Interview With Mark Shuttleworth 161
suka writes "The founder of the Ubuntu project argues in a recent interview with derStandard.at that the time for mass consumer sales of Linux on the desktop has not yet come. He goes on to talk about the integration of proprietary drivers, the One Laptop per Child project, and 'great applications' from Microsoft."
Text only (Score:5, Informative)
Oh I see how it is (Score:5, Funny)
Remember kids, when you download GNU/Linux, you're installing with Stallman, who is the new Stalin!
Re:Oh I see how it is (Score:5, Funny)
dpkg-reconfigure humor damnit!
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this version of Ubuntu will not include any video footage unless it also includes either the source content or access to the source content.
Well, the source content of a video is whatever was filmed. So better make sure you're not on a video distributed with Ubuntu.
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I think the idea is just plain silly. "...this version of Ubuntu will not include any video footage unless it also includes either the source content or access to the source content." Sounds like a weird sort of marketing spin to me, to please the "everything must be free" people. As an independent film maker, if I included video content on such a distribut
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To escape this visionary world, you have to write your own OS, own tools, own compiler, own C library, everyt
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Truthiness Anyone?
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Common misconception. Actually, if you read Communist Manifesto, you'll see that Marx argues that history leads inevitably from feudalism to capitalism to an anarchical state in which all contribute to the common good, communism. The idea was that economic decisions would be made democratically by the proletariat rather than by the capitalists.
Lenin and Stalin's "contribution" was to rush
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Have you read Das Kapital [wikipedia.org]? The Communist Manifesto was more of an ideological essay, his real economic work can be found in there.
You know, to put misconceptions aside... You'll learn that the core of Marxism is that capitalistic profit is an abuse of the proletariat, and that it should be banned; but he also realized that profit (and this is where my previous post came from) is the main driving force behind technological development, so in order for a socie
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Re:Oh I see how it is (Score:4, Informative)
Nonsense. Just because an OS is GPLed, it doesn't mean everything running on it has to be. Just because a compiler is GPLed, it doesn't mean that the things you compile with it must be. Just because tools are GPLed, it doesn't mean the things you use them for must be. The GPL is only as viral as copyright normally is.
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"Yes" (Score:5, Insightful)
Mark Shuttleworth: Well - time will tell.
derStandard.at: Are there active talks on that?
Mark Shuttleworth: I would not comment on any conversations underway.
What a long winded way Mark has of saying "We're talking with Dell right now."
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So that when eventually there is no deal, he can't be held responsible for any false hopes. After all, he didn't say that they were having talks with Dell, it was only in your mind.
Re:"Yes" (Score:4, Insightful)
Bleah (Score:5, Informative)
All he says about Microsoft is that they make some "great applications". I can only assume he's talking about Office, or Visio or something.
All he says about OLPC is that he's afraid they'll be criticized for not getting the machine down to $100 yet, and that he'd be happy to help any governments run Ubuntu on the thing if that's what they want.
And all he says about integration of proprietary drivers is that they're willing to do it to make software work. So there's no news on ANY of those fronts.
Much more interesting is what he says about the new truly Free distro that's coming out. It will contain no media, no documentation, and no firmware for which source is not provided. There won't be a video clip unless you can get the materials used to make it. No PDFs without the source documents needed to produce them. Now THAT is a wonderful thing to contemplate.
It's full of source! (Score:1)
Re:It's full of source! (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno... probably somewhere around 21 [osuosl.org].
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I'd guess at least two. But then, maybe it will just have less content. Also he says that the sources don't need to be on the disc necessarily, but that you will be able to get them.
I would hope that Ubuntu will be going DVD one of these days soon, because it would allow them to unify the various flavors of distribution. Maybe even to put multiple architectures on one disc. It wouldn't eliminate the CD version, because many people need it, but it would be a po
Re:It's full of source! (Score:4, Informative)
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Yes, that would be great [anl.gov].
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"truly Free" not great for average consumer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"truly Free" not great for average consumer? (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't said anything that is insightful or surprising to anyone with two neurons to rub together. Ubuntu isn't going to drop the normal Ubuntu distribution. They're simply also making a truly free distribution to satisfy those people who demand such a thing. At some point in the future at which the normal distribution does not outshine the Free-as-in-speech distribution, there will be no need for the nonfree. But until that day - and I suspect it will be a painfully long time coming - it's wonderful (IMO) that they are taking both approaches.
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More like Visual Studio
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Visual Studio is a gigantic pile of crap known to blow up on a regular basis. And its companion, visual sourcesafe, is widely considered to be absolutely the worst SCMS around.
If he's talking about Visual Studio, then I don't find him to be very credible any more...
Inline autocompletion of functions and methods is neato, but it's not worth the other kinds of pain provided (nor is Visual Studio the only place to get it.)
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For me, Subversion with VisualSVN (for VS.NET integration) and TortoiseSVN (for Explorer integration) is just about nirvana.
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It's THE best autocompletion/intellisense engine for C++. Nothing even comes close.
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That photo (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux is great, I use Ubuntu, but that is one funny photo. It's like he's posing for a catalogue or something. Or maybe: 'Shuttleworth, for men. The new Open fragrance from Mark Shuttleworth'
A review by Richard Stallman said: 'It smells like GNU piss, and did nothing to cover up my body odour!'
His comments on Beryl/Compiz are quite telling. That's a fork that should never have happened. Also interesting are snippets about Canonical customers (from the article):
We all like to think that Ubuntu costs Shuttleworth a fortune but they're obviously meeting with some success. This is something I've worried about before: what happens when Shuttleworths' money runs out? Seems that we needn't worry for much longer. :)
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No, I'd like to think that people who sincerely and significantly contribute to OSS and the community in general meet with success.
Whether that is happening is another story.
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"what happens when Shuttleworths' money runs out?"
Because it's Free Software - nothing happens if/when money runs out. All the progress has been put back into the community, so anyone can pick up the baton. _That_ is the fantastic thing about Free Software!!
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How much development does Ubuntu contribute? (Score:2)
What's that relevant to? (Score:2)
Mind you, I use Linux even though I've never contributed to the kernel, and probably never will. I don't think that makes me a bad person, nor do I see why Shuttleworth or the Ubuntu project should be held to a different standard.
Re:How high can you count? (Score:2, Insightful)
Got Ubuntu? Then you're halfway to the answer.
Open your package manager; the one through System, but not the Add/Remove item! (the one with the big list, no icons)
Make sure to select All packages and scan the list; find every package that lists a Latest Version ending with '-ubuntu XX'.
Each of those packages has the Ubuntu team's fingerprints on it, and those changes are fed back to the community. (upstream patches; whether upstream uses them or not)
I'm sure there's some clever shell-command that w
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remember though those "fingerprints" may be as small as adding a patch for integration with thier propietry launchpad system (and so not much use for anyone else) or other little ubuntu specific tweaks that are of no use to upstream.
The time for mass consumer sales has passed. (Score:2, Insightful)
"The time for mass consumer sales of Linux on the desktop has not yet come."
No. It's past.
Linux missed the window. 2003-2004 was when Linux on the desktop might have made it. WalMart, Dell, and HP all had supported Linux offerings. Microsoft XP was stale and buggy, while Longhorn/Vista was stalled. Firefox worked great, OpenOffice worked OK, and things looked good for desktop Linux. That was the big opportunity.
The window closed when playing DRM-protected video content on PCs became important to
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Re:The time for mass consumer sales has passed. (Score:5, Interesting)
In past it was not possible for computer manufacturers to offer Linux because they were not enough consumers to choose Linux over Windows and Windows might charge them with higher oem licenses. However today they see that people would like to buy pre-installed Linux boxes, and computer manufacturers yet see that they can support them as well. Dell will soon bundle his own build of Fedora if I'm not mistaken. Maybe they will offer other distros as well. Then we'll see if Linux is already lost, or you're talking non-sense.
Just a thought ..... (Score:2)
Re:The time for mass consumer sales has passed. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps one (arguably) good opportunity for the platform has passed.
UNIX/Linux on the desktop has failed to go mainstream so many times now. In the early 1980s there was an AT&T PC that ran UNIX. That went nowhere. The whole UNIX workstation industry has come and gone. (If you'd like a high-end SGI or Sun workstation, Wierd Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale, California has a pile of them at low, low prices. Hurry before they rust.) Linux laptops are no longer available from any major vendor, and t
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I use Vista on three systems.
My Media Center box has 768M of memory, a P4 Northwood 2.66GHz, and a GeForce 6200. It's not fast (certainly much slower than XP or GNOME), but it's usable. I used to use XP on this box, but when bad memory ended up corrupting the disk (test your memory BEFORE you move defrag file on the disk), I didn't really feel like digging around for a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers.
My notebook has 1.25GB of memory, a Pentium-M "Dothan" 1.73GHz, and
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If true, then why does the 16:9 display and the DVD-drive become standard on the laptop? Why does PC gaming remain a billion-dollar industry? Why the hoo-rah over the royalty structure of Internet radio?
Most people will get Linux at home after they start using it at work.
Name one - just one - client app that is unique to the Linux office desktop - one app that would drive Linux adoption in the home.
More to the point, name one user
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Shurely shome mishtake (Score:2)
Great interview. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's wishing Ubuntu a long, prosperous future! \ \\//
Ch-ch-ch-changes (Score:4, Insightful)
Naysayers and unbelievers be warned. Shuttleworth is onto something with Ubuntu. To steal a quote from Isaiah in the Old Testament: "Those who mock will mourn"!
"Not Ready?" Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
He did not say Ubunto was not ready for the desktop, he said the market was not ready for Ubunto!:
I certainly would not push the large IT companies to put Linux on consumer PCs, because I understand that in their business, the cost of a user accidentally getting Linux, thinking that they get cheap Windows would be a problem for the companies selling the computers. So I don't think it is really ready yet for mass consumer sales of Linux on desktop.
This is not a quality or ease of use issue, it's one of familiarity. Here's what he thinks of the "ready" issue:
So there are lots of places where Ubuntu is relevant for ordinary users. But not everywhere, I absolutely would agree to that. But it's certainly good enough for me and I'm a pretty demanding user.
In other words, it's ready. There's a big difference between "eating your own dog food" and using something that's good enough for your own demands. It should be obvious where Mark sits.
There were lots of nice material in this interview and it's too bad the submitter had to focus on the bogus issue above. That Google uses Ubunto for all of their developer desktops is news to me. Other traction, like airline pilots using Ubunto for security reasons is great to hear about. Mark's goals, particularly his desire to promote free software are also news to me because I have not paid attention. This is all good news.
How to Sell Linux to the Masses (Score:5, Funny)
INT - MARY'S HOME OFFICE.
[Mary is seen banging her hand down on her desk]
MARY:
Damn!
[John comes into the picture]
JOHN:
Hey Mary, what's wrong?
[In a frustrated voice]
MARY:
My computer is as slow as molasses...
and all those pop-ups...
I can't get any work done.
JOHN:
That's because you're using Windows XP and Internet Explorer.
[Intrigued, Mary turns to John and looks into his eyes]
MARY:
Go on.
JOHN:
I use Linux and I'm never going back. No more blue-screens-of-death, re-boots, re-installs, pop-ups, virus attacks and no more spy-ware.
MARY:
But I'm not a geek.
JOHN:
Linux isn't just for geeks anymore and it's free. You can share it with your friends, too.
MARY:
Sounds great. How do I get copy?
JOHN:
I'll bring the disks and install it for you on Saturday.
[Mary is now elated]
MARY:
Sounds like a plan. Can I go down on you?
JOHN:
Sure!
[Fade to black]
VOICE OVER:
Linux...Look for the Penguin.
SFX: Zipper opening
MARY:
Oh John, I never knew.
SFX: Slurping sounds.
Tough questions, although not tough enough (Score:2, Interesting)
The interviewer asks some very good questions about the weak areas in Ubuntu-Canonical's business strategy and Shuttleworth has to dodge many questions and hide behind half-truths, handwaving and his usual marketing gobbledygook.
Ubuntu allegedly has a "policy of not doing our own software development, but only packaging what others have developed" [netsplit.com] -- with the few rare exceptions like the Upstart init system. Ubuntu-Canonical doesn't hire any top developers to do upstream development like some other commer
Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote Yoda:
"And that is why you fail"
To think that in 2007 we are still seeing people with that mindset when it comes to open source software is really shameful. It is long past the time for the open source crowd to learn that usually the tech is the easy part of product development. The long and grueling hours is actually making it work and be useful for a wide variety of users. Anyone who has ever actually developed and shipped a real world commercial application knows this very well. Too many open source people have never learned this basic truth of software development.
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Stop the presses! (Score:2)
Ego-driven micromanager throws a chair at a user with four whole comments and then accuses them of being "hard to manage" when the chair misses.
Ballmer? Is that you?
Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
History shows that it is not the product or the core engine itself that causes something to have an effect but the way it is sold, the way it is packaged and the way it is marketed.
Let's face it, yes Ubuntu may have borrowed a lot but it also has pioneered a lot and I am not speaking strictly technically - though they have done that as well just look at their source control tool developed for Ubuntu.
What mark has done very well is build up a community and give a sense of purpose and advancement something that was seriously lacking in the Debian base from which it was born.
Again Mark is a businessman and he realizes that Technology without implementation is nothing. This interview itself does not really speak of much new things but it would be an injustice to say that Mark and the Ubuntu project did not pioneer or do anything of significance.
Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Making something popular is sometimes very important, as it draws needed attention to a subject. In Sagan's case, maybe he didn't do a nobel-worthy discovery, but how many great scientists are there now, that were inspired by his work? how many of today's great scientific minds wouldn't have turned that way without his incredible talent for communicating his contagious passion for science and discovery?
I think a similar kind of credit is due to the ubuntu project. Maybe they didn't rewrite the kernel, but they made linux slick and easy to install and accessible to a LOT of people who draw attention (and indirectly resources) to linux. I know in my case, it helped me get a lot of friends interested in linux, who had previously tried it but found it too confusing.
There are many ways to contribute to a project, besides coding.
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Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think those concerns are valid, nor do they reflect much knowledge of the situation.
Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think those concerns are valid, nor do they reflect much knowledge of the situation.
Seconded. I think it's also important to consider just how much Shuttleworth and Canonical have given, not only for Ubuntu but for Debian as well.
To characterise what they've done as 'ripping off someone else's work' does no justice whatsoever to the immense number of hours they've invested in:
Rest assured, this is not the work of a rip-off artist. If it is, then I wish someone would 'rip-off' my work early and often! 8^)
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Well, system integration is where is the added value. Factoring out the work of millions of system administrators and users who would have to do the exact some thing. A very boring, but very necessary job. When the number of components grows as N, the work to make them work grows as N^2. That's also why the delay between Debian stable releases is only slightly smaller th
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Re:Not to be rude, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you realize that is the story of every distribution. The amount of work put in is practically nothing compared to all the work that goes on upstream, even if you're talking about someone like RedHat that really contributes an awful lot of code (although they also contribute a lot of awful code - I'm talking virt-manager here right now, although it's hard to tell where virt-manager's fuckups end and libvirt's begin.)
Shuttleworth is losing money hand over fist on this whole Ubuntu thing, so I don't think you can really apply that argument to Ubuntu.
"Hand over fist" might be an exaggeration, but in the interview he reveals that he is still funding Ubuntu.
The impending release of the all-Free distribution of Ubuntu proves, IMO, that Shuttleworth "gets it". People complained that it wasn't Free, so he's making a Free release. Give 'em what they want.
He also specifically says that a lot of people have a lot of success installing Ubuntu on relatives' computers. So clearly he doesn't think that it's completely unready for the desktop. I think he sees it more as an impossibility in marketing at the moment, and I agree.
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really? so what distribution was Yggdrasil and Slackware based on?
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Ygg and Slack both depended on the GNU toolchain, which is the result of literally orders of magnitude more work than packaging a distribution.
I hope that in this moment the student has been enlightened. Or else you're a bozo.
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The argument about whether Linux is ready for the desktop has been going on for quite a few years now. I'm about as tired as the next Linux Fanboy about hea
My take on desktop Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I'm just a developer, but I've used Linux off and on for various things over the years, and I'd like to think I have a pretty good feel for what Linux needs to really take off on the Desktop (and no it's not there yet, but it's getting closer every day). There are essentially three different flavors of "desktop market", and you really need to cover at least two of these three in order to have an impact.
The first market, and the one that Linux is more than capable of supporting as it stands now with little trouble, is that of the enterprise desktop, which is distinguished from the enterprise server by the fact that the likes of the CEO and marketing department would be running these systems, rather than the IT guys. The main problem with this market is one of image. You need to actually convince the CEOs that Linux on their desktop is just as good or better than Microsoft. To a great extent IBM, Novell, and other major corporations are doing a very good job of getting the word out, and I think we're really seeing progress on this front.
The second market, and once again, one that Linux can handle without much problem is that of your typical non-technical home user. The problem with this market is that it needs to be easy. Dead easy. One button, very small words, short sentences easy. For an example of how to handle this market perfectly, see the install process of the latest beta of Ubuntu (7.04). The key to winning over this segment is to first get a distro that is so simple they never have to use the command line to do everything they need on a day to day basis. This means, they need to be able to setup and install new hardware and software, perform updates, and configure everything from GUI without any particular technical knowledge outside of that supplied by said software/hardware. Once you've got the distro nailed, have some technical user install it for them the first time and get them using it, once they use it on a day to day basis, become comfortable with it, and realize it's better than what they had before, they're sold. Distros like Ubuntu are making headway in this market, but still have a little ways to go, I think this is the source of at least part of the comments in TFA.
The third market, which is the hardest one for Linux, and also the most critical right now, is the power user and gamer market. In order to win this market, Linux needs two things, it must support the latest and greatest in graphics cards out of the box (look to intel for some interesting developments in this department), and it must encourage game developers to produce cross-platform games. Now, the second of those two requirements can be mitigated by using things like Cedega to run non-ported games, but in that case graphics cards need to be fully supported in order for the games to play on par with the windows counterparts. To a certain extent this market revolves around hardware support, followed by market demand. Intel and AMD are positioning themselves to be strong players in this arena, in particular the moves by Intel to package Linux drivers with their Windows drivers on new graphics cards, as well as to open source graphics drivers is very encouraging. AMD (ATI) has recently started to release drivers for their cards if not at the same time as the Windows ones, at least in the same time frame, and adopting a common versioning number for all the drivers has also helped in comparing support progress. Once the hardware support is in place, it's just a matter of demonstrating to manufacturers that the user base is sufficient to justify the cost of developing on Linux. One of the best ways to do that would be to get a large enough portion of the casual computer user population switched over to Linux.
If linux can get a large enough portion of two of these markets, or even a relatively small portion of all three, it will have enough momentum to finally interest the likes of Dell, and HP. From that point forward, it's just a matter of free market dynamics.
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They have a long way to go.
Example: to start up Samba in OS X: click on one box on the Sharing Control Panel. To start up Samba in Ubuntu: apt-get install samba; edit smb.conf; create password for Samba share. For your average user, the one step in OS X can be somewhat confusing. The idea of editing smb.conf might as well be performing open heart surgery. I run Ubuntu on my laptop at home, and I like it. But it's
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There are still some kinks to this process: I could access my shared folder right away with a pocket pc, but a windows machine kept asking for a username and password. In the end
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Yep. Adding a Samba user in the KDE control fails silently - this was known to be broken in 2005 and is still broken - doesn't look like anyone is interested.
Sure, _I_ can add one in an eyeblink at the command line with smbpasswd or pdbedit, no big deal, but there's still careless crap like this all over the various Linux desktops and it's a showstopper for Joe Average-would-be-Linux-user.
I use Linux (and contribut
Re: Not to be rude, but... (Score:2)
I'd say that, while it is true that Linux may indeed have some catching-up to do, it isn't exactly wrong to say that the consumers will have to catch up, either, only if one thinks of it with a less obvious meaning. The problem for Linux isn't really so much that it isn't up to par for the average user, nor that the average user isn't up to anything but Windows, but rather that the average user isn't ready for a non-ho
Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
"Person X isn't voicing the opinion of Linux that I want to hear. This obviously means that they're a paid shill in the service of $corporation."
Please develop some basic maturity. Shuttleworth is funding the most popular consumer-oriented Linux distribution in existence. I.e., he's paying for it himself. Why would he spout FUD about something which he himself is sponsoring? That's self-defeating behaviour.
That's a mouthful considering it's coming from someone who, if we want to be brutal, did little but repackage someone else's hard work.
Really? This sounds like yet more sour grapes from someone affiliated with Debian. In case you don't understand the difference between Debian and Ubuntu, allow me to explain it for you. Ubuntu is a project run by and for people who live above ground. As such, they don't foam at the mouth due to the idea of people using binary hardware drivers, and they also don't subscribe to a lot of Debian's other aberrant, regressive "philosophies" and attitudes, either. Shuttleworth has to pay official lip service to them occasionally, because as you say, unfortunately the development effort does consist of a few of the abovementioned troglodytes, and it's true that he does seem to care about not alienating them.
If Ubuntu, as so many people say, would be nothing whatsoever without Debian, then how come Ubuntu is so much more popular? Here's why. Ubuntu is Debian, without Debian's people, and without the conflict and terminal immaturity that those people generate and suffer from. Ubuntu is Debian with a neurotypical re-interpretation.
One of the main things I've seen a lot of members of the Linux community becoming increasingly shrill about in the last few years is people "stealing their code," and I think I'm finally beginning to understand why. It's because although the software that you write itself genuinely is technically better than what is being developed elsewhere, as people on the other hand, deep down, you yourselves actually realise just what chronically socially disabled, mind-bogglingly juvenile, generally detestable individuals many of you really are. It therefore quite logically follows that you're understandably terrified that the mainstream population is going to want to take the good that you do produce (your code) for their own use, while leaving the bad (you yourselves) as close to being entirely ignored as possible.
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That's one opinion. Mine was based on what I've actually seen the Debian people doing, in terms of the IceWeasel debacle, and the Etch delay issues, etc etc...not to mention the endless trolling from Debian fans/developers on here.
If you want to see them in a positive light, I can understand the desire to do so. I wouldn't have a problem doing that myself
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Here is how the free market works. Consumers by the goods that they want not the goods that the manufacturers think they should want. You don't have to like it but you need to recognize it. If Linux proponents do not get this then Linux will fail to capture the desktop. Period. End of story.
Now some things are inherently complex in nature and require a moderate amount of learning to do successfully and som
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now this was a troll
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Re:Linux is not a PC platform (Score:4, Insightful)
Goofy names, I suppose, but I don't have the expertise (or patience!) to create my own platform, so I'll settle for using one of those.
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We live in a world of goofy names. Some of them make sense, others don't, but think about how some of these would sound if you hadn't heard them before:
Nintendo, Atari, Apple Computer, iPod, Microsoft, Windows, Linux, Gameboy, Playstation (sound a little like Fisher price?), X-Box, Sega, KDE, Gnome, and the browsers: Firefox, Netscape Navigator, Netscape Communicator, Internet Explorer, Konqueror, all sound kind of weird if you think about it. And, of course: Wii.
Don't get me wrong, I
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Linux is an operating system, just like Solaris is an operating system. It's still Solaris even if you replace all the userland tools with GNU tools. It never becomes GNU/Solaris no matter what you do to it. Same thing for Linux. It never becomes GNU/Linux or Lignux. Now, should RMS ever choose to give up this battle and create a "GNU" distribution of Linux, I'd be happy to call it GNU/Linux, or e
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Solaris is an operating system because you can, say, run Abiword on it without installing the GNU System first. Linux, on the other hand, is not an operating system - you can't run Abiword on just Linux - you'd need a whole operating system like GNU/Linux to do that.
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The battle was lost at the time Stallman started fighting it. If he wants to create GNU/Linux, he can do it any time he wants. The reason he doesn't is because the day he does, everyone will say "Oh, so THAT's what GNU/Linux is" and he will have to face facts: that people call Linux Linux, and not GNU/Linux.
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Burz, I believe the owner of this [rickross.com] website offers forcible deprogramming as a service, although these days it's referred to as an intervention. I would urge you however to have a family member contact this man immediately, and plan a time for him to do some work with you.
It's not too late to get help.
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Nice parinoia, but the GNU GPL makes "closing the source" pretty hard.
Even without that, you'll find that simply being Free Software is pretty valuable. If it wasn't you'd be hearing a lot more about BSD/OS than about FreeBSD - but FreeBSD is orders of magnitude more popular because it's Free Software.
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The more parts of the platform that are open, the harder it is to accomplish synergistic lock-in. Windows Client + Windows Server + Exchange + Microsoft Office sustains lock-in much better than Linux Client + Linux Server + Linux Backend + MS Office.
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The problem is that home user doesn't give a damn about your standards. Source has no more meaning to him than the chicken scratchings on a Sumerian stone tablet. His interests and values lie elsewhere. He will never sacrifice an easy-to-install high-performance driver to satisfy your concept of freedom.
consider that many 20-40 year old geek
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OR, when Microsoft released Server 2000 Datacenter Edition, which only runs on dedicated hardware and can only be bought from an OEM, did you reccomend everyone jump ship from windows since MS wouldn't let you buy ANY version of windows any more (which is the same level conclusion as the one you drew)
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The responses I've quoted clearly have a broader significance.
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Some Audio/MIDI software that is comparable to Logic Audio and that can run VST plugins. Personally the only reason I still have a Windows box is to run Logic Audio 5.5.1.
And before I get the usual "have your tried Rosegarde/Muse/Ardour etc." replies yes I have and, whilst they're good efforts, no they're not currently a patch on Logic Audio and (crucially) they do not support VST.
However the latest version of Ubuntu (Feisty) is simply that good that I've finally switched eve
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I can accept that some people like to use it. Maybe even a lot of people. But if I *had* to use Trillian, I'd say fuck it and go back to writing letters. Considering I have a broken hand, it would be quite difficult, but I'd prefer to feel the bones in my hand grinding together with each painfully written letter than to use Trillian. I have never *seen* a bigger pile of shit, and I've had some doozies.
If he's going to talk about anything,