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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 "co

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.
- syntaxfree 18y ago
  Sure, because helping kids in the third world is suddenly not important if it's not gonna help promoting your relgion, er, platform of choice. Did everyone but Negroponte _really_ leave in disgust? Boy, the zealotry actually surprises me, and I spent six years watching Slashdot for several hours a day.
  - rms 18y ago
    A lot of people left... it's not just the switch to Windows, but the switch to Windows is symbolic of other failures of the project. http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
  - astine 18y ago
    I think there was more to it than the switch of platforms. If I recall, Negroponte expressed a notion that he was more interested in selling the pcs than helping children.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    because helping kids in the third world is suddenly not important if it's not gonna help promoting your relgion Now you're just being retarded and resorting to name-calling (see what I did there?). I write both Open Source and proprietary software, and I have no religion. You've already shown yourself to have a deep misunderstanding of Open Source, and its community. You've also shown a willingness to erect straw men and hold up single individuals as representative of an extremely diverse group of people. And, you've shown a profound lack of comprehension of how far Open Source has worked its way into every aspect of human technical activity, and how it continues to grow. Your article may have been interesting and mildly believable ten years ago (and I remember reading lots of similar arguments back then, and they were a little worrisome to those of us in the Open Source community), but today it just exhibits an extremely limited view of the technology industry and where Open Source fits within it (where==just about everywhere). In short, you're not a credible witness, and you become aggressive when someone calls you on your weak arguments.
astine 18y ago
"There's a huge movement towards cheaper PCs." Sure, but the major cost center for PCs is hardware, not software, at least not the operating system anyway. Major manufacturers are permitted to install Windows on their machines for only a small fraction of the retail price, so installing Linux instead doesn't save much money. Either way, the main driver for open source isn't price, it's flexibility. Not everyone needs it, but for those who do, it's a huge boon.
- xirium 18y ago
  > the major cost center for PCs is hardware, not software Microsoft has increased the cost of Windows licences while the cost of hardware components has decreased. The result is that the "free" copy of Windows that comes with pre-built PCs takes an increasing slice of the costs. If a hardware manufacturer can sidestep the OS cost while providing its customers with a functional computer then it gives them a huge competitive advantage.
gravity 18y ago
It's actually a very difficult space to compete in. Having worked on major desktop-related infrastructure for a major linux distro, I've got real experience on this one. It's a decidedly non-trivial task. Back when linux was "cool" (when was this? Late 90's?) only geeks tried it. Some stuck with it, others went to OSX, like yourself. Most people, during this time, managed to hear the word linux, but didn't really know what it was. Consequently, they didn't try it. This mythical time when everyone and their grandmother was trying Linux just didn't happen. But just because Free Software didn't work for you back then doesn't mean it failed. Mac OS, by my standards, failed miserably. Totally. Utterly. So I went to Linux. This was pre-OSX, when Apple was a company that had totally lost its way and was getting demolished by Microsoft. Pretty much everyone said that the Macintosh and Apple had failed and their days were numbered. Now things are different because Apple didn't stop. They never really failed you see, they just kept going. The Free Software community is doing much the same, and I'd be surprised if we're in the same place in another ten years. Just because something is not meeting your specific needs right now doesn't mean it's failed. Given the enormous progress I've seen over the past ten or so years I think it's fair to say quite the opposite. You actually have a choice to run Linux today where that wasn't really an option a decade ago. If that's failure, then you have a strange definition of failure.

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.

syntaxfree 18y ago
Sure, because helping kids in the third world is suddenly not important if it's not gonna help promoting your relgion, er, platform of choice. Did everyone but Negroponte _really_ leave in disgust? Boy, the zealotry actually surprises me, and I spent six years watching Slashdot for several hours a day.
- rms 18y ago
  A lot of people left... it's not just the switch to Windows, but the switch to Windows is symbolic of other failures of the project. http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
- astine 18y ago
  I think there was more to it than the switch of platforms. If I recall, Negroponte expressed a notion that he was more interested in selling the pcs than helping children.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  because helping kids in the third world is suddenly not important if it's not gonna help promoting your relgion Now you're just being retarded and resorting to name-calling (see what I did there?). I write both Open Source and proprietary software, and I have no religion. You've already shown yourself to have a deep misunderstanding of Open Source, and its community. You've also shown a willingness to erect straw men and hold up single individuals as representative of an extremely diverse group of people. And, you've shown a profound lack of comprehension of how far Open Source has worked its way into every aspect of human technical activity, and how it continues to grow. Your article may have been interesting and mildly believable ten years ago (and I remember reading lots of similar arguments back then, and they were a little worrisome to those of us in the Open Source community), but today it just exhibits an extremely limited view of the technology industry and where Open Source fits within it (where==just about everywhere). In short, you're not a credible witness, and you become aggressive when someone calls you on your weak arguments.

astine 18y ago

"There's a huge movement towards cheaper PCs." Sure, but the major cost center for PCs is hardware, not software, at least not the operating system anyway. Major manufacturers are permitted to install Windows on their machines for only a small fraction of the retail price, so installing Linux instead doesn't save much money. Either way, the main driver for open source isn't price, it's flexibility. Not everyone needs it, but for those who do, it's a huge boon.

xirium 18y ago
> the major cost center for PCs is hardware, not software Microsoft has increased the cost of Windows licences while the cost of hardware components has decreased. The result is that the "free" copy of Windows that comes with pre-built PCs takes an increasing slice of the costs. If a hardware manufacturer can sidestep the OS cost while providing its customers with a functional computer then it gives them a huge competitive advantage.

gravity 18y ago

It's actually a very difficult space to compete in. Having worked on major desktop-related infrastructure for a major linux distro, I've got real experience on this one. It's a decidedly non-trivial task. Back when linux was "cool" (when was this? Late 90's?) only geeks tried it. Some stuck with it, others went to OSX, like yourself. Most people, during this time, managed to hear the word linux, but didn't really know what it was. Consequently, they didn't try it. This mythical time when everyone and their grandmother was trying Linux just didn't happen. But just because Free Software didn't work for you back then doesn't mean it failed. Mac OS, by my standards, failed miserably. Totally. Utterly. So I went to Linux. This was pre-OSX, when Apple was a company that had totally lost its way and was getting demolished by Microsoft. Pretty much everyone said that the Macintosh and Apple had failed and their days were numbered. Now things are different because Apple didn't stop. They never really failed you see, they just kept going. The Free Software community is doing much the same, and I'd be surprised if we're in the same place in another ten years. Just because something is not meeting your specific needs right now doesn't mean it's failed. Given the enormous progress I've seen over the past ten or so years I think it's fair to say quite the opposite. You actually have a choice to run Linux today where that wasn't really an option a decade ago. If that's failure, then you have a strange definition of failure.