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It's successful on the server space because Linux and friends are a cheapie imitation of Unix environments and Microsoft server offerings plain suck. Open sourc

It's successful on the server space because Linux and friends are a cheapie imitation of Unix environments and Microsoft server offerings plain suck. Open source failed to produce new concepts -- to "explore the subspace of possible programs", as de Landa puts it. It probably wouldn't have caught on the server space if Unix wasn't such an integral part of hacker culture anyway. The whole point of the (admittedly badly writtten. I'm not a native speaker, I'm just learning how to write more complex essays) article is that open source remained glued to hacker culture and it failed to deliver its promises or even confirm Linus' Law ("given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow") as poor QA killed Linux on the desktop space.

gravity 18y ago
Nothing has failed yet. You act like the project is over and done with. It's not. Linux has conquered pretty much every single space but the desktop. This is a huge success, especially when ten years ago it was exciting to read about any company deploying Linux publicly in any sort of way. Now it's expected. As for the desktop, the work isn't finished, and it'll take a very long time to get to the point where it's a real contender. It's not a QA issue. The Linux desktop of today is actually of very high quality. It's that it's a very difficult space to compete in.
- syntaxfree 18y ago
  It isn't such a hard space to compete in. There's a huge movement towards cheaper PCs. But anyway, for a while there was a huge gaping window when Linux was "cool" (the way OS X is now) and many many people tried it. The QA sucked by then. I mean, I was a true believer -- I went all the way building a Gentoo desktop and whatnot. But none of the readymade distributions I tried (SuSE, Mandrake, Fedora, etc.) were up to the task of fueling a working environment where I don't have to worry about the working environment. After a while, I just got a Mac and quit bothering with useless geekery. I went geeking into functional programming instead. Did you get the news that the next batch of OLPC laptops will use Windows XP? They weren't bribed by Microsoft. It's not a matter of interface either, they'll keep the same interface.
  - chaostheory 18y ago
    OSX may not be open source, but isn't it built on top of BSD and doesn't it include/use a lot of open source software?
    - astine 18y ago
      not to mention TiVO, and the old Linksys routers.
    - gravity 18y ago
      OSX would fail completely without free software. BSD is the subsystem, their browser is based on konqueror's html engine, they rely on cups for printing, samba for file sharing with windows... the list goes on and on. What's important about this isn't so much that free software didn't fail, but that modern computing could not and would not exist without free software. End of story. Mac classic would be all but dead now, and Windows would have "innovated" us all in to a ditch. Remember what Microsoft did to IE when Netscape wasn't a threat? It'd be the same story. Without free software, there wouldn't be a mozilla, an OSX, or anything like it. Modern computing absolutely requires free software in order to function.
  - notauser 18y ago
    I still don't understand the OLPC move. The whole _point_ of the things was to teach a man to fish, not to give him a fish. From that basis everything (even the hardware) was open so that it could be studied and changed. It made perfect sense. The sellout doesn't seem to gain anything at all (as you say, it even uses the same interface) whilst giving up the fundamental principle of independence for the recipient.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    Did you get the news that the next batch of OLPC laptops will use Windows XP? They weren't bribed by Microsoft. Sure, but the governments OLPC needs to sell to in order to succeed, were bribed (and threatened, and lied to, and pretty much all of the other tricks in Microsofts 30 year history of FUD and scorched earth tactics). And, of course, all but Negroponte were disgusted by the change of direction and left the project.
- tx 18y ago
  Most folks don't realize, but desktop Linux has surpassed Windows and OSX in convenience, features and usability. Sure it still lacks some critical desktop applications and high quality UI design to truly shine. I've been alternating between Ubuntu and OSX for quite some time now, and dumbness of OSX (and it's visual polish) amaze me to this day: brand-new "naked" Leopard needs quite a few add-ons (sometimes commercial) to get on par with even (!) Gnome. Lets face it: conquering consumer market is impossible without millions spent on "Mac vs PC" commercials and I wouldn't expect Linux to ever get there, unless PC manufacturers start paying for it. Linux gets a nice chance to be a major player whenever DELL/HP/whoever develops a nice line of Linux-only machines with a catchy name and distinguished set of applications, accompanied by a massive PR-campaign, kind of like Eee PC on steroids.
  - syntaxfree 18y ago
    I have better things to do than invest time in trying Linux again. Gnome may have features that Leopard doesn't have, but my subjective probability that Ubuntu just-works like my Mac does is very low, and I'm a geeky user. This isn't about commercials. Millions were spent in server-space commercials and Linux still came out winner because it was a cheap good-enough solution. Large companies have given desktop Linux many opportunities to catch on because it's economically more profitable. The crummy QA of desktop distributions (server distributions also have crummy QA, it's just that the geeks who run them are able to surf through it) made desktop Linux fail.
    - muhfuhkuh 18y ago
      The EEEPC (and other linux-based low-cost PCs) success is a positive indicator that Linux can make it. Sure, some "geeks" will install XP on EEEPC, but for the most part, people are using Linux on it. I bet you haven't used any Linux in years. It's changed... alot.
  - Zev 18y ago
    With the exception of a few distro's (Ubuntu and Sabayon are the only ones that spring to mind), how many ship with Fusion enabled? Let alone working graphics drivers needed for Fusion to run? It's great that one or two distro's can do this, but I thought the strength (and bane) of Linux was supposed to be that there's so much choice and ability to customize things. That you're not locked into a single distro; yet if you want things to work right away, you're still locked into a limited number of choices. You mention that linux needs a "…catchy name and distinguished set of applications…" before it can gain popularity or widespread usage. How did Linux manage to surpass other OS's if it doesn't have the same/similar features that people use?
xenoterracide 18y ago
asside from linux where can I find 'the cube'? no where.

gravity 18y ago

Nothing has failed yet. You act like the project is over and done with. It's not. Linux has conquered pretty much every single space but the desktop. This is a huge success, especially when ten years ago it was exciting to read about any company deploying Linux publicly in any sort of way. Now it's expected. As for the desktop, the work isn't finished, and it'll take a very long time to get to the point where it's a real contender. It's not a QA issue. The Linux desktop of today is actually of very high quality. It's that it's a very difficult space to compete in.

syntaxfree 18y ago
It isn't such a hard space to compete in. There's a huge movement towards cheaper PCs. But anyway, for a while there was a huge gaping window when Linux was "cool" (the way OS X is now) and many many people tried it. The QA sucked by then. I mean, I was a true believer -- I went all the way building a Gentoo desktop and whatnot. But none of the readymade distributions I tried (SuSE, Mandrake, Fedora, etc.) were up to the task of fueling a working environment where I don't have to worry about the working environment. After a while, I just got a Mac and quit bothering with useless geekery. I went geeking into functional programming instead. Did you get the news that the next batch of OLPC laptops will use Windows XP? They weren't bribed by Microsoft. It's not a matter of interface either, they'll keep the same interface.
- chaostheory 18y ago
  OSX may not be open source, but isn't it built on top of BSD and doesn't it include/use a lot of open source software?
  - astine 18y ago
    not to mention TiVO, and the old Linksys routers.
  - gravity 18y ago
    OSX would fail completely without free software. BSD is the subsystem, their browser is based on konqueror's html engine, they rely on cups for printing, samba for file sharing with windows... the list goes on and on. What's important about this isn't so much that free software didn't fail, but that modern computing could not and would not exist without free software. End of story. Mac classic would be all but dead now, and Windows would have "innovated" us all in to a ditch. Remember what Microsoft did to IE when Netscape wasn't a threat? It'd be the same story. Without free software, there wouldn't be a mozilla, an OSX, or anything like it. Modern computing absolutely requires free software in order to function.
- notauser 18y ago
  I still don't understand the OLPC move. The whole _point_ of the things was to teach a man to fish, not to give him a fish. From that basis everything (even the hardware) was open so that it could be studied and changed. It made perfect sense. The sellout doesn't seem to gain anything at all (as you say, it even uses the same interface) whilst giving up the fundamental principle of independence for the recipient.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  Did you get the news that the next batch of OLPC laptops will use Windows XP? They weren't bribed by Microsoft. Sure, but the governments OLPC needs to sell to in order to succeed, were bribed (and threatened, and lied to, and pretty much all of the other tricks in Microsofts 30 year history of FUD and scorched earth tactics). And, of course, all but Negroponte were disgusted by the change of direction and left the project.
tx 18y ago
Most folks don't realize, but desktop Linux has surpassed Windows and OSX in convenience, features and usability. Sure it still lacks some critical desktop applications and high quality UI design to truly shine. I've been alternating between Ubuntu and OSX for quite some time now, and dumbness of OSX (and it's visual polish) amaze me to this day: brand-new "naked" Leopard needs quite a few add-ons (sometimes commercial) to get on par with even (!) Gnome. Lets face it: conquering consumer market is impossible without millions spent on "Mac vs PC" commercials and I wouldn't expect Linux to ever get there, unless PC manufacturers start paying for it. Linux gets a nice chance to be a major player whenever DELL/HP/whoever develops a nice line of Linux-only machines with a catchy name and distinguished set of applications, accompanied by a massive PR-campaign, kind of like Eee PC on steroids.
- syntaxfree 18y ago
  I have better things to do than invest time in trying Linux again. Gnome may have features that Leopard doesn't have, but my subjective probability that Ubuntu just-works like my Mac does is very low, and I'm a geeky user. This isn't about commercials. Millions were spent in server-space commercials and Linux still came out winner because it was a cheap good-enough solution. Large companies have given desktop Linux many opportunities to catch on because it's economically more profitable. The crummy QA of desktop distributions (server distributions also have crummy QA, it's just that the geeks who run them are able to surf through it) made desktop Linux fail.
  - muhfuhkuh 18y ago
    The EEEPC (and other linux-based low-cost PCs) success is a positive indicator that Linux can make it. Sure, some "geeks" will install XP on EEEPC, but for the most part, people are using Linux on it. I bet you haven't used any Linux in years. It's changed... alot.
- Zev 18y ago
  With the exception of a few distro's (Ubuntu and Sabayon are the only ones that spring to mind), how many ship with Fusion enabled? Let alone working graphics drivers needed for Fusion to run? It's great that one or two distro's can do this, but I thought the strength (and bane) of Linux was supposed to be that there's so much choice and ability to customize things. That you're not locked into a single distro; yet if you want things to work right away, you're still locked into a limited number of choices. You mention that linux needs a "…catchy name and distinguished set of applications…" before it can gain popularity or widespread usage. How did Linux manage to surpass other OS's if it doesn't have the same/similar features that people use?

xenoterracide 18y ago

asside from linux where can I find 'the cube'? no where.