competition is good?

Posted Mar 25, 2007 14:27 UTC (Sun) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]

I don't buy the argument that gnome is needed because it's better to have less configurability than what KDE offers, if that was a valid reason then gnome would consist of a very limited configuration tool for KDE.

While I think it's good for the individual to be able to choose what project they work on, I still don't think that it's better for users to have several competing implementations of the same solution, unless the point of those different projects is to figure out what the best solution is before EOLing the others.

Your example with the flash players is a good one, clearly it would suck to have to work on a project that has horrendous code, so you might be happier to just work on your own project in stead, but that doesn't mean that you will make progress any faster than the first project or that the resulting product will be any better, it just means that you will be happier.

I think it would have been better if the first project didn't have horrendous code and if you had chosen to work on the first project in stead.

I'm not saying that a hacker should be banned from starting on a competing project, just that it would be better if he chose to help the first one.

Posted Mar 29, 2007 19:24 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

As a KDE user that appreciates the level of configurability it offers,
this is what I like about GNOME. There's an honest disagreement on UI
goals and styles, and GNOME is somewhere for those who disagree to go, so
they don't bother the KDE folks and try to limit the options some of us
like to use! I /hate/ trying to use GNOME, because it makes me feel
limited and locked down. However, I'm /very/ glad it's there, because I'd
a whole lot rather those in favor of such a thing have their own sandbox
to play in than try to impose their limitations on mine.

Additionally, the point made that FLOSS isn't a zero-sum game definitely
applies. Many coders are volunteers. You can't force volunteers to work
together to create the "ideal" (how ever you want to define it) project,
because it just doesn't work that way. If they like where it's headed,
they'll naturally put more hours into getting it there. If they don't,
they'll go elsewhere if possible, or simply find something else to do if
not. Thus, KDE/GNOME/XFCE/whatever isn't wasted effort, but simply those
with the talent finding the project that best matches their ideal, that
best stimulates them to contribute more towards its progress, and forcing
a one size fits all wouldn't get everyone working on the same thing to
make it advance faster, it would cause many to stop working entirely (or
again start branch projects if the could, which is in practice what
happens, because there's simply no way to force it in FLOSS).

The same of course applies to all the other "wars", vi/emacs, etc.

The first point doesn't so much apply in the flash case, due to the spec
already being laid out such that our implementations either work or don't.
However, the second point continues to apply. Trying to force just a
single project won't have the desired effect of speeding things up,
because being volunteers, some now contributing to the other project will
simply find other things to do with that time instead. In fact, due to
the cross-proliferation of ideas and friendly competition between the
projects, forcing a single project would likely slow things down
dramatically, because that would be lost.

Meanwhile, I have gnash merged here, but haven't found it all that
practical. Generally, I see the thing load, but it won't play anything.
I guess I'll have to try swfdec and see if I have any better luck. To my
knowledge, given I'm running amd64 in 64-bit, even if I was able to
legally run slaveryware (in general, I legally can't, since EULAs are
potentially binding here and I can't agree to the EULA, as they restrict
freedoms I'm no longer willing to sign away), even then there'd be serious
hoops to jump thru in ordered to get the proprietary flash player working,
since AFAIK there's no native 64-bit version.

Duncan

Posted Mar 30, 2007 10:16 UTC (Fri) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]

WRT GNOME choosing C, that is widely regarded as a mistake or at least widely enough that Miguel shares that point of view.

Choosing C over C++ is really not a forgivable offense when talking about desktop applications IMHO.

I guess I should specify what I meant by "direct competition", MS-CIFS doesn't compete directly with SAMBA as it's not Open Source and thus not available to everyone that SAMBA is available to.

The same is true with GCC, lcc is not Free software and doesn't come close to GCCs abilities.

gnutls does seem to try to compete with openssl and there are certain smaller Free ssh implementations (dropbear for one), but they do not have nearly as wide a deployment (I certainly had never heard of gnutls before) so both openssl and openssh can be said to have a monopoly.

The BSD kernels could be seen as competitors to Linux, but again there is no direct competition, as BSD is a whole other OS, when was the last time you swapped out Linux with the BSD kernel on your system?

That being said I don't think forcing anyone to do anything is ever a good idea, so I fully respect peoples rights to choose what projects to work on.

All I'm saying is that the situation is much better when a single good project dominates without any competition than when there are n+1 crappy competing projects.

Having a single good project might not always be possible, but when it is it can be very, very good in deed.