57 ms·

This is one of the major reasons I don't suggest Linux to anyone. There was a time I'd get people to switch from Windows to Linux; now I tell them to either upg

This is one of the major reasons I don't suggest Linux to anyone. There was a time I'd get people to switch from Windows to Linux; now I tell them to either upgrade to Windows 7 (if they're not on Windows 7 already) or get a Mac. I'm also concerned about three secondary issues. One, there is a lack of strong leadership in the Linux community. Shuttleworth is the only person who can shake things up, and whenever he does everyone whines as if Shuttleworth had caused them some grave personal injustice. Second, of course, is fragmentation and the fact that Linux developers change things needlessly (see GNOME 3, KDE4, PulseAudio, etc.) The end result is different distros doing things in slightly incompatible ways. These days I see more and more people package their software for Ubuntu only, and provide a generic .tag.gz for other distros. I'm no Ubuntu fan, but I jump for joy every time I see this. Distros need to die. Third is politics. I know people who contribute to a few high-profile open source projects and I've watched them waste their time on bikeshed discussions on mailing lists and IRC. I've even watched one guy work on a project for three months only to have the design team discard it because they had a different idea in mind. The result was a long battle between programmers and designers. I guess this is a direct result of lack of leadership. I've been hearing talks about a GNOME OS. I sincerely hope the GNOME folks go ahead and build it. As I've said before, distros need to die. So much manpower is wasted on just packaging things for different distros. From a consumer standpoint, choice is okay if you have to choose between two or three things, each with their clear merits and demerits. Choice is fatal if you have to choose between ten things which are all nearly identical. Sometimes I feel Linus is the only guy who knows how to run a project properly. He knows how to say "no". If only we could coax him into building a distro ...

majika 15y ago
"There was a time I'd get people to switch from Windows to Linux; now I tell them to either upgrade to Windows 7 (if they're not on Windows 7 already) or get a Mac." What's changed? "Shuttleworth is the only person who can shake things up, and whenever he does everyone whines as if Shuttleworth had caused them some grave personal injustice." People get comfy in their distributions. When Shuttleworth dictates "design" decisions with the reasoning of "just because," and as a result many people no longer find their distribution of choice comfortable, can you really blame them for being pissed off? I know many people in this situation since Ubuntu 11.04. I'm one of them. I wasn't happy with Unity. I had to spend the time to migrate my desktop and laptop to Fedora, and get readjusted. This was annoying, but at least I'm comfortable again. "Second, of course, is fragmentation and the fact that Linux developers change things needlessly (see GNOME 3, KDE4, PulseAudio, etc.)" Fragmentation is inevitable in free software. People build what they want - you can't stop them, and you don't have to use what they make. The solution is not to provide the "one distribution to bind them all" and somehow dictate that everyone should use it, but to get the different ecosystems and environments following standards. They're doing that pretty well. Anyway - you wish for "strong leadership" in the community. There will always be more than one center of strong leadership (because of personal preferences), and hence, fragmentation results. "These days I see more and more people package their software for Ubuntu only, and provide a generic .tag.gz for other distros. I'm no Ubuntu fan, but I jump for joy every time I see this. Distros need to die." It seems you wish for the same universality for Ubuntu as exists for Windows and Mac OS X. Do you know why those platforms are universal? Because it's relatively difficult for graphical programs to be ported between them. That problem doesn't exist for the free software ecosystem thanks to portable graphical toolkits, freedesktop.org, etc. Any good software written for distro X will soon be running on distro Y (if it doesn't already from the get-go), and that will never change. "Third is politics. I know people who contribute to a few high-profile open source projects and I've watched them waste their time on bikeshed discussions on mailing lists and IRC. I've even watched one guy work on a project for three months only to have the design team discard it because they had a different idea in mind. The result was a long battle between programmers and designers. I guess this is a direct result of lack of leadership." I agree that this is a huge problem. Design by committee is inefficient and ineffective. I think it would be a good idea for GNOME to have leadership elections at the end of each release cycle, to get someone to lead the GNOME project through to the next release. "I've been hearing talks about a GNOME OS. I sincerely hope the GNOME folks go ahead and build it. As I've said before, distros need to die. So much manpower is wasted on just packaging things for different distros." By those distro maintainers' own initiatives. They do it because they want to. "Sometimes I feel Linus is the only guy who knows how to run a project properly. He knows how to say "no". If only we could coax him into building a distro ..." Linus is (a) busy, and (b) has no clue about usability. He runs Xfce, for heavens' sake :)
- GeneralMaximus 15y ago
  This is such a great reply. Thank you, majika. > What's changed? Nothing much on the Linux side; Windows has just become better. Windows XP as I remember it was utter shit. Windows 7 is actually pleasant to use. I also got myself a MacBook in 2008, wrote many Cocoa applications, and found that the Mac was a better work machine than my Linux machine. So if someone can't afford a Mac, I tell them to use Windows 7. Otherwise it's time to hit the Apple store :) > People get comfy in their distributions. When Shuttleworth dictates "design" decisions with the reasoning of "just because," and as a result many people no longer find their distribution of choice comfortable, can you really blame them for being pissed off? Totally agreed. So can we say that not only does the Linux world lack leadership, the little leadership it does have makes terrible decisions? :p > Fragmentation is inevitable in free software. People build what they want - you can't stop them, and you don't have to use what they make. The solution is not to provide the "one distribution to bind them all" and somehow dictate that everyone should use it, but to get the different ecosystems and environments following standards. They're doing that pretty well. Once again you make a very good point. But I'm looking at this issue from a consumer's standpoint. The consumer wants to deal with one entity; he doesn't like fragmentation. In any case, these mostly identical distributions serve no purpose. Most of them have no reason to exist. Personally, when I want to use Linux -- and I do use Linux on servers because that is where it shines -- I default to Debian and pretend that nothing else exists. I'm not good at dealing with choice, and I believe the man on the street is almost as bad as I am. > It seems you wish for the same universality for Ubuntu as exists for Windows and Mac OS X. I do. I honestly do. Universality is a good thing. I know a properly written GTK+ app will run identically on every Linux machine out there, but there are still some very tiny incompatibilities, especially w.r.t. packaging and distribution. As an indie developer, I don't want to deal with that stuff. I just want to create a DMG/MSI, ship it and expect it to work for the next 5 years without issues. The universality of Windows and the Mac gurantees that. Oh, one more thing: Windows and OS X let even bad developers bang out working applications. All their assumptions about their OS, their hardcoded paths, their assumptions about certain libraries existing at certain versions, all their bad code ... it all just works. Small point, but I think it's an important one. All of us were ignorant once :) I know I'm going to sound like a crazy person here, but I just feel there is something very wrong with fragmentation. I don't know; it's just something I feel. I guess I probably am a crazy person ... > Linus is (a) busy, and (b) has no clue about usability. He runs Xfce, for heavens' sake :) Hey, Xfce is pretty damn good :)
dredmorbius 15y ago
I would advise the ordinary non-technical user to go Mac. Fewer headaches all around, largely through restricted choice. The platform drives me bananas. Windows makes me postal though. Linux / Free Software has strong leadership, but that leadership generally has limited scope. The GNOME team have certainly taken bull-headedness to new heights within their own limited realm of control. To somewhat muted applause as I recall. OpenBSD (granted, not Linux) isn't particularly renowned for having a shrinking violet at its head. Nor Linux itself, nor the FSF. Other major projects have a mix of leadership styles, itself part of the (r)evolutionary culture of trying different technical, social, organizational, and leadership structures. That diversity (including various ill-advised developmental branches) is part of Linux / Free Software's strength: a great many parallel paths are being tried. Some will succeed, some will fail. In general, the better alternatives generally at least get a good, if not fully fair, hearing. Politics is inevitable when you're dealing with more than one individual or organization. Grow up and get over it. You'll note that these same political discusses exist in the proprietary world, you're just not (usually) party to them. The proper counterproposal to a bikeshed argument is to demand construction of a nuclear power plant. Those "creative differences" are called "forks" and again, are a key strength to Free Software (see previous comments).

majika 15y ago

"There was a time I'd get people to switch from Windows to Linux; now I tell them to either upgrade to Windows 7 (if they're not on Windows 7 already) or get a Mac." What's changed? "Shuttleworth is the only person who can shake things up, and whenever he does everyone whines as if Shuttleworth had caused them some grave personal injustice." People get comfy in their distributions. When Shuttleworth dictates "design" decisions with the reasoning of "just because," and as a result many people no longer find their distribution of choice comfortable, can you really blame them for being pissed off? I know many people in this situation since Ubuntu 11.04. I'm one of them. I wasn't happy with Unity. I had to spend the time to migrate my desktop and laptop to Fedora, and get readjusted. This was annoying, but at least I'm comfortable again. "Second, of course, is fragmentation and the fact that Linux developers change things needlessly (see GNOME 3, KDE4, PulseAudio, etc.)" Fragmentation is inevitable in free software. People build what they want - you can't stop them, and you don't have to use what they make. The solution is not to provide the "one distribution to bind them all" and somehow dictate that everyone should use it, but to get the different ecosystems and environments following standards. They're doing that pretty well. Anyway - you wish for "strong leadership" in the community. There will always be more than one center of strong leadership (because of personal preferences), and hence, fragmentation results. "These days I see more and more people package their software for Ubuntu only, and provide a generic .tag.gz for other distros. I'm no Ubuntu fan, but I jump for joy every time I see this. Distros need to die." It seems you wish for the same universality for Ubuntu as exists for Windows and Mac OS X. Do you know why those platforms are universal? Because it's relatively difficult for graphical programs to be ported between them. That problem doesn't exist for the free software ecosystem thanks to portable graphical toolkits, freedesktop.org, etc. Any good software written for distro X will soon be running on distro Y (if it doesn't already from the get-go), and that will never change. "Third is politics. I know people who contribute to a few high-profile open source projects and I've watched them waste their time on bikeshed discussions on mailing lists and IRC. I've even watched one guy work on a project for three months only to have the design team discard it because they had a different idea in mind. The result was a long battle between programmers and designers. I guess this is a direct result of lack of leadership." I agree that this is a huge problem. Design by committee is inefficient and ineffective. I think it would be a good idea for GNOME to have leadership elections at the end of each release cycle, to get someone to lead the GNOME project through to the next release. "I've been hearing talks about a GNOME OS. I sincerely hope the GNOME folks go ahead and build it. As I've said before, distros need to die. So much manpower is wasted on just packaging things for different distros." By those distro maintainers' own initiatives. They do it because they want to. "Sometimes I feel Linus is the only guy who knows how to run a project properly. He knows how to say "no". If only we could coax him into building a distro ..." Linus is (a) busy, and (b) has no clue about usability. He runs Xfce, for heavens' sake :)

GeneralMaximus 15y ago
This is such a great reply. Thank you, majika. > What's changed? Nothing much on the Linux side; Windows has just become better. Windows XP as I remember it was utter shit. Windows 7 is actually pleasant to use. I also got myself a MacBook in 2008, wrote many Cocoa applications, and found that the Mac was a better work machine than my Linux machine. So if someone can't afford a Mac, I tell them to use Windows 7. Otherwise it's time to hit the Apple store :) > People get comfy in their distributions. When Shuttleworth dictates "design" decisions with the reasoning of "just because," and as a result many people no longer find their distribution of choice comfortable, can you really blame them for being pissed off? Totally agreed. So can we say that not only does the Linux world lack leadership, the little leadership it does have makes terrible decisions? :p > Fragmentation is inevitable in free software. People build what they want - you can't stop them, and you don't have to use what they make. The solution is not to provide the "one distribution to bind them all" and somehow dictate that everyone should use it, but to get the different ecosystems and environments following standards. They're doing that pretty well. Once again you make a very good point. But I'm looking at this issue from a consumer's standpoint. The consumer wants to deal with one entity; he doesn't like fragmentation. In any case, these mostly identical distributions serve no purpose. Most of them have no reason to exist. Personally, when I want to use Linux -- and I do use Linux on servers because that is where it shines -- I default to Debian and pretend that nothing else exists. I'm not good at dealing with choice, and I believe the man on the street is almost as bad as I am. > It seems you wish for the same universality for Ubuntu as exists for Windows and Mac OS X. I do. I honestly do. Universality is a good thing. I know a properly written GTK+ app will run identically on every Linux machine out there, but there are still some very tiny incompatibilities, especially w.r.t. packaging and distribution. As an indie developer, I don't want to deal with that stuff. I just want to create a DMG/MSI, ship it and expect it to work for the next 5 years without issues. The universality of Windows and the Mac gurantees that. Oh, one more thing: Windows and OS X let even bad developers bang out working applications. All their assumptions about their OS, their hardcoded paths, their assumptions about certain libraries existing at certain versions, all their bad code ... it all just works. Small point, but I think it's an important one. All of us were ignorant once :) I know I'm going to sound like a crazy person here, but I just feel there is something very wrong with fragmentation. I don't know; it's just something I feel. I guess I probably am a crazy person ... > Linus is (a) busy, and (b) has no clue about usability. He runs Xfce, for heavens' sake :) Hey, Xfce is pretty damn good :)

dredmorbius 15y ago

I would advise the ordinary non-technical user to go Mac. Fewer headaches all around, largely through restricted choice. The platform drives me bananas. Windows makes me postal though. Linux / Free Software has strong leadership, but that leadership generally has limited scope. The GNOME team have certainly taken bull-headedness to new heights within their own limited realm of control. To somewhat muted applause as I recall. OpenBSD (granted, not Linux) isn't particularly renowned for having a shrinking violet at its head. Nor Linux itself, nor the FSF. Other major projects have a mix of leadership styles, itself part of the (r)evolutionary culture of trying different technical, social, organizational, and leadership structures. That diversity (including various ill-advised developmental branches) is part of Linux / Free Software's strength: a great many parallel paths are being tried. Some will succeed, some will fail. In general, the better alternatives generally at least get a good, if not fully fair, hearing. Politics is inevitable when you're dealing with more than one individual or organization. Grow up and get over it. You'll note that these same political discusses exist in the proprietary world, you're just not (usually) party to them. The proper counterproposal to a bikeshed argument is to demand construction of a nuclear power plant. Those "creative differences" are called "forks" and again, are a key strength to Free Software (see previous comments).