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I;m not diminishing achievements you mentioned and I'm very well aware of them. You must admit however that not all of them can be attributed to FOSS, and all o

I;m not diminishing achievements you mentioned and I'm very well aware of them. You must admit however that not all of them can be attributed to FOSS, and all of them are quite low-level compared to what average user needs to be able to use it effectively. I just wonder if we need 10 major Linux distros none of which is easy to set up and use to an average user. (sorry, even Ubuntu is still not there) I am a big believer in open web and it makes me cringe every time I see a new cool technology that uses closed protocols (or rather APIs) as it happens with IoT right now. But it's hard for me to attribute it to anything else than lack of leadership from FOSS community.

worklogin 12y ago
Ubuntu is pretty much there. The only reason Ubuntu can't do some things is because of the requirement of Flash and DRM, both of which are obsolete or overbearing technologies we should avoid. >it's hard for me to attribute it to anything else than lack of leadership from FOSS community. So when it's a consortium of multi-billion dollar tech companies with massive R&D budgets, political connections and marketing dollars, it's FOSS's fault. OK.
- mszyndel 12y ago
  Hey, what I just said is - spend less time on bs and more on creating valuable tools to everyday users and world will be a better place. It's not about fault, it's about lack of impact. Imagine how cool place would this world be if Linux was major customer OS and open source languages would be major ones used to create customer software with open protocols. Call me idealist but I would totally sacrifice half of the Linux distros to achieve those goals... :)
kragen 12y ago
FOSS and decentralized systems are not the same thing, although they are in some sense analogous (I wrote an influential draft essay about this in 2006 at http://osdir.com/ml/culture.people.kragen.thinking/2006-07/msg00000.html http://osdir.com/ml/culture.people.kragen.thinking/2006-07/m...), and they tend to reinforce each other. Email is a decentralized system, and that's still true even if everybody's server is running Exchange and Lotus Notes, which are proprietary. I don't think Usenet, email, IRC, Tor, and the web are "quite low-level compared to what average user needs to be able to use it effectively." In fact, I am at a loss as to how your comment is potentially relevant to mine.

worklogin 12y ago

Ubuntu is pretty much there. The only reason Ubuntu can't do some things is because of the requirement of Flash and DRM, both of which are obsolete or overbearing technologies we should avoid. >it's hard for me to attribute it to anything else than lack of leadership from FOSS community. So when it's a consortium of multi-billion dollar tech companies with massive R&D budgets, political connections and marketing dollars, it's FOSS's fault. OK.

mszyndel 12y ago
Hey, what I just said is - spend less time on bs and more on creating valuable tools to everyday users and world will be a better place. It's not about fault, it's about lack of impact. Imagine how cool place would this world be if Linux was major customer OS and open source languages would be major ones used to create customer software with open protocols. Call me idealist but I would totally sacrifice half of the Linux distros to achieve those goals... :)

kragen 12y ago

FOSS and decentralized systems are not the same thing, although they are in some sense analogous (I wrote an influential draft essay about this in 2006 at http://osdir.com/ml/culture.people.kragen.thinking/2006-07/msg00000.html http://osdir.com/ml/culture.people.kragen.thinking/2006-07/m...), and they tend to reinforce each other. Email is a decentralized system, and that's still true even if everybody's server is running Exchange and Lotus Notes, which are proprietary. I don't think Usenet, email, IRC, Tor, and the web are "quite low-level compared to what average user needs to be able to use it effectively." In fact, I am at a loss as to how your comment is potentially relevant to mine.