Is SaaS Killing Native Linux App Development? 330
jfruhlinger writes "In a world where 'app' is the new buzzword, the development of native Linux apps is lagging. Some of this can be attributed to the usual community infighting (the latest version of which is argument about Ubuntu's Unity interface), but there may be something deeper at play: Linux advocates have for so long advocated browser-accessed software as a service as a way to break out of Microsoft's proprietary desktop. Now that this world has arrived, there's less incentive to work on native Linux apps. But of course, entrusting your functionality and data to a cloud provider like Google has its own set of concerns for free software fans."
Argument about Unity? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no argument about Unity. We all agree that it sucks. There is minor disagreement about the degree to which it sucks.
Does that really stop anyone from writing Linux applications?
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Does that really stop anyone from writing Linux applications?
Developers don't really like using a tablet GUI on their desktop machine.
Oh, but at least Windows 8 will level the playing field there...
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Unity is used by one (1) distribution. If you don't like it, switch to a different one. I did; it isn't hard.
The problem is that the other distros are switching to Gnome 3, which sucks just as much but in slightly different ways.
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There is no argument about Unity. We all agree that it sucks.
The guy that wrote it probably doesn't
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I use Unity on my laptop (which serves as my desktop) and I don't have any major issues with it.
I really don't understand what the fuss.
I mean, I got people like my parents who don't like change at all (they get uneasy if you move the icons on their desktop), but I find it surprising seeing the complaints come from IT professionals.
I also get it not being everybody's first choice. But the animosity directed towards it seems unreal.
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Many people like it.
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I suspect there are a lot of satisfied Unity users out there that just don't feel inclined to get involved in flame wars over what they perceive as a non-issue.
Native GUI app development is a pain (Score:3, Insightful)
*Easy to use
*Widely supported
*Actively maintained
*Designed for use with a somewhat mainstream language
But it seems to be a case of "pick any 3", or sometimes only 2.
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Nonsense! Qt Creator is a perfect counterexample!
*Easy to use: Check
*Widely supported: Check
*Actively maintained: Check
*Designed for use with a somewhat mainstream language: Ch... well... ahn... wait, but what is a "somewhat mainstream language" anyway?
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Qt Creator works well with C++ and Python, I'd call those both pretty mainstream.
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This is exactly what I came here to say!
Much as I dislike Windows, I have to admit that visual studio is a very well put together package and lets you hammer out those GUI apps very quickly. We do have some ok-ish GUI designers (like Qt-designer) .. but nothing with the kind of "drag a button to the screen.. double click.. insert logic" workflow that VS has.
qtcreator and monodevelop (Score:3)
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I'll pass on mono, but qtcreator actually looks pretty damn encouraging.
Thanks!
Re:Native GUI app development is a pain (Score:5, Informative)
wxglade works well with me, and being XML based can work with any language you want (and uses native widgets on all the OS'es, so it always looks well integrated). I use it with Python primarily, but it should work for anything (look on their site for officially supported languages).
Have a look here if you're interested: http://wxglade.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
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Eclipse, Netbeans and Java.
As a bonus, your programs will work on Windows too.
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I think Swing is a sadistic joke foisted on the industry by some psychotic Sun employees.
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And amazingly none of those are *native*
If Eclipse isn't native, how come it's sucking up two gigabytes of my RAM?
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http://www.google.com/search?q=compile%20java%20to%20native [google.com]
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Really? I always thought developing in Linux was way easier, and I am no software engineer. The few times I tried to compile Win32 binaries I found it painful and slow...
Seriously, just with Geany and a few packages and I am ready to go. That takes like 3 minutes during a Linux install.
Then again I am a C/Lua/SDL/GL guy, maybe that's why.
Re:Native GUI app development is a pain (Score:5, Interesting)
Qt is an incredible toolkit. The only problem is that it looks "different" in Gnome, but about a year ago this problem seems to be solved.
Qt Creator is one of the highest-quality IDEs - very easy to use, powerful and not getting in the way.
Plus as a bonus Qt apps can be easily ported to Windows and MacOS, especially if they aren't using anything outside the Qt toolkit - many apps will simply compile and run with zero changes. Qt includes stuff like XML parsing, sockets, OpenGL etc. so you can probably will never need anything except Qt.
The only thing some people don't like about Qt is the need for a preprocessor and duplication of C++ stdlib stuff (like containers, I/O operatuins), which supposedly fragments C++ development. But I actually like this - no need to use use multiple library dependencies, everything is included in Qt SDK, along with great documentation and works out of the box.
There are concerns about Qt's future, since it no longer fits in Nokia's strategy. But it's quality definetly exceeds most toolkits like wxwidgets, gtk, mono and many others. Probably because the "boring" stuff like documenting and testing was done by full-time employees.
Oh, and Windows native C++ development is horrible. Just look at how you're supposed to display the standard "open files" dialog and get the selected file names.
Re:Native GUI app development is a pain (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and Windows native C++ development is horrible.
I have a stupid question... What is actually C++ about Windows Native Libraries. All I ever saw was just completely twisted C - twisted as in just weird datatypes, weird includes, and a Macro hell. I admit, you can declare variables anywhere (just not on top, as in C), but otherwise I cant understand how Microsoft can call it C++.
Real C++ is so different from Microsoft C++.
And QT is very nice. It combines the best of C, C++ and Java. QT Creator is the only IDE I ever appreciated. I really like the .pro file that contains everything about the project, and is still a very small simple text file; nothing like a configure-script or even worse a Microsoft Solution file. qmake uses the pro-file to make a Makefile.
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Technically I was probably wrong - although some stuff in WinAPI looks like C++, such as
- pre-defined pointers (LPCWSTR etc.) are close to C++ references
- structs are used far more often than in C
- less memory tricks, such as pointer arithmetic
And MFC is C++, but most developers give up on using this monster, and instead implement their own C++ wrappers for making WinAPI usable.
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With MS Visual studio / VB any old monkey can make GUI apps easily...
And I'm happy that the "I know how to code in MS Access", "Who needs Object-Orientation in VB.NET? I can code like in VB6!" and "What is a parameterized query?" stays away from my platform of choice. Microsoft might have the bigger ecosystem of developers, but they're also crappier for the most part.
*Easy to use *Widely supported *Actively maintained *Designed for use with a somewhat mainstream language
Eclipse, NetBeans, QtCreator, MonoDevelop and CodeBlocks come to mind. I'd consider those all 4 (well, except MonoDevelop maybe) of your points. I mean, if you consider Java and C++ mainstream...it was at least
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I have to say Qt and Python with various GUI technologies not only prove idea wrong, but I would say you can develop faster with them.
That said, I wish there was a Linux equivalent to visual studio - although, Qt Designer is pretty damn close.
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It's not just the IDE, but the third party controls available. There are some *really* outstanding controls available for .NET/VCC/WPF. They are usually the first thing I miss when playing around with GTK/Qt development. Grids especially. The DevExpress grid is amazing - built-in filtering, sorting, grouping, basic report generation, paging, editor embedding, multiple binding modes, hybrid data types, runtime layout retention - that's weeks worth of coding for a couple thou (which gives you the rest of the
SaaS killing any native app development (Score:4, Insightful)
This triggers my rant reflex...
I started my career in native development, and only in the last say 5 years have I done almost exclusively Java based web development, mostly due to market demands and needing a paycheck. I miss the quick response times, quicker builds and simplicity where it was appropriate. I suspect the best hope for any native development now is maintaining legacy systems and mobile apps. People used to be in client/server development, but that's largely been replaced by the SaaS model due to comparative simplicity, but now we have a myriad of new technologies and frameworks globbed together. The industry's answer to any amount of complexity is yet another platform or framework and more indirection. It's hard to secure and know that it's done properly, and harder to know that someone else did it properly.
Go ahead and shoot me, but I miss the real native development days, regardless of the platform.
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Go ahead and shoot me, but I miss the real native development days, regardless of the platform.
I guess you never used DCOM then.
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Ugh..... DCOM...... kill me
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http://www.jboss.org/jbossiiop [jboss.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMI-IIOP [wikipedia.org]
--Coder
Not SaaS it's FAIB (Score:2)
It's not SaaS Killing Native Linux App Development it's the FAIB (free as in beer) crowd doing it. Basically there is no money to be made in desktop Linux development out there since people simply are not paying for the software.
Most developers would use Java or QT and do all their work in Windows and then do a quick port and QA to Linux - if you're lucky.
Re:Not SaaS it's FAIB (Score:4, Insightful)
The reasons behind it (Score:2)
Saa (Score:2)
The architecture (thin v fat client) is tangential to whether you in-source or outsource system administration.
Most of the software we rely-on most is accessed via the browser:
Roundcube, Gallery, phpMyAdmin, LDAP Account Manager, Trac, and most importantly our own internal systems.
Once LibreOffice makes the switch my work will probably go days between firing up a GUI besides Firefox.
Does anyone use Linux native apps? (Score:2)
Despite being in free software for a bajillion years and using it as my desktop, I can't say that I've used any native Linux apps for anything really. For the past few years, it has just been a way to get a webbrowser running and to get online, and as a place to cache content. I also use Emacs and the dev environment to make my own (web) apps, and Apache to serve them.
The only native apps I use are games that need native audio/video control.
App to edit photos and make illustrations (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's a fair point. I guess I do think of a photo editor as part of the dev environment, but, that is really stretching the definition of "dev environment" too far.
But the point I was trying to make, I guess, is that the native apps I use are used in my role as a developer. Rarely do I use native apps in the role of end user.
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Native Linux apps are all I use. I don't do use SaaS stuff at all, and don't intend to start. I simply don't trust any third party enough to make myself so vulnerable to and dependent on them.
Plenty of us use native apps (Score:3)
Native apps that I use in Linux every day:
Clementine (audio player)
Xine (video player)
Musicbrainz (mp3 tagger)
Google Earth
Pidgin (IM client)
Firefox
Geeqie (photo browsing/basic editor)
Minecraft (duh)
Open Office
Kate (text editor)
K3B (burning software)
And this is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head while at work. On top of this, there are dozens upon dozens of other apps I use less frequently, but regularly. About the only web app I use that's replaced a native desktop app is Gmail.
I suspect y
Or, maybe Linux is dying... (Score:2, Interesting)
Linux is dying (or perhaps dead). At least it is on the desktop. It was stillborn and never really had a chance. Everyone (myself included) spent so much time worrying about Microsoft that we ignored what Apple was doing - and then *wham*, OS X comes out. A Unix-backed desktop OS with a gorgeous UI that non-techies can actually use.
Without a strong desktop presence, there is very little need for native apps. We sysadmins prefer our command line tools - and nobody can argue that there aren't a lot of those .
Or maybe Linux is everywhere and you don't notice (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets see, I am typing this in Linux, on my desktop at work.
I first saw the story on my android phone, running Linux.
There was a WiFi router that was running linux that sent it to my android phone.
Nope, not the year of the desktop.
Re:Or, maybe Linux is dying... (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is dying (or perhaps dead). At least it is on the desktop.
Linux desktop seems steady at around 1%. Since computer usage is growing, that also means Linux desktop usage is growing. If I ever capture 1% of the global computer market, I would consider it a success beyond anything I could comprehend. So, you have a very odd definition of "dead".
general app development on Linux dropped off years ago
Huh? Like what? There are now decent 3D modelleers (blender), audio editors, photographic maniuplation, drawing, image stitching programs, indie games, etc. There is so much more than there was 10 years ago.
But somewhere around 2002 I started to feel betrayed. Here I was, nearly 10 years later and Linux still wasn't on the desktop - at least not in any kind of meaningful way. Sure I kept hearing how 1997...1998...1999...2000...2001 were all going to be the "Year of Linux on the Desktop" - but it never happened.
So you feel betrayed that the rantings of a bunch of usenetters didn't come to much? Wow. You have a low threshold for betrayal.
all the while lifting as many UI ideas as they could from each OS
Yeah well, that does kinda suck. The blind copying is making a mess of the Linus desktop experience.
Here we are in 2011 and I'm seeing the same old shit.
Like...?
I'm just about ready to give up Slashdot because 90% of the Linux-related news stories just remind me that we haven't made any progress
C' ya
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Desktop is a strange notion that seems to mean Office PC - which means OS is irrelevant, but the Apps it runs Office, DB, Company app, Webbrowser Outlook etc is and only Windows can run these... so we are stuck with Windows
OSX is pretty and works well, but is still the niche market is always was, and it is the apps it runs, image editing , video editing, design tools , that really sell it
Linux has it's place as well, but it is not the Desktop because all the Desktop apps people currently use run on Window
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You should come on over to Hacker News if you're looking for what Slashdot used to be circa 1998... http://news.ycombinator.com/ [ycombinator.com]
I agree with you... the comments were the big draw, and mostly it's "herd mentality" on /. any more.
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Well, I switched to only OpenBSD and GNU/Linux about a year ago, before that I mostly worked on Windows and deployed on Unix.
However I do NOT like either Gnome, I do NOT like KDE, I do NOT like XFCE, I cannot stand Unity.
I don't like ANY of the windowing environments that Unix/GNU Linux offer.
I HATE Mac.
So in reality I only like Windows Windowing environment, specifically Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I think those are very solidly done and they FEEL solid. They are very integrated, all of the cut/paste, all
Broader concept (Score:2)
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If by "app" you are talking a "user application", meaning one with a whole user interface (i.e. GUI), etc. - I'd say that is eroding. I wouldn't say that "SaaS" is what's eroding it however. I've been using Linux for almost twenty years, and only have written a single GUI-based (Glade) application for it. I see Linux as a "back-end" system, and have always used Windows, or a Mobile platform a
Run the server locally (Score:4, Interesting)
HTML5 is just another GUI front-end library. In no way does it require you to write cloud based apps. If you want a native Linux application write the GUI in HTML5 and run the server on the same machine as your GUI. Hmmm.... something kind of like the Xserver model, but brought 30 years into the future?
When people whine about the ending of location transparency with the Xserver, what is going away is the Xserver as the primary GUI library, not location transparency in general. The Xserver needs to die, it is pass its prime and we need to move onto newer GUI technologies.
So stop writing native Linux applications and instead start writing HTML5 applications that ship with a built-in server. The cool thing about apps in this model is that the GUI works on Linux, Mac and Windows plus you can run the server locally or in the cloud - your choice. If you want to help out convert some native Linux apps into the HTML5 model.
Wayland is a key transition technology. It allows apps like Chrome/Firefox to be written directly to EGL. Plus you can run a user space Xserver as a legacy tool.
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If you want a native Linux application write the GUI in HTML5 and run the server on the same machine as your GUI.
A few issues:
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All of these problems can be solved. I believe the rest of the world is going down the browser GUI path, so it is up to the Linux community to decide if they want to follow. Gnome/KDE are almost certainly dead ends.
This is not an overnight switch. It will take a decade to fully transition to an HTML5 plus local server model.
One reason why so many people don't like SAAS is because the server side of the app has been implemented closed source. Providing open source servers is one way to address that problem.
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For example convert Open Office to a HTML5 plus local server model as a response to Google docs.
Why the fsck would I want to convert Open Office to HTML5 when it already works fine as C++?
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All of these problems can be solved.
Let me know when they are.
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I believe the rest of the world is going down the browser GUI path
Oh, god, I hope not. I've yet to see a browser-based anything that doesn't suck more than a natively-implemented version of the same thing.
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Google has ported Quake to run inside Chrome using HTML5. You just aren't seeing fully developed HTML5 apps yet.
The GUI libraries in older versions of HTML were not equivalent to their native counter parts. A lot of that had to do with Microsoft torpedoing the standardization and advancement of HTML. They seem to have stopped doing that now. Let's see how browser centric Win8 is now that the consent decree has expired.
Requiring new versions of Windows (Score:2)
A lot of that had to do with Microsoft torpedoing the standardization and advancement of HTML. They seem to have stopped doing that now.
IE 9 requires Windows Vista, meaning we can't rely on HTML features introduced in IE 9 until April 2014 when Windows versions prior to Windows Vista enter end of life. IE 10 will require Windows 7, meaning we can't rely on HTML features introduced in IE 10 for the foreseeable future, or at least until five years after Microsoft announces the end of mainstream support for Windows Vista.
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Chrome runs fine on all versions of Windows.
hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that... (Score:2)
I think that the majority of problems that were in the native environment are solved.
Most of the desktop applications are mature and complete and a big part of the commandline never had problems that werent solvable to begin with.
The last 10 years just caused a lot of problems to be solved on the web platform, now that HTML et al. are getting in mature state as well we will see coming 5 years that most problems on that platform are getting solved too.
Even scalability problems are getting solved with virtual
Right... (Score:2)
That is why everyone wants VLC to be ported from Linux to mobile devices to finally get a decent player out there. That is why mplayer despite having no interest in doing windows support has people working on turning it into a windows version to get an even better player out there?
What apps are we talking about exactly? Fart apps? Angry birds?
There is a ton of software available for free install. What more do you need?
Or maybe the author is talking about payed for apps? Maybe the genius that wrote synergy s
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Slashdot madlibs (Score:2)
Is _____ (Suggestions: Apple, Microsoft) KILLING Linux/Google/Bitcoin _____ ?
For example:
Is MICROSOFT BING KILLING Google SEARCH?
Is APPLE SANDBOXING KILLING Bitcoin MINING?
I think I have the formula fogured out, these articles are actually heuristically generated from statistically high word count topics, and kdawson and Soulskill are actually AIs.
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Is PORN killing BARREL ROLL?
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That's a fantastic!
Until Inux gets a single GUI that is used by... (Score:2)
At least 75% of the distro's it is going to remain a non RAD platform.
The ONLY project that comes close is Lazarus. They have it pretty well worked out. Yes is is Delphi and I know everyone just LOVES to hate Pascal but guess what people as a language it does 99% of what needs to be done and the other 1% is just esoteric stuff that can be done without.
If you want it to do C++ then get onto the project and write the C++ for it.
It is drag and drop GUI interface, right click of the component or double click o
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Correction (Score:3)
The problem I have with cloud apps... (Score:2)
...versus desktop-based, frivolously, is the penchant for cloud developers for the addition of payware components in their apps. But, that's the hook, isn't it? You get basic interface or a limited-time run with the advanced stuff, then the advanced components (let's say for online games, premium credits for better ingame gear) come at cost of real-world fiat.
In my world, outdated and quaint as it is, once you buy something you own it. It's yours and its disposition is your business. If you want to use a sp
Nope (Score:2)
I think what's killing native Linux app development is that most of what needs to exist already does.
Seriously - while some programs could use some tweaking (IE, GIMP isn't quite as robust and capable as Photoshop, but it does similar things and is good enough for most casual users), just about anything that you'd want to do for day-to-day stuff there's already a native "app" for that.
The only time I find Linux lacking is for video games, which as an entertainment medium follow a different model than utilit
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Freshmeat is now called freecode.
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That is bullshit.
Eating to much meat may make you loss weight, but is in no way healthy. Meat is actually extremely healthy food No, it is not. Especially not the meat you get in our days in the super market.
To be healthy you need a balanced nutrition. To get an idea I would suggest to read an actual nutrition science book instead of a magazin diet. However as long as you eat enough / the right vegetables to your steaks you get enough carbs anyway
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If you went back to your old habits after knowing the weight benefits as well as simply how good it feels to be eating a healthy diet, that's your own fault.. I started eating low carb (and then just "low GI" when I was thinking I was getting too light) after I had already lost 9kg (from my lifetime maximum of ~85kg), and I'm still eating only whole carbs. I don't see any benefits to eating white flour based or sugary foods. To those who know how bad sugar is for you to then go and keep eating sugary junk i
Lock in? Take out. (Score:3)
Google can, and does, shut down their services at will. It's DRM^2^2.
How, when Google offers Takeout to copy your data out?
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There's a difference. Code vs data. The app = code. The document = data. With google, you can export your document and keep it, yes, but the app - they can shut it down at any time. With MS office, you have a copy of the app, so Code = Data. They can't shut down the app. They can't take away the code. With google, you never have the code.
LS
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And yet, oddly, it can be imported into Thunderbird when you install it on a system that has Outlook installed....
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You can export PST files from Outlook. There are import tools to import these into other email clients. If you wanted to be a complete charlatan, you could just drag and drop the emails into an explorer window and copy your mail that way.
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PSTs are user created files. You might be thinking of the OST file, which still holds mail locally if you're using a cached Exchange profile. If you're not using cached Exchange then not much will be stored permanently on the client side though.
How the hell do you think workplaces will stop employees backing up confidential email if they want to? All it would take is a BCC to another mail account and boom, backup. If they can send mail, they can make backups. If you're doing proper backups server side, why
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>Workplaces do not want employees to backup confidential email.
The only way to stop this is to treat employees better.
Because technology is defeated the instant that someone does a screen-grab by the fabulously new widget in Vista and 7, or brings a camera to work, or runs a printer and scans the printout or whatever.
It is an arms race that has already been lost.
You want your employees to be loyal? Stop being a douche.
--
BMO
The challenge... (Score:2)
I always go with local applications rather than webapps when possible. The issue is that with the google products I used, the critical aspect was how to get data to and from other people. Google reader takes away the only feature that made me use that instead of something else, but something else simply cannot realistically replace the 'sharing' capability without relying on some service that can be shut down at the whim of the provider.
Incidentally, why the hell did everyone start going with 'SaaS' inste
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That's nice for email, and I do just that (couple with offlineimap to backup it all).
It's useless for Google Reader, which is what GP mentioned.
There are other aggregators (Score:2)
Re:The challenge... (Score:4, Funny)
Incidentally, why the hell did everyone start going with 'SaaS' instead of 'webapps'? The concept is nearly as old as the web itself.
Because SaaS is on the cloud, whereas webapps are on the internet.
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I think (or at least hope) that GP was joking, he's trying to say that SaaS is the same as webapps, only buzzword compliant.
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Linux (and any OS worth its salt) has plenty of [applications].
GNU/Linux has plenty of free applications but not a lot of well-known non-free applications. There are some kinds of applications for which nobody has figured out how to make a free software model work [pineight.com]. Let me know when these applications [slashdot.org] get ported.
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GNU/Linux has plenty of free applications but not a lot of well-known non-free applications.
Probably because the commodity applications (word processing, basic image editing, etc) are already 'good enough' and there's not enough of a market for more specialised apps. I almost exclusively use the native Linux apps, but I have Wine installed to run Windows apps for screenplay and novel writing, for example; though the novel writing app is supposed to be coming out native for Linux sometime soon.
Actually, there's even a Linux version of my video compositing app but I've never sat down and figured out
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Then what's the selling point? (Score:2)
Garbage, garbage, garbage (Score:2)
Adobe Flash CS3 - wine
One of the toolbars doesn't show up according to the AppDB.
TurboTax - wine
Recent annual editions are rated Garbage.
Stone Edge Order Manager - wine
There is no specific entry in the AppDB for this product, but it runs on top of Access 2007. And according to the AppDB, forms in Access 2007 don't work without "an override for oleaut32.dll".
Sonic 3 & Knuckles - wine
Rated Silver for playable in a window. But it crashes in the full screen according to the AppDB because unlike Windows, Wine
Buying proprietary apps that end up broken (Score:2)
As a wine app maintainer, let me say wine is always improving. You should contribute, contributing testing data is helpful in directing development.
I have seen several cases where the demo works but the full version doesn't. If I'm to be buying copies of proprietary software just to end up unable to use them because they're Garbage nor to exchange them due to retailers' return policies, how do I recoup this cost?
And using a native DLL to fix a compatibility isn't uncommon with wine.
As I understand it, obtaining a lawful copy of said native DLL costs $200 for a copy of Windows. Or what am I missing?
The spirit of OSS involves developing then sharing solutions for ourselves
I agree. So how does one fund the development and then sharing of viable substitutes for those applications?
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Yup, they screwed it up big time!
Us geeks down here are happy with our favorite window managers (I like openbox personally).. but we've lost all the major desktop environments as champions for new users.
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Just how is XFCE anything like Windows 95, because it has menus and a little x to close program windows? If anything, it's one of the least "Windows-like" clients. It can in fact be very different depending on how you set it up. The way it looks and behaves out of the box can be changed in about 2 minutes, through the GUI, such that you wouldn't recognize it. With Windows you would need third party shell replacements to even come close to the functionality of XFCE.
I have not tried Gnome 3 or Unity because I
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"Native Linux app development sucks because of a lack of standardization. Conflicting projects, changing APIs, and aggressive attitudes from the community have all contributed to the failure of native Linux development."
No not really. Statically compile your binaries and call it done with the stupid dependency hell and API change hell. That way you can release binaries that "just work"(tm) instead of the 6 hours to get this damned bullshit app to run that uses hyper alpha library Development version 6.32
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Honestly, why did linux embrace the "spread crap everywhere" windows software installation model, instead of the Apple software install model?
Because we don't want to waste vast amounts of memory loading the same libraries in different applications and don't want the security nightmare of every application having its own copy of DLLs with ancient security holes that will never be updated?
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The big problem I see is that the stuff you describe is part of what makes Linux great for geeks like me.
Standardization tends to run up against flexibility. Linux is a hackers platform.. screw with anything you want.. you have the code! Don't like how something works.. make your own version of it!
This of course, as you said, makes Linux a nightmare for commercial development. For open source software, people can make the little changes necessary to make it work on their particular distro.. with closed sour
Re: (Score:2)
Everything I need to do today should be technically possible via a browser, but also allow me to use the application when my internet connection is down.