Otte: staring into the abyss [LWN.net]

Otte: staring into the abyss

Posted Jul 29, 2012 20:07 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Otte: staring into the abyss by drag
Parent article: Otte: staring into the abyss

I hope you take note that the two contenders you pointed out completely eschew the traditional Linux distribution method and are intensely for-profit projects.

Well, that's the point. It's obvious that distributions will never agree to provide stable platform for third-party developers and as was discussed many times this is the very first step on the road to the Joe Average. Android and ChromeOS do provide such a platform. Sure, right now it's much poorer then what you have on desktop, but it steadily improves over time - you can not say that about other Linux desktop environments.

I still think it is entirely and 100% possible for a true Linux desktop to thrive and attract user and developer attention on a scale that will surpass Apple desktop by a factor of two or ythree.

Sadly "true Linux desktop" does not care about being usable platform. It's built around the idea that applications must be adopted/recompiled for the particular flavor of desktop. This is what killed "big Unix" and this what kills Linux desktop today. Sure, it' not 100% apples-to-apples comparison: "big Unix" vendors tried to make sure it'll be hard to port application from one flavor to another while Linux desktop environments favor cooperation. Still ISVs don't want to play these games at all: they want to build an application once and sell it many times - direct opposite of "true Linux desktop". And without ISVs "true Linux desktop" have no chance in hell.

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