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Could you imagine if the Linux Developer Center went down? It'd be nearly impossible to write Linux software, or download Linux development tools, or generate a

Could you imagine if the Linux Developer Center went down? It'd be nearly impossible to write Linux software, or download Linux development tools, or generate a Linux binary that a device was allowed to run. It'd be awful.

coldtea 13y ago
Nice attempt at snark, but something being fault-proof in this regard doesn't magically make it worthy in others. Like desktop use, for one. People will not adopt Linux for their desktop/laptop even when offered for free. Where by people I mean more than 1% of them.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Yeah well its not like computers ship without OS so your point does not really make sense. And its not like Linux has marketing unlike all other OSes out there. When you want to compare stuff you got to have similar factors in place otherwise it does not make sense.
- pavanky 13y ago
  That is not totally true. The reason most people stay with Windows is because the hardware ships with it. In my experience Linux usage has about 50% retention rate among those I installed the OS for. If you'd install OSX or Windows on a non techie who grew up using just Linux, I'd think the retention rates would be much lower.
  - briandear 13y ago
    a 50% retention rate? That's not very good. That means that after you've installed Linux, half of the people switch back.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      No, that is actually stunningly good, considering the alleged state of the Linux desktop and considering the audience that the Linux desktop has traditionally been targeting. It is so good, that I suspect he has a strong selection bias (he is probably only installing Linux for users he thinks may be able to use it fulltime. This selection is probably unconscious.) (And because it always seems to be necessary to add this disclaimer: I've been using Linux fulltime for over a decade; I'm not a critic, just a realist.)
    - pavanky 13y ago
      Remember these are people who have been using windows all their lives. Change is not something all people can deal with easily. It also says, given the chance to be the default desktop, Linux can have higher than 1% market share.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >That is not totally true. The reason most people stay with Windows is because the hardware ships with it. Only every attempt to sell hardware that ships with Linux (by several companies) failed. And the "switch to something different" didn't seem to bother those going to OS X. OS X, in less time than what Desktop Linux was promoted (1998-2013 for Dektop Linux, 2001-2013 for OS X), and with more expessive hardware, went from 2% to around 12% in the US (and even more for laptop share). >In my experience Linux usage has about 50% retention rate among those I installed the OS for. Selection bias.
benihana 13y ago
Could you imagine if people could make the kind of money developing things for Linux that they do developing things for iOS? It would make comments like yours kind of funny and relevant.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  I would wager more money is made via Linux than iOS by a fairly large margin.
  - maxharris 13y ago
    I would wager more money is made via Linux than iOS by a fairly large margin. As an aggregate measure, spread across several million people? Perhaps. Resolving that is just a matter of looking up the data. But that's not the question that matters for an actual developer. What actually matters is: How much money are you making on one platform, and how much could you make on the other? That question has a lot more to do with whether or not a developer makes his or her rent next month than the aggregate measure above. I'm not saying it's useless to look at the long-term picture. I'm just trying to show that it's a big mistake to focus on that to the exclusion of more pressing things first.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      I'm not sure I completely follow you. I would calculate on the basis of developers building software that runs on top of Linux, so that would include a large proportion of all web applications as well as various embedded applications. You could probably include android in there also. Now it's true that this isn't quite apples to apples since Linux is more fungible than iOS in most regards, mostly thanks to it's open source nature. For example moving your web application from Linux to FreeBSD is likely to make less of a revenue difference than say moving from iOS to Windows Phone 8. The biggest point is probably that the existence of an Open Source/Free operating system has probably enabled more profitable businesses to exist than iOS.
      - 13y ago
jammi 13y ago
This is more like if Ubuntu's package repository went down regarding accepting new packages for a few days.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  You need the official repositories to install new software?
  - 14113 13y ago
    No, you can download a .deb file from somewhere else and install it manually, or even just a .tar.gz with the binaries, or (if the software is open source) even get the source! Alternatively, as I posted above, there are a load of mirrors (over 400 iirc) of the ubuntu software repository.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      That's what I was getting at...
      - 14113 13y ago
        Ah, my mistake, hard to judge tone on the internet, etc, etc...
  - colanderman 13y ago
    Dunno about Ubuntu, but Debian has dozens of "unofficial" mirrors, not to mention their main package server balances amongst a bunch of servers.
- 14113 13y ago
  If all the mirrors of ubuntu's repository went down simultaneously, I'd be more worried about the internet itself than installing some new software
pbsdp 13y ago
Can you imagine writing desktop software for Linux? Inconsistent APIs, API breakage, ABI breakage, sizable variances between distributions, multiple desktops UI implementations, and you may as well just forget about mobile. I'm not justifying Apple's ever increasing shift towards enacting strict constraints on their platform developers, but the comparison with Linux is pointless.
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  That's the biggest load of absurd shit I've ever heard.
- berkut 13y ago
  What rubbish. Any specifics, or are you just trolling? The company I work for develops high-end desktop software for Linux, Mac and Windows, and Linux generally causes us the least trouble and OS X (thanks mostly to atrocious graphics drivers and OpenGL support in addition to really bad memory allocation/paging issues that have only just been fixed in Mountain Lion) the most trouble. And this is on limited numbers of hardware and software variations for OS X.
  - kabdib 13y ago
    What versions of Linux do you target?
    - berkut 13y ago
      We "officially support" RHEL 5.4 and RHEL 6.0 (and thus corresponding CentOSes). But we've got customers running everything from RHEL 4.5 to the latest and greatest Ubuntus, Mints and Arch. All with the same binary installers. The only linux-related weirdness I can recall in the last two years distro-wise was Scientific Linux, which seemed to have some weird XOrg config issues.
      - kabdib 13y ago
        Thank you. Like others, I had no idea that Linux was that stable in the practical levels above its ABI.
cscurmudgeon 13y ago
Real businesses are affected by this. Please keep your trolling elsewhere. I came to the comments looking for what people are doing, not for snarky and ill-informed comments. > It'd be nearly impossible to write Linux software, or download Linux development tools, or generate a Linux binary that a device was allowed to run. It'd be awful. You clearly don't understand how the Apple Dev center works.
alayne 13y ago
The XCode IDE is downloaded from the Mac App store which is still running. Apps are submitted via iTunes Connect which is still running.
- rbritton 13y ago
  I managed to snag the iOS 7b3 SDK before it went down but not the documentation, unfortunately. Those downloads have been broken the whole time, so a download of Xcode is only as good as the documentation you still have.
toyg 13y ago
thanks for turning yet another HN post in a pointless flamewar. We so need more noise around here.
vor_ 13y ago
Haha, great troll, dudebro! Well, gonna go back to making money from iOS apps and running Linux on a backend server since I can still write software, download development tools, and generate binaries.

coldtea 13y ago

Nice attempt at snark, but something being fault-proof in this regard doesn't magically make it worthy in others. Like desktop use, for one. People will not adopt Linux for their desktop/laptop even when offered for free. Where by people I mean more than 1% of them.

ekianjo 13y ago
Yeah well its not like computers ship without OS so your point does not really make sense. And its not like Linux has marketing unlike all other OSes out there. When you want to compare stuff you got to have similar factors in place otherwise it does not make sense.
pavanky 13y ago
That is not totally true. The reason most people stay with Windows is because the hardware ships with it. In my experience Linux usage has about 50% retention rate among those I installed the OS for. If you'd install OSX or Windows on a non techie who grew up using just Linux, I'd think the retention rates would be much lower.
- briandear 13y ago
  a 50% retention rate? That's not very good. That means that after you've installed Linux, half of the people switch back.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    No, that is actually stunningly good, considering the alleged state of the Linux desktop and considering the audience that the Linux desktop has traditionally been targeting. It is so good, that I suspect he has a strong selection bias (he is probably only installing Linux for users he thinks may be able to use it fulltime. This selection is probably unconscious.) (And because it always seems to be necessary to add this disclaimer: I've been using Linux fulltime for over a decade; I'm not a critic, just a realist.)
  - pavanky 13y ago
    Remember these are people who have been using windows all their lives. Change is not something all people can deal with easily. It also says, given the chance to be the default desktop, Linux can have higher than 1% market share.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >That is not totally true. The reason most people stay with Windows is because the hardware ships with it. Only every attempt to sell hardware that ships with Linux (by several companies) failed. And the "switch to something different" didn't seem to bother those going to OS X. OS X, in less time than what Desktop Linux was promoted (1998-2013 for Dektop Linux, 2001-2013 for OS X), and with more expessive hardware, went from 2% to around 12% in the US (and even more for laptop share). >In my experience Linux usage has about 50% retention rate among those I installed the OS for. Selection bias.

benihana 13y ago

Could you imagine if people could make the kind of money developing things for Linux that they do developing things for iOS? It would make comments like yours kind of funny and relevant.

jiggy2011 13y ago
I would wager more money is made via Linux than iOS by a fairly large margin.
- maxharris 13y ago
  I would wager more money is made via Linux than iOS by a fairly large margin. As an aggregate measure, spread across several million people? Perhaps. Resolving that is just a matter of looking up the data. But that's not the question that matters for an actual developer. What actually matters is: How much money are you making on one platform, and how much could you make on the other? That question has a lot more to do with whether or not a developer makes his or her rent next month than the aggregate measure above. I'm not saying it's useless to look at the long-term picture. I'm just trying to show that it's a big mistake to focus on that to the exclusion of more pressing things first.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    I'm not sure I completely follow you. I would calculate on the basis of developers building software that runs on top of Linux, so that would include a large proportion of all web applications as well as various embedded applications. You could probably include android in there also. Now it's true that this isn't quite apples to apples since Linux is more fungible than iOS in most regards, mostly thanks to it's open source nature. For example moving your web application from Linux to FreeBSD is likely to make less of a revenue difference than say moving from iOS to Windows Phone 8. The biggest point is probably that the existence of an Open Source/Free operating system has probably enabled more profitable businesses to exist than iOS.
    - 13y ago

jammi 13y ago

This is more like if Ubuntu's package repository went down regarding accepting new packages for a few days.

dkuntz2 13y ago
You need the official repositories to install new software?
- 14113 13y ago
  No, you can download a .deb file from somewhere else and install it manually, or even just a .tar.gz with the binaries, or (if the software is open source) even get the source! Alternatively, as I posted above, there are a load of mirrors (over 400 iirc) of the ubuntu software repository.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    That's what I was getting at...
    - 14113 13y ago
      Ah, my mistake, hard to judge tone on the internet, etc, etc...
- colanderman 13y ago
  Dunno about Ubuntu, but Debian has dozens of "unofficial" mirrors, not to mention their main package server balances amongst a bunch of servers.
14113 13y ago
If all the mirrors of ubuntu's repository went down simultaneously, I'd be more worried about the internet itself than installing some new software

pbsdp 13y ago

Can you imagine writing desktop software for Linux? Inconsistent APIs, API breakage, ABI breakage, sizable variances between distributions, multiple desktops UI implementations, and you may as well just forget about mobile. I'm not justifying Apple's ever increasing shift towards enacting strict constraints on their platform developers, but the comparison with Linux is pointless.

drivebyacct2 13y ago
That's the biggest load of absurd shit I've ever heard.
berkut 13y ago
What rubbish. Any specifics, or are you just trolling? The company I work for develops high-end desktop software for Linux, Mac and Windows, and Linux generally causes us the least trouble and OS X (thanks mostly to atrocious graphics drivers and OpenGL support in addition to really bad memory allocation/paging issues that have only just been fixed in Mountain Lion) the most trouble. And this is on limited numbers of hardware and software variations for OS X.
- kabdib 13y ago
  What versions of Linux do you target?
  - berkut 13y ago
    We "officially support" RHEL 5.4 and RHEL 6.0 (and thus corresponding CentOSes). But we've got customers running everything from RHEL 4.5 to the latest and greatest Ubuntus, Mints and Arch. All with the same binary installers. The only linux-related weirdness I can recall in the last two years distro-wise was Scientific Linux, which seemed to have some weird XOrg config issues.
    - kabdib 13y ago
      Thank you. Like others, I had no idea that Linux was that stable in the practical levels above its ABI.

cscurmudgeon 13y ago

Real businesses are affected by this. Please keep your trolling elsewhere. I came to the comments looking for what people are doing, not for snarky and ill-informed comments. > It'd be nearly impossible to write Linux software, or download Linux development tools, or generate a Linux binary that a device was allowed to run. It'd be awful. You clearly don't understand how the Apple Dev center works.

alayne 13y ago

The XCode IDE is downloaded from the Mac App store which is still running. Apps are submitted via iTunes Connect which is still running.

rbritton 13y ago
I managed to snag the iOS 7b3 SDK before it went down but not the documentation, unfortunately. Those downloads have been broken the whole time, so a download of Xcode is only as good as the documentation you still have.

toyg 13y ago

thanks for turning yet another HN post in a pointless flamewar. We so need more noise around here.

vor_ 13y ago

Haha, great troll, dudebro! Well, gonna go back to making money from iOS apps and running Linux on a backend server since I can still write software, download development tools, and generate binaries.