4 ms·

I’ve become a little cynical of FOSS (though I remain a supporter) because of politics and infighting and constant reinventing the wheel. A perfect example is

I’ve become a little cynical of FOSS (though I remain a supporter) because of politics and infighting and constant reinventing the wheel. A perfect example is on this website if you click the “Stands” tab. So much unnecessary reinventing the wheel there, it’s sad. In my idea world (everyone has an ideal world), Linux would be standardized in everything but GUI, and the DEs would run their own distributions with their respective DEs. But of course I’m going to get a lot of replies about how more uniformity among distributions is bad. I’ll read them but I still think we are way too divided for desktop success and and are spending way too many resources copying each other.

greggyb 5y ago
> In my idea world (everyone has an ideal world), Linux would be standardized in everything but GUI, and the DEs would run their own distributions with their respective DEs. Try a BSD!
guerrilla 5y ago
Can you be more specific about what you see in the "Stands" tab? I just see random OSS projects... What overlap are you concerned about? Why is that your ideal world? What's wrong with diversity and competition?
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Lack of diversity is a bad thing. Too much diversity is also a bad thing. In my opinion, we have too many distributions for not enough people.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Why is that your opinion? Don't they exist because of demand for them? Why else would the exist? And why is too much diversity bad? What are the negative consequences here? The only thing I can think of is projects that you favor are lacking resources but if that's the case which ones do you even mean?
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      I mean I in the context of being a developer for Linux. I’d love to support my apps on Linux… but it is hell. Flatpak seems like it will help immensely, but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. Secondly, a quality perspective. So many bugs remain because so much effort is going into patching the same bug in countless distributions, rather than using those resources to make a smaller collection of codebases more bug free. Thirdly, it intimidates newcomers, be they users or developers. Which distribution should I use? If I have a problem, is the distribution at fault? And so on.
      - toyg 5y ago
        > but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. Not a Flatpak-related reply, but generally speaking: when it comes to tools for your work, don't listen to forums like this. Just use what you like and see how it works in the market. If Flatpak works for you, use it. Otherwise you'll end up tied into obscure LISP dialects and other stuff that really doesn't work well in the real world.
      - ben-schaaf 5y ago
        > I’d love to support my apps on Linux… but it is hell. Flatpak seems like it will help immensely, but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. As someone who professionally writes native desktop software for all 3 major platforms I can't say I've had the same experience. Providing packages for the major packaging systems is fairly easy, though less so when cross-compiling to different architectures. These formats very rarely require any changes. Other distribution methods like flatpak can be provided by those that care. For Windows you require signatures, dealing with the registry and installer compilers that need wine to work outside of Windows. On macOS you need a signature and notarisation, and any new requirements they decide to add. Some of which you can't do without a mac.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        Agreed. I have written some video games that work across several platforms and in my experience, GNU/Linux was the easiest platform to handle by far. > though less so when cross-compiling to different architectures If what you develop isn't very expensive to compile, cross-compiling can be super easy as well - you can just `docker run` a foreign architecture image with qemu-user and have it work exactly the same as it would natively (just much slower).
npteljes 5y ago
Desktop success is pure business. Windows was a piece of shit back in the 90s, especially from Win 95, and yet, it was everywhere. Bill and the gang made sure that everyone who has a PC has Windows installed, by the countless business tactics they employed: bundling Windows with the PC, equipping schools so that they teach Windows and Office, and a myriad of other background deals and other doings with the software and hardware participants on the market. And also they didn't fight software piracy too much. And since Windows is ubiquitous, people who want to target the PC target the Windows platform. This includes hardware makers, software shops, etc. Contributing to the effect that "everything just works" on Windows. So for Linux to catch up on this, would mean to make the system more of a baseline for the other participants on the market. And this is not achieved on a technological level primarily. Linux is already there, for a long time now.
InfiniteRand 5y ago
I don’t mind diversity in distributions but the diversity should be based on config options and build flags rather than separate package trees and custom patches
bobajeff 5y ago
On Linux success. I think one of 3 things would fix my issues (and thus solve mainstream adoption everyone else) either 1) every computer component manufacture open sources their drivers/firmware or 2) open source drivers get very well funded and supported all around (especially graphics and networking) or 3) Linux standardizes a driver ABI so that proprietary drivers can work on newer versions of the kernel without breaking.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  The Linux community has been trying to make the first two happen for decades. As for the third, they adamantly oppose it. And here we are.
BirAdam 5y ago
My skepticism of FOSS is a little stronger. First, constant churn that always breaks backward compatibility forcing upgrades and never allowing any old software to be used without a permanently high maintenance burden. Second, the constant diminution of quality in FOSS is annoying af. Third, FOSS has become a religion for many. All things must be FOSS because it’s a holy conquest, and if just everything were FOSS all would be perfection because reasons. Unfortunately, I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world. These could be completely unrelated, and maybe everything would still have been crap, but I cannot help but think that were people forced to pay for development they’d be more discerning.
- npteljes 5y ago
  >I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world You know how the IT world looked before FOSS? Relentless rent-seeking with the software controlling access, combined with a very high barrier of entry, financially. I also think people give too much weight to the developer being paid for the software or not. There's shitty closed source software and also shitty FOSS stuff. Brilliant minds can work on either. Many eyeballs on the code haven't prevented Heartbleed, for example, and the high paid devs at whatever company also make mistakes and maintain huge leaky legacy codebases all the time. The big thing with anything digital is that it can be copied very cheaply. This is a game changer because if I have something digital, we all can have something digital, which is not a case, for example, with a piece of bread, which gets smaller the more we share. This quirk or the digital space can give rise to a movement where a single contribution can empower literally every other person, with no additional expense on the contributor's part. This, coupled with ideology that emphatizes personal empowerment, and a lawful document that ensures further participation in the ecosystem, is what made IT accessible to many, without resorting to piracy. I'm sure folks can be annoying af about this. But the world hasn't gone to crap, it has always been crap, and the free software / open source movement is one of the larger influences that made it so much better.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > First, constant churn that always breaks backward compatibility forcing upgrades and never allowing any old software to be used without a permanently high maintenance burden. Is that not what enterprise Linux is for? You just pay for that if you need it. And also what about exceptions like python and such. > Third, FOSS has become a religion for many. All things must be FOSS because it’s a holy conquest, and if just everything were FOSS all would be perfection because reasons. This seems dismissive since there are actually well-thought out arguments for these things posted everywhere, they are not based on faith nor worship. This dismissal is tantamount to you saying you don't care about the same things that they care about. How could this possibly effect you negatively? > Unfortunately, I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world. These could be completely unrelated, and maybe everything would still have been crap, but I cannot help but think that were people forced to pay for development they’d be more discerning. That's pretty vague, care to clarify?
DaedPsyker 5y ago
I certainly agree that certain aspects harm its own adoption, primarily from choice anxiety which can be overwhelming. That said, there is limits to what I think should be standardised. Nothing stops standardised approach being incorrect, and inertia allowing problems to fester. I've noticed that is a a problem in open source video games. To be fair it doesn't easily translate into the FOSS realm but maybe we think too much of converting existing commercial methods of development to FOSS. An open source dreams like platform, where there is standards could be more effective. That said that doesn't mean everything should be unique. We should allow time and experience to generate good robust concepts then allow those to be easily utilised.

greggyb 5y ago

> In my idea world (everyone has an ideal world), Linux would be standardized in everything but GUI, and the DEs would run their own distributions with their respective DEs. Try a BSD!

guerrilla 5y ago

Can you be more specific about what you see in the "Stands" tab? I just see random OSS projects... What overlap are you concerned about? Why is that your ideal world? What's wrong with diversity and competition?

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Lack of diversity is a bad thing. Too much diversity is also a bad thing. In my opinion, we have too many distributions for not enough people.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Why is that your opinion? Don't they exist because of demand for them? Why else would the exist? And why is too much diversity bad? What are the negative consequences here? The only thing I can think of is projects that you favor are lacking resources but if that's the case which ones do you even mean?
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    I mean I in the context of being a developer for Linux. I’d love to support my apps on Linux… but it is hell. Flatpak seems like it will help immensely, but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. Secondly, a quality perspective. So many bugs remain because so much effort is going into patching the same bug in countless distributions, rather than using those resources to make a smaller collection of codebases more bug free. Thirdly, it intimidates newcomers, be they users or developers. Which distribution should I use? If I have a problem, is the distribution at fault? And so on.
    - toyg 5y ago
      > but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. Not a Flatpak-related reply, but generally speaking: when it comes to tools for your work, don't listen to forums like this. Just use what you like and see how it works in the market. If Flatpak works for you, use it. Otherwise you'll end up tied into obscure LISP dialects and other stuff that really doesn't work well in the real world.
    - ben-schaaf 5y ago
      > I’d love to support my apps on Linux… but it is hell. Flatpak seems like it will help immensely, but Flatpak has a ton of people on here who hate it. As someone who professionally writes native desktop software for all 3 major platforms I can't say I've had the same experience. Providing packages for the major packaging systems is fairly easy, though less so when cross-compiling to different architectures. These formats very rarely require any changes. Other distribution methods like flatpak can be provided by those that care. For Windows you require signatures, dealing with the registry and installer compilers that need wine to work outside of Windows. On macOS you need a signature and notarisation, and any new requirements they decide to add. Some of which you can't do without a mac.
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        Agreed. I have written some video games that work across several platforms and in my experience, GNU/Linux was the easiest platform to handle by far. > though less so when cross-compiling to different architectures If what you develop isn't very expensive to compile, cross-compiling can be super easy as well - you can just `docker run` a foreign architecture image with qemu-user and have it work exactly the same as it would natively (just much slower).

npteljes 5y ago

Desktop success is pure business. Windows was a piece of shit back in the 90s, especially from Win 95, and yet, it was everywhere. Bill and the gang made sure that everyone who has a PC has Windows installed, by the countless business tactics they employed: bundling Windows with the PC, equipping schools so that they teach Windows and Office, and a myriad of other background deals and other doings with the software and hardware participants on the market. And also they didn't fight software piracy too much. And since Windows is ubiquitous, people who want to target the PC target the Windows platform. This includes hardware makers, software shops, etc. Contributing to the effect that "everything just works" on Windows. So for Linux to catch up on this, would mean to make the system more of a baseline for the other participants on the market. And this is not achieved on a technological level primarily. Linux is already there, for a long time now.

InfiniteRand 5y ago

I don’t mind diversity in distributions but the diversity should be based on config options and build flags rather than separate package trees and custom patches

bobajeff 5y ago

On Linux success. I think one of 3 things would fix my issues (and thus solve mainstream adoption everyone else) either 1) every computer component manufacture open sources their drivers/firmware or 2) open source drivers get very well funded and supported all around (especially graphics and networking) or 3) Linux standardizes a driver ABI so that proprietary drivers can work on newer versions of the kernel without breaking.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
The Linux community has been trying to make the first two happen for decades. As for the third, they adamantly oppose it. And here we are.

BirAdam 5y ago

My skepticism of FOSS is a little stronger. First, constant churn that always breaks backward compatibility forcing upgrades and never allowing any old software to be used without a permanently high maintenance burden. Second, the constant diminution of quality in FOSS is annoying af. Third, FOSS has become a religion for many. All things must be FOSS because it’s a holy conquest, and if just everything were FOSS all would be perfection because reasons. Unfortunately, I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world. These could be completely unrelated, and maybe everything would still have been crap, but I cannot help but think that were people forced to pay for development they’d be more discerning.

npteljes 5y ago
>I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world You know how the IT world looked before FOSS? Relentless rent-seeking with the software controlling access, combined with a very high barrier of entry, financially. I also think people give too much weight to the developer being paid for the software or not. There's shitty closed source software and also shitty FOSS stuff. Brilliant minds can work on either. Many eyeballs on the code haven't prevented Heartbleed, for example, and the high paid devs at whatever company also make mistakes and maintain huge leaky legacy codebases all the time. The big thing with anything digital is that it can be copied very cheaply. This is a game changer because if I have something digital, we all can have something digital, which is not a case, for example, with a piece of bread, which gets smaller the more we share. This quirk or the digital space can give rise to a movement where a single contribution can empower literally every other person, with no additional expense on the contributor's part. This, coupled with ideology that emphatizes personal empowerment, and a lawful document that ensures further participation in the ecosystem, is what made IT accessible to many, without resorting to piracy. I'm sure folks can be annoying af about this. But the world hasn't gone to crap, it has always been crap, and the free software / open source movement is one of the larger influences that made it so much better.
guerrilla 5y ago
> First, constant churn that always breaks backward compatibility forcing upgrades and never allowing any old software to be used without a permanently high maintenance burden. Is that not what enterprise Linux is for? You just pay for that if you need it. And also what about exceptions like python and such. > Third, FOSS has become a religion for many. All things must be FOSS because it’s a holy conquest, and if just everything were FOSS all would be perfection because reasons. This seems dismissive since there are actually well-thought out arguments for these things posted everywhere, they are not based on faith nor worship. This dismissal is tantamount to you saying you don't care about the same things that they care about. How could this possibly effect you negatively? > Unfortunately, I’ve seen things only get worse as FOSS has come to dominate the world. These could be completely unrelated, and maybe everything would still have been crap, but I cannot help but think that were people forced to pay for development they’d be more discerning. That's pretty vague, care to clarify?

DaedPsyker 5y ago

I certainly agree that certain aspects harm its own adoption, primarily from choice anxiety which can be overwhelming. That said, there is limits to what I think should be standardised. Nothing stops standardised approach being incorrect, and inertia allowing problems to fester. I've noticed that is a a problem in open source video games. To be fair it doesn't easily translate into the FOSS realm but maybe we think too much of converting existing commercial methods of development to FOSS. An open source dreams like platform, where there is standards could be more effective. That said that doesn't mean everything should be unique. We should allow time and experience to generate good robust concepts then allow those to be easily utilised.