Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director) [LWN.net]

Robin Bloor has posted some 2006 predictions on IT-Director.com. "One thing to note about Open Source is that the vast majority of Open Source products fail commercially, just as the vast majority of proprietary products also fail. All Open Source business models that are viable depend upon widespread adoption - and for that, compelling software is a necessity. The Linux desktop is not yet compelling. The resurgence of Apple has taken the wind out of its sails and I now doubt whether it can prosper except as a thin client, an educational platform and a third-world computer platform. (These are significant markets but not ones that lead to dominance)."

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Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 15:30 UTC (Mon) by pontus (guest, #3701) [Link] (3 responses)

I think the resurgence of Apple will help open the door for alternatives to Windows, and when people start thinking, they will discover that Linux offers great features at a very attractive price.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:01 UTC (Mon) by ordonnateur (guest, #6652) [Link] (2 responses)

OSX has proved that Unix can look pretty on a desktop. The revival of Apple's fortunes has come mostly from the iPod. With OSX on Intel processors the price premium of Apple v Windows becomes more transparent. So in the long run. Apples resurgence paves the way for libre alternatives.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 20:19 UTC (Mon) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] (1 responses)

Please. OSX is not Unix. *KDE* and *GNOME* prove that Unix/Linux/BSD can make a pretty desktop. Actually, you can argue that Xorg is now an irreplaceable part of that thanks to Composite and related technologies (maybe XGL in the future).

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 12, 2006 6:26 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Most of what we think of as Unix was developed as part of BSD. From a technical point of view, BSD is Unix, GNU/Linux might as well mean "Thanks to the Linux kernel, GNU's Now Unix". As for BSD, it isn't really even right to call it a Unix clone: SCO's Unix is basically a BSD clone. The development flowed from Berkeley to New Jersey more than vice versa.

Only the trademark stands in the way of just saying so. So yes, OS/X runs on a Unix base.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:57 UTC (Mon) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (1 responses)

KDE is not yet compelling? Maybe these guys are living in an alternative universe, but unless they want a perfect clone that never differs from windows in any way at all (something that KDE neither cannot nor wants to be), I'm not sure what they think is wrong with it.

Sure, there's a lot of things that can and will be improved, but I've used both windows XP and KDE for years, and I can definitely say that unless you have proprietary applications that only run on windows, KDE is definitely the better desktop.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 18:14 UTC (Mon) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

well, for me the power of KDE makes winXP look very pale indeed. but many
users might simply not notice it until they are used to KDE, and - they're
clearly converts already :D

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 17:21 UTC (Mon) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] (3 responses)

Greetings from the third world. (Germany)

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 18:07 UTC (Mon) by mikec (guest, #30884) [Link] (2 responses)

I am thinking of a sarcastic comment about the result of averaging a 1st and 3rd world country, but that would be offensive, so I will keep it to myself ;-) Besides, after everyone figures out that all the real money in the world has been leveraged so many times over that it no longer exists we will all live in 3rd world countries... Which reminds me, I need to stock up on toilet paper and canned goods...

Regarding interfaces, I keep thinking of the comment often made that if you build something that even an idiot can use, only idiots will use it...

Clearly that is not entirely true... ipods sell very well (though to be honest, I find my ipaq running (yegads!) winCE to be a perfectly adequate MP3 player... Have not felt the need to blow a weekend converting that to linux and then figuring out if I can get xmms to work...)

But, as everyone races to make KDE/Gnome compete with Windows, I find myself liking/using Xfce and the like even more... (not specifically, just simple, yet flexible WMs that just "do what I want")

I am less concerned about the all the various bells and whistles than:

a. can I do what I want efficiently?
b. does it chew up memory I could be putting to use in my daily memory/cpi intensive work?
c. does it crash?
d. can I tweak easy stuff like decorations (I really hate title bars greater than about 15 pixels that use up my expensive LCD pixels for no good reason, but I cannot live without them entirely...)
e. MOST IMPORTANTLY, is the undustry doing things that will make it impossible for me to have this level of control?

So, "e" puts it all into persepective for me... I am not sure I would like what ultimately has to exist to get into every last home, and school backpack... I will likely always want something more flexible, powerful, capable, secure etc...

I just want to make sure I can do that without spinning my own ASICs and even then without being put in jail for building said ASICs as they fail to conform with the Mr. Vader's latest DRM legislation...

Alternative Usable Window Manager

Posted Jan 9, 2006 21:22 UTC (Mon) by bockman (guest, #3650) [Link]

If you value usability more than eye candy, try Ion, http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/, in its stable incarnation (Ion2) or in its on-devlopment incarnation (Ion3).
You will make the most of every pixel of your screen.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 22:28 UTC (Mon) by dreadnought (guest, #27222) [Link]

Here here! Spot on commentary! I feel exactly this way too.

Open Source is not a "Business Model"

Posted Jan 9, 2006 18:56 UTC (Mon) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link] (1 responses)

The flawed assumption here is that success or failure of an open source
project is measured in terms of *business* success.

An open source project can be a "success" even if it has very few users. (For example it can help an entry level college graduate get a job by being a sort of portfolio show case of his her her coding, documentation and organizational skills).

Bloor's naysaying amounts to a restatement of "Sturgeon's Law" (90% of *everything* is crap). However, it ignores that something that looks like "crap" to an IT prognosticator might actually be fertile material for other endeavors.

(Because even the most obscure open source project can be a source of inspiration to others ... to improve, incorporate or even replace with their own work).

Of course I don't expect Robin Bloor to realize that ... because he's probably obeying Arthur C. Clarke's Law, (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic). This of course is what IT
prognosticators rely upon as they make their pronouncements while peering at their own fowl entrails.

JimD

Open Source is not a "Business Model"

Posted Jan 10, 2006 7:26 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Hear, hear! Obscure little mostly-broken ugh-I-wouldn't-write-it-that-way free software programs are *frequently* sources of inspiration to me, at least. :)

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 10, 2006 14:46 UTC (Tue) by faassen (guest, #1676) [Link]

I don't think all open source business models depend on widespread adoption. Infrae, the company I co-founded, is a small company that makes its living developing and extending Silva, an open source CMS, and other open source software. I can't say our software has more than moderate adoption -- quite a lot of places are using Silva, and it's popular in particular market segments , but it's tiny compared to something like Firefox or Open Office. Infrae is a small company, but we're viable all right.

Granted, we build on top of open source infrastructural software that has a wider adoption, such as Python and Zope. And of course, more adoption of software tends to allow more business. But his statement that widespread adoption is an absolute requirement for viable business is untrue.

Trends and Predictions for 2006 (IT-Director)

Posted Jan 10, 2006 18:29 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] (3 responses)

What an "Illuminati" !!

Only hope that this Robin Bloor insn't a "Bernard Mandevill"

""One thing to note about Open Source is that the vast majority of Open Source products fail commercially, just as the vast majority of proprietary products also fail. All Open Source business models that are viable depend upon widespread adoption...""

Glad this guys dont have a clue in a tiny shrink of hell what Open Source is, because it cant surely fit in a oligarchical beggar_your_neighbour "free trade with financial slavery" agenda.

""Novell has bet on the Linux desktop and it may well lose its bet.""

Do i sense some fear!?. Novell will good as gone if it drops Linux Desktop in it various forms from Thin to Thick, because all other business was were they were sliding under, and even before the Linux push i belive netware was pretty much as good as anything else on servers.

""There are quite a few "shadowy groups" in evidence on the web, who fit the following description: "It is a secret society that actually rules the world (rather than the current crop of world leaders, who only appear to)""

Bahh?!! What a ruse...

Try Mandevill, Locke, East India Company, aka Venitian Oligarchic Party, aka British Intelligence Secret Service for World Wide Terrorism... a pretty damn sucessfull entreprise in America, in the wakes of the old bankers creature Loyola Jesuitic malthusian inspired "Santa Inquisiçon", and specially after its Rhodesin groups of Round Tables, the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the New York City's Council on Foreign Relations.

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/newdark.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/mandevil.htm

They need a little history: http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3034synarch_v_amer....
http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/pdf/futurecallin...

Full off USA Presidents assasinations,and assasination atempts, since Lincoln and full of treachery with a New[fealty old] World Order goal in mind:

In science
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/venscien.htm

With their(bankers) familys descending from uggly appes... and big bangs(hoping for atomics?)
http://wealth4freedom.com/biggestLIE.html
http://evolution-facts.org/

To hide benefits for mankind like
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/davemcgowanstalinandabioti...
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/blacklight_power_...
http://www.cheniere.org/books/analysis/history.htm

And political take over for human kind financial slavery:
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/russia1.htm
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/red-symphony.html
http://store.yahoo.com/realityzone/creature2.html#review
http://tarpley.net/29crash.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/versaill.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/lkffdr.htm

The Caligula family:
http://tarpley.net/bushb.htm
http://tarpley.net/bush1.htm
http://tarpley.net/bush2.htm

And cultural and social ills and unspeackable deceptions
http://www.savethemales.ca/001155.html
http://www.savethemales.ca/000535.html
http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.htm
http://www.serendipity.li/wtc2.htm
http://www.realityzone.com/granddesign1.html
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/nannewt.htm

CONSPIRACY THEORY ? WHAT CONSPIRACY THEORY !?... ONLY A HOPLESS IMBECIL WOULD THINK SUCH THING, BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY EYES... ONLY MANKIND IS MASSIVELY MEDIA PSYCHO ENGINEERED TO FORGET THAT THIS IS ONLY HISTORY.PERIOD

After all in our time much more then in the times off the civil war and the South Slavery Confederation, America has a majority of population from large porpotion of poor catholic Irish, Italian, French, some Spanish, German and Portuguese, and now large porposions of Asian origin, more of Mexican origin and above all of African origin... this America in Oligarchical view should have been an immense paradise of human slavery and explotation... a "big lemon squelched so tight that you could ear the pips squeak"...

*they* couldn't get it geopoliticly, *they* could get it financialy...
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/chapter17.htm
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/money/mcb-memo.htm
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/money/bank_fraud.htm
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/USbankrupt.htm

And *MUCH BETTER*, they can't only get it in America, they can get it all arround the world, and *occult* is only used as another ruse, entagled in the sensorial pleasure of the oligarchy for ceremony and exclusivity... and i dont belive, and it isn't surely real magic, based on philosophy(as in the ancients) or really occult... nothing more than, lets call it, Satanical(being against the values of the majority) *Beasty Boys fight[or deceipt it from the decent humanity(as in parents)]for their right to party*...

And if nothing is done sooner then later we are going to start earing the pips squeak.
http://www.perfecteconomy.com/pg-what-is-mathematically-p...
http://www.toptips.com/debtclock.html

Conspiracy theories

Posted Jan 11, 2006 18:04 UTC (Wed) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (2 responses)

Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity.

--- H. L. ``Skip'' Gates, cited in Beyond Fear, p. 31, Bruce Schneier

Conspiracy theories

Posted Jan 12, 2006 17:53 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't know, that list of links looks like awfully hard work...

More than you wanted to know...

Posted Jan 12, 2006 19:54 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

Well, one of the things I like least about the Web is how tough it is to sort fact from fiction---try finding the correct wording, to say nothing of the source, of some popular phrase. For instance, who said Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.[1]?

I try to keep my contribution down.

[1] It seems to have started out as Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening all at once from John A. Wheeler, who knows a thing or two about time and space. I tracked it back to a Nova program on PBS, and quite the expedition it was. Many folks think it's from Woody Allen, but the attribution seems to be spurious.