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Do you really want to live in that world? The world where I have to get past Google's, Apple's (iOS and Mac app store), Debian's and Steam's arbitrary rules abo

Do you really want to live in that world? The world where I have to get past Google's, Apple's (iOS and Mac app store), Debian's and Steam's arbitrary rules about what is and isn't an acceptable app? Where a company/project's current head gets to decide what it is, and isn't, acceptable to install? One of the reasons Windows flourished was the openness of the platform.

libeclipse 11y ago
Linux is a much more open platform than windows. It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use. I cannot think of any reasons why you'd think windows is open, especially when comparing it to Linux. You were talking about installing, yet fail to realise that pkg managers aren't the only way. I mean most Linux users regularly compile binaries directly from the source. How is that not open? Perhaps you'd like to elaborate.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  Because part of being open is being accessible. "It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard." Linux is difficult to use for the kind of person who is downloading software from Download.com - "compiling binaries directly from the source" might as well be Klingon to them. Frankly as a geek I'm much happier with my Mac and Windows machine than I am with Linux. Even now things like the Linux Standard Base not being utterly standard demonstrate that Linux is still aiming for a different market. There is a gulf between "my Mom is running Debian, she thinks it is Windows, hehehe" and "able to manage a Linux box even remotely competently".
  - bramblerose 11y ago
    Plus: compiling from source does not mean the code is ad/spyware free.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Ok, assuming that it does not, how many instances in the wild have there been of ad/spyware distributed as source to be compiled on the target machine?
      - madeofpalk 11y ago
        I would imagine that in a world where my mum is compiling from the 'source', the 'source' that she's compiling would be infected in the same way as Download.com is.
        petetnt 11y ago
        "Mom I have told you thousands of times! Configure, make and make install, not configure and make install!"
      - lmm 11y ago
        Ubuntu shipped a spyware package with a few releases. I assume they had a source release with the same package configuration, in which case they were doing exactly that.
        kedean 11y ago
        Are you referring to the amazon search debacle? Because that does not fall into the same realm, it was very clear that it included this feature from the moment you start it up. It wasn't hidden at all.
        lmm 11y ago
        That one yes. Many people including the FSF described it as "spyware".
      - anon1385 11y ago
        If source distribution was the main way of getting software onto the computers of less technical users then it would be rife.
  - executesorder66 11y ago
    Downloading applications via a package manager is basically the same as downloading applications on your phone via an "App Store" application. (Especially if you are using a package manager with a GUI) Millions of people use app stores everyday. And I'd say a huge percentage of those people are the ones who would also download a program on their PC from download.com Which sounds more accessible: 1) click package-manger program 2) type the name of the program you want to install 3) click install OR 1) open web browser 2) go to http://yahoo.com 3) type google 4) click the first link 5) google "download program_i_want" 6) click on link leading to "www.download.com/malware/viruses/tracking/program_i_want" 7) stare at the dozen different DOWNLOAD! buttons, and wonder which one 8) click the biggest flashiest one 9) wait for it to finish downloading (if it doesn't automatically start and installer) a)open File explorer b)Go to Downloads folder c)wade through the hundreds of other downloads until you find kd457sfjgs_download_app_i_want_setup_INSTALLER.exe.EXE 10)Once the installer is started click the NEXT button a dozen times, inadvertently installing extra malware each time
    - krapp 11y ago
      You're being a bit disingenuous in making the latter seem more complicated than it actually is, though. It's only slightly more tedious than a repo, but it's no less accessible.
      - ptaipale 11y ago
        In fact, the malware is often very much too accessible. On these download sites, the software you actually want to download is not the biggest "DOWNLOAD NOW!" link. If you click that, you'll get something completely different. As so many people actually do get - they install accidentally something they weren't looking for, let alone all the malware that comes with it.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Also, the world doesn't end on package repository. In my experience with Linux, a lot of software I want is either very outdated or not in the repository at all. OTOH, for all intents and purposes you can assume that if something can't be found by Google, it doesn't exist.
  - taneq 11y ago
    "Yeah, well I expect the lights had gone out." Although I guess if this describes Linux, then closed source is generally more like the plans being on display at the local Galactic Council office on Proxima Centauri.
  - leni536 11y ago
    You know you can download .deb files for some stuff and they install fine.
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      You can download .deb files for everything, and they work great.
    - rmc 11y ago
      You can download all deb files. That's in fact what apt does. It downloads and then installs deb files.
    - mirimir 11y ago
      You can also install the wrong .deb files, and wedge your system ;)
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    The only times I've ever needed to compile a package from its sources was when I was trying to hack away at it. I've not had to compile a Linux kernel in almost 8 years. Your argument is specious. You should seriously stop using it. As for the LSB, that hasn't stopped distributions in any way, shape or form. Debian got rid of their LSB meta-package because they didn't need it.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  > I mean most Linux users regularly compile binaries directly from the source. I think not really. It's not that common. Precisely because package management works nicely, you can do an apt-get install or yum install or whatever. I have compiled Linux kernels and even written device drivers in the past, but in the past 5 years I haven't had a need to compile anything from source.
  - akerro 11y ago
    >I think not really. It's not that common With 10 years on Linux only I had to do it a few times. I stared doing it more often on FreeBSD, out of my will, not being forced to compile stuff.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      There was a lot of building from sources in mid-1990's (Linux 0.99 and all that), but ever since Ubuntu came out, there's been just no need. I'm not missing that X86Config tweaking, either. But perhaps I've grown old; when I find a laptop that doesn't come up with X in RHEL, I just think it's a bad laptop.
  - libeclipse 11y ago
    And then comes along a Source Mage user.
- lmm 11y ago
  Linux is not so much a platform as a toolkit for building them. Some Linux-based systems are very open. Some are completely locked down via code signing (e.g. many routers or DVRs). Not that many Linux users compile binaries directly from source - and if they did it would completely bypass the protection of the official repositories. Fundamentally there's an unavoidable contradiction here: if you only allow installing software from the official repositories then you have a very locked down system, and if you allow installing software from outside the official repositories then the system is unsafe. Windows went for the second option; contrast with iOS which goes for the first. There are Linux-based systems that take the one approach and Linux-based systems that take the other, but both have their downsides.
- rawTruthHurts 11y ago
  "It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use" I don't know about that, but I know that none of the tools I use in my field works on Linux, and I'm not talking about rocket science, I'm talking about print and web design. Openness aside.
- cptskippy 11y ago
  > It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use. That's because for most people it is difficult to use. Most people lack the technical vocabulary to even know how to find a solution for an issue on a general purpose Linux machine let alone follow the 20 pages of bash commands necessary to implement whatever highly specific fix someone posted on their blog. Unfortunately Linux is so open that it allows developers to do whatever the hell they want and you end up with each Distro having a slightly different file structure, different default file systems, instances of software installing it's own versions of tools because it can't be bothered to support a given package manager, configurations being deleted during upgrades because a developer came up with a new way to implement configs, default passwords you shouldn't change because it breaks code, and permissions being twiddled during installations that wreak havoc. My favorite is all of the half-assed front-ends for configuring software that only work with a small subset of the possible features and only on a particular version of the software with a particular kernel. And if you happen to edit the configs manually to enable a feature not present in the GUI, you'd better not ever load the GUI again because that change will be blown away. The state of Linux is such that technical users can't even safely upgrade their systems for fear of breaking them. There's nothing like running update on your Distro's package manager De jour and having your Wifi stop working. Was it the driver? The configuration? The GUI that edits the configuration? Or having your PBX web front tell you that updates are available and when you hit install it gets about halfway through installing a list of packages that rivals the phonebook before failing, not rolling back, and making it so your system won't boot if you're foolish enough to attempt a restart. And if you ask for help what do you get? RTFM! Install MINT! You should use XYZ instead. Run this script I wrote for you...
deciplex 11y ago
uhhhhh.... Nothing about apt is walled off at all.
rmc 11y ago
Debian, that well known walled garden.
Cthulhu_ 11y ago
Which one of the apps on download.com (that bundle crapware) would not be considered acceptable in a store? What crazy apps wouldn't conform to those rules? And how many people would actually be interested in those apps? I've jailbroken an iOS device once just to check out what amazing things apple doesn't want in the store. I wasn't impressed; cydia looked like crap, iOS <7 looks bolted in an ipad app, tacky icons everywhere, and the top X downloads were all tacky looking mods for things like the lock screen. That was back when though, I've looked up some lists of stuff and I'll admit some of the available things can be convenient if you're into that sort of thing.
bitJericho 11y ago
I have a computer illiterate family member on Ubuntu. He's easily able to install software outside the repo as long as the process is spelled out. See google earth's install process on Ubuntu.
runholm 11y ago
Linux solve that by allowing users to add repositories. I don't see why that would not work for Microsoft as well.
- anon1385 11y ago
  That just means malware sites like download.com will tell users to add the download.com repository. Without curation package managers/app stores don't offer any additional security, but curation inevitably involves trusting somebody to make those decisions. Do you trust Microsoft to do that for most users?
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I do. I run Windows update on any machine that someone asks me to look at.
  - fpoling 11y ago
    Consider Chromebooks - one can unlock ChromeOS or replace it with Linux, but Google made it rather scary-sounding process for an average user, so malware site has very little chances to convenience the user to do it.
    - anon1385 11y ago
      ChromeOS isn't an open platform and Chromebooks are dangerously locked down. Microsoft could solve these issues on windows by forbidding software that they don't approve. It would undoubtedly improve the security of the platform. But it turns Windows into a walled garden instead of an open platform (consider - would Microsoft have allowed Firefox onto the platform? unlikely)
chris_wot 11y ago
Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE and a multitude of Linux distributions are doing just fine. In fact, you can package up your own .rpm or .deb and still install the software. But the likelihood of needing to do so is very, very small. And not only that, but it's extremely easy to see what those packages are made of - you just unzip and untar them and look at the metadata files and scripts. So yeah, not only do I want to live in that world, I already do. In fact, so do other Windows users - if they use OneGet or chocolatey. And many, many corporate users also live in that world as software is deployed via SSIS or just bog standard Active Directory.
laumars 11y ago
> Do you really want to live in that world? The world where I have to get past Google's, Apple's (iOS and Mac app store), Debian's and Steam's arbitrary rules about what is and isn't an acceptable app? Actually yes. With the caveat that I can still install applications outside of the repositories and/or install third party repos. With Android and Debian I can. And Steam isn't quite the same since it's an application rather than OS so you can bypass Steam entirely (even on SteamOS). That way you have some reassurances (albeit no guarantees) about the software you install, plus a method to manually bypass those protections if you so desire. > One of the reasons Windows flourished was the openness of the platform. No, that's not the reason. Or at least not the openness of the _software_ platform. The reason Windows flourished was the number of IBM-compatible clones out there and the monopoly Microsoft had -and successfully campaigned to retain for many years- on said hardware. Under those conditions Windows only needed to be "good enough" to compete rather than a market leader in openness, stability, security, nor any other measure that us geeks normally consider.
a3_nm 11y ago
I don't know about the others, but Debian is certainly not trying to decide for you what is and isn't acceptable to install. Debian does not allow any kind of software in its own repositories, but it does nothing to prevent you from adding whatever repository you like, installing whatever .deb you like, and trusting whatever signing key you want to trust.

libeclipse 11y ago

Linux is a much more open platform than windows. It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use. I cannot think of any reasons why you'd think windows is open, especially when comparing it to Linux. You were talking about installing, yet fail to realise that pkg managers aren't the only way. I mean most Linux users regularly compile binaries directly from the source. How is that not open? Perhaps you'd like to elaborate.

cmdkeen 11y ago
Because part of being open is being accessible. "It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard." Linux is difficult to use for the kind of person who is downloading software from Download.com - "compiling binaries directly from the source" might as well be Klingon to them. Frankly as a geek I'm much happier with my Mac and Windows machine than I am with Linux. Even now things like the Linux Standard Base not being utterly standard demonstrate that Linux is still aiming for a different market. There is a gulf between "my Mom is running Debian, she thinks it is Windows, hehehe" and "able to manage a Linux box even remotely competently".
- bramblerose 11y ago
  Plus: compiling from source does not mean the code is ad/spyware free.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Ok, assuming that it does not, how many instances in the wild have there been of ad/spyware distributed as source to be compiled on the target machine?
    - madeofpalk 11y ago
      I would imagine that in a world where my mum is compiling from the 'source', the 'source' that she's compiling would be infected in the same way as Download.com is.
      - petetnt 11y ago
        "Mom I have told you thousands of times! Configure, make and make install, not configure and make install!"
    - lmm 11y ago
      Ubuntu shipped a spyware package with a few releases. I assume they had a source release with the same package configuration, in which case they were doing exactly that.
      - kedean 11y ago
        Are you referring to the amazon search debacle? Because that does not fall into the same realm, it was very clear that it included this feature from the moment you start it up. It wasn't hidden at all.
        lmm 11y ago
        That one yes. Many people including the FSF described it as "spyware".
    - anon1385 11y ago
      If source distribution was the main way of getting software onto the computers of less technical users then it would be rife.
- executesorder66 11y ago
  Downloading applications via a package manager is basically the same as downloading applications on your phone via an "App Store" application. (Especially if you are using a package manager with a GUI) Millions of people use app stores everyday. And I'd say a huge percentage of those people are the ones who would also download a program on their PC from download.com Which sounds more accessible: 1) click package-manger program 2) type the name of the program you want to install 3) click install OR 1) open web browser 2) go to http://yahoo.com 3) type google 4) click the first link 5) google "download program_i_want" 6) click on link leading to "www.download.com/malware/viruses/tracking/program_i_want" 7) stare at the dozen different DOWNLOAD! buttons, and wonder which one 8) click the biggest flashiest one 9) wait for it to finish downloading (if it doesn't automatically start and installer) a)open File explorer b)Go to Downloads folder c)wade through the hundreds of other downloads until you find kd457sfjgs_download_app_i_want_setup_INSTALLER.exe.EXE 10)Once the installer is started click the NEXT button a dozen times, inadvertently installing extra malware each time
  - krapp 11y ago
    You're being a bit disingenuous in making the latter seem more complicated than it actually is, though. It's only slightly more tedious than a repo, but it's no less accessible.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      In fact, the malware is often very much too accessible. On these download sites, the software you actually want to download is not the biggest "DOWNLOAD NOW!" link. If you click that, you'll get something completely different. As so many people actually do get - they install accidentally something they weren't looking for, let alone all the malware that comes with it.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Also, the world doesn't end on package repository. In my experience with Linux, a lot of software I want is either very outdated or not in the repository at all. OTOH, for all intents and purposes you can assume that if something can't be found by Google, it doesn't exist.
- taneq 11y ago
  "Yeah, well I expect the lights had gone out." Although I guess if this describes Linux, then closed source is generally more like the plans being on display at the local Galactic Council office on Proxima Centauri.
- leni536 11y ago
  You know you can download .deb files for some stuff and they install fine.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    You can download .deb files for everything, and they work great.
  - rmc 11y ago
    You can download all deb files. That's in fact what apt does. It downloads and then installs deb files.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    You can also install the wrong .deb files, and wedge your system ;)
- chris_wot 11y ago
  The only times I've ever needed to compile a package from its sources was when I was trying to hack away at it. I've not had to compile a Linux kernel in almost 8 years. Your argument is specious. You should seriously stop using it. As for the LSB, that hasn't stopped distributions in any way, shape or form. Debian got rid of their LSB meta-package because they didn't need it.
ptaipale 11y ago
> I mean most Linux users regularly compile binaries directly from the source. I think not really. It's not that common. Precisely because package management works nicely, you can do an apt-get install or yum install or whatever. I have compiled Linux kernels and even written device drivers in the past, but in the past 5 years I haven't had a need to compile anything from source.
- akerro 11y ago
  >I think not really. It's not that common With 10 years on Linux only I had to do it a few times. I stared doing it more often on FreeBSD, out of my will, not being forced to compile stuff.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    There was a lot of building from sources in mid-1990's (Linux 0.99 and all that), but ever since Ubuntu came out, there's been just no need. I'm not missing that X86Config tweaking, either. But perhaps I've grown old; when I find a laptop that doesn't come up with X in RHEL, I just think it's a bad laptop.
- libeclipse 11y ago
  And then comes along a Source Mage user.
lmm 11y ago
Linux is not so much a platform as a toolkit for building them. Some Linux-based systems are very open. Some are completely locked down via code signing (e.g. many routers or DVRs). Not that many Linux users compile binaries directly from source - and if they did it would completely bypass the protection of the official repositories. Fundamentally there's an unavoidable contradiction here: if you only allow installing software from the official repositories then you have a very locked down system, and if you allow installing software from outside the official repositories then the system is unsafe. Windows went for the second option; contrast with iOS which goes for the first. There are Linux-based systems that take the one approach and Linux-based systems that take the other, but both have their downsides.
rawTruthHurts 11y ago
"It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use" I don't know about that, but I know that none of the tools I use in my field works on Linux, and I'm not talking about rocket science, I'm talking about print and web design. Openness aside.
cptskippy 11y ago
> It's only downside is that most people think it's difficult to use. That's because for most people it is difficult to use. Most people lack the technical vocabulary to even know how to find a solution for an issue on a general purpose Linux machine let alone follow the 20 pages of bash commands necessary to implement whatever highly specific fix someone posted on their blog. Unfortunately Linux is so open that it allows developers to do whatever the hell they want and you end up with each Distro having a slightly different file structure, different default file systems, instances of software installing it's own versions of tools because it can't be bothered to support a given package manager, configurations being deleted during upgrades because a developer came up with a new way to implement configs, default passwords you shouldn't change because it breaks code, and permissions being twiddled during installations that wreak havoc. My favorite is all of the half-assed front-ends for configuring software that only work with a small subset of the possible features and only on a particular version of the software with a particular kernel. And if you happen to edit the configs manually to enable a feature not present in the GUI, you'd better not ever load the GUI again because that change will be blown away. The state of Linux is such that technical users can't even safely upgrade their systems for fear of breaking them. There's nothing like running update on your Distro's package manager De jour and having your Wifi stop working. Was it the driver? The configuration? The GUI that edits the configuration? Or having your PBX web front tell you that updates are available and when you hit install it gets about halfway through installing a list of packages that rivals the phonebook before failing, not rolling back, and making it so your system won't boot if you're foolish enough to attempt a restart. And if you ask for help what do you get? RTFM! Install MINT! You should use XYZ instead. Run this script I wrote for you...

deciplex 11y ago

uhhhhh.... Nothing about apt is walled off at all.

rmc 11y ago

Debian, that well known walled garden.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago

Which one of the apps on download.com (that bundle crapware) would not be considered acceptable in a store? What crazy apps wouldn't conform to those rules? And how many people would actually be interested in those apps? I've jailbroken an iOS device once just to check out what amazing things apple doesn't want in the store. I wasn't impressed; cydia looked like crap, iOS <7 looks bolted in an ipad app, tacky icons everywhere, and the top X downloads were all tacky looking mods for things like the lock screen. That was back when though, I've looked up some lists of stuff and I'll admit some of the available things can be convenient if you're into that sort of thing.

bitJericho 11y ago

I have a computer illiterate family member on Ubuntu. He's easily able to install software outside the repo as long as the process is spelled out. See google earth's install process on Ubuntu.

runholm 11y ago

Linux solve that by allowing users to add repositories. I don't see why that would not work for Microsoft as well.

anon1385 11y ago
That just means malware sites like download.com will tell users to add the download.com repository. Without curation package managers/app stores don't offer any additional security, but curation inevitably involves trusting somebody to make those decisions. Do you trust Microsoft to do that for most users?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I do. I run Windows update on any machine that someone asks me to look at.
- fpoling 11y ago
  Consider Chromebooks - one can unlock ChromeOS or replace it with Linux, but Google made it rather scary-sounding process for an average user, so malware site has very little chances to convenience the user to do it.
  - anon1385 11y ago
    ChromeOS isn't an open platform and Chromebooks are dangerously locked down. Microsoft could solve these issues on windows by forbidding software that they don't approve. It would undoubtedly improve the security of the platform. But it turns Windows into a walled garden instead of an open platform (consider - would Microsoft have allowed Firefox onto the platform? unlikely)

chris_wot 11y ago

Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE and a multitude of Linux distributions are doing just fine. In fact, you can package up your own .rpm or .deb and still install the software. But the likelihood of needing to do so is very, very small. And not only that, but it's extremely easy to see what those packages are made of - you just unzip and untar them and look at the metadata files and scripts. So yeah, not only do I want to live in that world, I already do. In fact, so do other Windows users - if they use OneGet or chocolatey. And many, many corporate users also live in that world as software is deployed via SSIS or just bog standard Active Directory.

laumars 11y ago

> Do you really want to live in that world? The world where I have to get past Google's, Apple's (iOS and Mac app store), Debian's and Steam's arbitrary rules about what is and isn't an acceptable app? Actually yes. With the caveat that I can still install applications outside of the repositories and/or install third party repos. With Android and Debian I can. And Steam isn't quite the same since it's an application rather than OS so you can bypass Steam entirely (even on SteamOS). That way you have some reassurances (albeit no guarantees) about the software you install, plus a method to manually bypass those protections if you so desire. > One of the reasons Windows flourished was the openness of the platform. No, that's not the reason. Or at least not the openness of the _software_ platform. The reason Windows flourished was the number of IBM-compatible clones out there and the monopoly Microsoft had -and successfully campaigned to retain for many years- on said hardware. Under those conditions Windows only needed to be "good enough" to compete rather than a market leader in openness, stability, security, nor any other measure that us geeks normally consider.

a3_nm 11y ago

I don't know about the others, but Debian is certainly not trying to decide for you what is and isn't acceptable to install. Debian does not allow any kind of software in its own repositories, but it does nothing to prevent you from adding whatever repository you like, installing whatever .deb you like, and trusting whatever signing key you want to trust.