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This article is symptomatic of people thinking about "Linux Desktop" as a concrete thing (or project, or idea), while it isn't. It's an ecosystem of vendors (ta

by senko 17y ago

This article is symptomatic of people thinking about "Linux Desktop" as a concrete thing (or project, or idea), while it isn't. It's an ecosystem of vendors (targeting different markets), projects, technologies, and you can't directly compare it with standalone companies like Microsoft or Apple that (mostly) have a consistent and focused product/marketing strategies. The five ways outlined are: Lack of vendor support - author mentiones SLED, but conveniently skips over the fact that Canonical also provides commercial support for its "arguably the most popular Linux desktop" desktop systems. Lack of advertising/marketing - a bunch of video commercials (RH's Truth Happens, Novell's PC/Mac/Linux spoof), Ubuntu's CD shipping program and release jams/parties many of the distroes organise & support is not insignificant; it probably is pocket change to Microsoft's marketing machines, but the entire budgets of these companies are probably a pocket change to Microsoft's marketing machines. Too much bad techie attitude - surprise, someone's a jerk on the internet - you can find l33t people in most online communities. More than average historically in linux communities, but the author does acknowledge there are good sources of online help nowadays (e.g. Ubuntu forums). Esp. the Ubuntu's code of conduct (and similar more or less formal codes in other communities) tries (and IMHO goes a long way to) minimise this problem. Too much infigthing - goes on to recite a recent developer-oriented flamewar and concludes "no-one outside certain developer circles cares". So, why does the author care? Open development means not only is the source code open, all the joys and flames related to it are as well. Not enough developer co-operation - again, if you compare the cooperation between different teams in a same company, and between teams in different independent (and possibly competing) companies or projects, the latter will not look as good. I agree with the basic premise, "not enough developer cooperation", because we can never have enough of that, but the arguments are just wrong. And, the given example - that fedora and ubuntu have different package systems - has nothing whatsoever to do with developer cooperation. Two positive examples of cooperation: 1. KDE and GNOME using (or planning to use) same underlying technology: glib, webkit, telepathy, and the rest of the freedesktop.org stack, and actually co-hosting their main conferences last year. 2. All the distros working closely with their upstream projects (e.g. many of debian developers, ubuntu MOTUs and fedora developers actually are the upstream developers too). (Note: I'm biased, as Linux has been my primary desktop for quite some time now and I'm actively involved in GNOME and freedesktop, but I've tried to look at this as impartially as possible. My biggest pet peeve is people really thinking about a "Linux desktop" is a single project).

bad_user 17y ago
> It's an ecosystem of vendors (targeting different markets), projects, technologies, and you can't directly compare it with standalone companies like Microsoft or Apple that (mostly) have a consistent and focused product/marketing strategies. Saying that it's an apples to oranges comparison you're just dodging the problem. Ubuntu competes directly with Windows. OpenSuse competes directly with Windows. Debian competes directly with Windows. So is Red Hat to a lesser extent. And these distributions have the same software on them, only organized differently. So how are these direct competitors doing? You can measure that with the availability or lack of third-party commercial support (we are talking about the desktop here). Adobe Photoshop isn't available for any Linux distribution, isn't it? I've worked there. Those people aren't interested in maintaining the Windows monopoly. They are only interested in selling their software. And there was at least one big internal debate over whether Linux is viable as a target or not (with the light on the horizon being Asus eepc and Ubuntu). The result of that is Flex Builder for Linux, and guess what, it ain't doing so well. > Open development means not only is the source code open, all the joys and flames related to it are as well. I've never worked for a company that had such internal fights. Maybe there are such bad apples out there, but I find them unacceptable and if they'd happen where I work, I'd quit on the spot. And these fights are implicating end-users as well. I've asked on the official opensuse forum how to get my DWL-g122 ver.C1 wireless stick working, and some twit hijacked my call for help with a moral discussion about how that driver isn't "free software". > you can find l33t people in most online communities Yeah, well, some communities are better than others. The more pragmatic a community is, the friendlier it is. I've really tried being active on the Ubuntu forums, I really did. But the sheer volume of answers ranging from "that's not Free" to "it's your fault for not wanting to relearn everything you know" ... it's just overwhelming. NOTE: I've also been a Linux user for like 6 years.

by senko 17y ago

bad_user 17y ago

> It's an ecosystem of vendors (targeting different markets), projects, technologies, and you can't directly compare it with standalone companies like Microsoft or Apple that (mostly) have a consistent and focused product/marketing strategies. Saying that it's an apples to oranges comparison you're just dodging the problem. Ubuntu competes directly with Windows. OpenSuse competes directly with Windows. Debian competes directly with Windows. So is Red Hat to a lesser extent. And these distributions have the same software on them, only organized differently. So how are these direct competitors doing? You can measure that with the availability or lack of third-party commercial support (we are talking about the desktop here). Adobe Photoshop isn't available for any Linux distribution, isn't it? I've worked there. Those people aren't interested in maintaining the Windows monopoly. They are only interested in selling their software. And there was at least one big internal debate over whether Linux is viable as a target or not (with the light on the horizon being Asus eepc and Ubuntu). The result of that is Flex Builder for Linux, and guess what, it ain't doing so well. > Open development means not only is the source code open, all the joys and flames related to it are as well. I've never worked for a company that had such internal fights. Maybe there are such bad apples out there, but I find them unacceptable and if they'd happen where I work, I'd quit on the spot. And these fights are implicating end-users as well. I've asked on the official opensuse forum how to get my DWL-g122 ver.C1 wireless stick working, and some twit hijacked my call for help with a moral discussion about how that driver isn't "free software". > you can find l33t people in most online communities Yeah, well, some communities are better than others. The more pragmatic a community is, the friendlier it is. I've really tried being active on the Ubuntu forums, I really did. But the sheer volume of answers ranging from "that's not Free" to "it's your fault for not wanting to relearn everything you know" ... it's just overwhelming. NOTE: I've also been a Linux user for like 6 years.