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Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)Posted Jan 8, 2006 20:14 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (subscriber, #755)Parent article: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)
> 'Microsoft invests north of $6 billion a year on R&D. There is nobody in the Linux world' that does that, he says."
And we *still* have a more stable, better designed operating system than they do.
Anyone want to figure the regular professional billing rate of the people who contribute to all Linux-related and OSS/Free software projects, and add up all the time they spend?
*Lot* more than $6B; guarantee it.
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Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 21:30 UTC (Sun) by SlOrbA (guest, #29900) [Link] This is in the "Speaking for the troops" category. If M$ is fearing that it's ecosystem is being influenced by foreign agent, this could be good indication of it.
The is no factual information in this text only in it's context.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 21:34 UTC (Sun) by CyberDog (guest, #29668) [Link] It depends on the environment you're referring to. "More stable, better designed" are very generic terms. Better designed in what aspects? I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user friendly to the common public than the Windows interface (or Mac, also a corporate entity). While it certainly may be superior for those skilled enough to work with it indepth, it has to be accessible enough to work in a large deployment of uneducated users, and honestly I've yet to see that. As far as stability is concerned, I guess that depends on what hardware/software combination you find youself with, because I've certainly generated a kernel panic or two in the past.
I'm far from a Microsoft fanboy, I just don't like to see people taking biased shots at Microsoft for what I consider a very good end-user product.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 21:54 UTC (Sun) by SlOrbA (guest, #29900) [Link] There is this great consensus of not understanding of each other.
Linux is a operating system's kernel and it's the one thing deadend-user should never ever be in contact with.
Mac and Windows both are operating systems + operating environments so the comparison is not applicable.
The real fact of life is that majority of people useing computers don't know what they are doing and in the future this will be a fact in any broadly used computer platform.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 22:03 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] > I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user friendly to the common public than the Windows interface (or Mac, also a corporate entity).
You haven't used SuSE9/KDE3 lately, have you?
No, it's not identical to Windows, but from experience, I can tell you that it would not be any harder to train... and it would be *much* easier to support, since all users don't automatically have administrative privilege.
Honestly, I'm pretty happy with XP. Or I was until they slipped that "you grant us permission to r00t you whenever we feel like it" clause into the SP2 upgrade EULA.
Don't believe me on that? Ask someone who has to comply with HIPAA.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 23:30 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] ...or Ubuntu/GNOME2, to be fair.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 1:45 UTC (Mon) by CyberDog (guest, #29668) [Link] Why yes I have, and while I agree you could train any given person to use just about anything, I'm not particularly impressed. I think the problem is somewhat inherent in the modular nature of a Linux/Unix environment. When every last application is designed by unrelated sources, they result in a somewhat incongruous feel. For example, most Linux desktops I've seen have at least two or three different "Control Panel" type applets in the kicker (one for KDE/Gnome, one for the OS, one for ___). It just doesn't feel right sometimes. Sure it works, but it lacks that polished, fully integrated feel you get when the same source designs the Core/UI/supporting apps.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 2:07 UTC (Mon) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] This sounds mightly like a troll to me.
Considering the completely different interfaces on Word, Nero and Media Player; compared to that of AbiWord, CD-creator and Totem, or kword, k3b, kaboodle I find your 'Windows has a more consistent interface' argument weak, old and unjustified.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:43 UTC (Mon) by cott (guest, #6931) [Link] Sorry, guys. I have to agree with CyberDog, here.
You'd think that with the command-line utilities, at least, Unix/Linux would be consistent, but it's not. Take the "-v" option on any command, for instance. Does it mean to do something verbosely, does it print the version number, or does it do something else, entirely?
The GUI stuff is significantly worse. When people (like myself) choose a desktop like Gnome or KDE, they choose a specific look and feel. The problem is not all the apps adhere to that look and feel. If I happen to run a Gnome app while I'm on the KDE desktop, it looks like Gnome. If I run an old X app, it looks like X. I know that seems like a nitpick, but I don't think it is. Just dealing with the single-click vs double-click file selection menus can be a pain for me, to say nothing of a less experienced user. It's incredibly unusual to have this problem with Windows.
Don't get me wrong. I love Linux, but it's not perfect.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 10, 2006 12:21 UTC (Tue) by tnoo (subscriber, #20427) [Link] > Just dealing with the single-click vs double-click file selection menus can be a pain for me, to say nothing of a less experienced user.
Exactly this single-click vs. double-click behaviour makes the Windows UI so hard to use, especially for beginners. Why on earth do I have to click once in the status bar to launch a program, but twice on the desktop? And why is a very uncommon operation (renaming a file) triggered every time I click a little bit off the icon and on the text (this is especially true in the file manager).
At least KDE is fully consitant in this respect, and much more usable than Windows.
best, tnoo
Single v Double click Posted Jan 10, 2006 19:29 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] This one frustrates me.
There's a *very good* reason why icons require a double-click to utilise the "Open" shortcut: it's a *shortcut*.
Icons on desktops and in folders are *objects*. Things which you can click once to get a response are *buttons*. Buttons are *supposed* to look like buttons; you can blame Microsoft itself (and particularly the Toolbar team in the Office group) for screwing *that* bit of obviousness up by creating lots of buttons that don't look like buttons until you mouseover them.
Everyone likes to assume that *any* of these desktop environments ought to be "so simple anyone can learn them without training or reading", and folks, it's just not that way.
And it ought not to be that way.
What You See Is All You Get is bad enough... but everyone becomes a power user eventually, to one degree or another. And ghod help you if you make it *harder* for powerusers to get work down because you're trying to make intake training easier.
Me too. Posted Jan 9, 2006 2:58 UTC (Mon) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] Either a troll, or someone who's just unreasonably enamored of Windows.
I'm not the cheerleader saying that Linux's desktop interfaces are *so* much better integrated than Windows is... though I don't really think they're all *that* bad. But holding even Windows XP up as a shining example of that is just as unreasonable.
Anyone who has to *support* this stuff (as I have for over 10 years) knows that *Microsoft* apps for Windows are the ones voted most likely to *violate* whatever user interface guidelines actually exist in the first place.
Me too. Posted Jan 9, 2006 3:03 UTC (Mon) by CyberDog (guest, #29668) [Link] First of all, not everyone who posts an argument with a different point of view to your own is a "troll". Believe it or not, you're not always right.
Second of all, I believe your initial comment to this article (to which I replied), was the most biased comment of any made here. But thank you anyway for assuming I'm some huge fan of Windows just because I disagreed with the blind zealotry your initial statement.
Me too. Posted Jan 9, 2006 6:54 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] I think the OP tried to make a simple point: there are loads of "hidden" investments in Linux and Linux distributions. One does not need a highly scientific method to conclude that this amount of money probably exceeds the amount most companies are ever able or willing to invest in their products.No zealotry here, just common sense with an edge of enthusiasm. You do have a case in general against the kneejerk type of response to any Redmond publication, but next time you might want to spend some time thinking up arguments that do make sense: your desktop comparison has been an admission ticket to the troll cave for some years now.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 17:57 UTC (Mon) by carcassonne (guest, #31569) [Link] I build my own Linux systems (based on Linux from Scratch) that I use at home AND at work. So I'm pro-Linux and not at all pro-Windows. Still, there should be a way to present apps to the user and at the same time making the distinction between a base, supported system, and extra, other apps that may or may not work as is.
2 or 3 control centers are just confusing. But at the same time there should be choice. It's not by eliminating the other two that the consistency problem is solved.
For instance, with SuSE 9.3 I want to use MuSE which is found in the standard menu. Nice, I have an external Yamaha MIDI keyboard, so let's try to use this sequencer for fun. But no, there's a problem with Jack, and MuSE does nto run if Jack is sick (at least in this configuration). And where is Jack configuration mentioned in the SuSE handbook ? Nowhere. This is an unsupported application. But it is part of SuSE 'Linux' 9.3.
If I was a regular user I could easily say that 'Linux' is broken... unless it is made clear that MuSE is an addition, an extra application, which is not the case in SuSE 9.3 as MuSE is simply part of the KDE menu system. like Rosegarden, MainActor and everything else.
And so on so forth. Tried to start a newbie project with Blender recently ?
The apps have to be there. Do not take them out for simplicity's sake. But I think that there should be a clear, obvious, line for the user to cross to go into unsupported territory so that the user is warned that things might require more time to make work, be it configuration issues or simply learning, so the user's perception of 'Linux' is based on the apps that are supported and well-tested.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 23:58 UTC (Mon) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] The usual cue for this boundary is that the unsupported product came on different physical media and had to be installed by the user after the rest of the machine was delivered.
This doesn't work as well for fully integrated distributions like Debian, Gentoo, their imitators and relatives, unless there's an easy way for third parties to label the applications they provide support for such that the installer can present them distinctly. The distributors don't really support any of the packages at all (at least not in a contractual-obligations sense), and third parties who you could buy support from are usually separate entities from the distributor.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 22:13 UTC (Sun) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] I've seen very few Macintosh computers in corporate environments. Their use is mostly limited to graphic designers' desktops. That datapoint doesn't support your idea that ease of use was really the most important thing for corporate desktops. My personal opinion is that the industry has "standardized" on MS Office, Windows, etc. and that is one of the major reasons people don't want to leave. Windows may not be intuitive, but the majority of the work force is trained and familiar with it.
I think this can and will change, but it will not be an overnight transition.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 4:04 UTC (Mon) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link] > I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user> friendly to the common public than the Windows interface This is a very big and very common misconception. The UI for every version of MS Windows is far from being user friendly. The only reason that people believe it is is because it's the only UI they've ever seen. From a design standpoint, the Win2k and WinXP UI's are pretty bad.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 15:54 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] I disagree. I think that the WinXP desktop is pretty well designed and is usually a pleasure to use for most normal desktop tasks. Granted I don't have to use it all that often, since I use Kubuntu or SuSE most of the time, but when I do I am always pleasantly surprised. It is snappy, well-integrated and easy-to-use. I wouldn't like to support it, but I don't mind using it for simple tasks like reading mail, writing documents, listening to music or surfing the web. Not directed specifically at the parent poster, but even if you don't agree, that doesn't make those who do trolls or minions of the evil empire. The way to react to this is to continually produce a better desktop, which is exactly what KDE, Gnome and friends are doing.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 17:20 UTC (Mon) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link] XP is the best they've done so far but if you read any books on human interface design you'll see that the whole bottom-up design of the Start menu is counter intuitive. There are a number of other things that aren't well done in the design (and I'm sad that GNOME & KDE had to continue the prevalence of them). The only reason it feels "normal" is because for almost two decades it has been the standard. Like the QWERTY keyboard, it's all anyone knows so it's the "easiest" to use. Doesn't matter that there are many layouts that are much better and faster.And as for trolls, I agree with you and the others. Disagreement does not a troll make.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 10, 2006 8:41 UTC (Tue) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link] "XP is the best they've done so far but if you read any books on human interface design you'll see that the whole bottom-up design of the Start menu is counter intuitive."
A logical fallacy called "appeal to authority". I personally do not see what is wrong with having the task bar at the bottom of the screen, I prefer it actually.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 4:41 UTC (Mon) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] Folks, when dissing a competing product you play to the customer's fears. This article doesn't mention the relative quality of the user experience at all. So it's pretty safe to assume that this doesn't keep corporate decision makers awake at night. The article does have some wonderful FUD techniques. (1) Talk to the CEO, not the decision makers. (2) Talk financials last: this allows you to talk up the value of intangibles. (3) Leverage external information which supports your point of view[1]. And so on. Once you know the major technique outlined in the subtext of the article -- prey on the customer's fears -- then it's easy to use it in reverse.
The other interesting subtext of the article is that the Windows MCPs quoted put Windows first, not the customer who is paying them. There's no need for consultancy firms to have a Windows versus Linux attitude -- it's your dime so they should have a "whatever works best for you" attitude. And so the article forms a list of firms that customers would do well not to employ. [1] For example, take US CERT's list of software vulnerabilities on its face and say "The US government's prime computer security agency says Windows has ten times less security issues than Linux". The CERT should be slapped for releasing that data without a commentary noting the shortcoming of the raw data for use in analysis.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 8:07 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] Actually, CERT *shouldn't* be slapped, because they *didn't* say that. That was MS's take on what CERT said.
CERT listed a bunch of vulnerabilities by OS. And by 'OS' they mean things such as 'Debian' or 'Red Hat' or 'SuSE'. MS merely added up all the linux ones and compared them to Windows, so committing the two heinous statistical crimes of adding duplicate lists, and ignoring half the information.
Cheers,
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 7:38 UTC (Mon) by trochej (guest, #35052) [Link] > I'm far from a Microsoft fanboy, I just don't like to see people taking> biased shots at Microsoft for what I consider a very good end-user > product.
A good end-user product wouldn't change it's interface constantly, to the point of no recognition by it's users (w2k -> wxp). Oh, and good end-user product would be free of bugs, like the one that won't allow non-administrative user connect with remote server via Citrix Program Neighborhood. And so on...
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 8:10 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] "I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user friendly to the common public than the Windows interface"
Then you've never watched a COMPUTER newbie try out both Windows and Linux.
EVERY report I've ever seen says that if you take someone who has never used Windows, and asked them which is easier, Windows or Linux, they go for linux every time. (And IME that's true - when we gave my mum a computer she found linux easier.)
But because Windows is "good enough", when you take someone used to Windows and plonk them in front of linux, they find it hard because it's "different".
Cheers,
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:18 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] In my experience, the person doing the teaching has a big impact on what new users find easier. I showed my mother and father how to you the KDE SuSE desktop and they were both happy users. My brother showed my sister how to use the Windows desktop and she was a happy user. All proclaim that their desktop is the easier, but I'm pretty sure that if my brother and I had swapped groups the "better desktop" verdit would have been swapped too. You are correct that people find what they know easier. But, at the end of the day, most users don't really care what desktop you give them, as long as they are able to easily do what they want.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 10:43 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I'm far from a Microsoft fanboy, I just don't like to see people taking biased shots at Microsoft for what I consider a very good end-user product."Very good product"? Talking about Microsoft Windows? No, you are not far from a Microsoft fanboy, sorry.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 20:53 UTC (Mon) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] One thing in which Windows is better than Linux is that *all* the supportdocumentation (help files etc) is localized (translated). System which you don't understand is not very usable. Pro's on the Linux side are that Linux has partial translation to more languages than Windows and one can easily fill the missing translations even just be producing .po from the .mo file, translating what's missing and then converting it back to .po (+testing+iteration). The problem is that there should be more translators. (At home I've had Linux for last 10+ years and at work for last 8+ years, no Windows, but I have some relatives with Windows machines.)
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 22:17 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] There are endless aspects where Windows makes a better system than Linux, and viceversa. The point is that Windows is not, all in all, a very good product: poor usability, bad support, lousy security record... It is difficult to find a worse combination.
MS-Windows UI Failures Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:20 UTC (Mon) by tony.taylor (guest, #35063) [Link] I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user friendly to the common public than the Windows interface (or Mac, also a corporate entity). It's interesting you should mention the "user-friendly" nature of the MS-Windows UI. First and foremost, the UI on MS-Windows sucks. Consider the start button: how are programs organized? Not by function, but by vendor. This simple little detail belies the major problem with the MS-Windows platform-- it is vendor-oriented, not user-oriented. That same misdesign philosophy can be seen in applications, from the document format incompatibilities of various MS-Office products to the difficulty in removing Outlook Express from an MS-Windows installation (it's not in the add/remove software control), to deep product branding for all MS-Windows software from any vendor. The MS-Windows interface is user-friendly to those who already know the MS-Windows interface. My family has been using Linux for years. They despise using MS-Windows machines; as much as I get complaints about both the Mac and Linux interfaces, at least I don't deal regularly with the disgust they express when stuck with MS-Windows. The Mac interface is superior to most Linux desktops; but most Linux desktops beat MS-Windows for ease-of-use and user-friendliness. Applications may be a different matter. Application consistency within the same platform varies dramatically, so a true study would be difficult, but as another post pointed out, MS-Windows applications are hardly consistent. The administration of MS-Windows isn't even easier anymore. Once a Linux box is configured, there's nothing more to do, except the occassional update. With MS-Windows, there's the regular updates, as well as anti-spyware and anti-virus protection updates, and the occassional re-install when nothing else seems to fix the system. Of course, that's just my experience with relatives' machines. Since they are just regular users and don't have all the rules and constraints of a typical business machine, I guess I could just blame them.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 21:38 UTC (Sun) by ayeomans (subscriber, #1848) [Link] David A Wheeler estimated the Linux Kernel alone was worth $619 million (US). Including the rest of the Open Source / Free Software world must surely be significantly more than ten times the value.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 8, 2006 22:03 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] Nice pointer; thanks.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 3:13 UTC (Mon) by mepr (guest, #4819) [Link] While I agree that the linux platform (where by linux I'm referring to the whole operating environment found in redhat or suse or ubuntu.. gnu utilities, mit X11, gnome/kde/blackbox etc., mozilla, openoffice, etc., etc.) is most certainly worth more than $6bn, don't forget the claim is $6bn per /year/.
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 9, 2006 4:00 UTC (Mon) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link] The per anum The per annum value of work being done on Linux in the open source world is greater than $6B. The R&D aspect is on par with any of the great powerhouses (like MIT or IBM).
Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) Posted Jan 10, 2006 8:28 UTC (Tue) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] Don't forget. David Wheeler estimated the value of the *current* kernel. Somewhere else you can find out how much work has been done on the kernels.
iirc about two thirds of the code of 2.6 is new since 2.4. So it's easy to do the maths and work out the "per year" value of the new code in linux if you have the figures and dates in front of you (I don't).
Cheers,
Estimating development costs Posted Jan 9, 2006 15:06 UTC (Mon) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] Thanks very much for the reference! The paper referenced above measured only the kernel. If you want to examine the whole OS, you could look at my paper More than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size (June 2001). Here are a few interesting facts quoting from the paper (which measures Red Hat Linux 7.1):
Someone else, inspired by my paper, wrote the very interesting paper Counting Potatoes: The size of Debian 2.2; they found that Debian 2.2 includes more than 55 million physical SLOC, and would have cost nearly $1.9 billion USD using over 14,000 person-years to develop using traditional proprietary techniques. Obviously Red Hat Linux 7.1 and Debian 2.2 are quite old. Red Hat 7.1, for example, didn't include massive packages like OpenOffice.org. So the actual development costs of current implementations would be even greater. And note that these only estimate replacement cost, not value. A lot of research has gone into developing competing approaches and new ideas, and if only the "winner" went in, the effort that went into the alternatives isn't counted (and it really should be, because those alternatives cost time and caused a better result).
Estimating development costs Posted Jan 9, 2006 17:53 UTC (Mon) by jukabazooka (guest, #35067) [Link] If anyone is interested, some preliminary results for Debian 3.1 have been released as well at http://gsyc.escet.urjc.es/~jjamor/research/papers/up6-3Am... .
Some statistics:
Total physical SLOC (Source Lines of Code): 229,495,824
Comparison of Source Lines of Code with other systems:
Windows XP (2002) - 40,000,000
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