What 2008 May Hold In Store for FOSS

eldavojohn writes to mention that LinuxPlanet has a brief discussion on what 2008 may hold for FOSS. The list includes thoughts on KDE 4, OOXML, DRM, and 3-D desktops. What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to in 2008?

Had to be said

[MztrBlack]

I'm thinking many would not consider DRM in FOSS to be a boon of any sort...

Correction...

[Junta]

Mostly, a waste of GPU time. But seriously, the expose-ripoff with window title search that compiz has is highly productive when you open lots of windows. Other stuff, pretty much eye candy to me, but I admit I don't try every thing or understand functional benefits some features I relegated to eye candy. There are ways to make use of rendering live to GL manipulated textures that I'm sure will increase (Vista I didn't see make functional use of it, OSX did better, and with all the many different directions people are taking 3D effects in compiz and other projects in the open-source world, some interesting stuff is probably yet to come.

More Linux games! :(

[Spy der Mann]

Actually, I'm hoping for Linux ports of ANY commercial games. I've mailed a few game distributors asking why don't they include Linux versions of their games. The same answer: Not enough market share (and how do you expect the market share if the game publishers don't make Linux games? HMPH!)

Why do they keep selling themselves to DirectX instead of OpenGL? GRRRR!

What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to...?

[iminplaya]

The end of the tyranny of copyright law. Only then will there be true progress. Otherwise, this and everything else will be buried under the dog pile of licensing, which has already begun.

Hopefully a linux driver for my wifi card

[CranberryKing]

Yes! Thank you New Year's Gods! A native linux driver for my Aspire laptop's Broadcom BCM94318MPG card!

Yes sir. I really can't ask for more than that can I?.. The old BCM94318 w/out any damned NDIS wrapper.

Yep. It sure would take a warm and good soul to release one of those.

Re:I KNOW I KNOW!

[corychristison]

I wanna see Linux turn into "the platform" for AI. I read something about it already becoming that so that'd be sweet. Right now you all know the famous categories.

Alright. I'm still with you.

Windows is for business and other dumb stuff.

Business: I personally disagree as I've been using Linux for all of my business needs since 2002... but then again that is just me. I am going to assume that the 'other dumb stuff' is video games and malware. I agree on that note... although there are some fun games for Linux available.

Macs are apparently the thing to get for video and graphics work though I strongly disagree.

Yeah... Mac's have their place and they seem to be more media oriented. A good friend of mine is just finishing his last year in school for Video Production and Design (4 year program), so far he has yet to use a Mac. So I agree with you on this point.

And Linux is gonna be for anything with AI! Cuz AI programmers (and their programs) are smart enough to know that paying for an OS is stupid when you don't have to and you can't change much about the OS after you install it. And you don't need your AI creation freezing up while the OS makes a system restore point or crashing randomly (OS X and Windows).

I like to see Linux as an open platform for *any* use. I, personally, use it for everything. From my laptop, to my home PC, to my media center to my embedded linux system in my car.

And in 2009 I hope a giant pengiun robot attacks Microsoft headquarters.

This kind of bothers me, really. Yes, we all know Microsoft is "evil". I've heard it too many times to count. I do not, however, advocate the idea of physically destroying the company. In a sense, we need Microsoft for MANY reasons. Their OS sucks, yes, but the mass amounts of people who use it still don't understand it and manage to break it's brain-dead design. This creates a HUGE market for people to fix these systems and networks. I've been doing it for quite some time (on the side, of course) and sometimes that money is nice. How do you think I was able to afford my media center? My laptop? etc. etc.

I'm not trying to say we should necessarily support a company that has a lot of bad practices, but they create a huge market for us to make money. When they release a new OS, they beef up the minimum requirements for it and in turn brings prices of last gen products down in price for us to use.

... yup. :-)

Re:3d desktops?

[vertinox]

who put 3d desktops on the list? what a waste of cpu time.

I think the idea was offload the desktop onto the GPU (who wouldn't be doing anything anyways until a game is loaded), which in theory would free up more CPU cycles for the regular old processor.

Secondly, you can supposedly get better vector graphics and quicker response with a 3d engine for a desktop. The best example of this is of course not Linux for the Nintendo DS. Most 2d looking games for it are actually using a 3d engine because its easier to code for and less intensive on the CPU.

That and it looks just as good at any resolution and screen DPI. It wasn't as big of an issue, but if you have a 30" monitor with an unreasonably high resolution and try to increase the size of your icons on a 2d desktop that doesn't use vectoring... You will notice how pixelated everything looks.

Re:What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to.

[iminplaya]

That would be plagiarism, something else entirely. Copyright is about distribution, not about who created what. GPL is only necessary due to the existence of copyright law, as pointed many times by many others. Slavery is still slavery. It cannot be "reformed". It must be abolished. And remember to throw some royalties into the RIAA kitty if you plan on singing Aud Lang Syne tonight.

Re:I KNOW I KNOW!

[Wonko the Sane]

There is no reason that AI shouldn't be integrated into the OS, but "invisibly". Here's an example:

Joe User gets a lot of email. He tends to be organized, so he likes to sort his mail into different folders. He could use procmail or his client's filtering capabilities, but why should he have to? OSS has good solutions to the text classifying problem [sourceforge.net]

If only the email client (or imap server) paid attention, he's already supplying all the input necessary for a text classifier to sort all his mail for him without any additional action on his part.

When Joe (manually) moves an email from his inbox to a new folder, this is a training event.
If Joe notices that an email is in an incorrect folder and moves it (manually) to the right one, this is a retraining event.

This concept could be expanded to other applications: how about a window manager that remembers where you tend to arrange your applications and starts putting them in the right place to begin with? The ability do manually set placement rules like with KDE doesn't count. That's just a workaround for not using the information the user is already providing.

Re:How about fixing what we have now?

[RAMMS+EIN]

This is why I don't consider Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc (basically, most of the high-profile open-source software) to be prime examples of open-source. Generally, they are similar to (sometimes clones of) commercial software, including the bloat and bugs. _Most_ of the software I use actually isn't like that. And that's why I like it.

Re:What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to.

[MBGMorden]

Just reiterating what the other poster said. In the normal world, you get paid for the work you do, not the work of your work. If I hire Bob to come build me a gate, he doesn't get to charge me every time someone comes through it. He is paid to build the gate and then he gets the hell out of my life. He only gets paid again if I need him to return and do more work.

Same with the novel (or insert song, program, etc in here). You might have (and without copyright likely would have) been paid to write the story in the first place. Once you've been paid to write, you write the novel. Now, you can choose to only give it (or you could technically sell it) to the people who already gave you money, but the bottom line is you will have already been paid to write it. Once it's done your part is done and if people want to make copies of it to sell, or to give away, that's their own concern. If you want to keep raking in cash you better have written a story good enough that people are willing to pay you to write another one. And you better be willing to write a number of "sample" stories to begin with if you want anybody to start reading your stuff.

With music, it's even easier. You could in the same way be paid to write the songs, or more likely you would be paid for live performances (ie, you are actually gonna have to get out there and do work again).

With software, GPL isn't needed because if you release a closed source version of my code I'm just gonna decompile it, reimplement the changes in a high level language, and rerelease it again. If you want to be paid for software, someone will end up hiring you to do a custom program for them (ie, you must work, not live off imagined entitlement), or you can write free stuff and charge to support it (again, working).

You also have to understand that not EVERYTHING will/would be feasible with copyright gone. It's a shift of society, but for the better. I'm sure if we reinstituted slavery we could achieve some absolutely marvelous feats in construction and such, but that doesn't mean it's something that a fair society should support. I seriously doubt large scale motion pictures as they currently stand would still be realistically profitable (though live theater certainly might return to a much more profitable status). That's not something we can't live without though, and it's certainly not worth instituting insanely oppressive laws over.Copyright instills a limited supply (and source) onto something that by nature is unlimited (and not really even tangible). It's one of the most perverted corruption of economics ever seen.

Re:OLPC vs clothes

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Joseph Stiglitz [wikipedia.org] makes the same point regarding food in Globalization and Its Discontents [amazon.com]. Western policies of what is basically dumping (painted up like charity) prevent those in nearby regions from stabilizing their own agricultural setups. The West ships food for free, undermining the market, so farmers throughout the continent or at least subcontinent have an artificially devalued market, preventing them from eventually owning enough, or creating enough savings, to weather famine conditions when they face them. Of course, the commodities are bought using usual markets in the West, avoiding any devaluation here, and probably causing slight increases in prices due to slightly greater demand. So the entire process makes it doubly likely that African farmers will have a hard time competing in a global market.

It makes me wonder if Bob Geldof has done the world more harm than good.

Re:More Linux games! :(

[Trogre]

Oh wipe the Aspergers from your mouth and think about what the GP might have really meant, which was probably OpenGL vs Direct3D.

Those two can most certainly be compared.

Re:Nothing nothing and nothing

[higuita]

if it do what I need and its free (beer and speach), i will dump all close apps i might have!!
if i see someone using something that can be replaced fine with FLOSS software, i will do it.

the more people use FLOSS software, more easilly will new open projects show up, and existent ones get better and better.

i dump and fight against many close source programs because they refuse to work with others programs and use open standards.
if they would use open standards, worked with other programs, i would be completely neutral to then and could even use several of then (and i use several like this).
As far i i can do, i refuse to use close apps that can be replaced and those that cant, i try to find a balance.

so yes, i'm zealot to want FLOSS to get better, not only because it helps others, but even more because it helps me and the programs that i use to get better.

No one uses a OS or apps that dont work, we use FLOSS software because it works good enough for our needs and each year that "good enough" overlaps more and more closed apps until it can replace everything that anyone wants.