Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Posted Jan 1, 2014 22:31 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)In reply to: Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion by krake
Parent article: Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
This whole wasted effort in Linux world where every man and his dog has a desktop is just that - a wasted effort.
The reasons for this waste a varied. The original Gnome/KDE thing was about the licence dispute. Later on, we had "desktop philosophy" wars - whatever that's supposed to mean.
Instead of having one system that can accommodate many by being flexible, we have a mess that no sane third party application developer can ever dream of targeting.
Posted Jan 1, 2014 22:54 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (46 responses)
so what?
it's effort that the people doing it think is worthwhile, who are you to judge that it's wasted?
Linux itself was termed 'wasted effort' by many people when it was started (for different reasons)
GNU's mission is considered 'wasted effort' by people who don't have any problems with proprietary code.
Open Source Development is not centrally planned and run. Getting someone to stop working on one project does not mean that they will work on another project that you think is better, it may just mean they stop contributing entirely.
while individual projects always wish they had more contributers, there is not a shortage overall, and we accept that a lot of effort is going to be wasted on things that eventually become dead ends. We let the market (our users) provide the feedback, but sometimes it's worth working on the project even is the userbase is one, the developer of the project.
And you have no right to tell any developer that they are wasting their time. You can point out other things that you think may address their needs, but if they don't agree, that's just fine.
David Lang
Posted Jan 1, 2014 23:07 UTC (Wed)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (44 responses)
Nonsense. One absolutely has the right to tell any developer that they are wasting their time. What one does not have (in the general case) is the right to be listened to when one does.
Posted Jan 1, 2014 23:39 UTC (Wed)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (43 responses)
If everyone would stop doing things that anyone would consider a waste we wouldn't do anything at all anymore other then bare survival.
We wouldn't even have this conversation because we, as a species, would have never developed written language, maybe not even a structure language at all.
People who think that learning, teaching, praticising and researing is a waste are a waste of bio resources.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 0:20 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (29 responses)
You are absolutely right. The first thing every Windows user does, as it is well known, is decide which window manager they want to run. Which from this list should they use?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_window_managers
I mean, unless they had all those choices, how on earth would they ever be able to do anything? And how would Windows as a platform every progress?
Seriously for a second. There is choice, change and progress. Then there is waste.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 0:33 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (25 responses)
It's also a waste to have more than one car manufacturer, and for that manufacturer to have more than just a couple models
having more than one R&D team wastes effort, they are trying wrong things, they are duplicating effort of other R&D teams.
and you know what? eliminating wasted effort like this has been tried, it takes a very strong government dedicated to central planning.
and it failed.
it turns out that wasting effort is neccessary.
It's also not a zero sum game, eliminating what you consider wasted effort doesn't result in that effort going to things that you consider worthwhile.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 1:20 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (24 responses)
But, it should not be duplicating its own effort to such a degree that there is no product that can be targeted by third parties, identified by users etc. A desktop is a system that serves that kind of purpose.
Just consider these brief examples:
- how is one to run a useful extension made for Gnome Shell on XFCE/KDE?
And so on and so forth. Surely, all of the above are examples of unnecessary duplication. Caused by the fact that developers have "philosophical differences", use different toolkits, don't like moving panels, like moving panels, want 3D, don't want 3D etc. All artificially created barriers by communities themselves.
You know, if Linux desktop had large market penetration, I would say - sure, duplicate. But, in the state where it is just a rounding error? I don't think so. The end result is a lot of unfinished software, just in different states of unfinished.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 1:54 UTC (Thu)
by mchapman (subscriber, #66589)
[Link] (4 responses)
You speak of "Linux desktop" as if it were a person. It isn't.
In reality, people work on what interests them. Who are you to decide what interests others?
If *you* think the various desktops should work more closely together, get on board and help them do that.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 2:18 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (3 responses)
I have no idea what you are talking about here. It is a collection of software made by a group of people. Or should be, at least.
> In reality, people work on what interests them. Who are you to decide what interests others?
Why do you think I want to decide anything for anyone? I'm just saying that many years of effort still produced only a fragmented mess. If rounding errors are the level of market share that is aimed for here, then there is no problem.
> If *you* think the various desktops should work more closely together, get on board and help them do that.
Is your theory that if I get on board and help, Gnome/KDE/XFCE/<insert other gazillion desktops here> will merge? Thanks, but Superman is the dude in the cape. :-)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 3:36 UTC (Thu)
by mchapman (subscriber, #66589)
[Link] (2 responses)
I think few people are aiming for any particular level of market share. That these projects continue to exist despite such low market share demonstrates that it's not really a big concern.
> Is your theory that if I get on board and help, Gnome/KDE/XFCE/<insert other gazillion desktops here> will merge?
No, of course not. But it'd probably end up doing a lot more good than sitting here claiming that desktops "should" do X or "should" do Y.
Frankly, I don't see a problem with duplication of effort, even when it's "unnecessary". Sometimes good things can come out of re-exploring a well-trodden problem space: both systemd and Upstart arose because of it.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 4:08 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link]
Well, Red Hat (who don't care about desktop: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/red-hat-opts-for...) and Canonical (who think they already won: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1) both agree with you, in a way. Which is probably the reason why there is no winner.
I am trying to imagine Google having the same attitude when it comes to Android/Chrome OS and it honestly does not compute. I really would not be surprised if Google ate Red Hat's and Canonical's cake in this space, although both of these had a massive first mover advantage (at different times).
If something like that were to happen, most of the projects that exist now in the "Linux desktop" space may simply become irrelevant.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:53 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
Indeed!
My guess is that a lot of people have been conditioned to think in terms of "market" and "getting a piece of the cake" and so on and forget that not everything is gouverned by captialism, greed and the longing for more and more profit.
Actually even in the context of commerce, percentage in an arbitrary but unrelated context is often less relevant than other values.
Or software created for a specific country or region, e.g. tax software. Those vendors often have a couple of thousand (or depending on country tens of thousands) customers, a tiny speckle in the global consumer software market, yet still considered very successful.
> No, of course not.
Mostly because the question was very clumsly phrased. It is not about "merging" at all, consolidation is more often about switching to a shared or third party solution for something in the next generation of ones products.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 3:54 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
If duplication is such a waste, why should Linux duplicate the effort put in by Microsoft and Apple? what makes _any_ linux desktop worthwhile enough?
Yes, there is wasted effort. That's the way things work. We accept it and don't get upset by it. Continuing to rail against the wasted effort accomplishes little more than getting anything else that you say ignored as people start to filter you out.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 4:11 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
Posted Jan 2, 2014 4:30 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link]
Never said anything like that. You are just twisting my words there.
We have multiple desktops, each with their own (sometimes non-interchangeable) components doing more or less the same stuff, being (to a degree) incompatible with each other as platform targets, having totally different look and feel etc. for no good reason.
Of course nobody sane is writing 3rd party stuff for this. Of course OEMs don't take it seriously. Of course users aren't going to pick any of that up.
You see, systemd is actually an excellent example of how it's done. Yes, some will get grumpy, but in the end a very good technical solution will win. Next round, maybe some other. But, at least it is something that everyone can target as a whole.
> If duplication is such a waste, why should Linux duplicate the effort put in by Microsoft and Apple? what makes _any_ linux desktop worthwhile enough?
I don't know - because we'd like an open source desktop to actually succeed? What is wrong with winning?
> Yes, there is wasted effort. That's the way things work.
On the other hand, _too_ _much_ wasted effort leads to fragmentation that we are seeing right now. It is sometimes hard to accept the hard truth, but it is always necessary in order to do better.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:57 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
What?! A mail client is totally wasted effort, it is just a word process on top of a remote database :-)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 12:51 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
The most recent case I can think of: Mint forked nautilus cause the GNOME people started stripping out features out of Nautilus, no?
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:35 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (13 responses)
That's pretty non sensical, isn't it? "How do I run plugin for application X in application Y". How do I run a Windows shell extension on OS X?
> why does each Linux desktop have to have their own file manager?
If you mean vendors having a desktop product having a file manager product, then this is wrong. Only larger vendors have multiple products beside their desktop product and not all file manager vendors have desktop products.
> why do they all have to have their own window managers?
they don't. Some desktop product vendors have their own window manager component because that is often what they started with or they came from being a window manager vendor.
> why do they have different session managers?
The only good question in your list. Maybe because there is no vendor that has a stand alone session manager product? One could try to create that an see if there is any uptake. Maybe it is a very central piece of the machinery and other vendor's roadmaps are not in line with one's own?
Not that it matters there is after all only one session manager per definition and they all use the same protocol towards applications.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 20:15 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (12 responses)
> If you mean vendors having a desktop product having a file manager product, then this is wrong. Only larger vendors have multiple products beside their desktop product and not all file manager vendors have desktop products.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 20:42 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (2 responses)
Yes it is. Almost no software category has a universal plugin API. Browsers do (NPAPI) and AFAIK audio effect plugins do.
And even for browsers that doesn't cover extensions. Chrome doesn't run Firefox extensions, IE doesn't run Chrome extensions and I don't even know if Safari even has extensions.
Moreover, there is no cross vendor desktop shell extension capability for propriertary desktop products either, so it is not only non-sensical, it is even hypocritical.
> No, he's talking about Thunar/Dolphin/whatever GNOME uses.
Which is what I said, right?
Large software vendors such as KDE, GNOME, Microsoft or Apple have a workspace shell product and application products, which in the case of KDE, GNOME, Microsoft and Apple does indeed include a file manager product.
However, there are other, often smaller vendors, which have only a workspace shell product or only application products, some of which might have a file manager among them.
I even heard rumors that some of the large vendors with workspace shell products even have their own web browser products!
We might have to brace ourselves for browser vendors to add workspace shells to their product lines
Posted Jan 2, 2014 23:14 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 23:25 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
Posted Jan 6, 2014 15:57 UTC (Mon)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (8 responses)
It seems to me that you're just confusing different definitions of the term "operating system". You are using the original definition "abstraction of the hardware" with the nowadays common definition propagated by Microsoft and Apple that could be termed like "kernel and application software for supporting common use cases of a computer".
You are using the original definition for Linux and expect to get the same as with the modern definition. You can't. If you want to compare software at the same level, you have to take Gnome/Linux, KDE/Linux, Unity/Linux and whatever else there is. They are roughly comparable to common Windows or OS X desktops. And at this level, expecting Gnome/Linux software to work seamlessly on a KDE/Linux system is just as unreasonable as expecting OS X software to work on a Windows desktop. Except that very often it is indeed possible on Linux based systems because of standardization and effort put in by the developers of those systems.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 16:05 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (6 responses)
As a user, I'd expect them to interoperate.
> You are using the original definition for Linux and expect to get the same as with the modern definition. You can't. If you want to compare software at the same level, you have to take Gnome/Linux, KDE/Linux, Unity/Linux and whatever else there is.
Yeah, it reminds me of the good old joke the describes the Linux desktop situation pretty succinctly:
> I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!"
Posted Jan 6, 2014 17:27 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (5 responses)
> As a user, I'd expect them to interoperate.
define "interoperate"
if you install two different windows apps, they will both run on windows, but the chances of them being able to use each other's data is low. It's only if they are interacting with remote services (such as LDAP/AD)
Even for something like picture managers, they may import pictures from the "My Pictures" directory, but they will each store their own metadata, edits, and everything else in incompatible ways.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 17:46 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (4 responses)
I can't install a weather tray application from GNOME2 on GNOME3 Fallback mode. I can't install GNOME2 tray application on Xfce, and though they even both use GTK!
THIS is fragmentation. It's unnecessary, divisive and ultimately self-destructive.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 18:03 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
So if you can't do this with Xfce it sounds like Xfce needs to update their system tray to support the freedesktop.org standard that has been worked out.
Now, this standard did not always exist, and at one time every window manager did their own thing, but then they started to coordinate and established a standard.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 18:14 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jan 6, 2014 18:20 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
Power management is one of the areas where there is a lot of work going on, which translates into lots of experimentation and incompatibility.
Try some other applets.
As a Kubuntu user, I've run into quite a few cases where I end up running a Gnome applet in the systemtray.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 18:33 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
I couldn't make the applet to start without it trying to start the GNOME panel.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 16:59 UTC (Mon)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
That's the essential complaint, that all of these silos are fundamentally working at cross purposes of each other because the fragmentation of the Linux Desktop OS marketplace weakens them all. A single arrow is weak and easy to break, a bundle of arrows is stronger and hard to break.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 17:03 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (2 responses)
I haven't created new Windows user accounts lately, but that is new to me.
> Which from this list should they use?
I think you are confusing things. Microsoft Windows is not using the X Window system, so those Window managers that are nowadays seemingly offered to Windows users need to be different ones.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 23:07 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 23:22 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
That comment looked like total non sense to me. I tried my best to make any sense of it, but the extremely hard to believe claim followed by an seemingly misunderstood or misinterpreted meaning of the word window in X window manager just made it looks like some incoherent gibberish.
Are you referring to the first sentence?
Posted Jan 2, 2014 2:58 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (12 responses)
1) More 'regular' windows managers. Exotic window managers like ratpoison are fine - they were not designed for regular users.
2) More music players.
3) More Internet browsers that nobody uses.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 17:14 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (11 responses)
Just like in any other product categeory, nothing special regarding computing in general or Linux specifically.
Sure, there are always users that like to evaluate the unknown, but then that is their prerogative.
Most people settle for a given product option and only reevaluate if that option no longer fits their needs, e.g. their needs changed or the product changed, etc.
However, the same person can apply different behavior to different kinds of product, e.g. changing car model every time but staying with the brand, or keeping the same product of shampoo even when the vendor changes, etc.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 17:43 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (10 responses)
Actually, there is. Linux in many cases Just Doesn't Work (tm) and consumers simply vote with their feet.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:22 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (9 responses)
No. Every product category has multiple options to chose from. Even when manufacturers have consolidated down to a handful worldwide.
> Linux in many cases Just Doesn't Work (tm)
Awww. You have to try better (tm). Nobody on lwn.net will fall for such primitive flamebait.
> consumers simply vote with their feet.
Exactly! Hence no need to artifically curb availability. A new music player will not gain any users if does not appeal to some. If it does they will, as you put it, vote with their feet and use it instead of whatever they used before.
A couple of years ago most music players were like WinAMP. Luckily there was no artifical ban on new music players so nowadays most use softwarethat is more like a music library.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:39 UTC (Thu)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 19:57 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (6 responses)
Many of us think that competition is very useful in infrastructure and standardization provides real benefits in end user applications.
we are looking for standardization in file formats and APIs, not in limiting the number of possible options.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 20:26 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
Posted Jan 2, 2014 20:32 UTC (Thu)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Jan 2, 2014 21:26 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
the API relevant to those applications is X11 for display. The fact that different apps use different toolkits to talk to that API is not a big deal (as long as the toolkits are willing to co-exist, which they are)
There are a lot of infrastructure components in *nix that have changed significantly over time (look at the capabilities of rsyslog v7 vs sysklogd for example), but the applications using them don't need to know about the differences between them if they don't want to.
similarly, the login process has changed radically since the early days, but because the APIs have been stable, the changes in details (from /etc/passwd to /etc/shadow to PAM) haven't required app changes.
Posted Jan 3, 2014 15:29 UTC (Fri)
by torquay (guest, #92428)
[Link] (2 responses)
I'd argue that while having a low-level API like X11 is useful, it would be even more useful to have a standardised toolkit API, which exists at a higher level (ie. less verbose) and is hence easier to program in. One can of course change the look + etc, through re-implementing the API, but not breaking it. Standardisation at a higher level can be applied to many other parts of the stack.
The main point is to draw a line of standardisation (and hence stability) somewhere in the overall stack, in order to achieve a sweet spot between 2 factors: customisability and ease of use, both from the point of view of writing end user applications. End user applications and users are the entire reason operating systems exist in the first place -- many people in the open source world seem to forget this.
Right now the trade-off between the 2 factors is completely out of whack. The only thing that's standardised in the Linux world is the kernel, glibc and to a large extent the mess that's X11. In almost everywhere else though, we have lots of customisability along with associated costs of piss poor API stability. GTK is still a moving target (deprecating and adding APIs at an uncomfortable rate). Qt is a bit better, but it has gone through many major releases in a relatively short span.
Enough is enough. Any efforts to standardise low-level plumbing though software such as systemd are very welcome.
It is of course pertinent to note that there is already one Linux-based system which has taken stability seriously: Android. It's also relevant to note that the number of tablets and phones running Android easily eclipses the "traditional" Linux desktop.
Posted Jan 4, 2014 15:38 UTC (Sat)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (1 responses)
Sure, but developers would most often still use the toolkit they prefer.
Motif was basically the standard toolkit for X11 based systems, yet most developers use GTK+ or Qt.
Speaking of Qt, a large portion of Qt developers use Qt on Windows, which presumably has a standard toolkit.
Even single vendor solutions need to change toolkits now and then, but just like on X11 the common low level API makes it possible to keep old and new API working in parallel.
Standardisation of APIs is unfortunately often also just wasted effort. Standardisation of protocols and data formats on the other hand are usually long lived and successful.
Posted Jan 4, 2014 23:23 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link]
actually, I'll disagree with this.
standardization of APIs can be extremely valuable
standardization of toolkits (and their APIS) is far less useful.
The Unix POSIX API standardization is an example of a very valuable API standard.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 20:25 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
I mentioned music players as an example because that is one of the examples in the grand grand parent comment.
There is competition in this area, as you said, and it has been proven useful (change in needs of music players, avoiding IE-only stagnation, etc)
Posted Jan 1, 2014 23:16 UTC (Wed)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link]
So, no users.
> it's effort that the people doing it think is worthwhile, who are you to judge that it's wasted?
I am not doing the judging - developers and users are. And they are voting with their feet, because, to be perfectly honest, there is no such thing as a Linux desktop.
Linux has been around for many years. One would expect that by now, things would settle on some desktop that everyone can target and use. No such thing happened. Instead, we have more fragmentation than ever before. What is the consequence of this? No Linux desktop, of course. Rinse, repeat...
Posted Jan 1, 2014 23:32 UTC (Wed)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (2 responses)
Well, it depends on what you are trying to imply from that.
If you are implying that choice is not necessary then this can only be because there is choice and it is not being used or rejected.
Since the first one is a selffulfiling prophecy and thus without any content or relevance, I have to assume you were targetting the latter. In which case it should be possible to point to the alternatives offered to Windows and Mac users.
> The fact remains, you can have _one_ line of desktop development per OS and have lots of users.
Nobody is disbuting that. Canonical shows that with Unity on Ubuntu. The whole Ubuntu family also shows that one line of desktop environment per OS variation can have lots of users.
But it also shows that given a vendor given choice plus alternatives that the vendor chosen option will not automatically get all users, in the contrary.
But, as I wrote before, I don't follow either platform's development close enough to rule the existence of alternative desktop options out.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 0:09 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
These are the facts on the desktop (roughly speaking):
- Windows and Mac have users
Now about the "UI choice" (or whatever you want to call it) with multiple desktops on Linux. This was supposed to be some kind of "better approach" in order to satisfy the needs of just about everyone, but supposedly targeting exactly what each group wanted. That is what we (the remaining, rusted-on Linux desktop users) have been told for years. I used to believe it. I used to preach it, FFS!
Compare that to facts. It didn't work. We were all wrong.
No serious third party application vendor can even identify what Linux desktop really is. Users don't know what it is, they cannot purchase or otherwise obtain it and neither would they want to. There are no labels on boxed software that say "Linux desktop compatible". There is no "Linux desktop application store" etc. There is no critical mass. It didn't happen.
That is what I'm implying.
In many ways, multiple Linux desktops have solved the competition problem for both Microsoft and Apple for now. They are the ones laughing all the way to the bank for quite some time now.
PS. Note, I did not count Android as a Linux desktop, mostly because it is not desktop ready and because isn't really a GNU/Linux system.
PPS. I have no idea why you are mentioning Canonical in this context at all. They are just another source of fragmentation, IMHO.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 16:53 UTC (Thu)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
Maybe you consider that covered under "roughly speaking", but all three operating systems have users. A lot.
> This was supposed to be some kind of "better approach" in order to satisfy the needs of just about everyone, but supposedly targeting exactly what each group wanted
Well, it is probably not targettting every possible group with an individual solution, but it seems to have settled on quite a nice range of solutions, each distinctly preferred by the people using it.
So while there might be better approaches to satisfy the inherent ndividual differences of people, it is definitely a viable one. Even systems that I would not be able to use have tens of thousands of users who would feel inhibited by any other solutions (otherwise they wouldn't be using their respective setup).
> Compare that to facts. It didn't work. We were all wrong.
I find it worked really well.
Or people who's mental model prefers instant application of setting changes vs people who's mental model prefers explicit acknowledgement.
Sure, along that line people could decide to use Mac or Windows respectively, but what if they like a different aspect of the other system?
Satisfying those combinational conflicts with only two options means making sacrifices. Those might be easily acceptable but can also be hardly bearable.
Given the capability to add new options, those in the latter category can often find a more suitable home. As evident by large numbers of users for each of the popular options :)
> I have no idea why you are mentioning Canonical in this context at all. They are just another source of fragmentation, IMHO.
I interpreted an earlier comment to say that a vendor chose solution will always be universally excepted even if alternatives exist.
It was just an example of at least one situation where availability of options also resulted in some those options being chosen.
I haven't read all new postings since then so somebody might have already provided examples of alternatives on Windows or Mac that did not get chosen, for the time being I had to assume that all those platforms' users were using the vendor provided option because there was no other to chose from.
Posted Jan 2, 2014 23:08 UTC (Thu)
by deconfliction (guest, #94407)
[Link] (1 responses)
Instead of having one system that can accommodate many by being flexible, we have a mess that no sane third party application developer can ever dream of targeting."
Umm... you managed to define one of the core "desktop philosophy wars" right after claiming you didn't know what the phrase meant. And in fact, gnome taking the route of removing flexibility, and being adverse to spending time making others lives easier that wanted flexibility, is pretty much precisely the argument I heard against systemd.
It's not waste. It's options, and it's evolution. Enjoy your confidence, it's a fun feeling to have.
Posted Jan 3, 2014 4:19 UTC (Fri)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
And you have no right to tell any developer that they are wasting their time.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
- why does each Linux desktop have to have their own file manager?
- why do they all have to have their own window managers?
- why do they have different session managers?
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Just consider the miniscule market share Ferrari has in the global car industry yet they continue to create cars that will never have any significant market percentage wise.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
If Windows or Mac OS X were fully free then it probably wouldn't have made any sense to duplicate their functionality in Linux.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
why does each Linux desktop have to have their own file manager?
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Other vendors might have recommendations for a specific other vendor's window manager component, but are still not restricted to that recommendation.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
No, it's not nonsensical. On Mac OS X/Windows I can reasonably expect any software to work with the default shell (which is present on more than 99.999% of installations).
No, he's talking about Thunar/Dolphin/whatever GNOME uses.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Yep. They run on the same kernel, use the same display server, they can run side-by-side.
>"Why shouldn't I?" he said.
> I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"
> He said, "Like what?"
> I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"
> He said, "Religious."
> I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?"
> He said, "Christian."
> I said, "Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?"
> He said, "Protestant."
> I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?"
> He said, "Baptist!"
> I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?"
> He said, "Baptist church of god!"
> I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?"
> He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!"
> I said, "Me too! Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?"
> He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!"
> I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
I didn't even know that Windows had window managers.
Interesting developments.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
For some kinds of products the availability of options is so important that single manufacturers even have "competing" products under different brand names.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
the API relevant to those applications is X11 for display. The fact that different apps use different toolkits to talk to that API is not a big deal (as long as the toolkits are willing to co-exist, which they are)
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
If you are implying that users with no other choice will use the only thing they can use then of course that is obvious.
Which makes it extremely hard to believe that Windows and Mac users have in fact alternatives available to chose from.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
- Linux does not
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
> - Windows and Mac have users
> - Linux does not
We all know that Windows desktop users are the largest group, but given Earths enormous population even numbers magnitudes lower than Linux desktop's official share (which is way lower than the actual share in users) would a huge number of individuals.
People who like be in control as much as possible have found developers catering to that needs.
At the same time people who like to have as much as possible automated have also found developers catering to that needs.
Ubuntu would suggest that this is not true, because there is a primary vendor, Canonical, with a vendor chosen option, Unity, but several alternatives on the same base platform have significant numbers of uses as well.
Which of course would make them irrelevant as examples for discussing user preferences.
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion
Positions forming in the Debian init system discussion