3 ms·

> Oracle now owns MySQL. Well, yeah. And no (thanks to MariaDB). Similar story with Solaris/ZFS. > (...) in Austin, Texas (...) [Oracle] have plans to hire 10

by e12e 8y ago

> Oracle now owns MySQL. Well, yeah. And no (thanks to MariaDB). Similar story with Solaris/ZFS. > (...) in Austin, Texas (...) [Oracle] have plans to hire 10,000 people (...) Apple (...) is doing something similar. That's interesting. I wonder if this will be about "more cloud" for both companies. Maybe we've seen "peak Free Software" and more secret sauce will hide behind SaaS paywalls in the near future. I think the AGPL was rather prescient here; unfortunately it's not proven successful in the way GPL was. So if and when the big players move everything "home" there's little left on the outside. Not saying it will happen - both Apple, Google and Microsoft are sharing more than before. As of now.

magduf 8y ago
>Maybe we've seen "peak Free Software" I think this is definitely true. So much stuff has move to "the cloud" or web services, and honestly, open-source software was a lot more interesting and fun, and seemed to be on more of an upward trajectory, back in the early/mid 2000s. Now Linux on the desktop seems to be something that'll never be reality for regular people and the main open-source thing that seems to be hot is stuff like Docker and Kubernetes, stuff used in enterprise scenarios, while on the desktop everyone's just given up and decided to live with Windows 10 and its spyware or Macbooks and their overly-thin keyboards and buggy OS.
- washadjeffmad 8y ago
  Reducing platform dependence seems to have removed a great deal of the barrier of consumer adoption of desktop Linux. I see more people all the time trying to figure out how to get it running on their MBPs, trying to understand differences in desktop environments, and how to dual-boot. Browsers on Linux support DRM for viewing popular services like Netflix, and native graphics stack development is improving more rapidly all the time. VFIO with LookingGlass has been great for people who work on Linux and game on Windows, and I think that paves the way for a very interesting future. Perhaps one day we'll see a Windows Gaming container that just does a useful thing without trying to steal the show. Also, FOSS acceptance is so commonplace now that we no longer notice its pervasiveness. Try to find a software or service that doesn't have an open source clause or a succeeding software company that totally eschews it. It might not be front and center in the marketing, but open source is as essential an ingredient in today's development as public access to books is to a more equally literate society.
pjmlp 8y ago
> Maybe we've seen "peak Free Software" and more secret sauce will hide behind SaaS paywalls in the near future. Not only SaaS paywalls, thanks to non-copyleft licenses, more appreciated by companies, we are back to the shareware days. Now you get the source with the light version, instead of a limited 30 days trial. However many goodies are only on the commercial version. Likewise, even if Linux has won on the server and seems to be winning on IoT, there are now several contenders on the embedded space with BSD licenses (Mbed, Arduino, RTOS, Nuttx, TinyOS, ...). In any case, it is understandable as it is easier to create a business model in such scenarios.

by e12e 8y ago

magduf 8y ago

>Maybe we've seen "peak Free Software" I think this is definitely true. So much stuff has move to "the cloud" or web services, and honestly, open-source software was a lot more interesting and fun, and seemed to be on more of an upward trajectory, back in the early/mid 2000s. Now Linux on the desktop seems to be something that'll never be reality for regular people and the main open-source thing that seems to be hot is stuff like Docker and Kubernetes, stuff used in enterprise scenarios, while on the desktop everyone's just given up and decided to live with Windows 10 and its spyware or Macbooks and their overly-thin keyboards and buggy OS.

washadjeffmad 8y ago
Reducing platform dependence seems to have removed a great deal of the barrier of consumer adoption of desktop Linux. I see more people all the time trying to figure out how to get it running on their MBPs, trying to understand differences in desktop environments, and how to dual-boot. Browsers on Linux support DRM for viewing popular services like Netflix, and native graphics stack development is improving more rapidly all the time. VFIO with LookingGlass has been great for people who work on Linux and game on Windows, and I think that paves the way for a very interesting future. Perhaps one day we'll see a Windows Gaming container that just does a useful thing without trying to steal the show. Also, FOSS acceptance is so commonplace now that we no longer notice its pervasiveness. Try to find a software or service that doesn't have an open source clause or a succeeding software company that totally eschews it. It might not be front and center in the marketing, but open source is as essential an ingredient in today's development as public access to books is to a more equally literate society.

pjmlp 8y ago

> Maybe we've seen "peak Free Software" and more secret sauce will hide behind SaaS paywalls in the near future. Not only SaaS paywalls, thanks to non-copyleft licenses, more appreciated by companies, we are back to the shareware days. Now you get the source with the light version, instead of a limited 30 days trial. However many goodies are only on the commercial version. Likewise, even if Linux has won on the server and seems to be winning on IoT, there are now several contenders on the embedded space with BSD licenses (Mbed, Arduino, RTOS, Nuttx, TinyOS, ...). In any case, it is understandable as it is easier to create a business model in such scenarios.