. It doesn't have to work perfectly, but it does need to actually be installable and functional with no more than a reasonable effort. We need to face the fact that Microsoft, for all their piles of fail, has set the bar for compatibility that Linux needs to follow if the goal is to increase share of general purpose PCs out there, especially desktop workstations.
Parent
We are not magicians (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. What a strange article.
I would even go so far as to say that Linux (and the Free Software ecosystem that surrounds it) has a lot more critics than closed software - or at least more effective critics.
Large software companies pay PR departments to generate positive coverage. Most Open Source projects have no PR effort behind them at all. So criticism of the software is less likely to be drowned out by astroturf.
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
"Most of the time the world of Linux tends to be anti-critical. If anybody in the community dares be critical, they get stomped upon."
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. What a strange article.
You say that as though you've read it.
I would even go so far as to say that Linux (and the Free Software ecosystem that surrounds it) has a lot more critics than closed software - or at least more effective critics.
Large software companies pay PR departments to generate positive coverage. Most Open Source projects have no PR effort behind them at all. So criticism of the software is less likely to be drowned out by astroturf.
RTFA -- he doesn't mean criticism == slagging off, he means criticism as is "critical evaluation". What Linux has is a lot of slaggers and very few critical evaluators. All the deconstruction of design decisions are carried out by the dev guys -- there is no detached observer.
HAL.
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Developers may be critical of their own code, but they see it from their view, not from the view of the users. I've seen many cases where bug reports were "written off" or were closed and the developers' responses were either, "We're not going to implement that because it's too much work," (even when the bug or issue or request has a lot of votes) or some other excuse that indicates they're trying to just write it off, but don't see how important it is to others.
It's the case that those inside looking out are talking about how great they are, but often they refuse to listen to those outside looking in. It's the same issue with Windows. Linuxers wonder how people can think Windows is so good, but it's because people in that world ignore external criticism. Linux and FOSS developers are they same way, they just pretend they aren't: They listen to the criticisms that match their views and ignore or write off those they don't want to hear.
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Linux is that yes there are critics... BUT the Linux community dismisses them as twits who don't understand or appreciate Linux...
If the Linux community were to take end users seriously and start solving their problems then maybe Linux would move on...
Here is a simple question, why on earth when I have multiple applications that need the sound card have problems sharing the sound card? Who on freaken earth thought that one out...
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Being critical of your own code doesn't mean you're open to criticism. And IMO the article is right on the spot.
If I were to say Linux sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most Linux users/developers would just reply that I should code it myself or shut up.
On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize Windows in the same manner just because it's closed source.
Some of us just want to use them as tools, and not extend them every time something's missing. The tired and old reply of "code it yourself" just goes on further to spread the notion that the tool you're trying to use may soon become a source of more work for you, instead of a solution.
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Free is no excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I totally agree. Linux has many, many critics, from users, "prousers / powerusers", developers, and other corporations e.g. M$ (although agreed, these are more often just attacks.)
Where I thought his article was very insightful, however, was the typical response "Linux is free..." where I agree with his analysis. This, however, reflects on us, the Linux community. I cringe when I see somebody say, "It is free, what do you expect?" or "you have no right to complain." Users have every right to (nonabusively and in a civil fashion) criticize software.
If Debian (stable) suddenly stopped working, my organization would lose thousands of person-hours of lost productivity. In many ways, doing somebody a half-favor is often worse than doing them nothing at all:
Imagine if I volunteered to repair your garage, but then did a half-assed job and quit halfway through. It would cost you MORE in the end to clean up and switch to another provider. Would it be then ok to say "I did that for FREE, how can you complain?"
Obviously this is a continuum, and many of the criticisms are unfounded or just whining. But, as a whole, if we want Linux to continue to succeed we, as developers and users alike, should listen and respond constructively ourselves to any (also constructive) criticism that is provided by the community.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
That assumes that you either know the language the kernel or a program is written in, AND have the time to investigate and make the change. Often even professional coders don't have the time to make all the changes to FOSS programs they'd like.
I know it sounds like a good argument for FOSS, but in reality, only a small, and I mean very small, percentage of users, actually have the resources to make changes in a FOSS program.
That's like saying, "This is great for 3% of all users out there so EVERYONE should use it because of that." It totally ignores the needs of 97% of all users.
No wonder there's a problem with criticism for Linux and FOSS: those involved are too busy being right and making statements that make sense to themselves to take time to listen to what most users can actually use or would need.
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All users benefit from FOSS (Score:5, Insightful)
You are ignoring the fact that 100% of the users benefit from improvements made by the few that have the time and resources to get involved with the code.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet no.
I change things occasionally. This instantly creates what I'll call a "dead fork".
You send the code back, maybe it gets incorporated into the project, but maybe not. If not, then your custom addition is a perpetual pain in the ass, because you'll have to add it back in every time you update the software.
God help you if you move on, because all the people trying to support your stuff will have more trouble with those changed apps than anything else you leave.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Funny)
Only if you happen to be a programmer and have no life.
I'm on slashdot posting about the fact that if you don't like linux you can change it. it's a given isn't it ?
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as well. I can't think of anyone else even remotely qualified to critically evaluate the Linux kernel.
OK, so I'm being a bit pedantic, but not very. The author of TFA says he is not a programmer, and I believe him. That means he is a user of applications, which he doesn't take the trouble to name, other than to make indirect reference to Ubuntu and Firefox. His gripe with Ubuntu seems to be that the latest release doesn't have enough shiny things in it, and who knows what he's done to his Firefox installation.
He does, however, have a point when he says that "The danger with all open source projects is that the developers become too dominant, and spend all their effort making the software 'just so'--conforming to an ideological principle only they appreciate".
I'm sure all of us (if we're honest) can think of pet peeves with some of the open-source developers' more capriciously craniorectal idiocies in just about any non-trivial project. This has nothing to do with Linux, and is a failing equally shared with closed-source software.
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Re:shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
it's free, why are you complaining?
This should be the OSS equivalent of Godwins Law. As soon as you trot out the "it's free, why are you complaining?" argument - you lose!
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Anonymous Coward's law? (Score:5, Funny)
As the discussion grows even longer, the probability that someone will mod that post insightful approaches 1.
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Re:I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that most critics are dismissed summarily as people who don't understand *nix properly. This is where the "snob" syndrome comes into play.
I took a RHEL class a while back, and the teacher (who was FROM Red Hat) spent ample amounts of time talking about BSOD and other stupid things, most of which I looked at him and just wondered, why didn't he check XYZ, because that would have solved his issue. No, instead, he went off on a rant about how useless Windows was.
It's no wonder that Linux fans can't take criticism, when a lot of their nature is built up to bash other OSes. Mac gets a pass because it has a bash terminal, but in reality no real security (see: Pwn2Own), and Windows is the giant on the hill that gets bashed regularly. Occasionally I'll see a Slashdotter here mention that IIS is a pretty decent product or something slightly complimentary, only to be modded down as flamebait.
And Linux has critics? Please. The critics TFA is talking about is more about code, it's about 'the whole package'. And while *nix on the server side is something I'd readily deploy for database backends, for web farms, for much more -- there's no way in hell I'd deploy it on an enterprise desktop because it's simply not ready to be used or administered.
But I'll expect my bad mod rating shortly, arguing that *nix fans have lots of critics, and that I'm simply one more of the "uneducated" ones.
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Re:I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux. Mostly from uneducated haters, but there's no lack of it.
My problem is the opposite, uneducated Linux developers. I'll submit a bug asking for feature parity with Windows or OS X and get a response back that clearly misunderstands how those OS's work. I then spend a week educating the person and explaining to them why (from and end user perspective) the way Linux does things now really isn't better and what the other OS in question does. In the the end they usually agree, it would be cool to improve Linux to work that way, but too much work or would be incompatible with other distros, so they ignore it.
Alternately, I submit a usability bug (I have worked as a UI/usability expert in the past) and then spend hours trying to explain to a server engineer working on making a desktop, why their design ignores all the research in the field and (if they did testing) is going to be a huge problem when they test it.
Don't get me wrong. I like and use Linux. In many ways it has leapt ahead of other OS's and provides a model for them to follow. It just does have some serious flaws and problems that have gone unaddressed for a long time and don't seem likely to be fixed anytime soon.
Oh, and in lots of cases, it IS ready for the desktop. Either in a managed environment with a guru at the top, for those who know what they're doing, and for locked down spoon fed distros.
I agree it can work and save money in certain uses.
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