ESR's Desktop Linux 2008 Deadline 535
jesboat noted Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley's essay about what the Linux community must do to achieve dominance entitled "World Domination 201". It says
"Idealism about open formats will not solve our multimedia problem in time; in fact, getting stuck on either belief in the technical superiority of open source or free-software purism guarantees we will lose. The remaining problems aren't technical ones, and none of the interesting patents will expire before the end of 2008. We've got to ship something that works now. If we let this be a blocking issue preventing overall Linux adoption during the transition window, we won't have the userbase to demand changes in the laws to untangle the screwed up patent system, or even prevent it from getting worse. It's a chicken and egg problem, demanding a workaround until a permanent solution can be achieved. We can't set the standards until after we take over the world."
Just remove the 'Open'? (Score:5, Insightful)
We can have an Open Source Desktop if we just don't make it Open Source! Brilliant!
Pinky & The Brain meets Open Source (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pinky & The Brain meets Open Source (Score:5, Funny)
ESR: Come, Linus, we must prepare for tomorrow night.
Linus: What are we going to do tomorrow night?
ESR: The same thing we do every night, Linus...TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
NARF.
Pot? Kettle? Dark Gray? Ebony? Noir? Black? (Score:2)
what the Linux community must do to achieve dominance
Uhh, if Linux achieves world dominance, then wouldn't it necessarily follow that Open Source would be evil?
And then Microsoft would be good?
Or maybe I just don't have a proper grasp of the Flemingian eschatology of 007, MI5, and SPECTRE.
Re:Just remove the 'Open'? (Score:5, Interesting)
Staying Free is a guaranteed way to lose? Tell me more, you seem to have invented a fascinating new branch of logic, cos it seems to me that if you are forced to use non-Free software (or hardware), you have already lost.
Re:Just remove the 'Open'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, exactly. Right now, OSS is losing because of the focus on free formats, among other things.
Free Software must be able to read the not-open format, or it's useless. And useless software never becomes prevalent enough to take hold and start dictating formats.
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1. Suck it up and pay the license fee for the technology of interest.
2. Suck it up, and put some effort in to optimizing an on-the-fly translator from closed to open (MP3->Ogg, for instance). If new Macs can emulate PPC systems, and PPC-BSD can pretend to be System-7/68030s, this should be insurmountable.
3. Become a digital biker gang, and just ship the patented technology, licensed or not.
4. Admit that while world domination sounds good in theory, once you'r
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This is the problem with anarchy; everyone will tend towards choosing different things. Some leadership is required to say "we're going to concentrate here", so that resources are consolidated, and projects can really start moving forward at a much faster rate.
H.264 (Score:4, Interesting)
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As an aside, H.264 will play in Windows, Mac, iPods, PSPs, and quite a few cell phones.
they LIKE paying royalties (Score:2)
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It doesn't.
Flash 6 introduced the Sorenson Spark codec that was essentially a variant of H.263 (not H.264).
Flash 8 added support for On2 VP6, a proprietary codec.
H.264 is not presently supported by Flash.
World Domination 201? (Score:3, Funny)
Like a college course? WD201? It's just like ESR to post something so sophomoric as this.
The only real problem of Linux is (Score:3, Insightful)
The real solution to make Linux more mainstream is to make users more computer litterate. That sort of plan is a 10 year plan at the very least, and requires educating people at school about basic computer security, and the dangers of being a computer idiot. No amount of tweaking will make a good secure OS an easy one.
Re:The only real problem of Linux is (Score:5, Insightful)
Good choice of word to misspell. Besides that, "people" in general want to use whatever everyone else is using, they want to use whatever brand name apps they've heard about and most of all, they want it simple. Every company in every line of business wish their customers were better informed and better trained, it's not going to happen. You can teach a monkey new tricks (like that the Intarnets is now the fiery fox, not the blue e) but most people don't want to become "computer literate". Not even the modern kids who MSN all day want to be "computer literate" in the way you think of it.
Want to make inroads:
1. Corporate workstations. That means in particular
a. Exchange replacement
b. Policy management like Active Directory
c. Heavy compatibility work with MS Office
2. Educational facilities
a. Get Linux labs, dual-booting machines
b. Deploy Firefox, OpenOffice etc. as alternatives on all desktops
c. Make sure all internal systems are platform-independent
3. "Family management"
a. More shades between "root" and "user". Waaay too often I get asked for the root password for things I'd like to delegate, but not give away total control. Linux is great when you're either one person or administering a bunch of people that only get approved applications, inbetween is not that great.
b. Security updates that really are without question, so you could set them up to install automatically. I really like apt-get and all, but it annoys me that I don't know if I'll get asked about some config file where the defaults have changed or whtaever.
c. Somewhere to put "common documents" that is somewhat standard and sane. Everybody has their home dir like "My documents", it's not difficult to fix but it's always a custom dir with custom links, don't people have like general data that's shared with all users?
Gamers and people that rely on support lines or local tech shops just aren't cases you'll win. There's so many quirks in changing to Linux, it just gets too expensive to pay for it (and these aren't the people to search online forums). You need someone with Linux sklil in the company, institution or family. To think that any significant share will put in a k/ubuntu CD and install it by themselves, is dreaming.
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Re:The only real problem of Linux is (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, never thought I'd actually say this, but... RTFM [gratisoft.us] .
sudo allows a user exactly as much or as little access as they've been granted by the root user. We used it widely to limit access to logged-in users on production machines to about 6 commands. Anything else had to be specifically authorised by Ops. I'd love to know how to get the same degree of control with as little effort on Windows servers.
Re:The only real problem of Linux is (Score:5, Insightful)
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Boot the cd, press a couple of ok buttons and when its done you have a desktop.
Usability now that its installed, well that is another topic.
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There are many distributions available with very simple install processes. CentOS [centos.org], Ubuntu [ubunutu.com] (or one of it's variants such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu) or any of many others. No one in their right mind is going to suggest Gentoo or anything Debian to an absolute beginner. As far as the driver issue goes, when was the last time you installed Windows (especially if you did
I think it has a far bigger problem (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think the real problem of Linux is the difficulty of installation. Windows is not always straightforward to install either, but for most people it's either done before they get the machine or they get a techie friend to help. It's no biggie.
IMHO, the real problem with Linux is simply a shortage of high-quality applications. This is not intended as a slight against any particular application, and it's certainly not a statement that there are no high-quality applications. But let's be fair: Linux ha
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I agree about the home software range, but it is simply not true that there is no answer to MS Office. I have been involved in supporting a medium sized business that has been using Open Office for years. There have been few problems (certainly no more problems that we used to have with MS Office). Compatibility with MS Office isn
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Sorry, but for many, many businesses, that really is true. OpenOffice is nowhere near up to the job. If all you do is fairly trivial documents, sure, Writer is OK. But OO has numerous weaknesses. What we need is something better than MS Office, a "killer app" for Linux. A close-approximation with a somewhat lower price tag isn't worth much in this game.
Such an MS Office-beater isn't hard to conceive.
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I just don't accept this; I have been supporting businesses using Open Office for a long time, and haven't e
Re:The only real problem of Linux is (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry, but that is just bullshit. Linux has been extremely easy to install for years, it also happens to be a heck of a lot easier to install then Windows and lets not forget we have LiveCDs, so giving Linux a quick try is among the most trivial things you can do. Beside from that, installation is totally overrated, you do it like once in a lifetime and then never ever again, if you have trouble with it, find a friend that helps with it. Installation is a pretty much solved problem, with repartitioning being the only thing that requires some thinking.
The real problem isn't installation, but maintaining an Linux, simply things as installing a piece of software you have seen on a webpage can be extremely hard and time consuming, even for somebody with 10+ years of Linux experience, for your grandma such things are simply totally out of reach. Sure we have apt-get and friends, but those help absolutely nothing if a piece of software isn't in your distribution, which kind of is always the case with new software. Unless that changes and software installation becomes a no-brainer, Linux won't stand much a chance in the mass market.
And speaking about security, that one is totally overrated as well. On a desktop computer there is only one account that matters and that is the one of the user using it, lets call it juser. If root or jusers account is compromised doesn't make a difference, since in *both* cases the intruder has full access to everything that matters anyway. If there is something I really don't care about on my Linux then its
### The real solution to make Linux more mainstream is to make users more computer litterate.
Good luck trying that, it won't work, ever. The simple reason for that is that computers simply don't make sense. You can teach a person math, because math makes sense and is logic, but handling a computers relies in very large part simply on learning the quicks of its broken software, on Linux just the same as everywhere else. So knowledge from 5 years ago can be totally useless today, lots of computer knowledge is already worthless after a year. Computers simply don't make sense and it requires just way to much time for the average person to learn all the quirks and workarounds. The solution to all this is to simply *fix* all those quirks and bugs so that they never ever touch the users desktop. There simply isn't a logical reason why installing a tar.gz requires me to manually track down dependencies, why there is no undelete and why changing the mouse speed requires editing Xorg.conf while changing mouse acceleration does not, its just bugs and history that made the software the way it is today, there is no logical design principle behind all this. Simply fix it and don't try to teach the user why your software is broken and how to work around it, just a waste of time.
Re:The only real problem of Linux is (Score:5, Insightful)
Market PC's with Linux already installed and ready to start.
Hire a real marketing team. Put it where the masses will see it.
Oh, you mean that take real money and business expertise? Ah, dammit, so *that's* why they charge for software! I *knew* there was a reason behind it!
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Make this part of the No Child Left Behind act... so that it's one more freaking standardized test my kid can take instead of actually learning something.
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You don't think schools have enough to teach people already? (Clue: Look at the literacy levels and mathematical skills of the average school leaver.)
You can never make a computer 100% secure, because there will always be people who tell others their password. Every time you raise the game, there will still be someone at the bottom who'
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The real solution to make Linux more mainstream is to make users more computer litterate.
Leaving aside the spelling miscue :-), you're not asking for computer literacy, you're asking for Linux literacy. There's been a god-awful amount of $$ pumped into the educational system over the past 15 years to develop "computer literacy." You can't go into any school system without seeing computers these days, and quite a large percentage of people have computers in their home. Are they computer literate? In
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Most of the grandmas (and people in general) I know find Windows as comprehensible as hieroglyphics. Windows useability is a long long way away from being good enough for Grandma.
Stop holding it up as some kind of holy grail. Windows is not intuitive it's merely familiar and there's a massive difference between the former and the latter.
As soon as it does some
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Making more people computer literate is not the solution.
This is like solving societies problems as follows:
How many medical journals do you read? How much biochemistry and anatomy do you know? or want to know?
Most likely a skilled automatic transmission mechanic outearns you. The work is more physically demandng than computer work.
Can yo
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What interfaces really need is 'discoverability', to drive a "I wonder what happens if I do..." level of curiosity that begins the learning process, rather than the damning "oo... are you sure you meant to do that? Seriously? Yes/No?" type mess
So this is what ESR has been doing! (Score:3, Informative)
Oh good grief (Score:2, Insightful)
You could argue it might gain more marketshare if we 'relax' our ideals and principles, but so what? We aren't going to lose linux or anything if we don't.
Re:Oh good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
Enough said. And seeing what actually happens in US IT court rooms, I fully agree this time with ESR.
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As for the topic: ESR has some valid points but hey, it's Free Software. Those who agree with him can taint their stack no problem. I live perfectly well with free formats and can help on free areas without hampering the ESR party in any way.
The objection i can do to ESR is: if one looks beyond the FUD, Linux has been a success so far i
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I''m not sure things 'need' to be done within a time period as ESR seems to believe. The steady march of FLOSS is what's kept it alive and growing so far and I don't think that'll change.
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Linux can be ignored. Linux can go unfunded.
The Mozilla Foundation. OpenOffice.org.
What happens when Big Daddy Warbucks stops paying the bills?
---at least for the Linux port?
You want to scratch an itch? Go right ahead.
But, if you want to make a living in this game, at some point you have to start thinking about market share, allocation of resources.
You have to make choice
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I hear what you're saying, but I think you're perhaps a little too confident here.
As you say, Linux can't be taken over or bought out. It can, however, be crippled and have its credibility destroyed, at which point is no longer matters. It is under threat from patent issues. Ironically, it is also potentially under threat from security issues: governments are going to have to start cracking down on security before the economic damage caused by viruses, spam e-mail and the like gets much worse. You or I mi
Why domination? (Score:2)
They miss the biggest point (Score:5, Insightful)
They like to use history is this essay, but backward compatability is by far the biggest factor in the history of desktop operating system software. This essay hardly mentions it, and not in the context of history. The biggest reason Windows 3.1 won was because of its backward compatability with DOS -- and Microsoft never forgot the lesson. Dos -> Win3.1 -> Win 95 -> Win 98 -> NT 3.1 (sort of) -> Win2000 -> XP -> Vista. Microsoft gives you a relatively smooth glide up the chain so that you don't have to throw away all your existing software -- and hardware. Of course, it's not perfect, but it's sure better than throwing away everything to move to Linux or a Mac.
Re:They miss the biggest point (Score:4, Funny)
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That's like saying I can run any Mac application on the PC I want, as long as I have a Mac emulator. Who cares? Can I download that program in Linux, and run it like any other application, unmodified?. No.
In case you didn't know, Windows XP and Vista use an emulator for DOS programs too. In fact, the emulator has enough problems that dosbox, an emulator for both Linux and Windows, is better for some applications than Microsoft's own emulation of DOS in WinNT derived OSs. Also, dosbox and dosemu have almost no effect on the emulated program's performance and near-100% compatibility. This includes programs like DOOM that use 32 bit extentions, or BBS software that access serial port hardware through a FOSSI
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Windows Vista has expanded the incompatibility problem to include applications, as well. Try running Nero or TortoiseSVN. Try installing MS Visual Studio 2005, clicking OK on the huge inco
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They like to use history is this essay, but backward compatability is by far the biggest factor in the history of desktop operating system software.
I've seen several people now switching to Macs, two of them in a work environment where I would presume you'd find the most serious problems with backwards compatibility. They're doing fine. Most of what people are doing nowadays is web-oriented.
Anyway, you may be right, but I suspect by far the biggest things which keeps the Windows monopoly going ar
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and threatened loss of marketing money kickbacks made by Microsoft against any company that dares to ship a computer without Windows on it.
Dell already sells computers without Windows on it. Why does hardly anyone choose to get it? Because very, very, very few people want it. So, Dell notwithstanding, why would companies go through the hassle of selling something that people aren't demanding in any sort of great numbers?
Re:They miss the biggest point (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell already sells computers without Windows on it. Why does hardly anyone choose to get it? Because very, very, very few people want it.
I think that's got a lot more to do with the fact that Dell hides their Linux offerings on the site, and even if you do manage to find them, you'll have to buy in large quantities before they'll sell you them.
Wake me up when Dell has a drop down "operating system" saying
on each and every page where they sell PCs. At the moment, the "choice" (if you can call it such) is XP or XP Professional.
Rich.
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OTOH, Word managed to take over without Word Perfect compatibility (largely because WP was useless on Windows 3.x until most of the demand was gone), while being a worse program.
I have to disagree with you there. I was a total WP bigot, until WP 6.0, which was so brain damaged that I was forced to switch to Word. Once I got used to it, Word was so superior it wasn't even funny. My biggest revelation was realizing that WP's "Reveal Codes" function was actually a symptom of WP's design being brain damaged
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Unless you were using WP on DOS where you didn't have a WYSIWYG display. "Reveal Codes" was in the Windows version of WP simply because so many people were coming from DOS and were used to it, but I agree that it's largely unnecessary now.
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They've got me convinced that the insurmountable problem is multimedia support is now an essential part of the desktop, and it is illegal to distribute a Linux desktop with fu
Re:But a.out's from early 90's run on Linux 2.6 .. (Score:2)
The point was that you had to have an operating system that was compatible with software that people already used. It would help if Crossover Office was better.
Finally (Score:3, Insightful)
We should LEARN and EDUCATE people, not try to PUSH them on our side. It will never work.
This time, ESR got this in the center.
Happy Christmas everyone, go out, meet your dear ones, be with your family.
Peter.
Linux IS here today. (Score:2)
Other people use linux because it works.
Companies (ie google) use linux because it works.
The software keeps getting better, I file my simple user level bug reports and tweaks to various projects.
I'm happy with slow incremental progress with few mistakes. End users don't switch their OS because it's better, they switch because they've gotten frustrated with the horrible quality/performance of the one they've got.
BTW what is this we and leader you talk of. I'm not in your market s
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
ESR? A leader? Hahahahahaha....
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I do think that he may have said what needed to be said. That doesn't make him a leader though.
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Vista 32-bit? (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
Uhh... no. Vista is available as a native 64-bit OS for x86-64 systems. The kernel is 64-bit, the drivers are 64-bit, and most applications are 64-bit. Is everything 64-bit? No. Is everything on a typical x86-64 Linux distribution 64-bit? No.
Joke got out of hand... (Score:3, Funny)
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I hope the Steves have their permits up to date.
2008? Two years away? 3 year exception? (Score:2)
all the best,
drew
The desktop on Linux on the desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Second off, we're talking about a vast set of tools. Gnome is nice, KDE is nice, but they're pieces of a larger puzzle that includes X-windowing systems, and all of their assorted tools, drivers, and niceties, window managers, and applications that may or may not be designed to work within the look-and-feel guidelines of anything recognizeable at all. The problem space is way to big for any one person or organization to just decide, "Hey everyone, we're all gonna be doing THIS!"
Open source software grows and evolves as programmers scratch an itch. You can't crack the whip, as the project will just fork as programmers follow whatever their interest is... commercial, educational, political or just for the hell of coding something neat. It would be nice if everyone could assume a role that's perfectly suited for some master-plan to reach some goal... but they won't. Human nature is in the way.
Open Source Software is not a place where a single goal achieved by everyone working in unison is possible. Yes, Linux itself is cool... but how many variants, patches and forks of it are out there? Quite a few... people take what they need, and follow their own interest. This is what open source software is about. Even then, there's more than Linux: there are the three (Four... five?) BSD-based operating systems, and things like SkyOS and Haiku, besides.
In this maelstrom of variation and choice, you want a single standard UI? Not going to happen. What's more, it will likely work against Linux on the desktop rather than for it. Gnome came about because they didn't like KDE, and wanted something with different political and technical goals. KDE came about because the company had a different commercial and technical goal than Motif. Can you imagine how much it would suck if everyone working on KDE and Gnome were forced to work on making a better Motif? We're better off with many projects working for their own ends. Open Source means that the projects cna pick and chose what they like from each other, everyone wins.
Then there's the issue that Gnustep isn't a part of the discussion, despite being an Open Source re-implementation of the UI Apple uses for Mac OS X... so if the best solution isn't going to "win" anyway, it's pointless whining that the third or fourth best solution isn't getting all the attention. (And, as you've figured out, the order from "best" to "worst" won't be the same for everyone... or even a majority.)
In the end, it's up to the commercial distro-makers to decide what works for them, and to pay programmers and project leads and software architects to make it happen. The interface for the OLTP project shows how to get it done, and done on a shoestring budget in a tight time constraint.
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Well... first off, it's got nothing to do with Linux. What we're talking about is a user interface that runs on top of X-windows. As such, it will run comfortably on any flavor of BSD or commercial Unix, and even stranger operating systems.
We're talking about something well integrated with the low-level hardware and the GUIs ability to manipulate/work with. If the low level stuff+GUI together do not acheive things like hotplug media management (i.e. flash drives, music players, cameras, etc all auto-plugging), and systems administration task. As an example of this, I use Ubuntu normally. It is a good example of a totally integrated top to bottom desktop system. I install it, it automatically sets up everything. I plug in a flash drive,
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Alright, I've got the answer... (Score:2)
If you think so... (Score:2)
He's Right. A view from the Trenches. (Score:2)
This is the way we are pushing free software at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club [clickers.org], one of the oldest and largest computer clubs around. As much as I favor 100% free systems, the easiest way to move people is through distributions like Xandros, Mepis and others that include non free "add-ons" that give the user those few things free does not: Flash, and accelerated video. I also highly recommend Parallels to those other nasty little things that are left. It's working too. People who use a combination of
A corporate view (Score:2)
Great applications. Totally unacceptable in corporate settings, just because of their names.
I would wager adoption rates would double if Open Source apps weren't being named by 7-year-olds.
Blind. Re:A corporate view (Score:2)
SeaMonkey. Ubuntu. Gimp. Great applications. Totally unacceptable in corporate settings, just because of their names.
The "best" names are already trademarked, but it does not matter. Just ask IBM, Chrysler, Lowes, and all of the other big companies that have already jumped on the free software bandwagon. Companies that don't jump will face increasing relative IT costs. Money is the language every company understands. What's important to them is that there are free browsers, databases, image manipula
Any Fact Checking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft made $3.5 billion (net) last quarter alone, and has enough cash on hand to buy a company the size of Home Depot outright.
Absurd. Home Depot is the second largest retailer in the world, with top-line revenue exceeding $80bn and quarterly gross profits of over $6bn. Microsoft has net tangible assets of only $35bn. HD is in the top 20 of the Fortune 500, Microsoft is #48.
In the parallel universe of business that ESR inhabits, Microsoft still has more to worry about from HD than the other way around. What other completely obvious things do ESR and his co-author get wrong in this essay?
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32 bit, 64 bit, doesn't matter a bit (Score:2)
An essay on how not to format an essay (Score:5, Insightful)
The essay is amusing. Not for its content, but for its format. It starts out with a revision history of all things. Only a dweeb would put that at the beginning of an essay intended for public consumption.
Then there's the focus on "64 bit". Microsoft and Apple both had 64-bit operating systems, then backed off. (It was surprising that when Apple went from PowerPC to x86, they went to 32-bit x86, even though 64 bit parts were already out. Which meant Apple users would face an unnecessary 32 to 64 bit transition on x86, and Apple would have to deal with annoying dual-mode issues.)
What does this essay say Linux needs? "Drivers for all existing hardware". "People who buy a new desktop want to plug in their old PCI cards..." Earth to Linux fanatics: 80% of all PCs are never opened in the field during their entire working life. What's important is drivers for what's shipping right now from major hardware vendors.
"Luckily, Windows more or less stopped being a moving target recently." Haven't looked at what Microsoft wants developers to do for Vista apps, have you? There's a big push by Microsoft to get developers using Microsoft-only technologies embedded in Vista, ones you can't run under Wine because they require non-redistributable DLLS.
"To attract enough non-technical end users to make the hardware vendors care about us, we need Linux to come preinstalled on PCs in a configuration that just works." Finally, the right answer. But that's a political and legal problem. Vendors don't offer Linux preloads because Microsoft penalizes them if they do, and Ashcroft's Justice Department rolled over on keeping Microsoft from doing that.
This essay is aimed at making Linux fanatics happy. What it should be aimed at is making low end desktops for office use cheaper. Push on Leonovo to offer something comparable to Red Flag Linux (which they preload for Chinese consumption) for export. Push on WalMart to sell it. The standard low-end business desktop should become Linux. Your call center people don't need Windows.
This hits Microsoft where it hurts - price pressure. Microsoft wants to charge more for Vista than for XP, and that could be derailed.
In order to lead (Score:2)
Trying to open closed source products is all very well, but all that will do is leave Linux trailing behind the front runners.
It's time for "Linux" to establish some open specifications that replace existing closed specs by being better.
Read the article (Score:2)
yeah yeah yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
"Vista is still 32-bit" -- WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a machine running Vista 64 in my cubicle.
It has weird, funky compatibility issues, yes, but is definitely faster than running Vista-32 on the same hardware.
ESR's Irresponsible Crusade (Score:3, Interesting)
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list
Read about ESR's ridiculous attempts to troll the Fedora Project into violating the GPL and shipping proprietary software. ESR continues his irresponsible crusade. This is NOT in the best long-term interest of the community. Please do not give this "leader" any credence.
Re:...and? (Score:5, Insightful)
You just gave the reason why we need more people adopting Linux: what you say is that Linux can play multimedia files just fine, only illegally (I'm assuming you're referring to the proprietary mplayer codecs here). Yet you see no reason to "cave in and use proprietary technologies"? Strange line of thought...
If, on the other hand, a significant number of people used OSS, they would have a lote more weight to lobby software manufacturers for more open-source codecs, native ports of their software to Linux, etc... making using Linux perfectly legal when those codecs are available on your favorite platform.
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And who will port the 20-so years of software development that have been made for X, Motif, tk, GTK or Qt? you?
Sure multiple GUI toolkits are a pain and a waste of resources, but so is throwing away perfectly good software on the ground that the newer OS doesn't support it anymore. Just ask Mac users...
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It's advantageous to *me*, *I* don't happen to *LIKE* MAC OS X you insensitive arrogant thesaurusise("clod")
Improve the OS X clone we already have (Score:2)
OpenStep sucks (Score:2)
http://www.gnustep.org/images/full-screenshot1.png [gnustep.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gnustep.png [wikipedia.org]
I'm tempted to say that GNU makes **everything** ugly,
but actually GNOME isn't bad if you play with the
settings for a bit. (hint: you can ditch the second
toolbar and thicken up the other one)
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Making it look pretty is the easy part. That's what all you artsy people who don't know about coding are for. The GNUstep people have done the clever/important/hard part, i.e. the coding.
Quit whinging and get out your drawing tools.
Oh, and by the way, I have my own personal build of GNUstep on my Slackware box here. There is a version of emacs ported to the GNUstep GUI. It is API compatible with OSX, that is you can compile it on OSX and it looks just like an OSX application.
My point? It's there already.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do we want Linux to be popular? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only alternative is to get enough users to rely on Linux, that there will be enough pressure on governments and hardware manufacturers to stop Vista and Microsoft from getting this ultimate lock in. Then we might have a chance to stop this before its too late.
Re:Interesting Article (Score:4, Interesting)
-- Right now, to have a good conceptual understanding of Linux and to be really effective with it, one has to have a handle on a *lot* of stuff. Too much stuff. Contrast that to Windows where you could almost train a monkey to use it. Common example - if you screw up your video settings in Windows and get an unusable display, you can reboot into safe mode and fix it relatively easily. If you do the same thing in Linux, you're probably looking at directly editing the X config file or, if you're lucky, using the command-line version of SaX or something similar to fix your problem. That's not an acceptable option if you're selling to the unwashed masses.
-- Differences in distros. I think someone actually mentioned this before, but there needs to be a standard fricking way to reconfigure your system. If you want to reconfigure your network card, you need to go to
-- The "RTFM" syndrome. Certainly, I get as annoyed as anyone else when someone bugs me with a question that could easily have been answered by spending 15 seconds in the docs. However, the docs are not in a neat, centralized place - you often have to set off on a damn quest to find what you need. Even if the documentation were more accessible, the sheer arrogance that's shown by a lot of FOSS supporters does a lot to steer people away when they *do* try to dabble their feet in the Linux waters. No one likes to be treated like an idiot (even if they are!), and no one likes to deal with a jerk.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that Linux development and support isn't centralized. Linux is quite popular on the back-end, but when you look at that more closely you see that it's an environment where there are highly trained people who are qualified to easily deal with the crap I mentioned above. Additionally, most of the more popular back-end software packages (Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.) is generally maintained by a single group that maintains tight control, so in that situation it's more like dealing with a vendor than a bunch of individuals. I believe that we'll see Linux continue to hang on to the datacenter because it's simply a good system, but I just don't see it becoming a desktop standard to any great degree unless someone does with it what Apple did with BSD.
Burning karma? :-) (Score:3, Insightful)
And critical to the pseudo elitism to boot! Too bad real discussion is becoming less frequent here. I appreciate your counter-points. The whole F you attitude seems to be kind of back in vogue and I'm guessing its probably more of new generation who haven't really been watching this whole thing unfold (and repeat itself!) over the past decade.
The fact that you should even know
bad Windows support (Score:2)
Content production: you need Windows-based professional video authoring tools to support the format. (Is this in their interest? Really? Would acceptance of the format change competition?)
Server: you need an IIS plug-in to serve the video.
Client: you need Microsoft to provide a mapping from MIME type to codec download URL or, better yet, provide the codec with the OS.
Re: (Score:2)
this is death (Score:2)
He who owns the desktop controls the protocols, and thus the servers.
sounds like a bad deal (Score:2)
1. Digital Fax system
2. SharePoint services
3. Remote desktop / assitance
4. Group Policies
5. Exchange
For less than 40 users??? Dude, you need a fileserver appliance
and either an email appliance or outsourced email.
Probably the appliances run Linux internally, but you don't
need to know. You admin them via a web interface. They don't
fail for mysterious reasons involving fuckups or malware.
In a place with only 40 users, desktop assistance is a wonderful
opportunity to get off your ass and
** bad moderation alert ** (Score:2)