Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 31st May 2009 10:44 UTC
Back when the whole netbook thing started, Asus was king of the hill with a focus on netbooks with Linux pre-installed. Since they were kind of popular, it didn't take Microsoft long to start working together with Asus to 'port' Windows XP to the Asus line of netbooks, and with that, to other netbooks as well. The result was that Linux netbooks are now harder to find for many people. While Dell committed itself to Linux on netbooks, Asus has decided to just skip the first date and jump right into bed with Microsoft.
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Member since:
2006-09-12
Lets talk of motivation...
What motivates ASUS to commit completely to Linux, if there is even a small chance that it may someday be converted from GPLv2 to the much more restrictive GPLv3? FOSS has cut their own throats. Thanks, Stallman.
What motivates a dev to fix a bug if the patch is met with the sort of uphill we see from the likes of the inestimable Ulrich Drepper (in my opinion an unmitigated ass) with the most recent GCC bug?
see: http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=5070#c5
What motivates the man in the street to buy a linux based system rather than a Windows version, backed by the most successful development firm on the planet?
Stallman reminds me of that famous cheat found in many games: AllYourBaseAreBelongToI. Basically, he started out well, and no one questions the incredible value his GNU software gifted to the world. But does anyone seriously think he coded it all himself??? Regardless, he lays claim to it! His rants do more to destroy the credibility of Linux than any other single factor!
Others, like Eric Raymond and Theodore Tso are true heroes, often unsung, and humble as heroes often are.
Nevertheless, the dream is gone. Linux will never be "ready for the desktop" as long as the agenda is dictated by Redhat employees like Mr. Drepper, large organisations such as IBM, Novell & SUN (now Oracle). How long do you think projects like MySQL will last when owned by Oracle? Do you really think OpenOffice has a future, now that Oracle calls the shots?
What does that leave us with? Firefox? Gnome? KDE? Where is Moonlight & Mono taking us with the patent issues surrounding C#?
Nope, even the core GCC library is a moving target. No-one is able to agree to anything much anymore, and the prime motivations for changing the status quo are steadily disappearing. Who made people like Ulrich Drepper, Miguel de Icaza and Stallman akin to God????
How did those large companies get to lay claim to so much open source developed code?
Who really cares?
Edited 2009-05-31 17:58 UTC