Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot) [LWN.net]

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted May 26, 2006 17:53 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link]

> Wine is a neat hack, but it's important to see the big picture,
> that windoze apps in wine is a temporary kludge, and unacceptable as a
> long term strategy.

Sure, there is life after Wine. There's also life after Linux in
the bigger picture.

> Native linux apps must be written, and vendors must get familiar
> with the linux API

Sure, and how do you expect "vendors" (don't forget most software
is written in-house) to such justify such an investment? When there
are no Linux users?

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted May 26, 2006 21:03 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]

>Sure, and how do you expect "vendors" (don't forget most software is written in-house) to such justify such an investment? When there are no Linux users?

no linux users?

hello? you do realize where you are posting, right?

You are asking for justification for a vendor's investment in basic linux competency? Why ask me? Either a vendor wants to be a player in the marketplace or they don't. Oracle and others figured it out some time ago.

Back to the main point - in the long run, the linux API will either get developer mindshare, or it will languish in obscurity. Depending on hand me down windows software is not a viable long term strategy. Even if we could forget about the possibility of microsoft bringing a DMCA style legal challenge against wine, do you suppose linux will ever get any truly excellent software if nobody ever writes to the linux API? Do we really want to depend on crumbs from the win32 table as a key strategy moving forward?

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted May 26, 2006 21:22 UTC (Fri) by hansl (subscriber, #5086) [Link]

> no linux users?

Exactly. My girlfriend is only a Linux user because I was able
to get IKEA kitchen planner, Head shoulders knees and toes (teletubbies)
and the dutch Tax program to run on Wine.

See? It's not about Oracle. These programs will not get ported,
not in the near term, and they are the only ones that my girlfriend
needs besides what's there natively.

She *is* a Linux user (no Windows license needed), so in the end
she may actually be a reason for IKEA to decide to port their apps
to Linux natively.

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted Jun 1, 2006 18:56 UTC (Thu) by kamil (subscriber, #3802) [Link]

Didn't Dutch tax office release a Linux version of their software for 2005? I thought I saw it at their website...

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted Sep 10, 2006 18:02 UTC (Sun) by Wrosmo (guest, #40426) [Link]

How did you get IKEA Kitchen Planner to work with wine?

I am using IKEA KP version 2007 and wine 0.9.17 and it installs but won't run.

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted Jun 7, 2006 9:21 UTC (Wed) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

no linux users?
hello? you do realize where you are posting, right?

Yes, but that's no reason to close the eyes in front of reality. Picassa is a desktop application for generic users, and in this target audience there are only a miniscule amount of Linux users. (Engineering applications is another matter.) That missing market makes it hard to spend the budget.

Either a vendor wants to be a player in the marketplace or they don't. Oracle and others figured it out some time ago.

That's a strawman, and a bad one at that. Oracle doesn't play in the generic users desktop market, that's server market. And there Linux got a foothold due to applications like netfilter, Apache, and free DBMSes, (i.e., LAMP) where no application existed with the same functionality or with an adequate price tag. After the Linux servers were already there (and because of the free DBMSes) Oracle and other ISVs decided that there is a market and one can develop for it.

But that's not the case for the desktop market. There is no application in sight that is good enough that generic desktop users switch to Linux just to use it, as it was with LAMP for the servers, creating a market that's relevant enough for ISVs.

Cheers, Joachim

On OS/2's win32 compatibility

Posted May 26, 2006 19:51 UTC (Fri) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link]

OS/2's win32 compatibility died because IBM didn't have the willpower to
implement or maintain win32 compatibility themselves, and because their
win32 layer wasn't open source and thus couldn't be maintained by the users.
(The Odin project was open source, but it came along too late to save OS/2.)

Wine does not suffer from that problem. There is nothing standing
in your way if you really want Linux to run a Windows app;
a relatively small investment would get many commercial apps running.
And because Wine is open and free, every additional company that makes
that investment makes it easier for others to follow. That is what
makes the Linux + Wine story more promising than the OS/2 + Win32s story.

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted May 26, 2006 20:02 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

OS/2 would have done fine without any native development if there had been an easy way for users to end up running Windows programs on OS/2 systems. But nobody was selling machines that would default to booting OS/2, not even IBM. If Wine on Linux were a better Windows than Windows, and were cheaper, and had better driver support in the OS install, people would end up using Wine on Linux, and then vendors would have to compete for these users with native Linux applications, which get the advantage of integrating with the underlying system.

Furthermore, Linux doesn't need more vendor support than it currently has to be viable (since it's been doing fine for years), whereas OS/2 really needed additional adoption right then.

Google Releases Picasa for Linux (Slashdot)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 12:03 UTC (Sun) by kreutzm (guest, #4700) [Link]

Actually a large computer chain here in Germany sold OS/2 machines quite succesfully. Rumours are that IBM killed it themselfs because they wanted to phase out OS/2 from the general marketplace.