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Free is too expensive (Economist)Free is too expensive (Economist)Posted Mar 30, 2012 20:58 UTC (Fri) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136)In reply to: Free is too expensive (Economist) by jcm Parent article: Free is too expensive (Economist)
They want flash, so give it to them. Don't put on the "holier than thou" hat and tell them they can't have it, because they don't care. So, it needs to be trivial for users to download commercial software that they want to choose to add (choice) to their system and for it to just work against a standard platform.Didn't you just described (K)ubuntu?
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Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 30, 2012 21:05 UTC (Fri) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]
Nope :) I don't want to "apt-get install" software, or "yum install" software, I want to be able to go to a website on my Linux Desktop, click on "download this application for Linux" and have it just install and work. I believe it is long since not the time for distros to carry every piece of software someone might want. Ingo articulates these comments very well in comparing where we are to Android Market and things like that - many people would be better off listening to what he says, and taking it seriously.
That's all I'm going to say on the topic in the interest of my blood pressure, etc. But please, do let's think about articles like this one. People en masse read things like the Economist, which has more than an order of magnitude higher readership than (excellent) websites like LWN. Put another way, in general, those who make IT purchasing decisions are far more likely to read and be influenced by stories like that one.
Jon.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 30, 2012 21:15 UTC (Fri) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link] Nope :) (...) I want to be able to go to a website on my Linux Desktop, click on "download this application for Linux" and have it just install and work.But that's what I have in Kubuntu. I go to youtube and when I click on a button "install missing plugins" or something like that it does what I want. :)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 30, 2012 21:31 UTC (Fri) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]
> click on "download this application for Linux"
The current package management frameworks already allows for that option.
The software vendor also has the option of providing a Windows style GUI installer. These have been commonplace since the mid 90s. The developer can also provide a self contained tarball.
The far bigger problem is the perception that the market is too small to bother with.
In general, downloading things from random sources doesn't seem to be where the market is going. Android and Apple are great examples of this. Furthermore, the old approach of downloading things from random websites doesn't always work out nearly as well as some people like to pretend. That's probably why the market is moving away from that.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 30, 2012 22:34 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The current package management frameworks already allows for that option. Rilly? How to do this? Note that jcm said: I want to be able to go to a website on my Linux Desktop, click on "download this application for Linux" and have it just install and work. If it's single link then obviously this is a single package which supports most of the Linux distributions and support both 32bit and 64bit flavors in the same package. Oh, and it supports different versions, too. I've already asked about the possibility and got nice explanation for why I can not do what I want. Which is exactly what the articles like that one are talking about. The software vendor also has the option of providing a Windows style GUI installer. This is possible, but it's non-trivial, too. Essential ABIs are routinely rearranged and broken. LSB was supposed to offer some stable foundation, but it's not a platform, it's a joke: it does not support neither audio nor video output. For desktop in 2012 this is totally unacceptable. The far bigger problem is the perception that the market is too small to bother with. It's much worse: the perception is that market will never grow. WP7 has less users and more programs right now because people believe in Microsoft. They don't believe in Linux.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 30, 2012 23:41 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] If it's single link then obviously this is a single package which supports most of the Linux distributions and support both 32bit and 64bit flavors in the same package. Oh, and it supports different versions, too. I've already asked about the possibility and got nice explanation for why I can not do what I want. Of course you can do what you want. The app store will know what sort of machine you have and what Linux distribution is installed, and will magically send you the correct package for your system. We don't need to futz around with packages containing several sets of binaries and stuff like that. After all, the Google app store knows what sort of phone you have and can tell you beforehand whether an app will run on it, so there's no reason why a similar approach could not work for Linux. You will probably at some point have to register your machine with the app store (once). It would be up to the app developer to provide the appropriate packages. Something like the SUSE build service might be helpful there. The app store could even (optionally) do the building/packaging on behalf of the developer. There would in any case be no guarantee that any app was available for any distribution/architecture combination, much like Android apps today don't run on every single device out there. If we ever manage to agree on a reasonable standardised platform for third-party apps then so much the better, but it's not essential for the concept to work.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 7:43 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
The average Linux application can barely manage to provide a tarball and an Ubuntu/Debian .deb (which will only work on a few recent versions of Ubuntu). This leaves other distros out in the cold, and even slightly older Ubuntu versions can't easily get many apps.
Desktop Linux doesn't need radical innovations. It just needs a stable core and ABI that doesn't change for 5-10 years (like Windows XP) where you can install any application on "Linux Platform 1".
I'm on the cusp of uninstalling desktop Linux having used it as my main desktop for about 5 years now, and after a decade plus of using Linux generally. Mostly because I'm past the phase when spending a lot of time on getting Linux to work was fun, and I just want my desktop PC to work, with all the hardware enabled, no sound problems, no full screen Flash requiring a reboot, no frequent Firefox hangs for 30 sec, etc.
I will still keep Linux for web software development in a VM, but for that I only need a server distro, where Linux is currently much better suited. I will also use desktop Linux for an elderly relative where it has all the applications needed, mostly, and for servers.
It's a great shame - Windows is as prone to viruses as ever since nobody keeps their third party apps up to date. I've had three mass emails recently from Windows trojans, including one from a techie with up to date antivirus. So there is definitely a niche for Linux as something that's more secure than Windows, but supports third party hardware unlike OS X.
One problem with the stable core + app store model for Linux is security updates - without something like Secunia PSI (a free vulnerability alerts and updates tool that's only possible due to funded high-end vulnerability management tools), it could be more painful to ensure that security related updates are done. If the app store tool only does 'update all apps', some vendors will end up taking features away after you have paid for them (infrequent but has happened on the iOS app store).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 23:42 UTC (Sat) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
> Mostly because I'm past the phase when spending a lot of time on getting Linux to work was fun, and I just want my desktop PC to work, with all the hardware enabled, no sound problems, no full screen Flash requiring a reboot, no frequent Firefox hangs for 30 sec, etc.
I'm sorry for you, but which distro are you using? None of my machines (and I use a few) exhibit such problems. All hardware works, no exceptions. No sound problems whatsoever, full screen Flash just works (why would it require a reboot?), and Firefox hasn't crashed any single time in a long time (maybe a year?), but I actually prefer Chromium. Are you sure your motherboard and memory are working OK?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 0:24 UTC (Sun) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] You're just lucky. In my experience pulseaudio is enough to turn any machine into a never-ending source of audio problems. I've learned how to get back to a functional sound system when it messes up, but having to do this every 3rd or 4th time I suspend or reboot is way past being fun. Full screen flash works on my laptop screen, but using it on a large monitor tends to lock up the video (various generations of integrated Intel chips) requiring a full reset. I don't see how you can blame Flash problems on the distro, and I don't think any of this can be attributed to hardware problems. Just two examples of really poor software quality, one from each side of the free/closed divide. We suffer either way.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 5:56 UTC (Sun) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
I`ve had my share of pulseaudio problems a few years back, but never the last years. wifi and graphics still caused problems, but this was always due to nondisclosed specs.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 8:16 UTC (Sun) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
I've mostly used Ubuntu 8.04 LTS - here are a few of the problems, all on hardware carefully chosen for reliability (Gigabyte ultra durable etc) and Linux compatibility:
- Ubuntu server - kernel panic due to WiFi driver, had to install kernel from 8.10 - this on a WiFi card chosen for compatibility
- Ubuntu desktop with 11.04 LTS
- Ubuntu desktop (main PC), NVidia 7900 then GTX260:
- frequent hangs/freezes over some months - solved by irqpoll and all_ide_generic on kernel command line
This isn't remotely all the problems, just perhaps the 10% that were most serious. Lots of other problems with sound have caused problems, and my Dell 3115cn printer still won't print with correct size from some applications.
It's not just one PC, nor just one distro version, though it has all been Ubuntu. Since Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro it's reasonable to assume it should work OK, and most of these versions were LTS which is supposed to be stable - I usually wait 6 months after LTS for key bugs to be fixed.
Meanwhile, Windows 7 is really quite stable - it has some problems on my laptop PC with lots of corporate overhead, but on two other PCs it works rather well. These two are almost never rebooted. I also multi-boot into Windows XP for gaming, which is quite problem free. I do have many more minor application-level problems with the Windows systems, but that's partly due to who's using them (less techie person) or what they are doing (HTPC).
Linux takes a lot less maintenance once it's working correctly (easy apt-get type updates, no need to reboot, no antivirus overhead), but Windows in my experience is much easier to get working with all hardware functioning correctly, working full screen Flash, etc.
I am quite geeky e.g. building own kernel occasionally, getting a small fix into Apache 2.0, writing wiki code, etc.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 12:55 UTC (Sun) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link]
My experience is the exact opposite.
I usually get Ubuntu working within an hour, another hour to install all the neccessary software I need, and then maybe 2-4 hours more to hunt down any additional problems (getting WiFi to work, Suspend/Resume, sound maybe...) - and those problems become less and less with each release.
Windows, in contrast, take around 1 hour to install, one more hour to locate all drivers to non-functioning hardware and peripherals (and try to avoid installing the associated crapware in the process), and then I have to spend several hours installing the software I use (again dodging a slew of crapware).
Not saying either is better, but both ecosystems have their faults.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 15:59 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]
"It's not just one PC, nor just one distro version, though it has all been Ubuntu. Since Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro it's reasonable to assume it should work OK, and most of these versions were LTS which is supposed to be stable - I usually wait 6 months after LTS for key bugs to be fixed."
You make two assumptions: That Ubuntu should have the least problems among distros and that their LTS version actually provides bug fixes and back ports. Unfortunately for you, you are wrong on both assumptions.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 16:05 UTC (Sun) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Ubuntu has got worse over the years, but this illustrates the problem with desktop Linux - if the most popular distro is actually a bad choice, you need to be even more expert to choose the right one (and configure it, as Ubuntu is generally easy to set up, though with too many bugs).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 19:04 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]
I think this illustrates the problems with Ubuntu, and what Ubuntu promises its users. I do not know what the "desktop Linux" community can do about that.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 11:01 UTC (Mon) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] Ubuntu isn't alone. Problems like this appear on every distribution, old stable and brand new... and they're usually never fixed. The answer, instead, is to upgrade to the new release which may have fixes and certainly breaks other things.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 10:47 UTC (Mon) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
> It just needs a stable core and ABI that doesn't change for 5-10 years
> (like Windows XP) where you can install any application on "Linux Platform > 1".
And what exactly is part of that ABI? Some hundreds of libraries? You expect those not being updated for years?
By the way, XP doesn't have "a stable ABI" either. Every program comes bundled with a shitload of libraries, even system-libraries, so it can run on XP. So the whole point is moot, unless you propose everything to bundle its own librabry or link statically.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 14:47 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>And what exactly is part of that ABI? Some hundreds of libraries?
Windowing toolkit, audio, video, 3D, base system.
>You expect those not being updated for years?
Microsoft does this just fine with Win32 ABI.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:22 UTC (Mon) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]
Part of Linux is choice.
If you choose to not be the target market for the kinds of developers that provide this mythical sort of web installation experience that doesn't really exist for Windows either, then that's your choice.
A Gentoo user should not be surprised that game developers are not catering to them.
Linux gives you the ability to shoot yourself in the foot. You should not then whine afterwards because you think your foot is bleeding.
If you want a Mac, then buy a Mac. Clearly you don't value the wide array of meaningful choices that something like Linux distributions offer. Don't destroy something just because you don't understand the alternatives.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 9:28 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] After all, the Google app store knows what sort of phone you have and can tell you beforehand whether an app will run on it It's the other way around. Application includes minimum version of API in it's manifest file. Store only blacklists applications by the third-party requests (for example carriers like to blacklist tethering apps), it does not proactively track the compatibility story. there's no reason why a similar approach could not work for Linux There is: Linux desktop has no stable ABI thus if application works in distro M version N it does not mean it'll work in distro M version N+1. And forget about distro MM! Google's app store works because hardware vendors certify their variants of OS, not because Google magically makes apps compatible with some random crap. It would be up to the app developer to provide the appropriate packages. Does not work this way. Sure, some packages will provide updated versions to support different form-factors (for example some games needed to redo the controls when Android phones lost trackball), but it's mostly up to the OS vendors. Typical app developer releases app bundle exactly once. There would in any case be no guarantee that any app was available for any distribution/architecture combination, much like Android apps today don't run on every single device out there. It guarantees that it'll run. It does not guarantee that it'll work. There are a difference. If some required hardware is just not available then you don't have much choice: it's up to the app to decide how to handle the degraded mode. In some cases you can use some new hardware (not available when app was released) to emulate old APIs (witness ICS phones without hardware buttons and sensors: they emulate them), but usually user just looks on the program and decides if he wants reduced functionality or not. App developer is not forced to do anything in any case. If we ever manage to agree on a reasonable standardised platform for third-party apps then so much the better, but it's not essential for the concept to work. Yes, it is. Without stable ABI the whole concept crumbles. Developers don't want to track OS releases. They may decide to redo some flagman applications to make them better integrated with new OS - and even then it's not guaranteed. Most applications will never be updated. That's why Intel is fixing this problem WRT Google Play Store, for example. Not Google and not app developers.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 12:24 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] It's the other way around. Application includes minimum version of API in it's manifest file. Store only blacklists applications by the third-party requests (for example carriers like to blacklist tethering apps), it does not proactively track the compatibility story. So what? You tell the app store that your machine is running Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 on an amd64 architecture. You pick an app and click on the »Download« icon, and the app store sends you a package for the app that will run on Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 on amd64. Everyone is happy. It may of course be the case that the app store doesn't have the app packaged for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 on amd64. In that case you won't get a »Download« icon. You may get a »Ask the app developer to provide a package for my system« icon. This will help app developers to figure out which distributions to support. The app store could also publish statistics on which distributions have the largest number of supported apps available (possibly by topic such as »games« or »web development tools«), which may help people pick what distribution to use in the first place. There is: Linux desktop has no stable ABI thus if application works in distro M version N it does not mean it'll work in distro M version N+1. A popular app store may create pressure on distributors and upstream projects (such as KDE or GNOME) to get their act together and be more careful about backwards compatibility. Backwards compatibility isn't really a problem with Linux as such or with distributions, it is mostly a problem of upstream developer negligence or incompetence. Also, if somebody at some point does define a cross-distro ABI that actually does provide desktop apps with what they require, that could be an alternative to targeting individual distros. If an app targets »LSB-NG 1.1«, that package would automatically be made available to all distros that are known to support that standard. App developer is not forced to do anything in any case. My experience with packaging stuff for Debian is that it is usually not a problem to move simple desktop apps forward from one version of Debian to the next, as far as the actual packaging is concerned. The ABI problem is potentially a different issue, but as long as you can get your stuff to compile and run, making it into a package for Debian N+1 isn't a big thing if you have already made it into a package for Debian N. The app store concept would make most sense if it came with tools that would assist app developers with actually providing packages for different popular distributions (again, the SUSE build service comes to mind as a possible model). The whole system could – and probably would – gradually move towards a more standardised platform. Doing it the other way round, by trying to provide the standardised platform first and hoping for people (and distributions) to adopt it, is probably going to be less successful. What will definitely not accomplish anything is sitting here and whining about how not only the present situation is terrible, but also how all the suggested approaches to ameliorate the present situation will never work. The Linux community does not work by revolution but by evolution, which is by its very nature difficult to direct. In the absence of a Steve Jobs figure who will lay down the law for everybody, the only thing we can do is offer something and hope that people will consider it a good idea and go along with it. Please outline how your app store concept is going to make Linux a viable option for current Windows or OS X users while at the same time making the existing Linux distributions obsolete and not driving off existing users who like things as they are. (Note that »Google will sort it all out for us« is not an acceptable answer this time around.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 12:42 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
A cross-distro app store with a single package format is needed, with some degree of guarantee that apps don't interfere with each other (maybe a sandboxed filesystem tree for the app's own files and settings, with only data files in a shared cross-app tree).
This package format would reference a stable cross-distro ABI version that changes only every 5-10 years.
Once you have this, app developers could target the app store and package format for ABI version N, and then just focus on developing their app's features.
Although Android threw out a lot of other Linux features and mandates Java, it shows that a more extreme version of this can be done. I'm not suggesting Android is the way, just that a Linux based system can be extremely popular with developers with the right approach.
Most Android users have no clue they are even using Linux, and that's exactly how it should be.
An alternative to a cross-distro ABI and app store would be that one distro, probably completely new, adopts this and becomes extremely popular (more like Android than Ubuntu).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 1:54 UTC (Sat) by khc (subscriber, #45209) [Link]
I wonder if it makes sense to argue about what's needed or not. Clearly, if a wider user base is a goal (and some would certainly argue that's not a goal or top priority), linux hasn't progress much on the desktop. So I fail to see how keep doing the same thing is going to make significant progress.
Some of us believe that an app store like model is needed, and some don't, and it's clear that at this point we can't prove it by arguing about it. What about those who believe that it has a chance group together and try it instead? I mean, it would definitely be a better use of our time than arguing about it on lwn.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 16:09 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Note that »Google will sort it all out for us« is not an acceptable answer this time around. You want details? I'm afraid I can not oblige at this point. And not even because I'm bound by NDA, but because the whole strategy is not yet finalized. The observation is simple: Google has two separate app stores and that's one too many. The question is: how to better merge them together. Different approaches are possible: you can invent some way to run Android applications in normal Linux distribution (perhaps even in browser?), or you can try to make sure Chrome Apps will be comparable to native Android apps on phone (right now they are quite limited), etc. IOW: it's not yet clear yet just how the desired thing will be created, but it's obvious what is needed. The obvious goal is to create the single app store for all supported platforms (not all apps will work everywhere, but some will be available on all platforms: Angry Birds on desktop are not all that different from Angry Birds on mobile so why do they exist in totally unconnected worlds? Please outline how your app store concept is going to make Linux a viable option for current Windows or OS X users while at the same time making the existing Linux distributions obsolete and not driving off existing users who like things as they are. You are asking bikeshed color when it not even known if bikeshed will even be involved at all. There are sooo few existing Linux users that it makes no sense to actually care too much about them. Windows and MacOS are significantly more important: both systems include built-in App Store (Windows store is in planning stages), both are not going away any time soon and both use Android-incompatible foundation (MacOS is closer, but Darwin is still quite different from Linux). Some people care about Linux users simply because they themselves are Linux users, but noone ever suggested that they represent more then a footnote in the whole story. Linux technologies, on the other hand, are quite important because they are used extensively in Android and ChromiumOS already. That means that, of course, solution (if and when it'll materialize) will use a lot of them - and that means that it should be easy to include Linux desktop in the plans. But it's hardly feasible if the infamous “Linux community” does not care and where all suggestions to participate in plans on early stages are indignantly rejected. Doing it the other way round, by trying to provide the standardised platform first and hoping for people (and distributions) to adopt it, is probably going to be less successful. Well, time will tell. As you can see from the above the whole idea at this point is to increase the audience which application developer can target with a single package, not to gradually move towards a more standardised platform. Perhaps someone else will create a different kind of app store with build farms and multidistribution support - but it'll be different story altogether. It'll be interesting to see how successful they'll be.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 16:24 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] This is a very long-winded way of saying »I haven't the faintest idea.«
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 18:09 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
That's actually a fair answer to the question.
Nobody really knows what's going to happen with Linux desktop in near future. There's that sense of fin-de-siècle in the air - the current situation is unsustainable and Something Has To Happen.
But history also shows us that this 'something' can often be quite unexpected.
We'll see.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 12, 2012 16:55 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>So what? You tell the app store that your machine is running Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 on an amd64 architecture.
Oh my god. I don't think you understand how completely outside the realm of feasibility this is for the non-technical user.
When tech support people bitch about users who only know that they're running 'Microsoft', and know that 'the blue e' is the internet, *they're not exaggerating*. That's not hyperbole. It's a literal description of a sizeable proportion of the user base.
I don't think it's even a significant minority, but actually the *majority* of users who don't know what version of Windows they're using - assuming they even know they're using Windows at all.
The proportion of people who know what processor architecture they're running has got to be far, far below 1%.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 12, 2012 17:14 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I don't think it's even a significant minority, but actually the *majority* of users who don't know what version of Windows they're using - assuming they even know they're using Windows at all. Well, usually they do know that - Windows is too hyped-up to miss. What they don't know is where Windows ends and other things begins. I've seen the cases when people bought new PC (with Windows obviously) and vainly tried to find Excel there (which they have not bought). The proportion of people who know what processor architecture they're running has got to be far, far below 1%. This is quite obviously not true because Linux occupies about 0.5% of the market share and most Linux users know that.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 12, 2012 20:16 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Oh my god. I don't think you understand how completely outside the realm of feasibility this is for the non-technical user. The machine will presumably know (or be able to find out) about its own distribution and architecture, so it can tell the app store on the user's behalf. A method to do this is the first thing a prospective app-store proponent would want to standardise.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 15:15 UTC (Sat) by welinder (guest, #4699) [Link]
Aren't you precisely the same guy who elsewhere chants "out with
the old and in with the new" _all_ _the_ _time_? I.e., ABIs are unstable precisely because people like you don't see stability as very valueable.
That makes you look like a troll.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 17:25 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Aren't you precisely the same guy who elsewhere chants "out with the old and in with the new" _all_ _the_ _time_? Well, kinda. If the old interface is not stable then there are no benefits in keeping it around. If I can not write SysVInit file once and use it for all distributions then I don't see why do you want to keep it around. I.e., ABIs are unstable precisely because people like you don't see stability as very valueable. Nope. ABIs are unstable because noone tries to keep them stable. It's Ok to introduce “one final distruption” if it's needed to keep ABIs stable from that point on: witness GLibC 2.x or X11R6+. But if something was declared stable then you, of course, must keep it around. It does not mean you can not introduce new, exciting things! For example DirectX 10+ is radically different from DirectX 1-9. Everything is different: internals, drivers, API, etc. Of course DirectX 9 emulation is provided - but this is only feasible when old version had stable ABI to emulate! "out with the old and in with the new" happens regularly in iOS (think multitasking), Android (think GPU acceleration), Windows (think WF), and MacOS world (think Launchd). But it does not mean backward compatibility is not important! These are different (albeit related) issues. If you don't embrace and accept new realities then you'll eventually be left behind (think PalmOS), but if you embrace them by dropping support for old applications then it's also hopeless (again: think PalmOS and webOS).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 9:28 UTC (Sun) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link]
This could be fixed with the following model though;
1. App store receives the source code from the developer.
2. Signs a deal about this code may be modified to fit different distributions, but not released in public.
3. App store keeps track of OS updates. and takes out a reasonable fee.
4. ???
5. Profit!
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 9:57 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] 1. App store receives the source code from the developer. And this is where the story ends. It's easy to convince junk producers to give you their code. It's very hard to do the same with well-known (and thus desirable) programs. They perceive their code as one of the most precious things and emphatically don't want to send it anywhere. Do you know that Google does not have access to the Flash plugin sources, for example¹? Even if it has explicit agreement with Adobe and ships it with Chrome. Stallman may dislike it as much as he wants but proprietary software will not go away any time soon. Either your accept and accommodate the fact or you are destined for the obscurity. There are nothing wrong with serving niche needs (gNewSense is fine distro for some people), but if we are talking about mainstream then this approach will not fly. ──────────
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 12:41 UTC (Sun) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link]
But the thing is, in this model you don't give away your code to the general public, you merely give the code to a maintainer that is specialized in porting software. It's no different than hiring a consultant to scrutinize security bugs in your code, except instead of looking at it they package it.
Such a model would fix most problems, but someone need to put up an app store and make it work with various distros.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 16:44 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But the thing is, in this model you don't give away your code to the general public, you merely give the code to a maintainer that is specialized in porting software. So what? You still send your “crown jewels” to some tiny company which probably does not have enough money in the bank to properly reimburse you in a case of the leak. Note that typically companies don't even have the source rights for all the components (witness mighty struggles when they want to open-source something) so even if you'll manage to placate internal legal dogs it's still will be mighty struggle to obtain sources for all the middleware used. Huge undertaking. And for what? For 1% of users? May be 2% if we are lucky? Are you joking? Such a model would fix most problems, but someone need to put up an app store and make it work with various distros. Sorry, but no. Such model may help with open sources packages (and thus it's probably worthwhile) and will include much derided “glorified bookmarks”, but most serious developers will just ignore it.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 9:15 UTC (Mon) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link]
But the thing is, it's still no different than hiring a consultant. It does not have to be a small company - Canonical, or Novell for instance, would do rather nicely. So yes, I obviously believe this model has a future, and it's a better one than staticly compiling everything always...
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 9:41 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But the thing is, it's still no different than hiring a consultant. Consultant usually is given access to small piece of the code at time. Often it agrees to sign extensive and complicated agreements to see even that. And in any case that's for serious issue (security) which warrants serious efforts. 1% of market is just not enough to do something like this. Heck, 5-10% of the market (which MacOS owns) is not enough: companies which are contracted to port stuff to MacOS often receive some things only in binary form (that's why CrossOver for Redistribution is popular way to go in these cases)! IOW: consultant you are hiring plays by your rules and must convince you to do this or that. Access to the whole codebase is rare luxury which consultant rarely gets! Yet here you are starting from that premise… It does not have to be a small company - Canonical, or Novell for instance, would do rather nicely. So what? Google is larger than both of them and it still is not trusted enough without extensive agreement negotiated separately for each piece of software. This process just does not scale.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:28 UTC (Mon) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]
I don't even think it needs to be source code. It could just be the binaries. Then the "store operator" would be in charge of packaging. Some of the Loki installers have been redone for newer versions of Linux. That kind of approach could be done wholesale.
A universal frontend could be done for the old games by someone like Linux Game Publishing as a proof of concept. They could even throw in some old apps too.
Distribution support would be driven by demand of course.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 18:41 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] This plan will fall apart because distributions remove old versions of libraries willy-nilly. Sure, if you'll first create some stable ABI and will keep the set of libraries for that ABI around then it'll work… and this is what this thread is all about.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 11:09 UTC (Sat) by kklimonda (subscriber, #60089) [Link]
> The software vendor also has the option of providing a Windows style GUI installer. These have been commonplace since the mid 90s. The developer can also provide a self contained tarball.
neither of those options will add the software to the package database making it harder than needed to do wide deployments, updating and uninstalling those applications.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 10:42 UTC (Mon) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
> The software vendor also has the option of providing a Windows style GUI
> installer.
Oh yes. Make our lives a hell. Kick us in the balls and fuck us with a chainsaw.
THAT is exactly what nobody, EVER, should do. Making their own GUI installers, that is.
There is a _huge_ advantage Linux has (well, at least Debian and derivatives), and that is a working package-management. And anything that breaks this is not an improvement, but a regression.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 0:40 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > I want to be able to go to a website on my Linux Desktop, click on "download this application for Linux" and have it just install and work. But other OSes are moving away from that way of installing software (iOS doesn't even allow it, it's discouraged on Android, and MacOS now has an App Store too) to the way that Linux distros were doing it many years earlier (i.e. from a central package repository).
Exactly... Posted Mar 31, 2012 2:10 UTC (Sat) by Pc5Y9sbv (guest, #41328) [Link]
You could always make a very portable Linux application binary by ignoring the distribution-specific packaging system and all the shared-library conventions of such a distribution. Make a statically-linked executable and self-sufficient installation tree, depending on little from the host OS except the kernel ABI and the barest minimum of POSIX and/or LSB stuff.
Follow some conventions like searching environment, /etc/yourapp/, ${HOME}/.yourapp/, and /opt/yourapp/ for some configuration data to override the compiled-in defaults (even up to looking at the dirname of argv[0] to locate yourself). In the past you might need to use IPC to talk to the X server, etc. Today I'd recommend running an embedded web service so the UI can be exposed over loopback (or network, if the user wants) to run in a browser.
This seemingly archaic distribution approach is how Apple and Google have approached the bundling problem. They have extremely flat catalogs of applications, each of which is essentially standalone so there is no need for complex inter-package dependency management, nor questions of where a myriad other third-party components can be found on disk. This makes automatic installation of applications very easy, without the overhead of a classic Linux distribution needing to carefully package and quality-check all of the applications as parts of a monolithic whole. Given this approach, they also extended the platform ABI a bit, without trying to solve the entire OSS dependency problem. On the downside, you lose the storage efficiency and simultaneous patch/update capability for common third-party dependencies, as each application is now bundling its own copy of such third-party components.
Exactly... Posted Mar 31, 2012 9:44 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > This makes automatic installation of applications very easy, without the overhead of a classic Linux distribution needing to carefully package and quality-check all of the applications as parts of a monolithic whole. But it has its drawbacks, too. In particular, it leads to the situation where you have (for example) 20 applications, each of which uses the same 20 libraries, thus requiring you to have 380 redundant copies of libraries installed. ISTR reading a blog post by a Calligra developer porting Calligra to Android, saying that this issue of massive redundancy meant that you would run out of memory fast if you tried to run multiple Calligra apps at once. And of course there's also the issue that a security vulnerability in one of those libraries means that every app using it will need to issue a security update — and the app developer might not even rebuild the app with the fixed library, leading to vulnerabilities remaining unfixed for a long time. (This has happened repeatedly with zlib in particular.)
Exactly... Posted Mar 31, 2012 11:05 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] (I haven't been able to find the blog post I thought I remembered seeing. Maybe it was about some other KDE/Qt software on Android? Also, maybe the problem I remember reading about was actually running out of SSD storage space for installed apps, rather than running out of RAM.)
Exactly... Posted Apr 1, 2012 9:17 UTC (Sun) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
The solution to this problem is to have a shared core of libraries which change slowly enough that they can be reasonably dumped into the install media of the linux distribution itself, and frozen afterwards (in terms of functionality/abi). This cuts down the number of libraries you do have to bring with the application bundles, and defines a common binary interface for all software. In practice this requires very strict and careful maintenance, and ideally we could get a common set of baseline binaries ("linux core version 1") shipped by all distributions.
Secondly, the application bundles should provide multiple applications. For instance, if you were to install new version of KDE or GNOME by the application bundle method, it better all be in 1 bundle. This, in turn, makes it possible to ship shared libraries in the bundle, and therefore reaping the memory saving benefits, and therefore it is probably the method that the Calligra suite should be using. Maybe some amount of system dependencies would be acceptable, such as X libraries or glibc, to limit the size of the bundle somewhat. (Just handwaving the problems away here, obviously. It's difficult to do until we get the "linux core version 1" defined and deployed.)
Exactly... Posted Apr 2, 2012 19:12 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
I've been thinking that this is probably the way to go as well. You would have to get support pledges from anything that goes into "linux core version 1" unless you get another set of engineers to backport fixes and such (basically start a desktop-oriented Red Hat distribution).
The problem is that KDE and GNOME are upgraded in one huge dump and tend to not be forward compatible (4.8-built KDEAppFoo is unlikely to work without at least 4.8 kdelibs). I'm not sure if the KDE or GNOME communities could be convinced to split out the libraries from the applications in terms of API/ABI stability so that there would be just one version of kdelibs on the system instead of every application needing its own (instead of only those that actually need a newer version).
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 12:59 UTC (Thu) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
What I would suggest is that both KDE and GNOME will upgrade in one huge dump, all applications and shared libraries together, and it should include pretty much every application user cares about. Taking GNOME as an example, there simply should not be significant gnome-libraries-using applications outside the main GNOME bundle.
It's clear from a statement such as this that this distribution method just wouldn't meet diverse needs very well, but on the upside it ensures that everyone gets the full gnome experience and all the apps, and we could install the stuff the day we hear about it on slashdot or LWN rather than waiting for a distro to package it first. It's obviously very different approach culturally.
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 18:25 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
I disagree. There are enough applications out there that *use* KDE but are not *part of* KDE (I worked on one, but they do exist). Some of the things offered in kdelibs make things painless (KPlugin, KParts, etc.) and if using them means you're tied to KDE releases, I would think that it's a hard decision between dropping those technologies or saddling up to KDE's release schedule.
It also means that you have to download *all* of KDE together. Of course, KDE could do like they do on Windows and have a package manager of sorts, but I don't know that that's the path that upstreams should be falling back on because that'd only bring us back to the same situation we have today (one supported version, keep updating or you get nothing new).
I don't think it'd be too onerous to get kdelibs and the core GNOME libraries pinned with a stable API and ABI (KDE has a policy, but it does get broken at times).
Of course, then there are projects like Boost which would need every version packaged in the base distro (expecting every project that uses Boost to deal with building and linking it on their own is asking a lot IMO).
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 20:11 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Of course, then there are projects like Boost which would need every version packaged in the base distro (expecting every project that uses Boost to deal with building and linking it on their own is asking a lot IMO). Why? Boost is most headers anyway, so not much space-savings from sharing. You only need things in core which can not be easily bundled with application. This is why I've always said LSB is brain-dead and 200% useless: the set of libraries it includes it totally insane. Instead of including essential, most important facilities first it starts with “mature libraries” and provides totally insane environment. It provides a lot of stuff: libjpeg and libpng, freetype and libxml, pango and gtk+. Pile of “nice to have” libraries which can easily be omitted without any ill effect. Yet it does not provide a way to output sound and video, play with system tray and show notifications. IOW: it does not provide “must have, you are dead if you don't include them” things! Why I say that libjpeg is less important then desktop notifications or sound? Because you can not bundle desktop with your application! And you can not bundle sound device with your application! Sure, you can poke around in /dev and/or /etc and try to find them - but this immediately moves out way outside of LSB promises. Freetype or libxml, on the other hand, can easily be bundled with your application if the need arises. Sure, it'll be nice to have them pre-installed to reduce download size, but they are not essential! If your notification interface requires use of dbus and gtk+ - then these should be included, of course (BTW LSB still does not include dbus), but sound and notifications should come first while boost comes last or not at all!
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 20:35 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
I agree that Boost is not on the top of the list of things this distro should care about. It was just the first example that came to mind which breaks the ABI with *every* release (if not in reality, the libraries get renamed for each version which makes it a moot point).
Yes, first, whatever is required to implement freedesktop.org standards, hardware, and external communications should be included (starting from the bottom with a kernel, systemd, udev, dbus, upower, udisks, *dm, pulseaudio, cups, firewall, etc.). After that, get the user-facing applications done in an upstream-oriented way (app storeish). After that, I, at least, would like to see common libraries be provided by the system which apps can assume exist. The set of libraries included could be part of the interface declared for a version.
The reasoning is that I would think that development should still be easy, so getting libraries and such provided by the distro should be possible instead of going around and downloading umpteen dependencies to start some project. Unless a "developer's" store makes sense, but I think distro packages do better than an app store model would. Of course, that is further down the road after user applications work.
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:07 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The reasoning is that I would think that development should still be easy, so getting libraries and such provided by the distro should be possible instead of going around and downloading umpteen dependencies to start some project. Oh, yeah. Ease of development is important, but this is separate issue. If developers know that some platform will give them they are ready to jump through a lot of hoops. I'm not sure distribution-supplied packages will be good for an app-store model, or perhaps it'll be better to use something like Gentoo, but it does not matter: if packages developed using different IDEs and different distributions can be used simultaneously then they don't compete with each other. In fact on Windows situation with libraries is extremely painful - yet this is most popular platform there is (Visual Studio is superb IDE, on the other hand). Development on Linux is not that bad - but it's pointless if the thing you've just developed can not be delivered to the end user without jumping through many extra hoops.
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 20:48 UTC (Thu) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]
I'm running firefox right now with no "system tray" or "notification system". Sure, video and sound are nice, but even the six packages you listed are enough for many web browsers, office suites, email clients, IM programs, newsreaders, terminals and calculators.
You can write development tools, network utilities, databases, window managers and crypto utilities all without stepping outside the LSB requirements.
Just because you cannot write Linux applications, and assume that your target systems are all iPods, does not mean that LSB is useless.
Exactly... Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:27 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I'm running firefox right now with no "system tray" or "notification system". Right. It's your choice. But that means that web sites can not use them, too. Amusingly, they can on Firefox on Android. Sure, video and sound are nice, but even the six packages you listed are enough for many web browsers Web browser without YouTube? Trashcan is over there. office suites Which can not use sound effect in presentations? Trashcan is over there. email clients Which can not notify you about new mail? Which can not open links in web browser? Is this a joke? Even GMail can do both (in Chrome, anyway). IM programs Without tray integration? Possible but ugly and inconvenient. More of the crap. newsreaders The same as with mail. Well, notifications are less important here. This one may actually be usable… if you'll forget that a lot of news today include video links. Out. terminals How will you terminal do the expected beep when calculators Well… that one is possible. I'm not all that sure why we'll want to have bazillion calculators. You can write development tools, network utilities, databases, window managers and crypto utilities all without stepping outside the LSB requirements. IOW: you can write some not desktop-related things. Yes. Probably. How is it related to desktop? On server RHEL rules, LSB is not needed there. Just because you cannot write Linux applications, and assume that your target systems are all iPods, does not mean that LSB is useless. It's useless on server (because it's not really needed there) and it's useless on desktop (it allows you to create program which can only excite someone who spent last dozen of years in coma), so what's the point? Where can you use it?
Exactly... Posted Apr 1, 2012 20:43 UTC (Sun) by Pc5Y9sbv (guest, #41328) [Link]
I see the loss of library security updates as the biggest drawback to these vertical bundles. Many of us long-time FOSS users, developers, and sysadmins strongly prefer the distribution model with centralized patch management. It has evolved to address a very important need of the community to balance different integration goals of tens of thousands of developers and millions of users. For 95% of the software I use, if it doesn't exist in my chosen Linux distribution, it doesn't exist for me. The way to get your software to me is to get the attention of the distributors, cajole or employ package maintainers, and get it integrated into the system. Even if we erased the technical packaging/bundling challenges, I'd want this anyway. I want you to pass the basic sanity checks that the distributor imposes to validate that you are a viable project.
Every OSS developer (me included) has a built-in bias to feel that our latest code is the best thing, worth whatever risks or compromises it takes to get it on the system. But in almost every case, OSS releases are really beta software, where the community does much of the QA by accident as they use it. This is inherent to developing software without big commercial budgets. However, most users only have a small number of domains where they should really be a beta tester. And they need to be aware of the risk it reflects on whatever they are actually trying to achieve. Doing that for all the applications on a typical Linux system is just asking for trouble, for an experience of constant bugs and mistrust. I absolutely DO NOT want to disintermediate my consumption of software, leading to hundreds or thousands of independent developers trying to make software update policy decisions for me.
In my 20 years of using Linux, I've noticed prognosticators issue their "big picture" statements and anoint their favorite trends as the indisputable future. They've often seemed pretty myopic, as I've noticed that FOSS evolves a lot more organically than that, due to the myriad interests and motivations of all the contributors. I see that we're happily infusing FOSS Into every space from high-performance computing, to Internet servers, to routers, mobiles, and embedded systems. And this is happening due to real benefits to all the businesses involved, not out of some subversive religious effort. I feel fortunate that I've also been able to use it on workstations and laptops for my entire career. But if "Linux" fades eventually, I feel confident that it will only be because we've shifted our attention to an even more flexible FOSS platform, and it still won't matter if it has been the year of Linux on the desktop, or tablet, etc.
Exactly... Posted Apr 7, 2012 19:00 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]
Thanks for your post, it sums up my thoughts nicely.
Do not yield to the flower of the day, be it mobile or phone. I would very much prefer having debian on my phone than android on my desktop!
Exactly... Posted Apr 9, 2012 1:03 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
You can have it. Ubuntu works fine in a chroot on my Galaxy S.
Go on, install it and use it.
Exactly... Posted Apr 3, 2012 13:36 UTC (Tue) by RCL (guest, #63264) [Link]
> it leads to the situation where you have (for example) 20 applications, each of which uses the same 20 libraries, thus requiring you to have 380 redundant copies of libraries installed.
Somehow people seem not to care about RAM when they are writing their applications in languages like Python, Java, C$ or using databases to store local settings where simple text file would be enough (yes, Akonadi, I'm looking at you).
So yeah, I prefer 20 C/C++ "standalone" applications as opposed to fragile mess of higher-level language apps that have to have 30 dependencies installed to just start.
Exactly... Posted Apr 6, 2012 16:08 UTC (Fri) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
"or using databases to store local settings where simple text file would be enough (yes, Akonadi, I'm looking at you)."
Just to clarify for other readers of this read: Akonadi stores its settings in INI-style text files in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/akonadi
KDE based Akonadi clients also store their settings in INI-style text files in $KDEHOME/share/config
It might be possible to use a simpler format than INI-style but for most developers it seems to be simple enough
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 7:24 UTC (Sat) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link]
But the app store still contains stand-alone applications, and this relates to one of Ingo's other important points: why, on Linux, does one have to upgrade his/her desktop environment, kernel, and base system to get a new image editing application? Compare this to OS X, where you just drag the application to the Applications folder, and you are done. No need to upgrade Cocoa, Quarz, XNU, or some other system component.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 9:50 UTC (Sat) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link] And yet Mac OS X does require you to upgrade XNU, Cocoa, Quartz and other system components to get new image editing applications. It's just that instead of applications telling you "you need Cocoa 1.5 and Quartz 3.7", you get told "Mac OS X 10.6 or later required". If you happen to be on an older Mac OS X, you must upgrade the entire system to get the new application (or new version of the existing application. Maybe that's all that's wrong here? If applications stopped chasing "Linux", and started chasing (say) RHEL (so you need RHEL 5.2 or later to run the binary, or you're on your own), or Ubuntu (runs on 10.10 or later), people would be happy? I suspect, though, that you'd hit the same problem as eComStation selling OS/2 - there's one OS/2 "distro", it's ABI compatible back to early OS/2, installers are Windows-style executables, and yet it doesn't have much software available. Why? Market share.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 11:00 UTC (Sat) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link]
Except that usually pretty old versions are supported. For instance Creative Suite 5.5 requires OS X 10.5 (released in 2007). Microsoft Office 2011 also requires 10.5.
On Windows, most applications require Windows XP, which was released in 2001 (!).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 23:27 UTC (Sat) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link] So choose an old version of RHEL as the starting point - if you choose RHEL 4, you're going back to before OS X 10.5 (but not before XP - however, XP is an oddity, as before XP, there was a new MS OS every 3 years or so, whereas Vista was delayed until 2006, and there was no mass upgrading until 2009 when Windows 7 was released). If you choose RHEL 5, as I suggested, you're going back to 2007 - as old as OS X 10.5, which you're holding up as an example. Further, RHEL 5 still has another 5 years of support left - it's not out of support until 2017; if you support RHEL 5 and RHEL 6, you've got two versions to support, compared to the 3 versions you have to support if you support OS X 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. If that's all it takes, why aren't people releasing for RHEL in droves, and leaving other distros behind?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 23:46 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Basically, that's what's happening with commercial Linux software. It's usually certified for a couple of recent RHELs and if it works on other distributions then it's a free bonus.
Why desktop users don't flock to RHEL? Well, mostly because RHEL is not really usable as a desktop.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 0:46 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If that's all it takes, why aren't people releasing for RHEL in droves, and leaving other distros behind? Do you see millions of RHEL desktop users anywhere? I don't. This is all about ROI. The goal of the application developer is to get as much bang for the buck as possible. Yes, even if it's free, noncommercial software: in this case developer does not get money back directly (thus we can not just calculate ROI) but s/he get the reputation, bug reports, etc. If your platform is too unstable (like Fedora or Ubuntu) then this raises development and, more importantly, deployment cost. ROI is negative. If it's too rare (like RHEL: quite popular on server, almost unknown on desktop), then ROI is negative, again. Stable API is strict requirement, but it's not enough. You also need good hardware support, pretty pictures (remember the infamous We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them?), etc. And the fact that GNOME3, KDE and others tackle this problem is good and proper if they want to attack desktop head-on. But all these nice developments will not help if there will be no easy way to develop and deploy applications for said desktop!
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 13:13 UTC (Mon) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Interesting. That would then explain why that there aren't many thousand very high-quality applications that work well together that actively track Fedora (or latest Debian, Ubuntu, or whatever fast-moving distribution tickles your fancy).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 18:15 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Well, yes. Only a handful applications target Fedora, Ubuntu or whatever. Most just don't bother and only provide source (while MacOS and Windows users can easily try them). Then overworked and increasingly grumpy packagers try to port all these thousand applications - but the result is increasingly disappointing. Can I try VLC? Sure! Wow. Cool. I'm using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS (because, you know, I need to do some work, too, not just play endlessly with experimental distributions). What are may choices? Well: we recommend you install VLC 1.1.x manually. Situation when you have one package for Ubuntu 10.04 only and another for Ubuntu 11.10 only is not uncommon. If that was sarcasm then sorry, it does not work: sure, some packages are still provided for a few major distributions, but increasingly people just stop doing this. And even when this happens Linux versions are often behind WRT features and bugs which are fixed in MacOS/Windows versions in hurry linger for years in Linux version. Chrome/Mozilla are prime examples: Linux users often complain about that, but frankly, do they deserve anything else?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 8:26 UTC (Sun) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Why not RHEL on the desktop?
- it's expensive for non-enterprise users compared to Ubuntu
The idea of targetting a distro is reasonable, and Ubuntu is already the target to some degree, but the other 30%+ of the Linux world would be left out if this was the only target.
Ubuntu tends to require the latest OS version for some hardware support, yet imposes very disruptive 6-monthly updates generally - the LTSs are really no more stable than the other versions these days, so it's just luck if you end up on an LTS as the version that works for your hardware. In fact hardware regressions are the fly in this model - Ubuntu's quality is sufficiently variable and hardware-dependent that it's hard to predict which version will work well on a given PC.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 10:09 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > No need to upgrade Cocoa, Quarz, XNU, or some other system component. In my experience, that's not always true. For example, once I was developing a program on OpenJDK 6 for Linux and tried to run it on a Mac, only to find that this machine was running an older version of Mac OS X with an older JDK that didn't have one of the methods I was using, and that the only way to get a newer JDK was to upgrade to a new Mac OS X version or download or compile a build of OpenJDK that would run on this version (and I'm not sure if this latter option was actually possible). Or another time, I was trying to use ffmpeg on Mac OS X, and found that the most recent build of it (from the "ffmpegX" project) was long out of date, and trying to build the Fink package for ffmpeg (on a system where Fink hadn't been installed previously) took a really long time to download and compile all of its dependencies and build-dependencies. By comparison, on Arch Linux, I've occasionally tried out development snapshots of various programs / system components (examples include: KWebKitPart before it was released; the Gallium-based alternative i915 video driver; and the Calligra branch of Krita and its dependencies) by building them from AUR packages, which is usually not too difficult, and it's also not difficult to remove them and revert back to the system-provided packages.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 16:25 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] In my experience, that's not always true. For example, once I was developing a program on OpenJDK 6 for Linux and tried to run it on a Mac, only to find that this machine was running an older version of Mac OS X with an older JDK that didn't have one of the methods I was using, and that the only way to get a newer JDK was to upgrade to a new Mac OS X version or download or compile a build of OpenJDK that would run on this version (and I'm not sure if this latter option was actually possible). Oh, sure. That's the flip side of the coin. Because in Windows/MacOS you must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare. But you know what? Users don't care. And developers quickly learn to curse Bill Gates^W^W Steeve Ballmer and Steeve Jobs^W^W Tim Cook - yet still they continue to produce apps for Windows and [sometimes] MacOS because this is where users are.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 0:31 UTC (Mon) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > Because in Windows/MacOS you must support old technology (often decade old technology) Except that developers don't always support old technology, but instead sometimes say "you must have at least this version of Windows/MacOS". For example, people who bought new PCs in 1994 would have within 3-4 years would have no longer been able to run most off-the-shelf PC software, especially games, without at least buying a new Windows version (and maybe not even then, because of increasing hardware requirements). (Incidentally, it's not always true that Windows and MacOS have better backwards compatibility. For example, Windows for x86_64 doesn't support 16-bit executables, but you can run them with Wine on an x86_64 kernel. And some early 680x0 Mac programs require black&white or 16-color video modes, which weren't supported even on hardware as old as the beige G3.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 9:09 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] For example, people who bought new PCs in 1994 would have within 3-4 years would have no longer been able to run most off-the-shelf PC software, especially games, without at least buying a new Windows version (and maybe not even then, because of increasing hardware requirements). Right. This often happens with a new technology. People who bought HTC Dream three years ago also can not run contemporary Android games. Unfortunately (for Linux desktop revolutionaries) desktop have reached “mature technology” stage and expectation have changed. Incidentally, it's not always true that Windows and MacOS have better backwards compatibility. For example, Windows for x86_64 doesn't support 16-bit executables, but you can run them with Wine on an x86_64 kernel. And some early 680x0 Mac programs require black&white or 16-color video modes, which weren't supported even on hardware as old as the beige G3. Yeah, that's the irony, isn't it? Underlying core technology in Linux is significantly more robust than in MacOS/Windows and it should be possible to provide much better compatibility then in Windows, but all these efforts are laid to waste by the distributions on the desktop which assume that “recompile the world” is valid answer to compatibility problems.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 3, 2012 1:12 UTC (Tue) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > desktop have reached “mature technology” stage and expectation have changed. I'm not convinced it has. Back when I used to use Mac OS X occasionally, I remember not being able to run some things because they required a newer version of the OS (which costs money). By comparison, on a Linux distribution with out-of-date libraries, you can at least try out a new program by using a locally-installed copy of the program and (some of) its dependencies. (I did that in order to run a Calligra Krita snapshot on Debian Squeeze.) > all these efforts are laid to waste by the distributions on the desktop which assume that “recompile the world” is valid answer to compatibility problems. The situation isn't as bad as you make it sound. Running old programs on a newer distribution is usually just a matter of installing old libraries, and distributions might even provide packages of those old libraries. (For example, it was common to keep running some KDE3 apps in the early days of KDE4, and also Arch Linux currently provides both Allegro 4 and Allegro 5 packages.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 3, 2012 6:19 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Back when I used to use Mac OS X occasionally, I remember not being able to run some things because they required a newer version of the OS (which costs money). Yeah. This happens. Perhaps one of the reasons for why MacOS has less then 10% of desktop. Even so it fits in I've forgotten more than you'll ever know adage: number of programs which you can easily run on MacOS and Windows still dwarfs number of programs which you can run on Linux even if you'll not count oddballs which require too-new or too-old version of MacOS and Windows. The situation isn't as bad as you make it sound. Running old programs on a newer distribution is usually just a matter of installing old libraries, and distributions might even provide packages of those old libraries. Sure. And the current 1% of users correlates with number of people who not only know about that but consider the time required to hunt and install these fair price for the Linux use. Article we are discussing here claims Linux used to have 2.5% of desktop 10 years ago - this is consistent with this explanation: desktop grew about 3x times, but proportion of people which will tolerate this nonsense shrank. Most people never knew how to cope with these problems (and have no interest in finding out) and some people who do know how to do that decided they have more interesting things to do.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 6, 2012 2:37 UTC (Fri) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > number of programs which you can easily run on MacOS and Windows still dwarfs number of programs which you can run on Linux even if you'll not count oddballs which require too-new or too-old version of MacOS and Windows. But if that's why Linux has less usage share, then backwards/forwards compatibility doesn't matter — it's because of lock-in, not lack of backwards/forward compatibility. > Most people never knew how to cope with these problems (and have no interest in finding out) Sure, many users want programs to "just work" without needing to tinker with them. But users like those are unlikely to contribute to the development of the programs they use, and the entire purpose of FLOSS is to make it possible for every user to become a developer. That's why the user/developer community isn't willing to have a situation where "you must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare" just for the sake of attracting the kind of user who's not willing to get their hands dirty. (For example, it's better to have 10000 users where 1000 of them contribute to the software, than to have 1 million users where only 50 of them contribute to the software.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 6, 2012 7:31 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>But if that's why Linux has less usage share, then backwards/forwards compatibility doesn't matter — it's because of lock-in, not lack of backwards/forward compatibility.
That argument is growing old. Mac OS X started from basically the same position as Linux. I.e. no native software and a crufty compatibility layer (Classic Environment vs. Wine) with another major OS.
Yet Mac OS X captured more than 10% of the market, even though it requires overpriced proprietary hardware.
Android gains more users each month then the total number of Linux Desktop users. Even the frigging Windows Mobile has more users then Linux Desktop.
>Sure, many users want programs to "just work" without needing to tinker with them.
>But users like those are unlikely to contribute to the development of the programs they use, and the entire purpose of FLOSS is to make it possible for every user to become a developer.
>For example, it's better to have 10000 users where 1000 of them contribute to the software, than to have 1 million users where only 50 of them contribute to the software.
Nope, it isn't. Because 1 million users would be able to sponsor (say) 100 full-time professional developers, artists, testers, help writers. Who are going to produce software that these users really like.
Of course, if your target is to create a playground for developers, then I suggest looking at OpenBSD ( http://lwn.net/Articles/449697/ ):
Well, the only problem is that one day you might find yourself without open hardware capable of running your OS. And nobody would care about you.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 6, 2012 8:24 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] That argument is growing old. Mac OS X started from basically the same position as Linux. I.e. no native software and a crufty compatibility layer (Classic Environment vs. Wine) with another major OS. Situation there is quite different. MacOS was basically frozen when MacOS X was introduced and no new releases were expected. Ever. Some programs were abandoned as a result, some were ported to new platform but it was never the case that you an access to the new version of a program - but you needed to abandon MacOS X to have it. Well, you had the ability to switch to Windows, but while it had lots of new goodies it also was unable to run lots of old MacOS programs, too. Wine, on the other hand is always playing catch-up. And the attitude of Linux pundits does not help. Even if someone releases some software for Linux using winelib the reaction is OPEN SOURCE IT UNDER OSI APPROVED LICENSE!!!. Later the developer does the logical thing: abandons Linux altogether. This is typical response and it creates vicious cycle: some company releases something for Linux, public outcry is “gimme source”, program is withdrawn, Linux is added to blacklist as “don't try this: money sink without any gratitude”, users continue to switch to MacOS X (well, some go back to Windows).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 0:25 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > > But users like those are unlikely to contribute to the development of the programs they use, and the entire purpose of FLOSS is to make it possible for every user to become a developer. > Wrong. I can download VisualStudio Express (for free!) and start developing Windows Phone applications in 3 minutes. With nice tutorials, great help system and one of the best IDEs. But that doesn't let you develop Windows Phone itself, nor the platform API libraries bundled with it, nor the majority of applications for it. And it really is true that the core purpose of FLOSS is to let every user become a developer of the software that they use. As a consequence, in FLOSS, "user-friendliness" doesn't just mean making it easy to use the software, it also means making it easy to develop the software. Because (in all but a few of the biggest projects) no one is being paid to work on the software, the project needs to recruit new volunteer developers from its user base, or else it will die. That's why having a Windows-like situation of "you must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare" in the name of easy backwards compatibility would be bad for FLOSS, even if it did succeed in attracting more users. > 1 million users would be able to sponsor (say) 100 full-time professional developers, artists, testers, help writers. I won't believe it's possible for a FLOSS project to fund 100 full-time professional developers with donations from end-users until I see it, and I haven't seen it yet. (The project that's closest to what you describe is probably Linux itself, which has hardware manufacturers employing developers, but that business model won't work for the vast majority of projects.) > one day you might find yourself without open hardware capable of running your OS. That's a real problem, but the fundamental cause of it is that the majority of users don't see why locked-down hardware is a bad thing for them — it prevents them from developing the software they use, but that's not something they would do anyway, so why should they care? (They actually should care, for reasons such as avoiding lock-in, having a larger base of developers, having the possibility that the developers may fork the software in case of a bad mantainer, … but these reasons aren't readily apparent to someone who doesn't know anything about software development.) You seem to be suggesting that attracting users who don't care about being able to develop the software they use to Linux will help ensure the future availability of open hardware, but I don't believe it — I think it would more likely lead to a locked-down hardware platform that runs Linux (and maybe this even already exists, in the form of locked-down Android devices).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 11:26 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] That's a real problem, but the fundamental cause of it is that the majority of users don't see why locked-down hardware is a bad thing for them Of course not! It's good for them! This is what they want! Let's forget about FOSS for the minute and think about consumer devices. Radio, TV, phones (mobile and not mobile). Once upon time all these decides were combined from parts which were easy to replace and it was easy to tinker with them. Some even included principal schemes in documentation! Today they usually have undetachable connectros (components are soldered on using surface-mount technology instead of sockets) and in general are non-serviceable (usually you need specialized tool to even open the cover). Why is that? Well, these are cheaper. They are more robust, they rarely need fixes and if one of them will break it's usually simpler to replace it rather then to fix it. Some people need/want to tinker with electronics - and we have specialized shops and devices for them. But these devices usually sell some of the same parts (sometimes differently packaged)! If you'll try to create separate ecosystem "just for tinkerers" you'll quickly find out that it's not sustainable - there are just not enough of them! They actually should care, for reasons such as avoiding lock-in, having a larger base of developers, having the possibility that the developers may fork the software in case of a bad mantainer, … but these reasons aren't readily apparent to someone who doesn't know anything about software development. You asking users to give up concrete advantages for nebulous freedoms (which they don't want and don't need). It just does not work. You seem to be suggesting that attracting users who don't care about being able to develop the software they use to Linux will help ensure the future availability of open hardware, but I don't believe it — I think it would more likely lead to a locked-down hardware platform that runs Linux Sorry, but this is the only choice. Most of hardware in the future will be locked - simply because users don't case. This battle is already lost: smartphones outsell PCs already - and you can not replace OS on most of them (even if the bootloader is not locked you often don't have an image to use with it). Now we are at the next battle: make sure there are some unlocked hardware which can be used if you want to tinker with it. If most devices are locked yet use FOSS-friendly components then there will be some unlocked (or unlockable) devices for tinkerers. If devices are build around proprietary standards then there will be no FOSS-friendly devices at all. Maybe this even already exists, in the form of locked-down Android devices. Android is good example. Before Android most phones were tightly-locked and it was basically impossible to run your own OS on mobile devices. Openmoko tried to solve this problem in the fashion you suggest, but failed miserably - and it was obvious it'll fail from the onset. Android gave us CyanogenMod and plethora of the devices you can use it with. Sure, you may argue that some imaginary world where all devices are free will be better, but this is not in the cards. Today Linux desktop survives on coattails of server market (where "freedom to tinker" is still important and will be important for foreseeable future), but it looks like Microsoft is finally wising up to the problem. If Microsoft will split standards for the desktop (fully locked up with some concessions to the enterprise - see how Apple does this with iOS) and server then this will be the end of desktop Linux (and Intel will be very happy indeed because people will finally stop using cheap desktop components for servers).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 13:47 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > Of course not! It's good for them! This is what they want! If someone actively prefers (rather than just doesn't care) general-purpose computing hardware to be locked down, like the iDevices are, then that person is fundamentally opposed to the core ideology of Free Software: users deserve to have complete control over the software and hardware that they use. The FLOSS community shouldn't be trying to bring those people into the userbase, unless they first convert to the FLOSS ideology. (And if you actively prefer locked down devices, which it sounds like you do, then you are obviously an enemy of this community!) > You asking users to give up concrete advantages for nebulous freedoms (which they don't want and don't need). That's what the FSF has always done, since the very beginning. > It just does not work. If it didn't work, then FLOSS would never have gained any significant amount of users in the first place. Clearly that's not the case. One reason why it does in fact work is that the freedoms aren't "nebulous" like you say, but instead there are real concrete benefits to them. For example, back when I used Windows 3.11, often something would not work (or would mysteriously stop working), and I would have no idea how it might be fixable, but now that I use Linux, I'm more often able to fix problems on my own. > Sorry, but this is the only choice. Most of hardware in the future will be locked - simply because users don't case. It sounds like you're trying to convince the FLOSS community to accept Linux-on-locked-down-hardware, because it's more important to have Linux gain lots of technically-illiterate users than it is to preserve user freedom. But we'll never accept that, because we don't care about "Linux" as such; freedom is all that matters to us. Also, "Most of hardware" doesn't matter — what matters is that enough unlocked hardware remains available on the market, at low enough prices. And right now there seems to be plenty of such hardware, including desktop/notebook/server PCs (as they always have been) as well as the likes of the BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, IGEP, and the upcoming Vivaldi tablet.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 15:45 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] > You asking users to give up concrete advantages for nebulous freedoms (which they don't want and don't need). Sorry, but facts don't support your claims. First release of GCC supported VAX and SunOS. Later Cygnus developed extensive system which brought GNU tools to users of proprietary OSes and it was enthusiastically endorsed by FSF. And even when Linux finally made GNU/Linux OS usable support for users of other platforms continued. RMS and FSF may sound like stuck-up zealots at times but they are very practical when it's important. > It just does not work. See above. All the FOSS “success stories” (server, embedded, Android, etc) are in places where people care about normal users and not just about FOSS lovers. On desktop, where distributions reject such people Linux is confined to aforementioned 1% and lives at mercy of proprietary brethren: most (if not all) hardware for desktop is created without Linux in mind. Linux support is added later if at all. Compare support for server-related hardware (CPUs, NICs, etc) and for Desktop-oriented one (GPUs, WiFi, etc) This is dangerous situation to be in.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 16:39 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > First release of GCC supported VAX and SunOS. Later Cygnus developed extensive system which brought GNU tools to users of proprietary OSes and it was enthusiastically endorsed by FSF. And even when Linux finally made GNU/Linux OS usable support for users of other platforms continued. None of which negates my point. Using free software has always involved giving up certain "concrete advantages" (in the early pre-Linux days, the disadvantages would have been forgoing first-party support from the system vendor, and spending extra effort to installand keep up to date a bunch of third-party software across all systems in the administrative domain) but getting other concrete advantages (such as the ability to fix problems yourself, the "with many eyes, all bugs are shallow" effect, the likelihood that a project with a bad maintainer will be forked rather than killed off entirely, etc.) in return for the ones given up. > All the FOSS “success stories” (server, embedded, Android, etc) are in places where people care about normal users In the examples you cited above (Cygnus, GCC on VAX and SunOS), how did "Joe Average"-type users matter at all? The people who decided to switch over to GNU tools on those minicomputer/workstation platforms were developers and system administrators, not technically-illiterate end users.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 17:20 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The people who decided to switch over to GNU tools on those minicomputer/workstation platforms were developers and system administrators, not technically-illiterate end users. “Joe Average” != “someone dumb and stupid”. “Joe Average” is Joe, you know, Average. VAX and SunOS users typically knew how to compile things and for them Cygnus solution was “good enough”. In fact it was easier to use them many alternative commercial offers. Today Joe Average no longer knows or cares about compilation of programs from scratch. Thus the same solution is rejected. In the early pre-Linux days, the disadvantages would have been forgoing first-party support from the system vendor, and spending extra effort to install and keep up to date a bunch of third-party software across all systems in the administrative domain. Bullshit. GNU software was always parallel-installable and never required “forgoing first-party support from the system vendor”. But getting other concrete advantages (such as the ability to fix problems yourself, the "with many eyes, all bugs are shallow" effect, the likelihood that a project with a bad maintainer will be forked rather than killed off entirely, etc.) in return for the ones given up. Bullshit again. Most users of GNU software in these days cared about additional features, not about source availability. The fact that bash included nice command-line editing facility was more important then the fact that it included sources. The fact that GCC was free (while SunOS compiler was expensive) was the driving force, not the code availability. Sure, at some point a lot of users have “looked under the hood” (because they had the ability) and some even become contributors, but it was never (or almost never) the motivation for the initial installation of GNU tools.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 18:55 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > VAX and SunOS users typically knew how to compile things I know firsthand that many VAX users didn't have anywhere close to that level of technical expertise. For example, people used to use dumb terminals on a VAX (or other minicomputer) for email at work (I remember one such place that used Pine on VMS, for example), or for using their employer's in-house applications, or even for searching public library catalogs. These users knew less about computers than most people today, and yet they probably outnumbered (by far) those who did know how to compile things. > Bullshit. GNU software was always parallel-installable and never required “forgoing first-party support from the system vendor”. Yes it did — the more that someone was using GNU software (or other third-party software, generally), the more they'd have to rely on other sources of help than the first-party system vendor. It's just that back then they were still using plenty of software from the system vendor, whereas with GNU/Linux on commodity hardware now, the proportion of non-system-vendor software has increased to almost 100% — though of course, some high-end server hardware vendors actually have first-party support for GNU/Linux now. > Most users of GNU software in these days cared about additional features, not about source availability. […] it was never (or almost never) the motivation for the initial installation of GNU tools. But that just goes to show that it's entirely possible for FLOSS to compete against proprietary software on practical features, and win. And it's not just a coincidence, either — the greater functionality of GCC and coreutils was a direct consequence of the ability of skilled users to join the developer-base, thus giving them a larger and more meritocratic developer-base than their proprietary counterparts had.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 23:03 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Yet Mac OS X captured more than 10% of the market, even though it requires overpriced proprietary hardware. Yes, but that's not because people specifically want OS X and therefore need to buy a Mac, it's because they want a Mac in the first place, which is a different ballgame altogether. People would buy Macs even if they came with a GUI version of CP/M, as long as there was a big-enough Apple logo on the computer. This is because for many people, buying Apple stuff is a life style decision, rather than a technical decision. Sort of like being vegetarian. If Apple wasn't manufacturing its own PCs and OS X was an after-market OS to be installed on generic PCs like Linux is today, it would be just as (un)popular as Linux, simply because most people can't be bothered to change the OS on their computer. It would also have the same hardware support/developer buy-in issues, only worse because there would be less free stuff available and fewer hardware manufacturers would be interested in supporting with drivers or using it for their own products.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 0:08 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Is there any OS that doesn't come pre-loaded on systems that has achieved any noticeable market penetration?
I would go out on a limb a bit and say that Linux is probably 100x as popular as the next closest competitor if you were to exclude pre-loaded OS installs.
That says a lot of good things about Linux, and you have to wonder where it would be if it wasn't for the Microsoft shenanigans.
and no, I don't consider the "distro that nobody has heard of" shipped pre-loaded on the early netbook machines to qualify as Linux being pre-loaded.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 9:20 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I would go out on a limb a bit and say that Linux is probably 100x as popular as the next closest competitor if you were to exclude pre-loaded OS installs. Yup. Linux desktop is large fish in this aquarium. But there are the problem: master of said aquarium can displace it at any time. The question: can Linux desktop survive in the ocean? and no, I don't consider the "distro that nobody has heard of" shipped pre-loaded on the early netbook machines to qualify as Linux being pre-loaded. Why not? It was the first time Linux desktop was seriously pitted against older contenders. It was eaten alive. I hope people who'll try to do that next time will be better prepared. But it looks these preparations will require complete divorce from the world of traditional Linux distributions. Which is sad because said distributions did many things right.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 10:42 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] But it looks these preparations will require complete divorce from the world of traditional Linux distributions. Which is sad because said distributions did many things right. A computer manufacturer could do a lot worse than team up with somebody who will provide support for one of the major long-lifecycle distributions like Debian or Ubuntu (LTS). That would ensure a reasonable time between upgrades (which are usually seamless) as well as timely security patches, and a wide, easily-accessible selection of software from the get-go. Also these distributions are unlikely to go away anytime soon. So far this hasn't been seriously tried AFAIK. It is important to emphasise that these distributions already come with lots of software that people would otherwise have to obtain, possibly at very considerable expense, from the open third-party market or an »app store«. So it's not as if one would immediately need lots of buy-in from third-party software developers (as in OS X). Certainly somebody who uses their computer mainly to surf the web, to write e-mail and letters, even to deal with holiday photographs, to catalogue books or DVDs or a stamp collection, and many other things that occur in the usual home or SOHO use, could go a very long way without having to install anything from outside the distribution's repositories. Of course if the prime purpose of the computer in question is to run the newest Windows games, a Windows machine is likely to be the better bet – but that isn't going to change however much Linux is modified. It may not actually be worth the trouble.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 14:34 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] A computer manufacturer could do a lot worse than team up with somebody who will provide support for one of the major long-lifecycle distributions like Debian or Ubuntu (LTS). That would ensure a reasonable time between upgrades (which are usually seamless) as well as timely security patches, and a wide, easily-accessible selection of software from the get-go. Also these distributions are unlikely to go away anytime soon. So far this hasn't been seriously tried AFAIK. This will never be “seriously tried” because of poor ROI: if there are no lock-in then how can you recoup your expenses? This is the case where Linux's greatest strength becomes it's greatest weakness. Of course if the prime purpose of the computer in question is to run the newest Windows games, a Windows machine is likely to be the better bet – but that isn't going to change however much Linux is modified. It may not actually be worth the trouble. Of course direct attack is hopeless! Linux must do something which MacOS and Windows just can't do and then grow from such niche to the full-blown desktop. There are some ideas about what exactly this niche can be - different companies play with different niches. The problem is that it looks like all such attempts will happen with something like Android or webOS: Linux which has nothing to do with traditional Linux desktop.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 15:07 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] This will never be “seriously tried” because of poor ROI: if there are no lock-in then how can you recoup your expenses? If you're a hardware manufacturer such as HP or Dell you're not interested in lock-in – you're interested in moving boxes. Anything that looks like it might move more boxes is worth looking into. The problem is to get things going in the first place; once you have a system set up, there is no reason why supporting Linux would need to be any more expensive than supporting Windows. (In the long run it may even be cheaper.) »Lock-in« doesn't enter into it from a hardware manufacturer's point of view because nobody is »locked into« generic PC hardware that you can get from dozens of manufacturers. Even if you're into high-end kit you can always get that from any of half a dozen manufacturers. (Apple is an anomaly here because Apple is no longer a computer maker, it's a life style. People are hooked on Apple in a way that they never get hooked on Dell or Asus. However, to a large extent OS X suffers from the same uptake problems as Linux; it just doesn't matter because Apple makes three quarters of its money selling stuff that isn't running OS X in the first place, anyway.) There is nothing in principle to prevent someone like HP or Dell from offering Linux als a pre-installed alternative on all of its machines other than that the margins you get from moving boxes do not lend themselves to experiments. Microsoft has a nice little positive-feedback loop going that will ensure that as long as 95% of PC buyers buy Windows pre-installed, the hardware makers aren't keen on being the first to sink investment money into something new – and Microsoft is trying to keep things that way: The real reason Linux isn't preinstalled more is that Microsoft provides kickbacks to hardware manufacturers like HP or Dell to »recommend« Windows.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 16:48 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Yeah, sure.
Microsoft doesn't provide kickbacks in Russia, Ukraine and lots of other countries. You can easily buy laptops and computers running FreeDOS there. Guess what's the first thing people do after they buy them?
Hint: it generally involves a CD with pirated Windows.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 17:14 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] OK. So Microsoft doesn't waste money on kickbacks to manufacturers in countries where people won't pay for Windows in the first place. What does that prove? It certainly doesn't prove Linux couldn't compete with Windows on a level playing field. What is easier to come by for non-geeks in Russia and Ukraine, a CD with pirated Windows or a CD with Linux? What about CDs with pirated Windows games? Also, Microsoft could easily crack down on pirated copies of Windows if they wanted to. However, that would be utterly counterproductive because it would just make Linux look more attractive in comparison. Microsoft knows very well that hanging on to their 95% market share is worth a bunch of pirated CDs in Russia.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 17:29 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
I often hear laments: "Oh, if only Windows wasn't preinstalled. We'd rule the world with Linux, surely!"
They are definitely not true as I see a counter-example with my own eyes.
>It certainly doesn't prove Linux couldn't compete with Windows on a level playing field. What is easier to come by for non-geeks in Russia and Ukraine, a CD with pirated Windows or a CD with Linux?
A CD with Linux - broadband access is ubiquitous and cheap. I have 100mbit Ethernet connection for $8 a month, so I can download Ubuntu install CD in about 30 seconds. Of course, I can do the same for a Windows install DVD.
So I'd say they are on a level footing.
>What about CDs with pirated Windows games?
Actually, they are becoming quite rare. Why would you bother with buying CDs when you can download anything you want for free?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 18:28 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
and how many computer manufacturers build systems exclusively for those markets?
and what slice of the overall computer industry are these markets?
I suspect that the answers to both are very small numbers.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 20:43 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] These both are wrong questions. The answers to both are: there are more then enough computer manufacturers and they represent huge slice of computer industry (China alone is large enough), but in places where Windows is free and Linux is free Windows wins hands down. It's not even a contest. And since you can not attach any non-zero price to Linux (this will immediately make your Linux offer non-noncompetitive) the end result is that there are still no chance for “serious try”. People somehow expect that “serious try” will be “identical push for Windows and Linux” but it just does not work: Windows in incumbent, identical push will always favor it, you need bigger push to succeed - and where money for said push will come from? You can not even use typical bundling strategy (where producer of demo version of commercial program pays you dollar or two) because Linux distributions are typically designed to repel any and all proprietary commercial developers as we are discussing here.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 21:12 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
where linux and windows are both 'free', windows will win due to the network effect.
but if microsoft didn't allow for the piracy of windows to maintain this, they would not both be free.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 21:57 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] This is exactly what I'm saying. It's not up to the Microsoft to determine if given country has high piracy or not. But in both cases Windows wins: if piracy is high the Windows wins because of network effect, if it's low then Microsoft makes good money and spends some of it via kickbacks to promote Windows. Windows wins in both cases. Q.E.D.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 20:35 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] There is nothing in principle to prevent someone like HP or Dell from offering Linux als a pre-installed alternative on all of its machines other than that the margins you get from moving boxes do not lend themselves to experiments. Ever wondered why systems with Linux preinstalled are always separate models (often with the same hardware but still with separate nomenclature article)? Apparently there are just this little teeeny agreement. The problem is to get things going in the first place; once you have a system set up, there is no reason why supporting Linux would need to be any more expensive than supporting Windows. Not enough. You need bigger margins, not the same margins, or else the whole exercise is pointless. For that manufacturer need some kind of lock-in - that's what I'm talking about. And indeed when nettop story started vendors tried to produce such lock-in - but unsuccessfully. In the long run it may even be cheaper. PC business is very low margin business. Companies just don't have luxury to think about long term: if they'll start producing losses then the end can come very fast. »Lock-in« doesn't enter into it from a hardware manufacturer's point of view because nobody is »locked into« generic PC hardware that you can get from dozens of manufacturers. Sure. But why start expensive and complex program which may jeopardize your relationship with Microsoft if the end result are the same tiny margins you already have?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 22:48 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] You need bigger margins, not the same margins, or else the whole exercise is pointless. For that manufacturer need some kind of lock-in - that's what I'm talking about. As a PC manufacturer, you can't »lock in« people to your hardware (unless you're Apple, but we already said that special rules apply to Apple). If anything, a desire to create lock-in would be an argument in favour of preinstalling Linux as long as your Linux distribution is good enough and supports your machine well, because as long as you're the only one selling such a machine people will continue being your customers. This works for Apple – Macintoshes could just as well run Windows but people tend to stick with the OS X that comes with the machine. The margins on Macs aren't quite like the ones on iPhones, but we don't see Apple complain. In the same vein, if a good computer came pre-installed with a good, supported mainstream Linux like Debian (rather than the low-end boxes with weird Linux distributions that hardware manufacturers tend to offer if they offer anything at all), most people would probably stay with that because putting anything else on it would be more of a hassle than it was worth.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 11, 2012 6:05 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If anything, a desire to create lock-in would be an argument in favour of preinstalling Linux as long as your Linux distribution is good enough and supports your machine well, because as long as you're the only one selling such a machine people will continue being your customers. Nope. Others sell similar machines, too. Both tiny firms with full selection of models (tiny selection because firms are tiny) and large companies like Dell, HP, or Lenovo - but with few models (again: Linux is not large enough to support the large range of models). This works for Apple – Macintoshes could just as well run Windows but people tend to stick with the OS X that comes with the machine. Some actually install Linux and/or Windows, but that's not the point. The point is that MacOS works poorly on anything else and Apple vigorously ensures that there will be no machines with Hackintosh preinstalled. This is where lock-in scheme starts to work and this is what you can not do with Linux. In the same vein, if a good computer came pre-installed with a good, supported mainstream Linux like Debian (rather than the low-end boxes with weird Linux distributions that hardware manufacturers tend to offer if they offer anything at all), most people would probably stay with that because putting anything else on it would be more of a hassle than it was worth. This was tried many times. It does not work. People find something deficient with tiny selection of “Linux preinstalled” offers and buy something else instead. And it makes no sense to create as many models with Linux as you create models with Windows if you expect 10x-100x less buyers.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 11, 2012 7:53 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] This was tried many times. It does not work. People find something deficient with tiny selection of “Linux preinstalled” offers and buy something else instead. When I bought my current computer (an HP business notebook), HP did offer one configuration with Linux preinstalled. That was the bottom-of-the-line configuration with the slowest CPU and GPU, the lowest screen resolution, the smallest hard disk and half the RAM of the one I eventually got. It does not come as a big surprise that under these circumstances buying the machine with Linux preinstalled is not the option most customers will take. On the »plus« side, the machine I bought in the end is also very nice for Linux, with basically everything working out of the box using Debian (I've so far not missed the fingerprint reader, and somebody like HP could probably get that supported by leaning on the chip manufacturer). It does make one wonder why HP does not offer a Linux preinstall for the top-of-the-line configuration rather than the bottom one. In my experience, installing Linux on notebooks has become a lot easier over the years. Whether this is due to improvements in Linux itself or the manufacturers moving towards supported components is difficult to tell (probably a mixture of both), but the presence of any configurations of a model with Linux preinstalled is a good sign because it indicates that Linux will probably work well on the other configurations, too. There is certainly nothing technical that prevents manufacturers from offering more Linux preinstalls – the reason why this doesn't happen more often is mostly to do with Microsoft's sleazy business practices.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 10, 2012 10:57 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the distros selected for the early netbooks were not any of the bigger name, well supported distros. They were ones that virtually nobody had heard of, that had no significant community around them, and then the vendors provided no updates for them on top of that.
That's hardly justification for saying that such installations will require "a divorce from the world of traditional Linux distributions", In fact, it's more a matter of showing that if you do make such a divorce, it's going to take a lot more effort on your part to make things work.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 6, 2012 8:06 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But if that's why Linux has less usage share, then backwards/forwards compatibility doesn't matter — it's because of lock-in, not lack of backwards/forward compatibility. More like lock-out. If you keep the existing application and convince people to create new ones then number of available applications grows and then you can try to attract new users which will make platform more attractive to developers which will give you new apps, etc. Take a look on NextSTEP/MacOS plight. NEXTStep was extremely cool computer (it had rave reviews, etc), yet even Steve Jobs was unable to sell it. Does it mean that he was incompetent back then and only become ruthless, successful businessman after it's return to Apple? No: he led the Pixar at the same which revolutionized the animation and went on to the very successful IPO. Later it was sold to Disney and Disney's stow formed the majority of Steve Job's wealth in 2011. But when Jobs returned to Apple NEXTStep underwent a lot of cosmetic changes which resulted in contemporary 6-7% market for MacOS X. MacOS was at about 4.5% in 1996 when Steve returned. It does not look like much but keep in mind that 4.5% is about the same market share as MacOS X was couple of years ago. Steve's first priority was to keep existing users happy. That's why MacOS X development took years (it was released five years after NeXT was bought and for one more year it was not a default OS for newly sold computers). Later, when Apple got other strongholds (iPod, iPhone, iPad) it become more demanding to their developers - and still when developers threaten stampede Apple retreats (take a look on push against sandbox, for example). Linux desktop, on the other hand, imposes more restrictions, breaks applications all the time and yes, has smaller (and shrinking!) market share. Yet it's developers claim everything is peachy and they are on the road to success. Is it honest delusion or inability to face reality? But users like those are unlikely to contribute to the development of the programs they use, and the entire purpose of FLOSS is to make it possible for every user to become a developer. Users are unlikely to contribute. But this is not why they are important. The apps for said users don't grow on trees. Someone develops them. But if most users are not on Linux then most developers are not on Linux either. If they don't care or, even worse, don't know about Linux then they will not become Linux developers in any case. That's why the user/developer community isn't willing to have a situation where "you must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare" just for the sake of attracting the kind of user who's not willing to get their hands dirty. No? Then why all these pointless shiny changes features and breakage to the workflow of the existing users? Why the push for social? This behavior just does not adds up. Either you want to attract “dumb users” or you don't want to do that. If the first case you need to guarantee they'll see not just shiny new desktop, but lots of shiny new applications (and games), too, in the second case you should keep the existing users happy. Today Linux desktop combines worst qualities of both approaches.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 1:18 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > Linux desktop, on the other hand, imposes more restrictions Like what? > breaks applications all the time But you can still run them, as I've already said… > and yes, has smaller (and shrinking!) market share. According to what study? > Yet it's developers claim everything is peachy and they are on the road to success. Is it honest delusion or inability to face reality? No, it's because the developer base and rate of development are both increasing steadily. That's all that really matters for the survival of a project — a project that can recruit new developers will survive, whereas a project that can't will die even if it has lots of users. > But if most users are not on Linux then most developers are not on Linux either. You seem to be assuming that the proportion of users who are also developers is the same for every platform, but I believe that it's much higher for Unix/Linux than it is for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. And the reason for that is simple: for this category of users, Linux is far more "user-friendly" than any other system. > Then why all these pointless shiny changes features and breakage to the workflow of the existing users? Why the push for social? Speaking as a KDE user, I don't know what you're talking about here. The user experience for me hasn't changed much throughout the last 8 years — and that's how I like it! Whereas what you seem to be saying to people like me is essentially "Go away, you don't exist. The Linux desktop should be designed for the technically-ignorant masses, not for you." But those aren't the ones who are developing the system, nor are they funding its development, so (fortunately!) there's no chance that the changes you suggest will ever happen.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 12:06 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Like what? There are no SDK besides LSB. Thus you either need to spend huge amount of time trying to understand what APIs are safe to use and which are not or you are stuck with pitiful API set. But you can still run them, as I've already said… I can run them. You can run them. Joe Average can not - and that's the problem. According to what study? According to statcounter, for example. Actually it looks like recently the slide stopped. In fact it showed the largest result in April: 0.85% (it had 0.84% in July 2008). Of course March's result is 0.83% and April is not yet finished thus it's possible that it was some kind of blimp... But do you really feel 0.01% growth in five years is good result? That's all that really matters for the survival of a project — a project that can recruit new developers will survive, whereas a project that can't will die even if it has lots of users. And the projects which lose the hardware to run on will become irrelevant even if there are bazillion developers. Take a look on GPE, Opie, etc. They also had growing number of participants and boasted their cool features. Where are they today? Well, they still alive and even produce new releases (but AFAICS number of developers is no longer growing)... which you can run on emulators or vintage hardware bought on eBay. If that's your goal, then I have no objections, actually. Feel free to continue. You seem to be assuming that the proportion of users who are also developers is the same for every platform, but I believe that it's much higher for Unix/Linux than it is for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. No. I assume most developers are not hobbyists and they follow users. If users are on Linux (for example in HPC space) then most developers are on Linux. If the users are on Windows (for example on Desktop) then most developers are on Windows. It's as simple as that. But those aren't the ones who are developing the system, nor are they funding its development, so (fortunately!) there's no chance that the changes you suggest will ever happen. Don't be so quick to assert that. I know enough people in various companies who think about Linux desktop. Most of them, of course, just ignore FOSS pundits, but I wanted to see if they can be coopted. Well, looks like “my way or the highway” is their principal stance… and since there are no way in hell their way can be acceptable by general public… well, the die is cast. Just remember: in the end it was your choice. I'm actually cautiously optimistic WRT Linux desktop. I think in about 5-7 years Linux will have the same presence on desktop as it has on mobiles today (about 50%), and, of course, FOSS pundits will continue to moan that this is not what they meant when they talked about “year of Linux desktop”.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 14:32 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > There are no SDK besides LSB. That's not a "restriction". > Thus you either need to spend huge amount of time trying to understand what APIs are safe to use In practice, it's not so difficult to know what APIs are safe to use. > I can run them. You can run them. Joe Average can not - and that's the problem. In that case, the real problem here is that "Joe Average" isn't computer-literate enough. Because our fundamental goal isn't to increase the usage share of Linux, it's to get the public at large to start caring about software freedom — and better computer literacy is probably a prerequisite for that. (I seem to remember one of Stallman's essays suggesting that office workers should learn how to write Elisp code to do the common tasks they need to do.) Maybe RaspberryPi will help with that, even if its hardware is a little more locked-down then we'd like. > But do you really feel 0.01% growth in five years is good result? Even if those figures are valid (and I don't believe they are), it doesn't matter, because "growth" (of the userbase) isn't what we care about. All we (current Linux desktop users) care about is that the software continues to be developed and continues to have the characteristics that attracted us to it in the first place (including user-freedom, which you keep telling us that we need to give up). > Take a look on GPE, Opie, etc. The reason those projects are dying is not because of locked-down hardware; instead, it's because they were designed for old PDAs with much less CPU/GPU power and smaller screens than the mobile devices of today. Today's equivalent devices have no need for Qt Embedded — they can run full Qt X11, so we have Plasma Active to fulfill the role that Qtopia/OPIE once served. > there are no way in hell their way can be acceptable by general public… The FLOSS community's goal is, and always has been, to convince the general public that software freedom is important. We must never give up on that goal, and we never will. Because it's really a matter of political power — in a computer-dependent society, if people aren't in control of their own computing environment, that means that other people are in control of it, and therefore those other people have power over them. And this is all just a part of our broader political goal, which is to have a society where no one has power over anyone else; in other words, anarchism. That's the only way to have true "liberty and justice for all".
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 17:03 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] In that case, the real problem here is that "Joe Average" isn't computer-literate enough. No, the real problem is that times have changed. Joe Average is quite computer-literate today. S/he knows how to use spreadsheets and web browsers, s/he knows how to create blog and publish video on YouTube. What Joe Average does not know and does not want to know is how to program. Just like s/he does not know how to fix the car. These skills were important when IT industry and automotive industry were young, but today… they expect that it'll be done by professionals. Because our fundamental goal isn't to increase the usage share of Linux, it's to get the public at large to start caring about software freedom — and better computer literacy is probably a prerequisite for that. I doubt it's even possible. The most you can do it mobilize general public when some changes threaten them directly (see SOPA/PIPA). But when it's something abstract… they don't really care. All we (current Linux desktop users) care about is that the software continues to be developed and continues to have the characteristics that attracted us to it in the first place (including user-freedom, which you keep telling us that we need to give up). Bullshit. Some Linux users genuinely care about software freedom and put it before everything else. But most of them are happy to use proprietary software if the need arises: ATI/nVidia drivers, Flash player, etc. It's hard to find Linux user who rejects them. The reason those projects are dying is not because of locked-down hardware; instead, it's because they were designed for old PDAs with much less CPU/GPU power and smaller screens than the mobile devices of today. Today's equivalent devices have no need for Qt Embedded — they can run full Qt X11, so we have Plasma Active to fulfill the role that Qtopia/OPIE once served. Than why there are tons of devices which use Android and nothing with Plasma Active? And this is all just a part of our broader political goal, which is to have a society where no one has power over anyone else; in other words, anarchism. That's the only way to have true "liberty and justice for all". Sorry to burst your bubble but this is impossible. Creation of silicone components is highly centralized business thus large corporations will always be in charge. If someone will find and way to cheaply replicate computer hardware then may be, just may be, you fantasies will have a chance to become reality. But till that happens they will remain pure vapor.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 18:21 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > What Joe Average does not know and does not want to know is how to program. If you don't believe that as many people as possible should be able to program, then you're rejecting the core ideology of FLOSS. Because if there's only a small elite who are able to develop software, that small elite will have power over others — and people having power over others is inherently wrong. There can be no argument whatsoever that it's not inherently wrong — it's a core value that needs no justification. It just is. > Than why there are tons of devices which use Android and nothing with Plasma Active? Because the phone carriers are hostile to user-freedom, and also because Plasma Active is new and immature. It's not true, though, that "nothing" runs Plasma Active, and the amount of devices it supports will increase over time. And it's not even the only current FLOSS mobile UX; there's Nemo Mobile, and there's CyanogenMod. > Some Linux users genuinely care about software freedom and put it before everything else. But most of them are happy to use proprietary software if the need arises: ATI/nVidia drivers, Flash player, etc. It's hard to find Linux user who rejects them. While it's true that just about all Linux desktop users are using at least some proprietary software (almost all of them are using proprietary system firmware / BIOS, for example), that in no way implies that software freedom wasn't part of what attracted them to Linux in the first place — and that is the point I was making. Or to put it another way, suppose there's a "desktop Linux" platform that's a lot like iOS: it runs on locked-down devices only, and it only runs software from a single "app store" (unless you pay for a "developer subscription"). What's in it for me? (Nothing.) Why would I care that it has a Linux kernel somewhere inside? (I wouldn't.) You seem to be suggesting that this is what the future of the Linux desktop should look like — but the current user-base and developer-base want nothing like that. > large corporations will always be in charge. Another world is possible. All it will take is for FLOSS community members and other true believers to enter the heart of the capitalist system, and then destroy it from within. Because anything would be better than the current system — anything AT ALL! Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the BLACK flag flying here…
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 20:26 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Because if there's only a small elite who are able to develop software, that small elite will have power over others — and people having power over others is inherently wrong. Small? Elite? What are you smoking? Very small percentage of people know how to farm today (and food is essential for living!) - does it mean they are “small elite with have power over others”? Very small percentage of people know how to stitch boots (and in many countries you can literally die without proper boots!) - does it mean they are “small elite with have power over others”? Contemporary society is highly differentiated and any given skill (beyond small number of basics like the ability to speak) is only known to small percentage of it. Why programming should be any different? On the contrary: I've worked as CS teacher some time ago and it's obvious to me that most people will never be able to program. Never. That's just fact of life. You can not do anything about it. You can ignore these people or you may adopt them somehow, but the society where most people know how to program is just impossible. There can be no argument whatsoever that it's not inherently wrong — it's a core value that needs no justification. Whatever. You may as well declare Law of Gravity as something “inherently wrong” - it'll not care. Just like I don't care about your crazy declarations. It's not true, though, that "nothing" runs Plasma Active, and the amount of devices it supports will increase over time. And it's not even the only current FLOSS mobile UX; there's Nemo Mobile, You forgot about webOS which is open source now. Yes, there are enough failed FOSS projects and I'm sure there will be many more. People just refuse to learn. and there's CyanogenMod. This is different kettle of fish. CyanogenMod is the only project with clear long-term perspective. Because it has evil twin designed for Joe Average - regular Android. If Android will fail at some point (for example if WP15 will kill it) then CyanogenMod, Plasma Active and other simlar projects will have no hardware to run on. You seem to be suggesting that this is what the future of the Linux desktop should look like — but the current user-base and developer-base want nothing like that. s/should/would/ It's either that or nothing at all. If Linux will form the platform which is used by Joe Average then there will be sibling platform for FOSS-lovers. If Linux will continue to form 1% of desktop and Microsoft will succeed in separation of closed Windows-only desktop platform from server (where Linux is not in danger for foreseeable future) then Linux desktop will be extinct.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 20:56 UTC (Sat) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link] You forgot about webOS which is open source now. Not yet it isn't...
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 7:31 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > does it mean they are “small elite with have power over others”? If other people were actively excluded from joining that group (as is the case when copyright and/or patents and/or lack of source code exclude people who do know how to program from being able to modify the software that they use), then it might. Because if society depends on something that is under the control of an exclusive elite group, they will have political power over the whole society. That's why the core goal of FLOSS has always been to increase the amount of people who have control over the software they use. (And that's also why even non-programmers stand to benefit from FLOSS — with a large and non-exclusive base of developers, non-developer users have more options to turn to when developers/maintainers go against the users' interests.) > Whatever. You may as well declare Law of Gravity as something “inherently wrong” - it'll not care. Just like I don't care about your crazy declarations. What you dismiss as "crazy declarations" are nothing less than the core ideals that the 18th century French and American revolutionaries believed in. > Yes, there are enough failed FOSS projects and I'm sure there will be many more. It's way too soon to say that Plasma Active and Nemo Mobile are "failed". I believe they'll be more successful than the ones you mentioned (OPIE and GPE) ever were — mainly because the hardware they're designed for is itself far more commercially successful than the old so-called "PDA" devices ever were. > CyanogenMod is the only project with clear long-term perspective. It has no more "long-term perspective" than the rest. The only reason it has a larger usage share than the others is from riding on the coattails of it's "evil twin". > If Android will fail at some point (for example if WP15 will kill it) then CyanogenMod, Plasma Active and other simlar projects will have no hardware to run on. If that were true, then it would have been impossible for OPIE and GPE to run on hardware made for Windows CE (Jornada / iPAQ), but they did. And it's not guaranteed that Android being successful will ensure that unlocked hardware will be available in the future — for a while it seemed like there would be no more unlocked Android phones, when the Nexus One was cancelled. > It's either that or nothing at all. If Linux will form the platform which is used by Joe Average then there will be sibling platform for FOSS-lovers. Again, there's no guarantee of that. iOS is descended from FLOSS (Mach and 4.3BSD), and yet it has no "sibling platform for FOSS-lovers". And there's no reason why a (desktop or mobile) OS based on GPLv2-licensed Linux couldn't be just the same — indeed, Android could easily become like that if Google and the device manufacturers chose to stamp out all unlocked hardware. The only real solution is for there to be a large enough niche market of people who actively prefer unlocked hardware, regardless of whether it's desktop or mobile. (And I believe that Google, for the moment at least, understands that there is such demand for unlocked hardware, or else there never would have been the Nexus product line.) That's why it's crucially important to make the case to the public at large about the benefits of user-freedom (and in particular the ways that locked-down hardware restrict it).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 10:11 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If other people were actively excluded from joining that group (as is the case when copyright and/or patents and/or lack of source code exclude people who do know how to program from being able to modify the software that they use), then it might. What this has to do with discussion in question? What you dismiss as "crazy declarations" are nothing less than the core ideals that the 18th century French and American revolutionaries believed in. Rilly? You must know how to program or you are not human are ideas of French and American revolutionaries? News to me. I've said: This is far cry from the “core ideals that the 18th century French and American revolutionaries”. It's one thing to empower people by giving them access to human knowledge. It's another thing to disqualify people by demanding them to learn things they don't really need or want. It's way too soon to say that Plasma Active and Nemo Mobile are "failed". They failed in the sames sense Linux desktop has failed. They don't come preinstalled (and will not come preinstalled in the future), they don't influence the markets they are in (hardware is designed to support Android 2.x or Android 4.x, never to support Plasma Active or Nemo Mobile), etc. The most they can hope for is something like Zaurus: niche product which will be on market for a few years mostly unnoticed and which will be later replaced with Android (or may be Windows8/9/10). They may survive as “curiosity project” like XMBC but this is side-attraction at best, this is not where future direction of the society is determined. If that were true, then it would have been impossible for OPIE and GPE to run on hardware made for Windows CE (Jornada / iPAQ), but they did. Sorry, but this is wrong. OPIE and GPE only had platform to run because Sharp created Linux-based PDA. And earlier efforts were also driven by companies, not by FOSS community. The same hardware was used for Windows CE devices thus it was an easy port (initially OPIE only supported Zaurus). When Sharp switched to Windows CE itself in 2007 OPIE and GPE lost the momentum, too. It's one thing to circumvent the bootloader and few unique components. It's another thing to port Linux to the hardware which has no public specification and which was never designed with Linux in mind. And it's not guaranteed that Android being successful will ensure that unlocked hardware will be available in the future — for a while it seemed like there would be no more unlocked Android phones, when the Nexus One was cancelled. That's separate issue. But if your hardware is using Linux-friendly components then to have free OS on it you basically only need to circumvent the bootloader. If your hardware is designed for totally different OS from the ground up then it's much, MUCH, MUCH harder. iOS is descended from FLOSS (Mach and 4.3BSD), and yet it has no "sibling platform for FOSS-lovers". iOS is only used by one producer which is quite explicitly is not interesting in filling all the niches. And it you can install Linux (Android) on iPhone - but it works significantly worse then Linux on Android handsets. The only real solution is for there to be a large enough niche market of people who actively prefer unlocked hardware, regardless of whether it's desktop or mobile. Bullshit. It just does not work. This approach was tried many times (Zaurus, OpenMoko, Nokia's Maemo/Meego efforts, etc). This niche market is just too small. It's large enough to support creation of a few devices from the components used by mainstream, but it's not large enough to support it's own separate ecosystem. That's why it's crucially important to make the case to the public at large about the benefits of user-freedom (and in particular the ways that locked-down hardware restrict it). “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? That's definition of insanity. This way was tried and it just does not work. Time to move on: accept that public at large is just too ignorant to care about software freedom… and coopt it anyway. Internet community did that beautifully when it was threatened by SOPA/PIPA: general public don't care about copyright all that much (mostly because it's too ignorant about copyright-relevant issues), but it reacts when confronted with the danger of loss of their favorite toy. This means that FOSS long-term survival is guaranteed only if FOSS community will learn to create toys used by general public. If they will be threatened then you you can mobilize millions if not billions in a case of danger. If FOSS will be used only by some FOSS-lovers then the destruction of the whole ecosystem will just not be noticed by general public. FOSS community may be powerful, but it has an Achilles heel: ultimately it needs hardware to run on and said hardware can only be created by large companies. It is just as stupid to pretend that it's not important as it is to stupid to pretend that FOSS is powerless.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 10:54 UTC (Sun) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link]
As someone who was involved in the handhelds.org community for a long time and the current maintainer of Opie (yes, it's still barely alive) I feel that Opie and GPE are being bandied about here as if they have significant relevance to the discussion at hand. There are some parallels, but the situation was entirely different.
It was a few years ago now but after working for some time on handheld Linux I came to the unpleasant realisation that Opie, GPE and the Linux-based operating systems that they ran on where never, ever going to reach the masses. It was never going to happen.
Why not?
Because they never came pre-installed mass-market devices (among many reasons why not, at the time, GPL was a problem for many companies) and getting them onto existing devices was an exceedingly difficult and risky procedure even for the moderately competent - much more difficult than installing Linux on a PC. Unlike PCs, the hardware was almost completely closed and differed for almost every new device, and we couldn't keep up. Not to mention that building an OS for end-users for a mobile device was a gargantuan task for a group with fairly limited resources. The saddest thing of all though is that ultimately the effort was stymied by politics.
However, I wouldn't say the effort was a complete failure. We got a lot of real software development done, and out of the desire to be able to build an operating system grew the OpenEmbedded project, which flourished and has enjoyed commercial success that still continues to this day. Not to mention that developers who worked on various projects around handhelds.org had a lot of fun and learnt a great deal (myself included). This isn't particularly relevant to the desktop Linux discussion at hand, but worth noting.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 11:26 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] As someone who was involved in the handhelds.org community for a long time and the current maintainer of Opie (yes, it's still barely alive) I feel that Opie and GPE are being bandied about here as if they have significant relevance to the discussion at hand. Well, yes, is is. It was a few years ago now but after working for some time on handheld Linux I came to the unpleasant realisation that Opie, GPE and the Linux-based operating systems that they ran on where never, ever going to reach the masses. It was never going to happen. Hmm, that's my point exactly. Because they never came pre-installed mass-market devices (among many reasons why not, at the time, GPL was a problem for many companies) and getting them onto existing devices was an exceedingly difficult and risky procedure even for the moderately competent - much more difficult than installing Linux on a PC. Sure. But here is the problem: as time goes on it becomes harder to install Linux on PC, not easier. Not just things intended to close the ability to install Linux totally (like Secure Boot) - there are other efforts, too. These changes are slow because when they interfere with lives of general public general public pushes back, but the process is quite steady. Should we want till Linux desktop will reach the same stage as OPIE today? Or, perhaps, we need to do something to make sure it'll never happen. Note that even the reason which kept Linux niche open for years (you need some Linux-compatible hardware to develop server solutions) is no longer valid: Virtual PC works fine for that. Unlike PCs, the hardware was almost completely closed and differed for almost every new device, and we couldn't keep up. Well, the history repeats itself with GPU, at least. As Cyberax said: there's that sense of fin-de-siècle in the air - the current situation is unsustainable and Something Has To Happen. Either Linux desktop will finally reach general consumer or it'll die off. And the more I look on the situation the more likely it looks like we'll have both (like it happened on handhelds/mobiles): we'll get some kind of mainstream “Linux desktop”, but it'll be some kind of deep fork which will ignore most of the efforts which happened before it. Current distributions then follow the OPIE/GPE lead on the road to oblivion.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 16:30 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > as time goes on it becomes harder to install Linux on PC, not easier. Not in my experience. I first tried to install Linux on a PC around 1997 or 1998, and couldn't do it. Since then it's gradually gotten easier; the last few times I've installed Linux (most recent one was this past December or January), I had no trouble whatsoever. > Either Linux desktop will finally reach general consumer or it'll die off. That's pure FUD, nothing more.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 19:40 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] Oh, and: > Well, the history repeats itself with GPU, at least. Not so much; right now there are only three major desktop GPU manufacturers (Intel, AMD, nVidia), all of which have free drivers available for all GPU variants up to almost the newest ones, and the latter two manufacturers also have proprietary drivers for Linux. And for mobile GPUs, proprietary drivers for Linux are readily available, and work is underway on free drivers for one mobile GPU family/manufacturer.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 1:40 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Care to explain how can I use switchable GPUs (ATI and Intel - both officially supported) on my Sony VPCSE?
Right now I have to blacklist radeon driver, or it simply hangs with black screen.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 8:44 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
That's not because they're being evilly kept secret by nasty hardware manufacturers trying to destroy desktop Linux. It's because switchable GPUs is hard enough when they're *not* completely different GPUs with distinct drivers. Even the first case has only been working for a year or so.
(And the people working on these free drivers are funded by... AMD and Intel! Normally, you'll note, competitors.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 14:34 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
But that's exactly what khim and me is telling. Good switchable GPUs are a hard task to implement.
So vendors simply don't bother with Linux where it'll be useful only for a fraction of 1% of their users. NVidia hasn't even ported their Optimus technology to Linux in proprietary drivers.
In the area of switchable GPUs all we get is airled. And while he's a mega-super-developer, he can only do so much.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 17:47 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > Which basically implies that people who don't want to learn how to build Linux systems and care for them should be considered defective and don't deserve lenience. It implies nothing of the sort. > It's one thing to empower people by giving them access to human knowledge. That is what I've been saying all along: if people don't have sufficient knowledge about the technologies they depend on, they are disempowered. And things like locked-down hardware and source-unavailable software have the effect of disempowering people by excluding them from access to this knowledge. Therefore, what you said earlier — locked-down hardware is "good for them!" — can't be true (and is totally contrary to the core ideals of the FSF and the FLOSS community at large). > They failed in the sames sense Linux desktop has failed. The way I see it, the Linux desktop is successful today and getting better all the time — and there's no reason why it has to be used by the majority to be "successful". (There's an old saying: "Unix is user-friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are." It was true then, and it's still true now.) > When Sharp switched to Windows CE itself in 2007 OPIE and GPE lost the momentum, too. Like I already said, the real reason why OPIE and GPE lost momentum was because the whole "PDA" device class was supplanted by smartphones and tablets. > It's one thing to circumvent the bootloader and few unique components. It's another thing to port Linux to the hardware which has no public specification and which was never designed with Linux in mind. The Windows CE devices were never designed with Linux in mind, and yet OPIE and GPE ran on them. And for another example: the BeagleBoard / PandaBoard / RaspberryPi / IGEPv2 class of devices probably would never have existed if it weren't for both:
> This way was tried and it just does not work. It did work — that's why we've got the PandaBoard et al., and the Nexus series, and probably also why the threat posed by EFI was defeated (at least it looks that way currently). > This means that FOSS long-term survival is guaranteed only if FOSS community will learn to create toys used by general public. If they will be threatened then you you can mobilize millions if not billions in a case of danger. The problem is that they won't be threatened (or at least they won't perceive any threat) by the unlocked hardware going out of production or the destruction of the FLOSS ecosystem. If the Nexus and whatever other unlocked Android devices all were discontinued today, the majority of Android users would barely even notice. You said so much yourself: "Of course not! It's good for them! This is what they want!"
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 19:20 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] Also, one more thing: > > It's one thing to circumvent the bootloader and few unique components. It's another thing to port Linux to the hardware which has no public specification and which was never designed with Linux in mind. What about Rockbox, then? It was quite successful on hardware that was never meant to run it or any other OS/firmware other than the manufacturer's own one, and it only declined because (same as with PDAs) the smartphone/tablet boom has decreased the usage share of DAP devices.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 16:25 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] Sorry, but this is wrong. OPIE and GPE only had platform to run because Sharp created Linux-based PDA.Sorry, but this is wrong. DEC^WCompaq Western Research Lab had been working on SA1100 StrongArm prototype hand-helds well before the Zaurus, with Linux.The Compaq iPaq was borne out of the Itsy work and, though it shipped with WinCE, Compaq WRL provided Linux friendly bootloader firmware and distributions, which were pretty easy to install. The only daunting step was running the WRL provided WinCE app to reflash the firmware - still easy though. DEC^WCompaq WRL remained a nexus of the Linux StrongArm handhelds community for a long time after (handhelds.org remained hosted there for years after). The Sharp Zaurus StrongArm Linux devices came after the Compaq iPaq. Also, they were, I think, harder to find. Compaq iPaqs were in a lot of shops at the time.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 8, 2012 23:22 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>Because the phone carriers are hostile to user-freedom, and also because Plasma Active is new and immature. It's not true, though, that "nothing" runs Plasma Active, and the amount of devices it supports will increase over time. And it's not even the only current FLOSS mobile UX; there's Nemo Mobile, and there's CyanogenMod.
Care for a prediction? Plasma Active won't run on more than a handful devices with by the end of 2013. It will be used by relatively few users, mostly computer geeks. Then it'll either slowly wither away and die or will continue as a small 'niche' product.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 9, 2012 21:14 UTC (Mon) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > or will continue as a small 'niche' product. There's nothing wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned. KDE has always been a "niche product", and yet it has survived for over 15 years and still has a thriving developer community.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 1:37 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] Oh, and a few more things: > NEXTStep was extremely cool computer (it had rave reviews, etc) The computer, or the OS? As for the computer, ISTR reading that it cost as much as a Unix workstation while having no better hardware than a 680x0 Mac, and it didn't even have a hard disk drive (at least on early models). No wonder it sold poorly. > Steve's first priority was to keep existing users happy. And you know what? If the Linux desktop were to be changed so that developers "must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare", existing users would be very unhappy, because a large proportion of those existing users are developers (which is how it should be, according to FLOSS ideology).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 12:12 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If the Linux desktop were to be changed so that developers "must support old technology (often decade old technology) thus development is nightmare", existing users would be very unhappy, because a large proportion of those existing users are developers (which is how it should be, according to FLOSS ideology). Linux has larger proportion of developers among it's users but these are still minority. That's why we have this discussion on first place. If you want to kick out all the “mere users” away and keep only developers then perhaps it's better for you to join the OpenBSD camp? These people are at least honest: We hack OpenBSD for ourselves. Not for you. Not for the users. If the users end up enjoying what we have created for themselves, good for them. This may be because some of the users are have the same needs as us. But, then they are just lucking out, since we are doing it FOR OURSELVES.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 7, 2012 14:44 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > If you want to kick out all the “mere users” away and keep only developers That's a strawman. No one ever suggested "kicking out" users — there's nothing preventing users from migrating to Linux if they prefer it over the alternatives. It's just that its developer base (which makes up a large proportion of the user base) is not, and should not be, willing to make things more difficult for themselves, and other current Linux users, for the sake of pandering to techinally-illiterate people (and you yourself admitted that "development is nightmare" on the platforms that those technically-illiterate users are currently using). > perhaps it's better for you to join the OpenBSD camp? These people are at least honest They're honest, and we're honest too — as far as I'm concerned, there's no significant defference between us and them. (In fact, I have used OpenBSD in the past.)
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 2:48 UTC (Mon) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]
Your Java example is pretty clearly the exception rather than the rule. Apple treated Java worse than a red-headed stepchild for a very long time. I really think they must have had regularly scheduled meetings where they said "OK, what can we do to make our Java support even worse without ending up with people installing 3rd party JREs?"
In some ways it was a relief when Apple said they were dropping the JRE- by opening the way for Oracle and 3rd party JREs it made actually made it more likely, not less, that people would get reasonably up-to-date Java support.
Maybe one of the undisclosed conditions of Microsoft's life-saving investment in Apple back in the day was that Apple would backstab Sun on the Java issue.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 9:17 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Maybe one of the undisclosed conditions of Microsoft's life-saving investment in Apple back in the day was that Apple would backstab Sun on the Java issue. I sincerely doubt it. Steve said it best himself: the Apple's motto is we cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers. Of course it means that all other developers are at mercy of Apple which is hypocrisy of highest caliber, but this is how Apple operates. This meant that they must make sure there will be as few Java-based programs on MacOS as possible. No need to create insane Apple/Microsoft conspiracies (Microsoft backstabbed Apple exactly when five years passed as expected thus I doubt Apple and Microsoft had any obligations after that point).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 11:22 UTC (Sat) by rich0 (guest, #55509) [Link]
The issue is shared libraries. If you build everything static, then the upside is that your software will work on just about everything. The downside is that everything uses a ton of resources (in particular RAM) since there is no sharing.
If you want shared libraries, then all packages have to be synced to the same set of libraries, or you have to use a source-based distro like Gentoo which does not require you to update the whole OS to update one app (but which requires every application to be compiled before it is installed - which is how you get around this problem).
Frankly, I'll take the latter. Have you ever looked at the chromium build system? The Chromium source tarball is huge, and 95% of it is rebuilding 3rd-party software like webkit that is already available as a shared library on virtually any distro. They static-link the whole thing, zlib and all. A few voices in the FOSS-community have complained about the practice, and Gentoo at least has been slowly patching the thing to use system libraries since it came out. The problem is that Google tends to use upstream sources, fork them, and not try to get the changes integrated upstream, so they aren't using the same webkit/etc that everybody else is.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 4, 2012 21:34 UTC (Wed) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]
That is just silly. All you need to do is compile the program!
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 5, 2012 13:45 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Not an options for 99% of desktop users. And this percentage goes down as time goes on.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 5, 2012 18:11 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Don't you mean "up"? Or is compilation becoming more accessible for desktop users?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 5, 2012 19:39 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Percentage most definitely goes down - and pretty fast. Don't know what I've thought when I wrote that.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:15 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Umm…"up" again? You wrote that "compiling programs" is *not* an option for "99% of desktop users" and that the percentage is going *down* over time. Your first reply here seems to indicate that compiling their applications is becoming an option for more desktop users as time goes on. Am I (we?) getting confused with the negations here? Sorry for the pedantry, but things aren't lining up by my readings of this.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:35 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Well, if we remove all the negatives then the bare fact is that people perceive desktop in the same way as they perceive cars. Hundred years ago it was more important for the driver to know how to fix car rather then know how to switch lanes on highway (because highways had only two lanes back then). Today a lot of drivers never even look under the hood. Desktop passed the same the same path but much faster. There are some enthusiasts who know all about compilers, computer languages, etc, but even developers are increasingly ignorant. Thus solution (source distribution) which was perfect forty years ago is not acceptable today.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 7:46 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
The app store model in iOS, Android, Mac OS X Lion, and Windows 8 is not the same as the Linux distro repository model. The app store is centrally curated but the individual app developer is responsible for creating the application package and uploading it. The app store doesn't do any repackaging or dependency management, so you can install any app without worrying about dependencies from elsewhere.
This is hugely different to the Linux model - see Ingo Molnar's posting on Google Plus recently for more about this.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 14:54 UTC (Sat) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
One problem with these "apple" stores is that they are designed for vendors with tiny portfolios.
Any vendor with a non trivial portfolio has components that are shared between its applications, some applications like office or creativity suites are specifically designed that way.
I can understand that those store services stay away from global dependencies sharable between vendors, but vendor internal dependencies would be handled by the vendor itself.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 11:26 UTC (Mon) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
> The app store model in iOS, Android, Mac OS X Lion, and Windows 8 is not the same as the Linux distro repository model
It's only different in policy not technology.
I could create an source for Debian and a web site where third parties could upload packages. I'd just say "By policy you may not depend on any package" or perhaps "on any package not present in release foo." Anyone who adds this apt source can go to his package manager and get third party apps, any third party who wants to can go to my web site and upload his apps. There's no dependency management because the packages simply don't request any. The only thing missing is a mechanism for paying for the apps.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:04 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
There's no guarantee that your app will continue to work year from now. For example, I can depend on 'libblah' package which packages version 2.71 of this library. Next year this package might switch to the next incompatible 3.141 version of this library.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 16:55 UTC (Mon) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
One would hope that, after the switch, the SONAME of libblah would be bumped to indicate this. The distro can then continue to provide the original libblah.so.0 indefinitely. Of course, this is the ideal, and it's not always adhered to strictly, but Debian is pretty good at spotting these kinds of problems and hitting upstream with the cluebat when they screw up.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 17:19 UTC (Mon) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] Yeah but that's not a good situation. The compatible version of the library is now unmaintained, orphaned. Is anyone making security fixes for it? More and more maintenance work will fall on the distributions, instead of being done in the project that's focused on the library. And some projects bump their versions several times a year, so the maintenance work on the old versions can really pile up. The result is of course that nobody does it, and installing a program that needs the old versions becomes really difficult.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 3, 2012 16:38 UTC (Tue) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
This is why I suggested "May not depend on any package"; that is, presume that you static link everything.
If you permit depending on some packages then this is a risk which the distribution vendor would have to be committed to preventing. Or, the third party repository maintainer might be willing to guarantee/mirror a set of packages at a certain version simply so that the apps can depend on them and only them (and then it's the app store owner's problem if the base distro makes an incompatible change).
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:40 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] It's only different in policy not technology. These are related things. Ubuntu tries to ignore the difference and as was already discussed just says: In order for your application to be distributed in the Software Centre it must be in one, self-contained directory when installed. Sadly it does not provide any means to create such one, self-contained directory.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:15 UTC (Sat) by bug1 (subscriber, #7097) [Link]
'Nope :) I don't want to "apt-get install" software, or "yum install" software, I want to be able to go to a website on my Linux Desktop, click on "download this application for Linux" and have it just install and work.'
When you say it like that, it sounds like you just want to be like everyone else, its worth examining why you want that. Im sure its deeper than just what buttons/commands you use to get a new app.
Perhaps what you really want is to be able go 'direct to the manufacture' rather than through a third party, to have a quality guarantee (you get want what others are getting, not a variation).
Or maybe you do only care are which buttons you press ?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 13:00 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] When you say it like that, it sounds like you just want to be like everyone else, its worth examining why you want that. Because ubiquitous internet changed things? Because it's now feasible to download monsters like Photoshop? Because today users expect the ability to play with something after they've read the press-release or talked with a friend? Im sure its deeper than just what buttons/commands you use to get a new app. Well, yes. The times, they are changing. 10 years ago it was Ok to be ignorant about some new piece of software or some new game: it was hard to get it, sometimes you needed to hunt for it, some stores were out of stock. Today if you don't react instantly you are perceived as retarded. It's quite Ok to say "well, I don't like violence so I've skipped Left 4 Dead". But when you talk about virtues of GIMP or OpenOffice.org and someone says "well, cool, can you help me with understanding the features of a new release" and you answer "no, it's not yet in my distro, come back year from now" then it goes beyond embarrassment. You are falling out of your social group. And this is important - especially for younger people. You get want what others are getting, not a variation. Yup. That's the thing. Desktop have reached regular people and now fashion is the king. People don't want to be perceived as old-fashioned. They want to play Angry Birds Seasons when it's hot, not when it's few years old! And, as quite an opposite trend, some want to keep older “comfortable and weared in” versions around. Distributions basically impose “it's my way or the highway”: you can pick from the given selection of goods but the assortment is centrally planned and provided.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 0:54 UTC (Mon) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > Distributions basically impose “it's my way or the highway”: you can pick from the given selection of goods but the assortment is centrally planned and provided. This used to be a source of frustration for me, until I switched to Arch Linux. This is for two reasons:
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 2, 2012 13:27 UTC (Mon) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Having RPM spec files available for such stuff would be easy (for Fedora) and many source packages include the build machinery for Debian, but nobody has stepped up do organize "third party" repositories of said stuff. I did rebuild some packages for new versions (or local configurations) on Fedora and CentOS semi-routinely, but the need diminished over time due to better integration and more agressive upstream tracking. Perhaps the non-existence of such repositories for other distributions is due to their users not indulging in routine wholesale recompilation, prefering a uniform, vetted set of packages instead...
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 11:59 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link] A nice solution is this. If you integrate this in your website, like qupzilla did you offer something which both integrates with package management AND is darn easy. Of course it depends on the distro a bit, openSUSE has one-click-install which, despite needing a few more clicks than one, makes installing something 'over the web' really easy. Other distro's aren't there yet, requiring command line stuff to add repo's you'd need to keep things updated. But if and when OCI gets ported to other distro's we're getting closer to how it should be while staying within the distro's comfort zone. Which a self-extracting tarball or similar solutions usually don't do.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 16:43 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] A nice solution is this. If you integrate this in your website, like qupzilla did you offer something which both integrates with package management AND is darn easy. It sounded “too good to be true” thus of course I went to check. I'm using latest version of LTS - Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) and the only thing I see is the following text: “Ubuntu Precise, Oneiric, Natty and Maverick users can install QupZilla by running these commands”… FAIL. This is what I'm talking about: I need to upgrade the whole distro just to get a new app! Worse: the distro I need to install is not yet even released (and I will probably need to wait few months till it'll be tested by our IT guys). If this is not demonstration of failure of the whole model then I don't know what is.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Apr 1, 2012 8:09 UTC (Sun) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
A distribution where that was the default method of software installation sounds like something that goes against every principle of good software engineering I can think of. Not something I would use or work on, but I wish you good luck when you start working on it.
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