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HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols covers
HP's decision to ship PCs with WebOS. "Regardless of the PC's maker the idea is always the same: Give Windows users a really fast-to-boot and safe operating system that they can use for Web browsing. In part, that's what HP will be doing with webOS. It's more than that though. HP really wants webOS to be more than just an also-ran in the new tablet operating system world. Indeed, with this move HP has made it clear that wants to be a desktop operating system power as well."
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HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 10, 2011 22:43 UTC (Thu) by linuxjacques (subscriber, #45768) [Link]
I can't see Microsoft allowing this.
One look at the new price of Windows licenses and HP will decide to go another way.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 1:42 UTC (Fri) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Microsoft has been playing a different game, manipulate board members to hire an "X" Microsoft C level type as the CEO ala Nokia. A much better tactic than fiddling about with licenses.
Actually they do both... Posted Mar 11, 2011 6:03 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Microsoft leaves nothing to chance. It fiddles with licenses, and when it does not work it they send usurpers. HP is big but troubled, so it's not clear which tactic will be used this time.
Actually they do both... Posted Mar 11, 2011 10:47 UTC (Fri) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Good point. HP lost its moxie a long time ago. To bad really.
Actually they do both... Posted Mar 12, 2011 0:19 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
That loss is directly attributable to a CEO named Carly Fiona. Rather than innovate and improve sales through growth she took the cheap way out, gutted R&D, destroyed the calculator division and a dozen other significant alterations resulting in some quick savings over her very short reign. The payment is coming due for those changes now.
No American company can successfully compete without R&D and innovation in a free trade world where Chinese companies are willing to have ROI of less than 1% and labor costs 1/10th the US. Carly destroyed HP, they probably have another 5-10 years of slow painful decline before they are absorbed by another company. This is the result of short term investing and a stock market dominated by institutional investing where there is no accountability other than tomorrows stock price.
Actually they do both... Posted Mar 12, 2011 12:52 UTC (Sat) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Oh you get no argument from me about that. In my eyes she is solely accountable and I think you are right about them eventually being absorbed by another company, though the name will be kept so it can be used as marketing Kool-Ade.
Actually they do both... Posted Mar 12, 2011 20:20 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
... and because Chinese names do not sell well (tonal + logographic = quite challenging)
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 12:37 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
This isn't a new tactic. Microsoft has been using executive warfare for over a decade now.
See the history of SGI in the late 90s.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 5:35 UTC (Fri) by gnsa (guest, #73543) [Link]
Why don't you Linux people just forget it?
The Linus Torvalds and FSF models are failing today.
Your mailing-lists and foundations are simply not working.
Linux is basically a failure against the monopoly Microsoft.
You Linux people are not getting beyond 1% market share.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 6:34 UTC (Fri) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
Where do you get this 1% number.
Have a look at top500.org and you'll see a totally different thing.
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 11, 2011 6:58 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
Not to mention 30%+ of the US phone market, and probably more than 80% of the switch / router market. In France, people use *boxes to access phone/internet/TV, and all of them run Linux.
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 11, 2011 11:43 UTC (Fri) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
> In France, people use *boxes to access phone/internet/TV, and all of them run Linux.
Any news on the GPL compliance of this one?
Freebox, Livebox and Neufbox Posted Mar 11, 2011 16:05 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
Well, they don't sell the boxes and as such don't distribute them. The box remains the propriety of the operator. Thus, they don't have to distribute the source code to anybody.
Some people stopped their subscription and did not return the box, and so had to pay some fees. The tried to pretend that they had thus bought the box, but the operator in question (Free) argued that the fees were not to pay for the box itself, but a compensation for the theft of said box by the ex-subscriber... or something similar.
IANAL, but I believe they do not infringe the GPL, though they _do_ p*** off a lot of people.
Freebox, Livebox and Neufbox Posted Mar 12, 2011 9:43 UTC (Sat) by thebohemian (guest, #38715) [Link]
Neufbox sourcecode: http://www.efixo.com/neufbox4/freesoftware/
According to these news (http://www.telecompaper.com/news/sfr-publishes-open-sourc...) Orange also published their sourcecode.
Disclaimer: Haven't checked whether the sourcecode builds and is exactly the same as on my rented Neufbox. Partially because I've no clue how to access the box on a telnet/ssh level.
Freebox, Livebox and Neufbox Posted Mar 14, 2011 10:50 UTC (Mon) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
> Well, they don't sell the boxes and as such don't distribute them.
Well, they will probably claim the opposite when their box catch fire and it destroy hour house.
Freebox, Livebox and Neufbox Posted Mar 14, 2011 12:37 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] I would expect it to be set up as "you rent this box for the duration of your service contract; the rental fee is included in the service charge". As such, I would expect their legal liability if the box caused a fire to be much the same as if you were renting your television and it caught fire.
Freebox, Livebox and Neufbox Posted Mar 14, 2011 14:03 UTC (Mon) by etienne (subscriber, #25256) [Link]
I wonder when a company will begin to rent complete PC with "uncrashable" Linux installed and no source, with a rent duration being the life of the PC...
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 11, 2011 15:16 UTC (Fri) by dbruce (subscriber, #57948) [Link]
Increasingly, consumer electronics that aren't even thought of as "computers" run linux - e.g. television sets. I bought a LG flatscreen last year and was pleasantly surprised to come across a "GPL Compliance Statement" in the owner's manual related to the set's 2.6.xx linux kernel.
MS is holding onto the desktop/laptop monopoly fairly successfully, but the desktop's importance goes down every year as people do more computing on other devices. And outside the desktop/laptop, MS has been much less successful. Their server business is healthy, but they have nothing like the monopoly they have on the desktop. The Xbox is successful. Their phone platforms and mp3 players have been spectacular failures.
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 11, 2011 15:41 UTC (Fri) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link]
Same thing with our Samsung DVB-T HD tuner. Lots of consumer-level devices are running Linux. It would be hard to tell, but I guess counting phones plus appliances would give Linux an install base comparable to that of Windows.
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 12, 2011 0:23 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
The XBox is successful only if you look at number of units sold without regard to costs. At $5Billion and counting they will never ever recoup the XBOX investment. That's a failure in my book.
Feeding the stupid troll Posted Mar 12, 2011 5:05 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
It's -- at least in part -- a strategic investment, same as Sony with the PS3, Apple's hate-on for WebM and Flash, and Google's jaw-dropping valuation of YouTube. These are all companies who are hoping they can be the toll-collectors on tomorrow's TV's.
If it works, $5billion is trivial. Too early to say.
(It also helped them push DirectX into the game industry, which had the side-effect of locking-in Windows' dominance as the standard PC gaming platform. Hard to tell how much that's worth in dollar terms, though.)
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 6:59 UTC (Fri) by nyfle (guest, #72967) [Link]
I take it you've not heard of Android, then.
/trollfood
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 7:57 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I guess I need to tell my boss that Linux has no future.
The brokerage and banking industry of the United States is going to be disappointed that they have to migrate everything over to NT.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 12, 2011 0:25 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
I think disappointed isn't the right word. Suicidal is probably a better word.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 12, 2011 16:15 UTC (Sat) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link]
If US banking runs on Linux, I'm impressed. The UK banking system, AFAICT, apparently runs on IBM mainframes emulating older IBM mainframes running some black-box individual-bank-specific financial transaction processor written in the 1970s (on top of an early version of CICS) for which the source was lost two decades ago. And are too afraid to change to anything newer. (ANABanker, just friends with a junior IBM programmer).
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 14, 2011 13:47 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Your sarcasm detector needs upgrading.
(And note that the UK banking system != the UK financial system: most of the stock-trading world is now on Linux or migrating there as fast as it can.)
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 16, 2011 13:33 UTC (Wed) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link] ...I'm not sure what in my comment made you think that I didn't realise drag's comment was sarcastic..? I was making an aside about the implication that the banking system currently runs on Linux. (And yes, his comment did say "brokerage and banking industry", my comment was about the 'banking' part).
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 8:29 UTC (Fri) by danielpf (subscriber, #4723) [Link]
You know what? This is the first year I can send back routinely odt files to those correspondants mailing me doc files to edit. When a glitch occurs I can just tell them the Word conversion of an open standard is unfortunately low quality, they should switch to a free office suite.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 8:39 UTC (Fri) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]
A comment filtering feature reminder.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 12:19 UTC (Fri) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link]
DON'T FEED THE TROLL.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 12:42 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
What is with the invasion of logic-impaired BSD trolls lately, anyway? What attracted them?
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 13:41 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Some say you have to. In fact, you have to firmly but gently educate them. Come on, do a favor and enlighten those new readers that are not informed enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And this time you get excused for accidentally pressing caps lock, but don't do it again, please ;-)
what a silly troll Posted Mar 11, 2011 12:36 UTC (Fri) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]
Oh dear - I guess I'll have to stop educating my students. Bit difficult to research and teach how operating systems and security work without source code students can read and modify and collaborate over. That means I'll probably have to go back the the helldesk where I came from ;).
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 12:56 UTC (Fri) by TheCoffeMaker (guest, #73552) [Link]
Well ... here at HP we can see a lot of movements around OpenSource software ... the teams that works on Proliant Servers and that provide services to other companies are continually working on kernel and software to maintain everything up and running ... actually ... HP is the only hardware vendor that provides client support for GNU/Linux Debian on HP Proliant Servers.
But the point here was about WebOS ... well ... be aware ... we are going to see WebOS everywhere ... actually ... I think that this move of putting WebOS on notebooks is a really good thing ... Companies like SONY actually are shipping their notebooks with Linux ... not as main OS, but yes as instant-on OS ... for the future ... WebOS will be everywhere ... printers, phones, tables and notebooks ... but ... in the phone market ... I really don't know if it will have a good piece of cake ... Android is taking a good share of market.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 13:45 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] HP is the only hardware vendor that provides client support for GNU/Linux Debian on HP Proliant ServersThat's not a terribly surprising statement. Why would another hardware vendor want to provide support for any operating system on HP hardware?
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 14:10 UTC (Fri) by TheCoffeMaker (guest, #73552) [Link]
It's better to support than not do it at all ... obviously HP will not support another vendor's hardware nor other vendors will support Proliant ... it's obvious ... my statement was intended to denote that HP supports Linux, not at level entry hardware, but yes at entertrise level.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 15:12 UTC (Fri) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
We know what you mean, but you did phrase it poorly -- what you want to say is "HP is the only hardware vendor that supports Debian GNU/Linux on their servers".
Which raises the question -- has there been studies on the customer profile that would pay for support for Debian, rather than, say, RHEL/SLES/Ubuntu Server?
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 15:26 UTC (Fri) by leomilano (guest, #32220) [Link]
Well, again, that was a pedantic response to the original post. I read LWN because of the value of the comments.This sort of attitude doesn't help, really.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 16:10 UTC (Fri) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
You're aware the the CTO of HP is Bdale Garbee[1] right? HP has a soft spot for Debian as he was once the DPL[2] and from my understanding is still a Debian Developer.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bdale_Garbee
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 19:18 UTC (Fri) by jku (subscriber, #42379) [Link]
Bdale is not _the_ CTO of HP, he is the "Linux CTO" of HP. I'm guessing those positions have a significant difference in power.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 12, 2011 9:33 UTC (Sat) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]
"Open Source & Linux Chief Technologist", according to LinkedIn. But yes, I believe there are quite a few CTOs for different areas at HP.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 15:13 UTC (Fri) by leomilano (guest, #32220) [Link]
It's nice to have someone from HP post here. From my perspective, the important question is: am I going to be able to buy a desktop or laptop with WebOS _only_? (as opposed to be forced to pay the MS tax) Do you know if that will be the case? Thanks!
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 16:30 UTC (Fri) by zzxtty (subscriber, #45175) [Link]
I don't work for HP or any other hardware manufacturer. My feeling for this is that it is highly unlikely for consumer computers at the present time. A hardware manufacturer will have a production line, there will be added cost in forking this to produce laptops without an OS install (or with an alternative OS). In addition they will be making money from the **apware they install on Windows, if they don't install windows they lose this revenue stream.
As much as I'd like to avoid the Windows tax I doubt there is really that much of a market. They will end up charging more for the same hardware (or worse as has been the case in the past) because it will cost them more to handle a small number of machines in a new configuration.
The server market is a whole different kettle of fish. I've just ordered up a £6k hp server without an OS, compare this to the cost of consumer devices and think about the mark-up involved. Consumer devices are stamped out as quickly, simply, and as cheaply as possible, which means you get Windows. Is it really that bad that your hardware is being subsidised by Adobe/Norton/etc? Have a chuckle at the thought of all those poor Windows users who have to spend 2 hours removing all the demo software from their brand new PC, and then have to go through the process again when they rebuild it after getting infected by deity knows what!
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 17:28 UTC (Fri) by leomilano (guest, #32220) [Link]
Yes, well, desktops I don't care too much because I can build them, or buy from white box folks (my current build is from portatech, but there are dozens). Laptops are a different story. I bought the first Linux eeepc netbooks, and then two Dell notebooks with Linux preinstalled (Vostros A90 and V13).
Every time you buy a computer with Windows, you help MS increase their apparent market share, and contribute cash they'll use to fight open source, like they did with Nokia. So, I'll rather not buy a computer with MS software, even if cheaper. Simple as that, this is not about cost. Their management chose to be evil, so I vote with my wallet.
BTW: Dell still sells lots of hardware with Ubuntu, it is all offered in the small business area of their page.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 15, 2011 12:37 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
I used to build, but currently I prefer to buy from one of the small Linux vendors (e.g. System76 or ZaReason)
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 17, 2011 7:48 UTC (Thu) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
You talk about crapware and Microsoft and there was this really weird article recently:
'Not only is Microsoft reselling select Windows 7 PCs normally sold by its hardware partners, but the company is making sure they come only with the software it wants.'
..
'"Trial ware is removed from the PC," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars.'
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/microsoft-s...
I wonder what they are up to.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 16:54 UTC (Fri) by jmrllc (guest, #61624) [Link]
Why do opposing opinions have to be considered trolls even before judging the relevancy of it or the sincerity of the statement. As a subscriber to LWN I would like to think that opposing opinions are welcome.
I personally think having an environment that "gets you to the web faster", measured in sometimes seconds faster is redundant. It seems like a desperate attempt to use Linux "somewhere" if not where we all hoped it would be, running as "the" operating system on the machine. I know the article was more about the WebOS devices but I know Dell is supposedly shipping a certain portion of their PCs with this pre-Windows environment. I'm starting to think it's best to except the absolute strengths of Linux as a superior server and developer friendly operating system and be done with it. As an Ubuntu user (which is the user friendly Linux) I have every release over time had either hardware stop working or have it work in an undesirable manner. For instance the latest is the dimmer for the laptop backlight doesn't work
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 11, 2011 18:06 UTC (Fri) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link] Why do opposing opinions have to be considered trolls even before judging the relevancy of it or the sincerity of the statementWhat makes you think anything of the sort happened here? Given the contents of the post in question it clearly is a (poor) troll.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 15, 2011 0:30 UTC (Tue) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
> I personally think having an environment that "gets you to the web
> faster", measured in sometimes seconds faster is redundant.
The main goal is to have an environment that is idiot-proof, because it gives you fewer choices and features. You may not agree with this, but that is the goal.
Having WebOS also means that HP may eventually not have to pay the Windows tax on some computers it sells. Or, more likely, it will use WebOS as a bargaining chip to push Microsoft to lower its licensing fees.
> [WebOS] seems like a desperate attempt to use Linux "somewhere" if not
WebOS uses Linux as "the" operating system on "the" machine. It may not be the same version of Linux you know, but you need to expand your horizons.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 15, 2011 12:03 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
> I personally think having an environment that "gets you to the web faster", measured in sometimes seconds faster is redundant.
Very well, that's your opinion. I do use a Ubuntu laptop that boots in about a minute. I would _love_ to be able to just power it up and be surfing the web in less than, say, 15 seconds to quickly check something with google. Of course, it would be better to be up and running with the whole OS in that time, but it's a start.
> I'm starting to think it's best to except the absolute strengths of Linux as a superior server and developer friendly operating system and be done with it.
Recipe good for disaster. One day you carve your niche, the next day the niche disappears and you're dead. Are you _sure_ that development and servers are the future? What if you're wrong?
No, the only way forward is _trying_ to be as good as we can at everything. One needs to be more humble: we do not know what the future holds, which branches will actually produce fruit and which will not.
And if your laptop's backlight is not working properly is probably because some developer doesn't own the hardware to properly test it. You could help him and yourself, give him a hand.
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 17, 2011 7:48 UTC (Thu) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
It is kind of funny, I have Ubuntu on a fast SSD and the BIOS is actually the slowest part of the startup sequence. Ubuntu on SSD is faster.
So I would really like to see a system where I can just use coreboot. I don't care about having an extra instanton environment. What the manufacturer delivered is actually already the slowest part. :-)
HP: The Linux Desktop Company (ZDNet) Posted Mar 12, 2011 9:48 UTC (Sat) by thebohemian (guest, #38715) [Link]
Hey HP guys,
is that webOS you're planning to distribute 'everywhere' still based on OpenEmbedded (albeit a years old fork from it)?
Maybe the article is wrong Posted Mar 17, 2011 7:53 UTC (Thu) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
I've seen this on OSNews:
"Second, webOS for PCs will see its first beta at the end of the year, and will run... Inside a browser."
http://www.osnews.com/story/24524/TouchPad_in_June_webOS_...
Most likely a seperate application which mostly is just an embedded browser.
Or will it have both an instant-on and browser-based environment ?
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