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Maybe technologically, but not so much in spirit. The idea of "the year of the linux desktop", as I understand it, is that people en-mass get the benefits of fr

Maybe technologically, but not so much in spirit. The idea of "the year of the linux desktop", as I understand it, is that people en-mass get the benefits of free software and the free software desktop is a viable replacement for windows/macos. In this case, though, people are still using their same proprietary software... they just have slightly easier access to the free software world. That's certainly a benefit for a lot of people, but it's possibly a detriment to desktop linux for this reason: Other than freedom/privacy reasons, why would I switch from windows if I can already run most of the linux stack in it and not give up Adobe programs, games, etc.? This removes most of the pragmatic reasons for switching, so I'm mostly left with idealistic ones.

smichel17 7y ago
The pragmatic reason is the idealistic reason: control. It manifests itself in things like forced Windows updates, even if you're actually using the computer at the time.
- judge2020 7y ago
  The issue with updates is that they sometimes need to be installed during restart, but many people (that I know) never power cycle their computer and then complain that it asked them to restart the computer while they were using it.
- overgard 7y ago
  I wish that were enough, but even though having my computer restart when I don't want it to is annoying and microsoft's forced updates infuriate me, at the end of the day I use my computer to get work done and using linux would really make that a lot harder, unfortunately.
- zvrba 7y ago
  > even if you're actually using the computer at the time. ?? Windows 10 pops up a "schedule updates" dialog when there's an update to install. And when the time comes, I can still postpone it.
kpU8efre7r 7y ago
I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. There is always a post about Linux tech / adoption that deserves praise and some Stallman acolyte will chime in to remind us it's not a real accomplishment. This is turning into a rant but has anyone checked out the approved distros on FSF? Many popular distros do not make the cut not because they include nonfree software but make it a little too easy to acquire nonfree software.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- syshum 7y ago
  I am sure you will consider me a "Stallman acolyte" even though i am not Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. Nor do i believe the goals of Free Software were impractical and as we move into a more connected world where privacy, censorship, and security are more important than ever due to automation, IoT and the normalization of technology the fact that more or less 4 corporations control the underlying fabric of that technology to the point were even the "open standards" are bought and paid for by them should be terrifying to everyone. Of course I am just fear mongering Stallman acolyte right....
  - _red 7y ago
    >"Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle What are some examples of these 'compromises'. From what I have seen, all these companies publish source code and abide by copyright law for any open-source code they use in their products. Or are you simply against the principle of for-profit companies making money from open-source?
    - syshum 7y ago
      Open Source vs Free Software is very simple The Open Source community only cares about the Source Code, they are generally developer centrist, and generally work with "open sourcing" tools, libraries, languages and components used to build applications. Looks on github's open source projects, what is the ratio of Full Applications, compared to libraries, tools, and components? Probably over 100 libraries, tools, and components for every 1 application Open Source community has become a purely developer community that does not give 2 shits about the freedom of users or consumers. Most of the devs in open source today are building SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services that are closed source or non-source distributed "open source" services meaning that is perfectly legal to incorporate open source in to a SaaS product and not release the source code. Free Software however believe all users of the software have a equal right to the source code as the developers. The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server, but while Nest uses many open source libraries the service itself is Closed Source. That is main compromise and divergence that happened between Free Software and Open Source. As to making money off Free Software, I have no problems with that, it is not part of this issue. Open Source advocates like to bring that up as a red herring to divert the conversation from the primary debate. Often claiming that if they can not close their final product "they can not make any money" as an excuse why they do not support Free (Libre) software
uponcoffee 7y ago
Why would giving up Adobe programs/games be a reason to switch before? I don't think the reasons have changed much at all, just the execution. The above is an example of why one might dual boot, or run one OS in a VM, it's also a reason for chrome books/windows to ship a Linux kernel.
- overgard 7y ago
  Maybe I lacked clarity making my point, what I meant was that a large reason for why I don't switch is that I need adobe programs and I like playing games. There are aspects of the linux desktop that would get me to switch though, hypothetically, if they really outweighed those two things, but now that I can have those things on Windows without giving up the programs I like I have less practical incentive to switch.
amelius 7y ago
I find it sad that developers at BigCorps actually implement these kind of solutions, knowing that the resulting product is not what they themselves would want as a customer. Apart from this particular issue, it reflects how a company with intelligent people "thinks", i.e. with only a small portion of its brain.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Replace “at BigCorps” with the more accurate “for BigCorps” and the answer is more apparent.
  - amelius 7y ago
    Morally abject behavior in the name of money exists since the oldest profession. However, most developers have a choice.
syshum 7y ago
This is the Open Source vs Free (libre) software debate Today the trend is more open source, than free software, even with in linux. Dev's and Companies want the source to be open but do not care if the end product is open. Free Software is losing
daveFNbuck 7y ago
You would switch from Windows because the Linux kernel has become so ubiquitous that all the software you need is now developed for it. That's the future that this makes me hopeful for.
- jopsen 7y ago
  Aren't we almost there with software being developed for the web instead of Linux? It's only my plain text editor that still runs on my desktop, but even that runs on electron, hehe
  - ci5er 7y ago
    I wish electron would die a thousand deaths. Even excel, word, ppt and skyp are being reimplemented in it (or something similar) and the result is not an improvement (for the user)
schuke 7y ago
It could be like how the iPod through the last decade lured me into the Apple ecosystem. Initially it was exactly for having good music experience without having to commit to the Mac world. Then I got the iPod touch, iPad, even an iPhone. Finally it’s like what the hell, I might as well go full Mac with an MBP.
derefr 7y ago
I feel like Linux itself (including the various FOSS Desktop Environments under that aegis) is a viable replacement for Windows/macOS, as is evidenced by ChromeOS, and by governments and enterprises deploying Linux on their workstations. The problem is actually the opposite, at this point; Linux has seen tons of effort and been polished to hell, but all the FOSS apps that would be alternatives to proprietary ones haven’t seen nearly so much contribution. Linux “as a product”—the kernel, the common libraries, plus any random distro’s bits chosen at random—probably has as many (if not more) cumulative man-hours put into it, per year, as the “products” of Windows or macOS have. But can you say the same about, say, GIMP vs. Photoshop? About Audacity vs. Reason? Even Blender, which sees tons of work put into it and is sort of a “reference platform” that graphics orgs use to demonstrate new tech (once they decide it’s not valuable enough any more to keep it proprietary), doesn’t have the same power as the proprietary equivalents. But in many of these cases, I think the problem isn’t so much “FOSS vs. proprietary” as it is “every other solution, vs. the solution hacked on and extended by industry professionals and academics who are trying to get something novel done.” When there is such a solution, nobody else is going to be able to match its features, because its features are commercializations of R&D that may have not even been published outside of its bounds. (See e.g. Photoshop’s implementation of PatchMatch when it was first introduced; or hundreds of the technniques used in Pixar’s Renderman currently.) In cases where the FOSS solution is the industry workhorse, the FOSS solution ends up being the thing that gets extended. LLVM is FOSS, and is also where research into optimizing compilers happens. R is FOSS, and is also the usual choice of platform to bind to for projects like WordNet, because they want to use R to do analysis against their project’s specialized data structures. But that just means that for those industries, Linux is the locked-in platform, since it’s where these tools (or more specifically, their ecosystems of libraries and tooling, which may not always be as multiplatform as the runtime itself) run natively and/or best. But this is just as bad a situation, in many ways, as having the “industry workhorse” be a proprietary solution like Photoshop or Mathematica. Either way, you’ve got one system with all the effort concentrated on it, where sloppy algorithms get a pass because they’re the only implementation of said algorithm, and there’s no real competition to force the ecosystem forward. Sure, you could read the source and implement a competitor yourself—but given industry-developer network effects, few people start out hopeful for their prospects when they do so.
ensignavenger 7y ago
From a developer perspective, why would I develop software for Windows only, if I can develop it against Linux and have it work in Windows, traditional Linux desktops, and ChromeOS? (Games may still have trouble because I doubt that WSL2 will allow direct hardware access to the GPU). Once more desktop software is Linux compatible to take advantage of this cross-platform Linux API experience, it becomes easier for consumers to choose to forgo Windows all together.

smichel17 7y ago

The pragmatic reason is the idealistic reason: control. It manifests itself in things like forced Windows updates, even if you're actually using the computer at the time.

judge2020 7y ago
The issue with updates is that they sometimes need to be installed during restart, but many people (that I know) never power cycle their computer and then complain that it asked them to restart the computer while they were using it.
overgard 7y ago
I wish that were enough, but even though having my computer restart when I don't want it to is annoying and microsoft's forced updates infuriate me, at the end of the day I use my computer to get work done and using linux would really make that a lot harder, unfortunately.
zvrba 7y ago
> even if you're actually using the computer at the time. ?? Windows 10 pops up a "schedule updates" dialog when there's an update to install. And when the time comes, I can still postpone it.

kpU8efre7r 7y ago

I think the impractical goal of free software at any cost has hurt Linux. It's radical and it's a type of gatekeeping around here. There is always a post about Linux tech / adoption that deserves praise and some Stallman acolyte will chime in to remind us it's not a real accomplishment. This is turning into a rant but has anyone checked out the approved distros on FSF? Many popular distros do not make the cut not because they include nonfree software but make it a little too easy to acquire nonfree software.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
syshum 7y ago
I am sure you will consider me a "Stallman acolyte" even though i am not Having said that, I think the compromises the "Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle have done much much much more harm to the community and goals than " Stallman acolytes" ever have. Nor do i believe the goals of Free Software were impractical and as we move into a more connected world where privacy, censorship, and security are more important than ever due to automation, IoT and the normalization of technology the fact that more or less 4 corporations control the underlying fabric of that technology to the point were even the "open standards" are bought and paid for by them should be terrifying to everyone. Of course I am just fear mongering Stallman acolyte right....
- _red 7y ago
  >"Open Source" community has given to commercial companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle What are some examples of these 'compromises'. From what I have seen, all these companies publish source code and abide by copyright law for any open-source code they use in their products. Or are you simply against the principle of for-profit companies making money from open-source?
  - syshum 7y ago
    Open Source vs Free Software is very simple The Open Source community only cares about the Source Code, they are generally developer centrist, and generally work with "open sourcing" tools, libraries, languages and components used to build applications. Looks on github's open source projects, what is the ratio of Full Applications, compared to libraries, tools, and components? Probably over 100 libraries, tools, and components for every 1 application Open Source community has become a purely developer community that does not give 2 shits about the freedom of users or consumers. Most of the devs in open source today are building SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services that are closed source or non-source distributed "open source" services meaning that is perfectly legal to incorporate open source in to a SaaS product and not release the source code. Free Software however believe all users of the software have a equal right to the source code as the developers. The recent Nest development of them closing their API is a clear example of the difference, if it was a Free Software based API I would have the ability to run my own Nest API server, but while Nest uses many open source libraries the service itself is Closed Source. That is main compromise and divergence that happened between Free Software and Open Source. As to making money off Free Software, I have no problems with that, it is not part of this issue. Open Source advocates like to bring that up as a red herring to divert the conversation from the primary debate. Often claiming that if they can not close their final product "they can not make any money" as an excuse why they do not support Free (Libre) software

uponcoffee 7y ago

Why would giving up Adobe programs/games be a reason to switch before? I don't think the reasons have changed much at all, just the execution. The above is an example of why one might dual boot, or run one OS in a VM, it's also a reason for chrome books/windows to ship a Linux kernel.

overgard 7y ago
Maybe I lacked clarity making my point, what I meant was that a large reason for why I don't switch is that I need adobe programs and I like playing games. There are aspects of the linux desktop that would get me to switch though, hypothetically, if they really outweighed those two things, but now that I can have those things on Windows without giving up the programs I like I have less practical incentive to switch.

amelius 7y ago

I find it sad that developers at BigCorps actually implement these kind of solutions, knowing that the resulting product is not what they themselves would want as a customer. Apart from this particular issue, it reflects how a company with intelligent people "thinks", i.e. with only a small portion of its brain.

merpnderp 7y ago
Replace “at BigCorps” with the more accurate “for BigCorps” and the answer is more apparent.
- amelius 7y ago
  Morally abject behavior in the name of money exists since the oldest profession. However, most developers have a choice.

syshum 7y ago

This is the Open Source vs Free (libre) software debate Today the trend is more open source, than free software, even with in linux. Dev's and Companies want the source to be open but do not care if the end product is open. Free Software is losing

daveFNbuck 7y ago

You would switch from Windows because the Linux kernel has become so ubiquitous that all the software you need is now developed for it. That's the future that this makes me hopeful for.

jopsen 7y ago
Aren't we almost there with software being developed for the web instead of Linux? It's only my plain text editor that still runs on my desktop, but even that runs on electron, hehe
- ci5er 7y ago
  I wish electron would die a thousand deaths. Even excel, word, ppt and skyp are being reimplemented in it (or something similar) and the result is not an improvement (for the user)

schuke 7y ago

It could be like how the iPod through the last decade lured me into the Apple ecosystem. Initially it was exactly for having good music experience without having to commit to the Mac world. Then I got the iPod touch, iPad, even an iPhone. Finally it’s like what the hell, I might as well go full Mac with an MBP.

derefr 7y ago

I feel like Linux itself (including the various FOSS Desktop Environments under that aegis) is a viable replacement for Windows/macOS, as is evidenced by ChromeOS, and by governments and enterprises deploying Linux on their workstations. The problem is actually the opposite, at this point; Linux has seen tons of effort and been polished to hell, but all the FOSS apps that would be alternatives to proprietary ones haven’t seen nearly so much contribution. Linux “as a product”—the kernel, the common libraries, plus any random distro’s bits chosen at random—probably has as many (if not more) cumulative man-hours put into it, per year, as the “products” of Windows or macOS have. But can you say the same about, say, GIMP vs. Photoshop? About Audacity vs. Reason? Even Blender, which sees tons of work put into it and is sort of a “reference platform” that graphics orgs use to demonstrate new tech (once they decide it’s not valuable enough any more to keep it proprietary), doesn’t have the same power as the proprietary equivalents. But in many of these cases, I think the problem isn’t so much “FOSS vs. proprietary” as it is “every other solution, vs. the solution hacked on and extended by industry professionals and academics who are trying to get something novel done.” When there is such a solution, nobody else is going to be able to match its features, because its features are commercializations of R&D that may have not even been published outside of its bounds. (See e.g. Photoshop’s implementation of PatchMatch when it was first introduced; or hundreds of the technniques used in Pixar’s Renderman currently.) In cases where the FOSS solution is the industry workhorse, the FOSS solution ends up being the thing that gets extended. LLVM is FOSS, and is also where research into optimizing compilers happens. R is FOSS, and is also the usual choice of platform to bind to for projects like WordNet, because they want to use R to do analysis against their project’s specialized data structures. But that just means that for those industries, Linux is the locked-in platform, since it’s where these tools (or more specifically, their ecosystems of libraries and tooling, which may not always be as multiplatform as the runtime itself) run natively and/or best. But this is just as bad a situation, in many ways, as having the “industry workhorse” be a proprietary solution like Photoshop or Mathematica. Either way, you’ve got one system with all the effort concentrated on it, where sloppy algorithms get a pass because they’re the only implementation of said algorithm, and there’s no real competition to force the ecosystem forward. Sure, you could read the source and implement a competitor yourself—but given industry-developer network effects, few people start out hopeful for their prospects when they do so.

ensignavenger 7y ago

From a developer perspective, why would I develop software for Windows only, if I can develop it against Linux and have it work in Windows, traditional Linux desktops, and ChromeOS? (Games may still have trouble because I doubt that WSL2 will allow direct hardware access to the GPU). Once more desktop software is Linux compatible to take advantage of this cross-platform Linux API experience, it becomes easier for consumers to choose to forgo Windows all together.