13 ms·

That always seemed to me a bandwagon feature, like Microsoft's SkyDrive: they saw DropBox succeeding, they figured it would be easy to emulate, and they learned

by etfb 13y ago

That always seemed to me a bandwagon feature, like Microsoft's SkyDrive: they saw DropBox succeeding, they figured it would be easy to emulate, and they learned otherwise when they tried it. The only way this change affects me personally is that it gives me one less thing to go in and switch off when I install a new Ubuntu system, but I'm glad they've got a pragmatic attitude toward the possibility of spreading themselves too thin.

skc 13y ago
This is the first I'm hearing of Skydrive being considered a failure. What is that based on exactly?
- dnissley 13y ago
  I think he was saying that it, too, was a bandwagon feature. Not that it was a failure.
- etfb 13y ago
  Hearts and minds. It's a free product and installed and activated (and pushed!) by default in Win8, as far as I can see, so you can't really measure success, but I would estimate one in three non-tech-savvy people I talk to understand what Dropbox is, and maybe one in fifty understand what SkyDrive is. So I'd call it a failure without too much hesitation.
ekianjo 13y ago
Yeah, and honestly the setup in early versions was horrible. I tried so many times to make it work and gave up in the end. They shouldn't have released it so early back then when it was obviously not production ready.
- tomswartz07 13y ago
  I agree. I just logged in to see my files and pull anything if necessary. Looks like the last time files were changed was Sept of 2009. Obviously, I haven't used it since then.
- TylerE 13y ago
  This approach to things is what killed Ubuntu (yes, killed, not is killing). See PulseAudio, Unity, etc
  - gtaylor 13y ago
    Why does PulseAudio have anything to do with Ubuntu? AFAIK, there is no relation between the two, other than the fact that Ubuntu offers PulseAudio (along with almost every other distro).
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      I must admit that, more than once, an Ubuntu upgrade killed my audio and I had to go and fix it myself. It's really painful that a distro that wants to be number 1 is so broken at times.
      - tomswartz07 13y ago
        I don't think it's more that they push non-prod ready packages (yes, they do) but the fact that their update model doesn't easily allow them to fix bugs from upstream. The vast majority of the packages in Ubuntu (more notably in the LTS releases) are all custom patched by Ubu-devs. Rather than taking the raw package and pushing it through, they have a semi-opaque method of testing, patching, and then releasing to the greater community. I've tried several times to get an 'in' so that I could help with the process, but it seems to me like a 'club hangout' where outsiders are slightly discouraged. :(
        makomk 13y ago
        In the case of PulseAudio, there are no stable upstream releases, so distros basically have to backport fixes themselves in order to get working audio. Red Hat (who fund most of the development) do the same. New upstream versions come with new features and can be expected to break as many things as they fix.
        jcastro 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- samastur 13y ago
  Nobody complains about death of something they don't use and I think it is a bit early to tell if actual users will complain.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  It's quite different honestly. Google is a services company, and they make you eat advertising everyday to support their products. Ubuntu provides an OS for free (you can turn off the Amazon nonsense anyway) and storage was just an icing on the cake - it was never a key component of their strategy.
  - plywoodtrees 13y ago
    Selling services to users through UbuntuOne was a key component of their strategy at the time it was announced. Source http://thevarguy.com/ubuntu/rethinking-canonical039s-ubuntu-business-strategy http://thevarguy.com/ubuntu/rethinking-canonical039s-ubuntu-..., various statements by Mark Shuttleworth, etc.
raverbashing 13y ago
Not to mention someone though it would be "User Friendly" to pop up a notification every time a file finished syncing
- theintern 13y ago
  Dropbox does this for me on Ubuntu? I think it stems from the 'Linux' way of doing things, which is to give as much information as possible, I like it, but I can see how it's off putting to some people.
  - riffraff 13y ago
    dropbox does this for me on a Mac.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Humm I had used their client on Linux (and Windows) but I don't remember that (or I deactivated) There's the icon overlay sure, but not a popup or anything.
mylons 13y ago
or you could always try Fedora at this point. Ubuntu has never worked out of the box like the latest Fedora, and doesn't come with all the bloatware
- a124556 13y ago
  I would but I love APT. I'll just stick to Debian Testing.
  - cones688 13y ago
    > I would but I love APT As a near 100% RHEL/Fedora user I am always wondering if there is anything but a material difference between apt and yum? From using Ubuntu extensively a few years ago they seem to have near identical feature set?
    - pjc50 13y ago
      Both have a dependency system, but they are quite different in how they work and resolve dependencies. Apt/dpkg is also a lot more careful about its treatment of configuration files. Debian packages generally ask questions during preconfigure, build a config file, and then run out of the box. But if you already have a config file it will either be left alone or ask you to resolve the merge. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-deb-vs-rpm http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pro...
    - Crito 13y ago
      Only differences that I have noticed and cared about as a home user: Yum lets you do `yum search` but Apt splits that off with `apt-cache` (this is annoying because with yum I can just swap out that 'search' with my line editor). Apt tends to be faster for equivalent operations.
      - bashinator 13y ago
        dpkg -S /some/file # tells you what package provides that file dpkg -L some-package # lists all the files provided by a package apt-get search <regex> # lists all package names matching <regex>
jodi 13y ago
Microsoft Skydrive launched in 2007, around a year before Dropbox.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  Skydrive's genesis was Foldershare (I think it was Foldershare --> Windows Live Folders --> Windows Live Mesh --> Skydrive), which launched in 2002.
  - forgotAgain 13y ago
    Skydrive -> OneDrive
- etfb 13y ago
  Really? Intriguing! I'm used to MS jumping onto bandwagons late ("Oh, so Netscape is doing well? Maybe this 'inter-net' thingy isn't just a fad. Get Spyglass on the phone.") but maybe this time they had the product ready to go. Certainly they didn't push it as hard as Dropbox did; I didn't notice it existed until I started seeing it activated by default in Win8.

by etfb 13y ago

skc 13y ago

This is the first I'm hearing of Skydrive being considered a failure. What is that based on exactly?

dnissley 13y ago
I think he was saying that it, too, was a bandwagon feature. Not that it was a failure.
etfb 13y ago
Hearts and minds. It's a free product and installed and activated (and pushed!) by default in Win8, as far as I can see, so you can't really measure success, but I would estimate one in three non-tech-savvy people I talk to understand what Dropbox is, and maybe one in fifty understand what SkyDrive is. So I'd call it a failure without too much hesitation.

ekianjo 13y ago

Yeah, and honestly the setup in early versions was horrible. I tried so many times to make it work and gave up in the end. They shouldn't have released it so early back then when it was obviously not production ready.

tomswartz07 13y ago
I agree. I just logged in to see my files and pull anything if necessary. Looks like the last time files were changed was Sept of 2009. Obviously, I haven't used it since then.
TylerE 13y ago
This approach to things is what killed Ubuntu (yes, killed, not is killing). See PulseAudio, Unity, etc
- gtaylor 13y ago
  Why does PulseAudio have anything to do with Ubuntu? AFAIK, there is no relation between the two, other than the fact that Ubuntu offers PulseAudio (along with almost every other distro).
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    I must admit that, more than once, an Ubuntu upgrade killed my audio and I had to go and fix it myself. It's really painful that a distro that wants to be number 1 is so broken at times.
    - tomswartz07 13y ago
      I don't think it's more that they push non-prod ready packages (yes, they do) but the fact that their update model doesn't easily allow them to fix bugs from upstream. The vast majority of the packages in Ubuntu (more notably in the LTS releases) are all custom patched by Ubu-devs. Rather than taking the raw package and pushing it through, they have a semi-opaque method of testing, patching, and then releasing to the greater community. I've tried several times to get an 'in' so that I could help with the process, but it seems to me like a 'club hangout' where outsiders are slightly discouraged. :(
      - makomk 13y ago
        In the case of PulseAudio, there are no stable upstream releases, so distros basically have to backport fixes themselves in order to get working audio. Red Hat (who fund most of the development) do the same. New upstream versions come with new features and can be expected to break as many things as they fix.
      - jcastro 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

samastur 13y ago
Nobody complains about death of something they don't use and I think it is a bit early to tell if actual users will complain.
ekianjo 13y ago
It's quite different honestly. Google is a services company, and they make you eat advertising everyday to support their products. Ubuntu provides an OS for free (you can turn off the Amazon nonsense anyway) and storage was just an icing on the cake - it was never a key component of their strategy.
- plywoodtrees 13y ago
  Selling services to users through UbuntuOne was a key component of their strategy at the time it was announced. Source http://thevarguy.com/ubuntu/rethinking-canonical039s-ubuntu-business-strategy http://thevarguy.com/ubuntu/rethinking-canonical039s-ubuntu-..., various statements by Mark Shuttleworth, etc.

raverbashing 13y ago

Not to mention someone though it would be "User Friendly" to pop up a notification every time a file finished syncing

theintern 13y ago
Dropbox does this for me on Ubuntu? I think it stems from the 'Linux' way of doing things, which is to give as much information as possible, I like it, but I can see how it's off putting to some people.
- riffraff 13y ago
  dropbox does this for me on a Mac.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Humm I had used their client on Linux (and Windows) but I don't remember that (or I deactivated) There's the icon overlay sure, but not a popup or anything.

mylons 13y ago

or you could always try Fedora at this point. Ubuntu has never worked out of the box like the latest Fedora, and doesn't come with all the bloatware

a124556 13y ago
I would but I love APT. I'll just stick to Debian Testing.
- cones688 13y ago
  > I would but I love APT As a near 100% RHEL/Fedora user I am always wondering if there is anything but a material difference between apt and yum? From using Ubuntu extensively a few years ago they seem to have near identical feature set?
  - pjc50 13y ago
    Both have a dependency system, but they are quite different in how they work and resolve dependencies. Apt/dpkg is also a lot more careful about its treatment of configuration files. Debian packages generally ask questions during preconfigure, build a config file, and then run out of the box. But if you already have a config file it will either be left alone or ask you to resolve the merge. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-deb-vs-rpm http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pro...
  - Crito 13y ago
    Only differences that I have noticed and cared about as a home user: Yum lets you do `yum search` but Apt splits that off with `apt-cache` (this is annoying because with yum I can just swap out that 'search' with my line editor). Apt tends to be faster for equivalent operations.
    - bashinator 13y ago
      dpkg -S /some/file # tells you what package provides that file dpkg -L some-package # lists all the files provided by a package apt-get search <regex> # lists all package names matching <regex>

jodi 13y ago

Microsoft Skydrive launched in 2007, around a year before Dropbox.

bentcorner 13y ago
Skydrive's genesis was Foldershare (I think it was Foldershare --> Windows Live Folders --> Windows Live Mesh --> Skydrive), which launched in 2002.
- forgotAgain 13y ago
  Skydrive -> OneDrive
etfb 13y ago
Really? Intriguing! I'm used to MS jumping onto bandwagons late ("Oh, so Netscape is doing well? Maybe this 'inter-net' thingy isn't just a fad. Get Spyglass on the phone.") but maybe this time they had the product ready to go. Certainly they didn't push it as hard as Dropbox did; I didn't notice it existed until I started seeing it activated by default in Win8.