http://www.osnews.com/story/8304/The_Paradox_of_Choice Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:21:28 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow.

I find this to be one of the best articles written lately on OSNews. I think I agree completely. Choice is strength, but too much choice, is a weakness. Contradictions are everywhere in the Linux community. The most remarkable of course being the kernel itself. The center of the community that promotes choice, the linux kernel, lacks choice. There's a small group that decides what goes in, and what goes out. Just as Microsoft does it. Just as Apple does it.

That ain't choice. We can watch the choice being made, but that doesn't change a thing, It still ain't choice.

I really have nothing to add. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When it does not really matter if you run gnome or kde because with the apps you use drag and drop works, notification works and sound works, and so on, then how can choice be bad?

I'll agree on the fact that defaults matter, and in fact I use Fedora but think that their custom default kinda sucks: the gnome project default layout is a lot better, and takes away less screen real estate.

You are both right, in a sense: linux is only a kernel, and defaults matter.

So a "linux distro" defaults will be important.

Where is the problem if there are two (N) distros that look and behave very differently? It's a free market, you know? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? OK if you belive it that strongly, make your own distro.
Let the market decide. It seems like everyone sets thier desktop up differently. Uses different editors etc. it's what works best for the way thier minds work.
If you think forcing every one to think and work the way a committee or a maintainer works is the way to go then build it. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There *are* people trying to replace the "monopoly" of Kernel. Debian/Hurd is one. Someone ported glibc to BSD. Much of Linux userland is built upon C and POSIX, not specific Kernel. So glibc matters.

There are lots of kernel patches. I'd say vanilla kernel and kernel-ck (http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/) are choices you can choose. -ck patchset is clearly targetted for system responsiveness and desktop use, which may conflict with vanilla Kernel's goals. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree completely.

The point is simply made that a distro should be simple but allow itself to be extended (if people want the kitchen sink they can have it but they've got to get it).

I just wish SuSE had had that focus when I first used it (now I've moved on). Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if he dont want choise then go for linspire or similar distros... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There are also a few glibc alternatives. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nicely said BUT there is one huge aspect the author missed.
"What is choice?"
Choice is what users perceive as choice and I strongly believe that most of the users don't see beneath the skin of the apps. They see the interface that the apps throws at them and nothing more... if it scratches their itch they will use that app if not... there is always THE CHOICE of using something else. Using sound programming design the interface can be something very easy to implement. The real hard part of an app is that what the users will never see AND WILL NEVER CARE ABOUT: the inner-works of the apps, the actual implementation of what that app is supposed to do. Why does KHTML exists? I'm talking about the widget not the Konqueror browser. Was Gecko bad? Does most of the users care if Konqueror uses KHTML or Gecko? How much code does Kopete and Gaim share? How much code does Abiword and KWord share? Designing or tweaking an GUI isn't a waste of time BUT perpetual reinvention of the wheel at implementation level IS. In my ideal world developers will be busy developing building blocks, ultra-smart widgets, for a true cross-platform toolkit and the interfaces we'll use will be "simple" high-level scripts aided eventually by some XML. The difference we perceive now between applications will be, in those days, perceived as we perceive now the difference between skins (in the apps that support skinning) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Certainly one of the worst articles ever published on this site and it's running against strong competition.

The problem the author describes is a non-problem. Take any of the userfriendly linux distributions and the choice on which editor to use will allready be made for you. If the fact that it is possible for you to choose an other editor if you are so inclined is unbareable, please stay away from any computer, any TV and try not to leave your room at all.

And his musings about standards are simply an inconsistent mess. What did the author want to tell us? We'll probably never know, as there were so many words from which to choose that he got all confused in writing this article.

But contrary to what the author seems to believe, standards are not about limiting choice, but about making choice possible. His example with MS Word is a case in point here, as the lack of a real open standard makes choice (in this case, choosing anything but MS Office) a lot harder then it should be or could be if there was an open standard. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you want to remove choice, make your own distro with the choices removed. Make it so good that almost noone will think of using Gentoo, Debian, Slack, Red Hat SuSE or Mandrake for the desktop. That's the only way you'll succeed, otherwise it's a pipe dream. So yes, the way to remove choice is to wake Yet Another Distro.

Additionally, the writer seems to have little clue of how the Linux kernel works. Yes, it has a benevolent dictator that chooses for us, and decides some things don't belong there. Many patches will break other parts of the kernel, and they are not allowed in the main kernel. But we still have a lot of choice when compiling the kernel, between file systems, schedulers, firewalls etc. And if you don't like the default selection, you can patch in other things as well. Linus only chooses what is going into his tree. There are forks, and most distros use semi-forked kernels.

And standards. Standards remove choice, sort of, but only to help interoperability between different implementations. So we have standards of pop3 and smtp to send and receive mail with thousands of different mail-clients, and we have the standard of the English language to write different opinions on OSNews. But as long as my opinion is different from Adam Scheinberg's, his dream of removing choice will be just that: a dream. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well articulated! However, to discuss choice, we also need to discuss value. Basically, two things are relavent.

1. If I want to create an alternative (and thus create a situation where others must choose), I have to make sure that I add value. Otherwise, I am just doing the same again and that's bad as it confuses choices. Mind you, you can add value by combining features from separate pieces of code into one piece of software. This links in to the idea of innovation.

2. Following on to this, what does the person make a choice perceive as valuable. When choosing, it's obvious that you choose the piece of software that best fits your needs. That is a direct function of the "value" of the software. However, it's expected that there won't be a single piece of software (say a text editor) that does everything. But there should be 2 or 3 max that between them, allow you to do everything you need.

I keep 2 text editors on my Windows machine because they serve different needs. On the other hand, I've seen some Linux distros with ridiculous numbers of text editors (I counted over 6 once, and I am not sure if I got them all). Why?

Choice is golden, but value is where it's at!

My 2 cents. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I couldn't agree more. As a M$ Windoze user of some time I have tried repeatedly to "get into Linux" with various distros in my very limited spare time. I can understand how new users are confused by the hundreds of options for apps in every class under the sun, many of which are still pre v1.0 stage yet. I just want an easy, cohesive gui with easy access to the command line, a good central way of controlling system settings, easy driver updating, etc. It would be nice if it was a whole lot more intuitive than it is now, especially for non techies. I was a huge fan of BeOS, God rest it's soul, and while it was never finished the way it should have been, why can't linux adopt an underlying ease of use philosophy that is similar? I think that would really help. That's my 2 cents anyhow. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just another idiot raising non-issiues and wailing "I want LUNYX to be like windows, WHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Seriously, it's a really stupid article, and is so full of bull and crap that it's not even funny.

The authour hasn't even grasped that choice stems from standards. If there was no standard graphics backend, I could not chose what window manager I wanted to use. If there was no tcp/ip I could not chose what OS I would use to access the internet. Ergo standards and choice are not mutually exclusive as the author want to spin it. In fact, if choice is so bad, why doesn't he frickin' use windows - that should be "standard" enough. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you don't like any product (in basically any industry) you can either

a) Not use it.

b) Make it better (if that's an option....& w/ GNU/Linux [yes LINUX] it is)

c) Bitch about it

Too bad so most people choose c) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Everyone knows that, for some reason no one does it.

Probably because it's too much work, to do a consistent GNU/Linux OS as many people want some nasty things have to happen, being the main one taking the control of GNU/Linux from the community, meaning that kernel, toolkits, desktops environments, key applications they must be under control of a single company or entity that will choose how things will be.

Nasty stuff, but until there no consistent GNU/Linux OS will exist. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There are distributions who bundle everything and let the choice to the user, there are other who only provide a limitated choice of applications, at least by default.

So the users have already the choice to get or not choice.. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree, the problem the author describes is a non-problem.

Open source is all about freedom. Freedom means choice. Linux without choice is fundamently just wrong. That doesn't mean distro's can't choose their defaults. Which is the solution. So what was the problem again? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think it would be useful to ask where Linux users want choice, and where they don't. Personally, I want to choose applications, but I don't want to choose system components.

To make that clearer, places where there is choice in Linux, but I *don't* want to choose..

Sound server. (ArtsD,Jack,Gstreamer etc...)

Graphics subsystem and driver. (Directfb,Xfree,X.org,Vesa,Svgalib,DRI,Xvid,etc...)

Package Manager.
(apt-get,slapt-get,portage,rpm,yum,etc....)

Kernel version and modules.
(4k/8k stacks,which modules compiled,2.4 vs 2.6)

Everywhere else in Linux, I like choice, but in these areas, choice seems to lead to incompatability and duplication of effort. I think it would be more useful to address areas where choice leads to problems, rather than where it might overwhelm a newbie by a 'surfeit of riches'. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I just don't understand how the author can equate having choices to being a bad distro. People mainly use Linux because they want to customize (ie have choices). In the past few years, I have installed SuSe, Red Hat and Fedora releases. Each is quite usable for the normal person, and what I mean by normal is Joe Sixpack. Each distro connects the dots with applications working together and defaults screens quite readable. If you have a problem with reading the fonts with Linux, try using an Nvidia card with stock settings under Windows!!!

If the author doesn't want choices, he should really move back to Windows or Mac. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That sums up the article. Incredible ambiguity when it comes down to it. "Remove choice." Why? What choices are good? What are bad? "Sensible defaults." That goes without saying! And the successful distributions are/will-be the ones that have such sensible practices.

Choice is very good. Choice based on standards even better. Hence this is what you should be encouraging, not the removal of choice where you think it poses a problem.

Throughout the community there are efforts to create desktop standards to improve the end user experience. Look at the fd.o - http://www.freedesktop.org - website as an excellent example. They are creating, defining, refining, and implementing standards continually in a collaborative fashion where any and all are welcome to input. Things like HAL and D-BUS are emerging. Gnome has already adopted these, KDE will follow. Many applications work well in both Gnome and KDE by adhering to many of the standards laid down at fd.o and more will move toward such compatability.

No, choice is good. Very good. And the more the choice, the more the market and need for standards. And those standards will come because, at the end of the day, people rely upon the success of Linux as a desktop and the Linux desktop cannot be successful without standards that are widespread and adhered to. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, choice is good. Very good. And the more the choice, the more the market and need for standards. And those standards will come because, at the end of the day, people rely upon the success of Linux as a desktop and the Linux desktop cannot be successful without standards that are widespread and adhered to.

If choice is so darn good, than why hasn't open-source software penetrated the desktop market? I've been hearing the "it will happen" arguments for over 5 years now-- still, not much has changed. On a desktop, choice isn't good. It's a limiting factor. That, put together with the total lack of integration between various parts of a desktop-oriented Linux distribution is basically what's keeping Desktoplinux from succeeding at it's goal.

The best *nix-based desktop-OS (OS X)(**for the average user!!**) lacks the limiting factors of desktoplinux: lack of integration and overflow of choice. And lo and behold, there are no depenency problems, there is no need for complicated dependcy-resolving package managers, drag-and-drop is perfect, etc. etc. all those features a desktop OS can't do without.

For a desktop-OS, too much choice is bad. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I too think it would be a good idea if there were a formal Linux Standards Base of some kind. I think one of the bigger strengths of OpenBSD/FreeBSD is that it has a base system that is well tested and is consistent with every install.

As far as all the comments go about such a system removing your choice, I really don't see how that is so. And I also think such comments are completely ludicrous and that if the day comes when the major distros do conform to a Linux Standards Base of some kind that 90% of the people that are complaining now will see the inherit value and will become advocates of the "new" way. (The other 10% are hopeless, zealot rebels. But the beauty of Open Source is that there will always be a "rebel" distro for the toothless, unbathed, uneducated rednecks to get behind.) Everyone wins. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The whole article seems to be based on the faulty assumption that standards are indirectly proportional to choice. In fact in most instances I think it is the reverse. Except that OSS gives you the option of even opting out of the standard and limiting your choice. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He's not saying remove choice, he's saying that choice can be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time.

To give an analogy look at the language Perl.
It's been said that it's good points are also it's bad points.
Total flexibility is a good thing but it also gives the ability to write utterly incomprehensible code which is *not* a good thing.

If Linux is ever to get any market share on the consumer's desktop it'll have to be a very different distro than what's available now. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nice article, shame that it's rather pointless. There already is a choice between distributions with sensible defaults and lots of stuff. And some of the distributions with too much choice still install "1 of each", or at least have a system-wide default (Mozilla for browsings seems common, OpenOffice for word processing, etc).

For example, I use a Mandrake with lots of bells and whistles, my girlfriend a bare Xandros with little "choice" but not as confusing as what I would install with Mandrake by default. That's choice, you know :-) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? did it ever occur to you that standardization is something we choose?

I mean, you don't have to follow standards. You can do whatever you want but the most of use out here wants many things in common. Among these we want simplicity and comfortness.

How to achieve this may differ, but I think the most of us agree on that standardization is a good way to get that Just Works (tm) that we want. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Linux - in a general sense - needs a good starting point that doesn't call upon you to make a zillion decisions.

For a start, the question someone new to linux won't be what e-mail client to use. Go to any usenet newsgroup concerning linux installation, and you'll find the most frequently asked question is not about Evo or Balsa, it's about where to start: the choice for a distribution.
Though i will agree that this makes Linux difficult for new users, the existance of many distros is fundamental for the development of Linux.

The most important choice a distributor has to make seems to be the one between KDE or Gnome. But that is only because the other choices have already been made, not by the distributors, but by reality.

For example, most Linux distros i know use bash as a default shell. Not because someone told the distro's they have to, but because it apparantly is the most sensible one to choose. But should it be compulsory now? Should someone forbid distros to use or even ship other shells? Hmm.

Consider X. Had anyone asked a year or two ago, which distribution of X was the standard for Linux, almost everyone would have answered 'XFree86'. So, if there would have been a 'law' about which X to ship, it would most certainly have said: XFree86. I think most distros are glad such a law didn't exist.
And look what happened. Most distros switched, and they all switched the same way: Xorg. It still was a choice, but apparantly, some choices are trivial. And for the most important underlying technologies, the choice becomes trivial some day.

And consider this: who would even start programming a new mail client, if there's no chance at alle somebody will ever use it, because that would mean choice?

But what makes choice really good for Linux is the fact that if any distro thinks it can do better by doing something different, it can do so. That distro will act as a testbed for all others And if it is an improvement, then, as long as it's open source, any other distro can choose to copy it. And thus, Linux gets better and better. This mechanism is the strength of open source in general. And whithout choice that just won't work.

Call me a religious zealot if you like. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? did it ever occur to you that standardization is something we choose?

Yeah, ok. How many implementations of securing e-mail are there now? I can think of SenderID, Domain Keys, and SPF without doing any research. Each supporter is trying to push their "standard." Standards are a long fought battle. What will the next version of the internet run? IPv6? IPv9? There are choices all around, and they all have MAJOR ramifications. Your precious standards too. Even the open source ones.

Some people here don't seem to have properly comprehended what I wrote - the article is about how choice is a double-edged sword. Not how we must sacrifice all choice. But I suppose if nothing else, my point is proven - take any group of Linux supports and suggest the removal of something, and in that zen-like way, they became samuari intent on proving you wrong. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? How can choice ever be bad? Hmmm just kidding... It's true that a lot of people simply gets overwhelmed if they have to choose between multiple applications that perform the same task. The reason for that is simply information overload and if they actually wanted to spend the time to learn the advantages and disadvantages of a similar applications they would eventually settle on the one application they feel most comfortable with.

The elimination of choice before a user has had a chance to make up his mind is a bad thing imho. I also recognise that there are a large group of users e.g like corporate users that only would use a few specific applications and where the choice of similar applications in the distribution are not that important.

The main point is that choice is a cornerstone of freedom and I don't want to see a situation where people start to tell application developer X to stop wasting their time on application X because application Y has more features but only works in desktop Z, but who cares?

The author sure does not seem to grasp the concept of open standards or I don't. Standards don't just appear out of nowhere and writing an application that uses a good standard certainly is not detrimental to innovation. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow, good example!
You chose something that as of today has NO standard like "securing emails" (what's that supposed to mean, btw)...

Try to look at tcp/ip, http, HTML, XHTML, CSS, fd.o standards for interoperability for window managers, drag and drop, message passing, etc...

I can switch from metacity to sawfish 'cause there are standards. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if there is anything worse than a badly written, badly argued and generally pointless article, it's an author who not only does his best to ignore all the well argued replies to his rant, but also tries to portray everyone who dares to disagree with him as a misguided zealot somehow proving his point.

Frankly, this is not what I expect from an author, no matter where he writes and be it "just" a computer news site on the net. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? patience grasshopper, as its a slow crawl. if someone dont want linux on the desktop then you cant force him. if you force him then he will just fight you even harder. people will understand in time Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Standards are important. What would the world be like if we didn't standardize lights on a car? What would the world be like if we didn't decide that green means go and red means stop? What would our civilization be if we didn't decide what's a G and what's a T? Standards are what organizes the world around you.

I, for one, am very happy that I don't choose the standards around me. Yes, I can choose what car I drive, but essentially, all cars are the same. On all leverls of the universe, standardization organizes everything. No standards equals chaos.

And that's what the desktoplinux community is like at the moment. Pure chaos. One group saying A, another one B, and another one X, etc. etc. Chaos cannot exist. Chaos tends to organize itself. Just as the force of diffusion among molecules; molecules want to spread evenly accross the "space" they "live". so, even uncounscies things organize themselves.

The Linux cummunity refuses to do so. Or, at least, a group of people within the Linux community prevents it. No way Linux will ever succeed on the desktop without organizing itself. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? But, I could find a quote that represents what I think about the subject:

"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and CHAOS." - David Cronenberg

It came from here:
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Chaos.asp Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? *Sigh*

I haven't seen one comment suggesting that standards are not a good thing, so what is your point?

And about linux and standards, you don't seem to have any experience with linux or you'd know that your claim that linux and especially desktop linux doesn't follow standards is simply absurd.
You don't even have to know anything about linux to know that, you just had to read the comments here. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Here we go again. When will brain-damaged idiots like Adam get it through their heads that what is refered to as "Linux" is not and never will be designed for them? It's created and driven by and for people who pretty much want nothing to do with the Adam Scheinberg's of the world.

We've seen what utter failures OS's and computers like the Atari ST,Amiga,BE and even the Mac to a certain degree which catered to the Adam Scheinberg mentality turned out to be.

And now idiots like Adam and his followers/supportes are actually *STUPID* enough to demand that Linux and the rest of the Free Software/Open Source walk down that exact same path/road.


Adam, spare us from your so-called "wisdom" please.

It's a one-way ticket to nowhere. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? And where do I state that I'm replying to any of the above posts? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ah, I see, you are obviously talking to yourself.
Sorry for interrupting you, everything will be fine... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What linux is, and no matter how many articles the media prints calling for the community to steal its own freedom the community will still hold onto its freedom.
And within that freedom people will individually do as they please, packaging over 250 distributions at any given time, half of which are barely not Debian.

If you don't like it, well too bad. It's like your neighbours barking dog, you'll have to learn to live with it. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? After reading the stupid arguments in this article, so ably refuted by hanky, it made me realize who importance Linus' contribution to the methodology of software development which is just as if not more important as his development of the original Linux kernel.

Linus was the first person to actively and consciously apply Evolutionary Theory to software. Modern Evolutionary Theory deals with the change in a replicator (DNA in biological systems) that is variable and is under selective pressure. Dawkins was able to extend this idea into the field of human culture with the concept of memes as a replicator. Linus recognized that computer code was an evolutionary replicator (a form of extra-corporeal meme, possibly the third replicator) and that he was shepherding "a herd of cats" in the evolutionary development of the Linux kernel. Evolutionary development like this is based on freedom and choice not on the dictatorial decision of some "chief architect" who knows best as with MS and proprietary software.

The anti-evolutionary control freak approach in part extends into the free and open source movement. For example the BSD's are developed under a much more controlled environment environment where "software design" is considered to be paramount and whose protagonists denounce the anarchy of Linux development and also deny that software development parallels biological evolution. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? this is tantamount to the same philosophies espoused by communist and socialist goverment. in their attempts to limit choice and prevent confusing the ill informed masses ... they inevitable get it wrong, and worse, stifle innovation.

the melting pots HAS to be a mess .. it has to be dynamic .. it has to be constant flux of old and new, good and bad, sane and insane, mainstream and fringe. and out of this pot will emerge the best ideas for that time ... and if the pot is maintained, these idea will be replenished with new ideas. very few innovations are timeless.

and if these is some confusion ... so be it.

the onus is on the masses to get educated. education is the key. not suppresion. democracy too is worthless if the individuals are too ignorant and lazy to elect an appropriate government (as we have seen recenlty in a notable case, talking of the president) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Any successful product class has choice. Even when you buy bricks, you can choose colors, size, and so on. They have to satisfy standards to be called bricks but you still get choice.

You get choice for fridges, car, hifi, airliners, riffles, cars, TV equipment. And this visionneer wants linux to be the exception ? Some of this stuff is complex, some is simple but choice is everywhere. There is even choice for DRINKING WATER !

Even if Linux had a fork, it wouldn't matter as long as they implement the same standards and interfaces. You have different web servers, different routers, different switches and strangely enough, the internet still works.

Every linux uers will tell you that once you've played with a couple of linux distros, you can cope with most others. So what the problem ? Most people using computers today got ever trained (if they even got trained that is) on win 3.11 or win 95.

Choice is GOOD. You don't have to run ALL existing distros out there anyways. And they all use the same components but put the emphasis on various areas. The industry has even come up with terms like LAMP. There are many implementations of it didn't you know ?

There are a few countries where choice is, by principle, the exception rather than the rule. And they are crippled : North Korea is the biggest example. So leave us alone. I am happy with my distro but delighthed that with what I've learned, I can try so many other distros now ! And I'll still be using kmail, mozilla, open office, webmin and so on. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "But I suppose if nothing else, my point is proven - take any group of Linux supports and suggest the removal of something, and in that zen-like way, they became samuari intent on proving you wrong."

Just another attempt at using some misguided ramblings about personal preference to slam others' preferences. The writer here is completely off the wall all over the article. Going back and forth, never clearly decisive, he is much like the software he is slamming! His article gives us too much choice. I can't pick whether choice is good or bad from it, I can't choose whether standards are good or if they hender choice. By reading that article, I can't even choose to decide if choosing is a choice.

When will see an article on OSNews talking about the benefits of choice, the possibilities of forks, openness to customization, and even standards conformance. I don't really want Linux to become a desktop OS. I don't care at all about GNOME or KDE or the standards they are trying to develop.. I don't think a desktop system is the way to go at all for the future. In fact, I think the general process Linux has now is a lot more open than these two platforms.

Here it is in plain writing: Linux, with all its forks and choices between software, lets me build my own platform for my own work in an easier manner. GNOME/KDE are attempts at standardizing choice to match that of their rival, Windows. That's fine by me, but not _for_ me. I care about my work 100%, so my choice to customize and build a system for only my work is one I can make on GNU/Linux. I'm kind of scared of the 'desktop' integration going into applications in fact. But I feel confident that the alternative choices will be around as well.

The future will offer even more choices.. in closed and open standard/non-standard systems. How will you deal with that? Did you know the same plethora of applications also exist for Windows? Windows just happens to standardize on the desktop "choice." It probably can't include more software than it does already because of MS's monopoly. But it does already come with four editors (edlin, edit, notepad, wordpad), two browsers (ie, msn), and two terminal programs (telnet/hyperterminal). Ohh the choices. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if there is anything worse than a badly written, badly argued and generally pointless article, it's an author who not only does his best to ignore all the well argued replies to his rant, but also tries to portray everyone who dares to disagree with him as a misguided zealot somehow proving his point.

Frankly, this is not what I expect from an author, no matter where he writes and be it "just" a computer news site on the net. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He doesn't really make any revelations here and I think he's wrong.

The real problem isn't really choice, it's that the defaults for the two major WM/DEs aren't balanced and easy for most users. Gnome makes some easy things irritating to do, while it provides things like network monitors and other fluff that KDE doesn't have. KDE on the other hand let's me tweak everything much easier and doesn't make me want to rip it's heart out and steak it. So basically, if linux had everything integrated and fulfilled most users needs on a consistent basis, you'd have much fewer people talking about choice.

Choice is needed when you don't have really good apps. Good apps should appeal to the vast majority of people. While niche apps satisfy those with some small subset of functionality that is very important to them.

In short this author missed the point. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Take Ubuntu for example:
It would have never been possible without the choice which free software provides... for developers.
It takes away almost all choice from the user... and that's its biggest strength.
Because it's completely standards compliant and free, it will always be your choice if you use it or not... everyone should sing and dance.

You may call that a paradox, but I call that common sense. Everyone is going fine in the free software world as far as I can tell. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? [The problem the author describes is a non-problem. Take any of the userfriendly linux distributions and the choice on which editor to use will allready be made for you. If the fact that it is possible for you to choose an other editor if you are so inclined is unbareable, please stay away from any computer, any TV and try not to leave your room at all.]

i could not agree more. it is indeed a non problem, this author tries to adress... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just for public knowledge..

This thread is pointless, as anyone opposing this joke posting as an article gets modded down. The one who posted this POS got away with insulting everyone with different prefs, but those who took him to task for this got moded down. That's it, this site is a fucking joke, and is out of my bookmarks. Congratulations to the moderator. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yesterday my coworker were having an interesting discussion. We were discussing whether my farts smelled better after I after spicy garlic chicken pasta or hawaiian pizza. I argued that the garlic in the spicy chicken makes for bad breath and sweet farts. He argued that the pineapple is really just a huge berry and all berries make for sweet farts. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When will brain-damaged idiots like Adam get it through their heads that what is refered to as "Linux" is [...] created and driven by and for people who pretty much want nothing to do with the Adam Scheinberg's of the world.

I can't imagine how you could come to that conclusion honestly, unless you're simply trying to bait me, which I mostly believe you are, but I'll bite this, even though you are a blatant troll.

That would be a very bad idea for Linux companies to not try to engage people like me. Know why? I'm the IT Manager for a pretty large company, I administer hundreds of machines, and we've recently begun transitioning to Linux. We're even investigating a mass thin-client rollout using RHEL4 and the work from LTSP. I'm EXACTLY the target people Linux companies should aim for. I represent money, and you represent an exclusive, arrogant attitude that frankly, has help Linux back more than anything else.

You probably have a single unpatched install of Fedora running. Or maybe you're more the bleeding-edge, "emerge --update world" every week Gentoo type. Either way, it's clear from your response you have no clue how commercial Linux will succeed, and with whom it will succeed. Answer me this, people who happily flame me in an all too familiar chorus, how have you contributed to Linux? Have you written code? Have you ever purchased Linux? If so, was it more than a single box? Have you ever taught someone who uses Windows how to use Linux? I doubt it. If you'd ever worked with a real user, you wouldn't be so clueless. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? All it means, this freedom to choose, is that we as individuals, groups, or even businesses have the ability to copy, modify, and distribute open-sourced software by selling it or giving it away. As long, as in the tradition of academia, we all have the freedom to access the source code.

It has absolutely nothing to do with religion, with politics, or any other "ics" or "isms". It is just code, much to the dismay of "redmondites", that is shared and developed by free-thinking individuals around the world. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The author is completely confused about what is a standard and how it is different from having Gnome, KDE and all the rest of the so-called "desktop managers". I don't think the author is a developer.

Standards are for developers, not end users. They actually allow developers to give a choice to the user, by creating different applications that stay compatible because they follow the standard of their purpose.

There are numerous e-mail clients around the world, even in the Windows world (yes, even there you have a lot of choices), what makes this possible is that they all implement standards, such as SMTP and POP3. What does SMTP and what does POP3 is of no concern for the end user, it is only for the application developper.

As for the problem of choice, I think the author's main difficulty is to believe there can be more than one way to use a computer. Besides, if he installs a RedHat distribution some day, he will observe that he hardly have to make choices during the process.

The magic of the FOSS community is that people can find the best way, for themselves, to use their computers. Some people will stick to the defaults of the distribution CD that's on their desks, while some other, even when they use Windows, will change everything from the mail client, network browser to the window-manager equivalent.

The thing is, Microsoft has no interest in people who like to use other softwares, so they will push people into the defaults (IE, OE, WMP). On the other hand, RedHat and other Linux distribution vendors have no interest in pushing you into one direction or another. Sure, they will make one easy way, but that's mainly for support purposes.

Quentin Garnier. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok, to end this crapfest I'll pull a USENET (wink to my usenet pals) and call Hitler. Get off your high horse Adam and go away.

Joseph

..most likely banned now. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ralphy,

I'm modding down every comment that someone reports that contains a personal reference to me. Contribute to the conversation. If you want to give ME a hard time, fire me and e-mail at adam at osnews dot com. This forum isn't a place to come to try to look cool by hiding behind a veil of anonymity. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I just submitted a contribution to this thread only to find that it had been moderated down. When I checked the moderated down comments (there were six comments then) it seemed to me that most of them contained valid points about the article. I don't think that calling an article stupid in the context of raising real issues concerning the article is sufficient grounds to moderate down.

My own comment may have been a little off-topic but fell well within the boad area of discussion raised by this article. Read the first six moderated down comments and see if you agree with me. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Choice" is not bad. It's a mantra for Linux and UNIX systems because they are intended to be adaptable to the needs of those using them. In essence, "choice" is merely customizability.

Where "choice" is bad is when it's made a distraction. While a data center might have specific wants that drive their selection and configuration, the same may not be said of desktop users. Indeed, desktop users come in many varieties. An engineer may want to customize his desktop environment quite specifically and use a number of different editors for different jobs. However, a person with little knowledge of computers who wants to surf the web and read e-mail but do little else has quite different needs.

The fact of the matter is that everyone wants "choice", but the less sophisticated consumer wants the choice to be made for them rather than make it themselves. From the standpoint of Linux, there are a wide array of distributions that run the gamut from "for idiots" to "for PhD computer scientists". Not that the "for idiots" distribution (like Linspire) cannot run all the same software as the system used by the computer scientist, it's just that it simply has made some semi-informed choices about what the average "idiot" wants and leaves it up to the user to figure out what to do when they want "more".

So, certainly Slakware is a bad choice for my mother. However, I know for a fact that Linspire suits her just fine (this is a woman that not only cannot program her VCR but actually shopped for VCRs without the ability to be programmed because she was afraid that she might press the wrong button and get the machine "stuck"). Same OS, different configuration, the "choice" being which configuration to go with.

For what it is worth, at home we use Mandrake Linux. I configured my wife's KDE desktop to look and behave much like the Windows systems she uses at work (though she's finding some very pleasant differences in the UI) and she's quite happy. My environment, on the same machine, is fantastically different. On her side, she has one menu item or icon for each activity, I have a list... Again, it's nice to have the choice... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It hits the nail on the head. And apparently a lot of people too! Ouch!

Like Nicholas Blachford, I'm not sure those who rant here have really read the article. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Strategy of the article: Create a false dichotomy between choice and standards in very general terms and then argue that the solution is to remove choice by leaving the poor user to fend for himself by compiling what he needs.

No, that is not the solution. The reason why people pick a distribution is because the distribution is supposed to make certain choices on your behalf. So if you set up Mandrake's discovery edition which is what you would give a Linux novice, you only have a best-of-breed application. As he learns more, he then realizes that there are other apps he might want to try, but instead of going through the horrible pain of compiling software, the new user users the software in Mandrakeclub's mirrors or in contrib/plf to install software easily. More importantly, this is software that has been packaged that is known to work for his system.

This flexible approach allows the new user an easy path into Linux and allows me to select the packages that I need for my daily work, packages which would not be installed by default by the distribution. That way everyone wins.

I swear that this site is the epitome of controversy for controversy's sake. I have never seen a web site so focused on meaningless polemics and on dividing the free software community by raising meaningless issues of contention that are not there upon closer examination. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Do you realize you're agreeing with the author? Yet you think he misses the point. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks Ralph - I think I shall repost a Bowdlerised version of my original post and see what happens:

In Praise of Linus
After reading the flawed arguments in this article, so ably refuted by hanky, it made me realize who importance Linus' contribution to the methodology of software development which is just as if not more important as his development of the original Linux kernel.

Linus was the first person to actively and consciously apply Evolutionary Theory to software. Modern Evolutionary Theory deals with the change in a replicator (DNA in biological systems) that is variable and is under selective pressure. Dawkins was able to extend this idea into the field of human culture with the concept of memes as a replicator. Linus recognized that computer code was an evolutionary replicator (a form of extra-corporeal meme, possibly the third replicator) and that he was shepherding "a herd of cats" in the evolutionary development of the Linux kernel. Evolutionary development like this is based on freedom and choice not on the dictatorial decision of some "chief architect" who knows best as with MS and proprietary software.

The anti-evolutionary control freak approach in part extends into the free and open source movement. For example the some software is developed under a much more controlled environment environment where "software design" is considered to be paramount and whose protagonists denounce the anarchy of Linux development and also deny that software development parallels biological evolution. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nice article. I agree that most distros should have a default but I disagree on not needing choice.

Why shouldn't I be able to customize my user experience as I see fit. Why should I be locked into using a product when there is something out there that I believe is better. For the novice leave them with the defaults. As they get experienced then they too will love what I have come to love.

Besides choice means competition and competition leads to a better product.

Peace out:) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Please don't moderate this down, it's insight into this issue. Adam, your project called flip (flipsource.org) is another CMS. There are many CMSs out there like you say in http://www.flipsource.org/faq.php?section=project#3 - but there are also flat file versions too.

Tell us why you have this strong vocal opinion against choice but choose to express your freedom in providing another choice in content management systems? Does the problem only happen when the software is packaged together in the form of a distribution? What is your real issue here? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think the abundance choice is wonderful in most arenas....except in the case of marketing of a product that already has too much saturation. Don't get me wrong, giving customers a choice of colors in a Gamecube or offering 130 different consumer options on an Audi A8 is absolute bliss.

But I think the point of the article was not geared towards IT professionals like we are (or may not be, don't know your background) but more towards the general populous.

Zealots want the whole world to run some version of the Linux kernel for some strange reason. Linux is not going to take over the world, a good Linux marketing and distribution company will take over the world. They'll give people direction in the Linux world, they'll make it easier for people to use Linux just as MS made it easier to use the pc.

I use Linux but sheesh, the world needs direction. Many distributions now moderate how much software gets included in a default configuration which I think is great but there much more to do. Then again, I don't want to be limited to just using Linux.... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't usually come to this site, but what entertainment! The author writes an article about, as he wirtes in a comment, the double edged sword of choice (Adam: I found it clear that you were making this point). Then all but about three comment miss the "double". Half the readers think he's criticizing side A of the sword and the other half think he's criticizing side B of the sword. I guess it was the "choice" of how/if you want to read the article. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think a lot of people replying missed the point. Choice - yes, and lots of it - between distros, but not WITHIN a distro. Your distro should have direction, purpose, distinction. Providing 5 text editors does not provide any of these.

I made the same argument earlier this year in an OSNews article about Slackware, and I stand by my statements. Pare down the choices installed by default and provide an easy way to install them later. You could get most distros down to 1 CD that way. That saves bandwidth, enhances usability, and a host of other good reasons.

I don't advocate taking away choices, just streamline them. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Joseph,

I cannot understand why there are a few people here just DYING to take me down over something I am NOT arguing. You said, "you have this strong vocal opinion against choice." Eh...what?! I did not say that I am AGAINST choice. I said that in any implementation of something, you have to limit choice. Because too many choices, or uninformed choice, is bad. Read up on Flip. If you like it, feel free to use it. If not, move on. Hell, write me and tell me it sucks for all I care. But you won't get confused, because you won't find it if you're not looking for it. Doesn't change the fact: too much choice can be bad.

Flip is my own thing for my own entertainment, and I don't pretend that it's more. But if you visit this page (http://www.flipsource.org/viewcomments.php?cID=1095194672), you'll see that exactly as I stated above - too much choice obscured the goal, and the entire project was scrapped in favor of something more directed.

Here are some examples: Photoshop is absolutely intimidating to non-technical users. You might say "Don't use Photoshop." But in real life, that translates into customers, into SALES. There's a possibly benefit to a less cluterred interface, possibly with fewer options. Less intimidation might mean more users. That's the less "choice" I'm referring to.

If something works for you, fine. But please don't pretend that I have some wacky agenda to limit everyone's choice. That's just silly, and it isn't what I wrote. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The author of this article makes it clear that he knows there are both good and bad aspects in having choice. Yet he also makes clear his own position: "If you ask me, I'll tell you straight out: I'm all for removal of choice from Linux." Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Some people here don't seem to have properly comprehended what I wrote - the article is about how choice is a double-edged sword.

Your inability to make yourself clear is your problem. Don't try to make it ours; such attitude is arrogant, insulting and condescending.

Not how we must sacrifice all choice.

Oh, so is that why you have sentences like "If you ask me, I'll tell you straight out: I'm all for removal of choice from Linux." scattered all over your article? I'm sorry, Adam, but your sudden backpedalling is not only unconvincing, but once again, arrogant, insulting and condescending.

But I suppose if nothing else, my point is proven - take any group of Linux supports and suggest the removal of something, and in that zen-like way, they became samuari intent on proving you wrong.

Wrong, Adam. All it proves is that if you phrase your article like a flame-bait, the flames will inevitably erupt. Had you written a truly well-thought out piece of journalistic work devoid of flame-baits like the one I quoted above, you wouldn't have gotten so much negative feedback.

Really, stop blaming your readers for your own journalistic incompetence. And, while you're at it, quit hiding behing the "I'm modding down every comment that someone reports that contains a personal reference to me" tosh. Your article contains a number of ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with your position, so it is rather hypocritical of you to demand of others something you yourself cannot do.

Now, go ahead, prove my point and mod me down. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In the linux community, it's argued that choice is a good thing.

And that standards are a good thing.

How can you have it both ways?

These two beliefs reflect and underlying belief in the architecture of software. It's the kind of architecture you see in network stacks that makes the internet work as well as it does. It's the kind of architecture that lets you take the same code for linux apps and build them on BSD.

With the way the internet is designed, you can be connected whether you're on a FDDI connection, an ethernet connection, a wireless connection or any other kind of connection you care to think up. All these different technologies converge at the IP layer - that's how things get around the internet. Above the IP layer, you can talk TCP, you can talk UDP, or you can talk any other way you decided to make your app communicate (as long as what's on the other end can understand it, of course). The standards for networks and internetworking have led to a lot of choice and availability.

POSIX standards, C language standards, HTML and CSS capability and rendering standards - they help PROVIDE choice, not take it away.

Look at C language standards - because they guarantee certain things about how the code is compiled, you can write language bindings so that you can write parts of applications in one language, parts in another, and have them work together. Take away that standard and see how much choice you're left with. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Now, go ahead, prove my point and mod me down

I would in a heartbeat. You're adding nothing constructive to this thread. If this thread even closely resembled a discussion and not a flamewar, no one would be reporting the posts as offensive. You've just spent a few minutes typing a lengthy or formatted comment that violates the osnews terms you agreed to by clicking "Submit Comment." Need help finding that?

http://www.osnews.com/rules.php
2. No personal attacks on story authors, other commenters or news editors of this web site.

Want to talk about choice? Do it. Want to give me a hard time? Write to my e-mail account, available above to ALL, and do it. I'm not afraid to defend my points or myself, but I'm not going to get personal in a forum. Unlike you. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think the problem was how you wrote what you wrote. I guess if one considers the title "Paradox of Choice" they could understand you're arguing both sides. The above example in your reply is a good one. Taking it into consideration you mean less exposed choices instead of less software choices. I agree with less exposed choices. But I heavily disagree there should be less software choice. As was pointed out, this is somewhat of a non-issue.. you can choose a distribution, window manager, desktop environment, terminal, or even editor with less exposed choices. This is much like the differences between similar software.. GNOME vs KDE, Windows vs MacOS, Wordperfect vs Microsoft Word and so on.

There are all kinds of choices to be made, no matter if it is OSS or non-OSS. Just remember there are different levels of choice and thus there really is no/very little of a paradox. You're comparing apples with oranges when referring to software choice and exposed choices in software. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The thing the trolls seem to be missing here is that what this author is about is not to remove Gnome from the surface of the Earth in favor of KDE. Nor is he about giving you a gaa-gaa-goo-goo baby interface to your favorite distro. He's talking about the BASIC package, you know the smallest set of things one needs to do one's job? Userland Linux is after that idea, and yes, many other people are doing it right now, so we're still going to see some splintering of default choices for a while.

But being able to install KDE on a Gnome-based distro is totally different from having to choose between the two. Look at it this way: on Mac OS X, the GUI application to use to manipulate the filesystem is the Finder. And that's it: _The_ Finder, period. Yet, when was the last time Apple lobbied Cocoatech to cease and desist from doing PathFinder, an application that replaces your Finder? When was the last time they screwed their filesystem or their frameworks to break compatibility? And when was the last time you installed Mac OS X and you had to select between 6 flavours of the Finder?

The point is twofold: first the KDE- and Gnome- teams should stop rooting for domination and commit themselves to interoperability, to the point that their applications interoperate in STANDARD ways with each other. Second, non-general-purpose Linux distributions should commit to a specific, cohesive set of applications. General-purpose systems like Deb, Slack, Gentoo, Fedora should be seen also as PLATFORMS. And again this is what UserLinux got right: instead of trying to cripple and reduce the near-total coverage of the Debian system to make it a simpler distro, just use the actual Debian system as the fertile ground on which to grow nice little User tomatoes. When a distro becomes as large and as all-encompassing as Debian, it gets nearer to becoming such an object as a standard, not a user product.

BTW I'm using the UserLinux example out of ignorance for the other equivalent projects. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Standards vs choice are abstract terms which are indeed somewhat contradicting. I don't think the author meant to say 'choise is bad' though. He wanted to show an inconsistency.

However, when you've drawn you can use that inconsistency again to draw a different point also, the author forgets "choice BASED on standards".

I've always felt as though I don't want to spend my time trying to decide which word processor to use. I don't want to flip flop between Kontact and Evolution, Gaim and Kopete, Abiword, KWord, Open Office.org Writer, etc.

The point is, that when you chose for a DE, you don't have to chose because there are related applications for that DE and that toolkit.

Ofcourse, then some people say: But i don't want to run a "QT application under GNOME because [...]" it doesn't look nice, or costs more memory. Here the "improving interoperability" applies. 2 nice solutions are in the works: making QT look like GTK2 and vice versa (e.g. RedHat did this) or porting the application over to the other DE (e.g. Gecko to Konqueror, GIMP to KDE).

And a design from the grounds and agreements are important like e.g. GNOME HIG does. Where techies decide for users to chose good options most will like, whereas still leaving he oppurtunity to modify the default. The default has to be good for most people. Because sometimes people don't want to make a choice. Instead they rely on the standard or default, trusting that's good enough. A form of laziness. However if they don't like the default they want to have the ability to chose. Distribution's diversity also is a strength in this aspect: they can try to reach a nieche, or try to create a unique environment.

Note the difference between "freedom of choice" ad "freedom to make a choice"... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if there is anything worse than a badly written, badly argued and generally pointless article, it's an author who not only does his best to ignore all the well argued replies to his rant, but also tries to portray everyone who dares to disagree with him as a misguided zealot somehow proving his point.

Frankly, this is not what I expect from an author, no matter where he writes and be it "just" a computer news site on the net.

P.S.: I know this is getting silly, but as long as whoever moderates this discussion acts like a child, allowing the author to insult everyone who does not agree with him while moderating down everyone who doesn't like this sort of behaviour I feel free to be silly.

P.P.S: Really you behave like this is kindergarten. And as you can plainly see my username is ralph, not ralphy, the last one is reserved for my mom and other very special people. Now if you think the right way to address people critizing you is by either ignoring their arguments, as you have done with all the arguments brought up against your article so far, or by modderating people down who critizice you for insulting people who don't agree with you, go ahead. It won't make your article any better and it certainly won't make you look any better or more mature.

*Sigh* Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is the most moronic (and worst written) post I've ever read on OSnews.

A commentator pointed very cleverly that's there are points where choice is indeed bad. That's the system. You should have only one sound subsystem and only one package management. That's OK,and that's good,because it's having standards (By the way,it's wonderful the total misunderstanding of the concept of standards by the author of this post).

For the rest, choice is not only good : choice is what makes Linux strong. Personally I remember I switched to Linux when I stared at the amazing number of packages Debian shipped. I whispered to myself : "oh my god,it's wonderful". Under Windows you usually end up with a single word processor, a single GUI, a single media player,and so on. Hmmm,what a wonderful world. What do you do if you think MS Word is terrible (as I think)? Nothing (assuming you're Joe User and you don't know about Windows ports of OO.org and AbiWord). What do you do if you don't like OO.org on Linux? Try KWord. Try AbiWord. Try LyX,if you're on the techie side. For example, I use *two* browsers at home. I use Firefox for casual browsing (better rendering, plugins, useful add-ons) and Konqueror when working (because I can manage files, viewing PDF's and DOC's and browse the web just switching tabs). Having both is *pure gold*, trust me.

Linux choice-by-default is the FIRST and BEST thing I tell people when trying to hook them to Linux. They ask me "How is the interface?" and I answer "As you like it. There are a lot of interfaces. You can choose the one suits you best *at login* and use it". They usually awe and smile. When they ask me "How do you do word processing" and I start listing Linux word processors, explaining "IMHO this is better for this, and this is better for that. Oh,and they're all on the distribution CD's,for free." people is just impressed. They feel - guess what - FREE. They feel they can choose the app suits them best, not the app someone else decided they had to use. And when they see it -for example at my home desktop- they just end up to BEG for a Knoppix cd-rom to try at home.

Note that I don't sweeten the pill, I tell them clearly that not all hardware is supported, that they'll have to do things on the command line and that they'll have to learn tricky things. No way to let 'em come back, and I talk about NON-TECHIE people, people that phone me asking "hey,what's peer2peer?". They are ready to climb the mountain, if this means CHOICE for them.

Most Windows people don't like Windows. Most Windows people just hate it : they only think no alternatives exist. Today Windows people think word processing = MS Word, browsing = IE and so on. They hate it,but they don't know there's something else. I heard my dad grumbling "I hate that thing IE always opens a lot of windows" - so I let him download Firefox and trying tabbed browsing. He was amazed, it just was what suited his needs.

Don't let people think Linux is a Windows clone. Don't let people think "you can choose between A and B". Let people think : "Here you have A, and here you have the whole alphabet". Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? lame comments. A distribution should have a limited software set that furthers the well-defined direction of the distribution. Choices in a distribution shouldn't be 'everything we could find a freshmeat' or immediate at time of install, but should all be available afterwords for any changes you want to make. It's just more sane that way. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Exactly my point! Providing choice based on standards. Great description and examples btw.

"I don't advocate taking away choices, just streamline them."

Agreed, but it needs to be done by using a progressive, fruitful way. Do you have suggestions?

I was thinking about 2:
1) UI experts analyzing which application is better (features are more than not obvious already to anyone reading. Though, add that if you prefer.)
2) Constructive feedback from users. Take part of the Free software community!
3) A platform where people (e.g. those from group 1 and 2) come together to develop the discussion. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The author doesn't know what he's talking about apparently. Standars are the only way to make choice available, communication between people and programs are the biggest necessity today, and that's what standars are for, if you follow the authors conclusion to the end, we must all use the same OS, with the same apps, and the ones that chose other choices, shouldn't be able to communicate in any way with "standard" users. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A distribution should have a limited software set that furthers the well-defined direction of the distribution. Choices in a distribution shouldn't be 'everything we could find a freshmeat' or immediate at time of install, but should all be available afterwords for any changes you want to make. It's just more sane that way.

Well, i recently had to install a Linux distribution on a computer (an old SPARC which i'm gonna use to run Linux on until Solaris 10 is out. Just for fun. The distribution's name ain't specified to evade that unimportant detail) and its quite funny that i had exactly this: almost nothing installed, but i did had the choice to install certain packages and purposes whereas 'everything on freshmeat' was installable via the package manager.

Isn't this what NetBSD's philosophy on this aspect is, too? Or GNOME's whereas GNOME already provides what they see as the best software and configuration whereas you're able to chose different? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "A distribution should have a limited software set that furthers the well-defined direction of the distribution. Choices in a distribution shouldn't be 'everything we could find a freshmeat' or immediate at time of install, but should all be available afterwords for any changes you want to make. It's just more sane that way."

And that is exacty the way most distributions are today. If you take one of the distributions that are targeted at Joe User like xandros and linspire it is the case, but even distributions like Suse and Mandrake behave exactly the way you describe. That's why the author is addressing a non-issue.

You should also read the article again, the author is not saying what you think he says, on the contrary. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A commentator pointed very cleverly that's there are points where choice is indeed bad. That's the system. You should have only one sound subsystem and only one package management. That's OK,and that's good,because it's having standards (By the way,it's wonderful the total misunderstanding of the concept of standards by the author of this post).

For the rest, choice is not only good : choice is what makes Linux strong. Personally I remember I switched to Linux when I stared at the amazing number of packages Debian shipped. I whispered to myself : "oh my god,it's wonderful". Under Windows you usually end up with a single word processor, a single GUI, a single media player,and so on. Hmmm,what a wonderful world. What do you do if you think MS Word is terrible (as I think)? Nothing (assuming you're Joe User and you don't know about Windows ports of OO.org and AbiWord). What do you do if you don't like OO.org on Linux? Try KWord. Try AbiWord. Try LyX,if you're on the techie side. For example, I use *two* browsers at home. I use Firefox for casual browsing (better rendering, plugins, useful add-ons) and Konqueror when working (because I can manage files, viewing PDF's and DOC's and browse the web just switching tabs). Having both is *pure gold*, trust me.

Linux choice-by-default is the FIRST and BEST thing I tell people when trying to hook them to Linux. They ask me "How is the interface?" and I answer "As you like it. There are a lot of interfaces. You can choose the one suits you best *at login* and use it". They usually awe and smile. When they ask me "How do you do word processing" and I start listing Linux word processors, explaining "IMHO this is better for this, and this is better for that. Oh,and they're all on the distribution CD's,for free." people is just impressed. They feel - guess what - FREE. They feel they can choose the app suits them best, not the app someone else decided they had to use. And when they see it -for example at my home desktop- they just end up to BEG for a Knoppix cd-rom to try at home.

Note that I don't sweeten the pill, I tell them clearly that not all hardware is supported, that they'll have to do things on the command line and that they'll have to learn tricky things. No way to let 'em come back, and I talk about NON-TECHIE people, people that phone me asking "hey,what's peer2peer?". They are ready to climb the mountain, if this means CHOICE for them.

Most Windows people don't like Windows. Most Windows people just hate it : they only think no alternatives exist. Today Windows people think word processing = MS Word, browsing = IE and so on. They hate it,but they don't know there's something else. I heard my dad grumbling "I hate that thing IE always opens a lot of windows" - so I let him download Firefox and trying tabbed browsing. He was amazed, it just was what suited his needs.

Don't let people think Linux is a Windows clone. Don't let people think "you can choose between A and B". Let people think : "Here you have A, and here you have the whole alphabet". Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I whispered to myself : "oh my god,it's wonderful". Under Windows you usually end up with a single word processor, a single GUI, a single media player,and so on.

Word does the trick for most people. I've never ever heard anyone complain that they didn't like Word. I think that one of the most heard questions by computer salesmen is "Is Word on my new computer?".

A single GUI? No way. Shells such as LiteStep, Talisman, AstonShell etc. are installed with one click, they automatically disable Explorer and give a standard uninstall which returns everything to Windows' normal state. Now, compare that to installing a new WM using a Linux package manager. Have fun finding all the packages, reading and studying the descriptions and so on.

Single meda player? No way. There are enough others. But you know, people are happy with Meda Pkayer. The average user is satiesfied with it. You are trying to compare yourself to an average user.

What do you do if you think MS Word is terrible (as I think)? Nothing (assuming you're Joe User and you don't know about Windows ports of OO.org and AbiWord). What do you do if you don't like OO.org on Linux? Try KWord. Try AbiWord. Try LyX,if you're on the techie side.

The only reason I hear mostly for switching from Word to OOo is because of idealogy, which is perfectly fine and understandable. The average user doesn't care about that. Chances are high that his school. his Uni, his Work will use MS Word, and therefore he must have 100% compatibility. OOo does that well, but far from perfect. Secondly, There is absolutely no sane reason to switch from Word to OOo, except for the export to .pdf fucntion (which, again, most average users won't need).

Most Windows people don't like Windows. Most Windows people just hate it : they only think no alternatives exist. Today Windows people think word processing = MS Word, browsing = IE and so on. They hate it,but they don't know there's something else. I heard my dad grumbling "I hate that thing IE always opens a lot of windows" - so I let him download Firefox and trying tabbed browsing. He was amazed, it just was what suited his needs.

Uhm, all people I know around me, who are far from tech-users, are happy with Windows and Office. It is so arrogant to think that everyone hates Windows, simply because you do. As a n=2 study I set up my parents with various Linux distro's. They complained about the lack of speed, GUI responsiveness, inconsistency, slow boot, slow shutdown and so forth. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Under Windows you usually end up with a single word processor, a single GUI, a single media player,and so on.

You are exactly right. Afterall, since its not possible to download other word processors, GUIs, and media players, you're simply stuck with what comes with the OS.

What do you do if you think MS Word is terrible (as I think)? Nothing (assuming you're Joe User and you don't know about Windows ports of OO.org and AbiWord).

Oh wait ... you mean there is actually CHOICE in Windows?

What do you do if you don't like OO.org on Linux? Try KWord. Try AbiWord.

Right. So if you're using Windows, if you don't like MS Office, you're screwed if you don't know about OO.org, ABIWord, and the other 3 dozen or so word processors available on Windows. However, if you're using Linux and don't like OO.o, even though you would be cluess of the options available for windows, you will instictively know about all the options that are available to you in Linux.

For example, I use *two* browsers at home. I use Firefox for casual browsing (better rendering, plugins, useful add-ons) and Konqueror when working

And here I am all depressed as a Windows user because Internet Explorer is my only option

Linux choice-by-default is the FIRST and BEST thing I tell people when trying to hook them to Linux. They ask me "How is the interface?" and I answer "As you like it. There are a lot of interfaces. You can choose the one suits you best *at login* and use it".

And of course, we all know that every distro includes every desktop enviroment and window manager as part of the distro. And as you install applications, I like the way all of the application launch menus are updated in each WM and DE so that I don't have to do the shit manually.

Oh,and they're all on the distribution CD's,for free." people is just impressed. They feel - guess what - FREE.

Yeah, all of them for FREE .. just like Star Office and Word Perfect.

They feel they can choose the app suits them best, not the app someone else decided they had to use.

Yeah, I hate in Windows when I am forced at gunpoint to use a certain applications .. pisses me off every time. Why aren't I using Linux yet anyway?

Note that I don't sweeten the pill, I tell them clearly that not all hardware is supported, that they'll have to do things on the command line and that they'll have to learn tricky things

NOOOOOO!!! Really? I thought Linux 'just worked' ??? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Darius, also a way of proving the guy's wrong . Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "You should also read the article again, the author is not saying what you think he says, on the contrary."

I just read it again, carefully. And it still reads how I first read it, and not how those against it read it.

I could be wrong. Just show me where it supports your side. Quote something I must have missed. I'll be happy to change my opinion on it in that case. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? As a closed-to-newbie Linux user, I understand the article very well. I will summarize it like this: There are distros d1, d2, d3. I want to use "Linux" applications A, B, C, D. Problem: I do not find a dn distro for the applications A to D or installing the missing application is really to complicate (make, install, compile is too much). For me, it is always the same story, I switch back to my all win98 platform where I can find the applications of type A, B, C, D.
Not that Linux is bad. Win98 is working better.

Interestingly, when the choice is wellcome, it is missing! As an example, the Ubuntu installation. The installing process is asking for the language but not for the keyboard... Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The Linux community needs to decide if it wants a significant part of the desktop market (let's pluck a number out of the air and say 20%) and, if so, how it is going to set about achieving that.

I suspect the point of the article was to suggest a way in which Linux could do so. This assumes that it wants to.

The author correctly anticipates the response he will get to his idea that the way forward is to limit choice. The Linux audience boo and hiss every time a villain walks onto the stage and says there are too many distributions and that some of them have too many web browsers or text editors. All anyone has to do is say they don't like Gnome or KDE or Nedit or Gedit or, even worse, the command line, and the Linux lynch mob starts to howl throws a rope over the nearest tree.

If Linux did not exist, it would be necessary to invent something like it in order to challenge the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop. Their products are less than secure, they are expensive and their support is not what you would expect from a world leader. If you seriously wanted to give Microsoft a bloody nose (i.e. take lots of business away from them) I doubt you would invent an OS that was not expensive and that was secure, then offer that OS in more than one hundred flavors. Neither would those flavors have multiple GUIs and multiple versions of many of the bundled applications. You would probably conclude that what marketing people might call "fragmentation" would be unhelpful. A plethora, or a confusion, of choice is never a strong selling point.

Meanwhile the lynch mob is seriously upset now. "Choice, choice, choice" some bellow, while others shout their favorite slogans "it works for me", "read the man page", "long live the command line" and, of course, their favorite, "you're a moron".

The article was weak in not voicing its own assumptions. I am not sure that Linux does want to challenge Microsoft. Some companies want to use Linux to do so, but Linux itself places far higher value on choice and technicality and being different (and secure and free) than it does on selling itself. This is neither right nor wrong, it just is. However, the essential point that Linux, being the only credible contender, needs to streamline to succeed commercially, is correct.

The lynchers have worn themselves out and gone home, for now. All they really want is to be left alone. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Portable, cross-platform software is also provides choice beyond Linux. Take for example the GNU folks. The FSF doesn't like it when you use proprietary software. However, the software is (in most of the cases) portable. You can run GCC on tons of hardware and OSes including proprietary Unices. Patches which allow/improve that are NOT excluded. In contrast to e.g. Fefe's software which is Linux-only: http://fefe.de. Here, with GNU, you see how their philosophy and ideology doesn't restrict choice on non-FOSS related aspects such as proprietary UNIX. (Because they can.)

If you want to run Bash on a UNIX then you're able to. Especially if its easy to install that's great. If its not, or the binary package is e.g. out of date, or there are bugs, its less great. Indeed, a good package manager on any OS is a pre.

Or, say you have a limited medium such as 56k6 or a live CD. With 56k6 you don't want to download packages you want them on CD instead. With a live CD you really want the applications on CD because installing them otherwise means they're gone again after reboot. So you do want a solid platform before chosing because chosing afterwards has other limitations!

Even some of the hobby OSes use this freedom to improve the software repository on their OS. On that aspect, FOSS most certainly improves freedom too. (Yet some of them whine about the software itself or about too much choice; they quite don't get it.)

PS: Author, if someone makes a personal attack to you while still making constructive comments otherwise i suggest you ignore the ad hominem and leave the comment in place. Ad hominem just happens sometimes, and its obvious its not likened, but you do have the choice to ignore it yourself. Especially if the rest of the comment is constructive i recommend this; "high trees catch a lot of wind". Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? They ask me "How is the interface?" and I answer "As you like it. There are a lot of interfaces. You can choose the one suits you best *at login* and use it". They usually awe and smile.

I find this hard to believe unless those you talked to had a very high interest in technology. Normal or average people on the other hand will mostly be afraid that this is hard to understand and complex. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I could be wrong. Just show me where it supports your side. Quote something I must have missed. I'll be happy to change my opinion on it in that case.

I think the fuss is all about this:

Somewhere along the way, there became a nearly religious belief, some sort of wacky zen centering around "choice" being the key to the success of Linux.

The point is, it's true, choice *is* key to the success of Linux. And i think most people want to make that clear. And they are right about that.

If you read the first page though, it's less about choice and Linux, and more about choice and Linux distributions. Basically the author calls for moderation within the distributions, and in that, he is right also. But that is the UserLinux discussion all over again. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Normal or average people on the other hand will mostly be afraid that this is hard to understand and complex.

Most people just want something that works. As long as you provide that for them, they will pretty use what they're told to use, if it means they don't have to futz with it endlessly to do what they want it to do. So, in the end, for Joe Sixpack, having the experience of using a computer be braindead easy is much more appealing than having 3,000 text editors to choose from. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks for the help. That goes a long way to showing why both sides looked like they were arguing about completely different things.

... They were. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Desktop users using Windows have one choice when they install their system: Media Player, Calc, Notepad (simple text), Wordpad (formatted text), Paint, Windows Movie Maker, Sound Recorder.

Taking away choice is a good thing for getting Linux on the desktop. I believe distro companies need to hire some small thinkers, innovitave minds...ones that can think on a "user level" and not a "geek user level".

Also, on the subject of choice: In the open source world, we are all a people. Developers and users alike are just as important to eachother. So why should a user (in assumption by the distro) need so many choices? Why can't the Distro CHOOSE to contain less? In general, if less is not good, dont use it. There will always be Mandrake for all your ungodly amounts of choice. Home users dont need something to work WITH, the need something to work ON. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Overal a consistent post but there are some aspects i'd like to address:

The term "Linux community". Who exactly does that term include? There's no consensus on that. There is no 1 definition on it. That doesn't benefit the discussion because it leaves too much space to argue otherwise based on that. Seriously, if you want to develop a discussion for constructive work, you have to use correct English as much as possible and leave elements like this out. This also counts for the term 'Linux' itself. Adam addressed that in his artxle (kudo's to Adam for that).

Moreover, up to who is it exactly? Some people don't want 'Linux' to be succesful on the desktop. Some of them are 'Linux' users, some non-'Linux' users. Note with Linux i don't mean Linux per see, but a (near to) 100% FOSS OS which makes use of FOSS software like Linux, GNOME, KDE, etc. The question up to who is it is hard IMO. One, commercial vendors is an obvious answer to it. However, some commercial vendors simply don't care (much) for the home-end-user desktop because that's not their market. Some do. Well, i'd argue that those who do could use constructive feedback from people who are or seriously would like to use their product (customer or potential customer). Then, you have the non-commercial Linux distributions and these don't have an interest to get you as customer for commercial purposes. Other reeasons exist though and we'd need to analyze these to bring the actual point futher. This is response to the first time you address "Linux community" here: "The Linux community needs to decide if it wants a significant part of the desktop market (let's pluck a number out of the air and say 20%)"

The second time you coin it, albeit in a different way, you say: "The Linux audience boo and hiss every time a villain walks onto the stage". What audience? Who's taking part of it; how do you define 'audience'? Everyone of them? Its a generalisation about an unspecified group of people! Got my point? Its hard to debunk that directly.

"I am not sure that Linux does want to challenge Microsoft."

Exactly, and again: Who?

"All they really want is to be left alone."

Exactly, some people really do. I really don't want some people who are replying in this thread to even use or take part of the developing process because i don't find them constructive at all. I'd rather see them using something else with great pleassure so we're freed from their ad nauseam common BS which unfortunately is frequently based on lose grounds, blatant assumptions, 'experiences' and technical ignorance.

"However, the essential point that Linux, being the only credible contender, needs to streamline to succeed commercially, is correct."

Up to who is this, you think? Do you have ideas on how to do this? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The article was weak in not voicing its own assumptions. I am not sure that Linux does want to challenge Microsoft. Some companies want to use Linux to do so, but Linux itself places far higher value on choice and technicality and being different (and secure and free) than it does on selling itself. This is neither right nor wrong, it just is.

Well, your comment was also weak in not voicing your own assumptions: Does "Linux" really places far higher value on choice?

In fact, the Linux user community is two-fold: Some like the "old", not challenging UNIX way and others want it the Windows/Mac way with hardware just working, a good looking and easy to understand GUI, and some cool apps that read their old Office documents and can easily be installed without a terminal but a simple wizard.

I can't say which of these two classes is bigger right now, but I believe that the "Windows way" class is growing faster. And it would be good if that's the case because also Open Source code can die. Have a closer look at the sourceforge cementry if you don't think so. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Look everyone, it's Darius, our resident wintroll.

" Most people just want something that works. As long as you provide that for them, they will pretty use what they're told to use, if it means they don't have to futz with it endlessly to do what they want it to do. So, in the end, for Joe Sixpack, having the experience of using a computer be braindead easy is much more appealing than having 3,000 text editors to choose from."

So secure in his knowledge and superiority over all those Joe Sixpacks. So condescending about what they need or want or their abilities and so full of self-righteous indignation at the 3000, yes, not 2000 or 2500 but 3000 text editors that every distribution offers.

You can go on fooling yourself and you may fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people of the time. I just came from trips to Brazil, Honduras, Spain, and Germany, where I have seen Free Software being used by mothers and grandmothers, children at schools and business man on their laptops.

Oh, the chaos, the puzzled looked on mother's faces when they could not deal with all the complexity. NOT!

What a bunch of arrogant, condescending pricks who think that they are god's gift to humanity. Talk to real people and do not assume that you can speak on their behalf. If they don't understand something, explain it to them and help them along. That's what you do.

But, you are only interested in pushing your shallow windows-only agenda no matter what. Ultimately, the market will take care of this as countries and companies streamline their IT and realize new efficiencies that they did not have before the use of Free Softare. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Why can't the Distro CHOOSE to contain less? In general, if less is not good, dont use it."

Thre are reasons for this, as i addressed earlier:
1) 56k6, modem low-bandwith and non-Internet users prefer to buy or otherwise obtain a full packet which allows them to actually use the system instead of downloading lots of software.

2) A live CD or demo CD. You really do want that to be complete too, especially if the user doesn't want to install it on HDD. It has to be complete to reflect what a Linux distribution (or certain aspects of it, like KDE) are like. It also has to be complete so that the user doesn't have to install more or other software which is magically gone after a reboot in the case it ain't installed on the HDD.

3) The lack of chosing what the user wants has a (or multiple) reason(s), too. I'm not sure what that could be so its hard to think about a solution. (I did address some solutions earlier in this thread.)

PS: Its time to leave the actual debate and start a more constructive debate. Its obvious some people agree with the points made in the article and some don't. That's not interesting anymore; it's now interesting to start brainstorming about actual solutions.

PPS: In the end, i believe several commercial Linux distributions will fade away when 'Linux' becomes more polished hence popular. The war is currently going on, question is still who. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry for O.T...

People, you have clear, simple choices of responses when faced with an article you agree or disagree with.

1. Constructive Reply.
By replying, you are either adding to what the author said or debating something you disagreed with.

2. Start a flamewar
Making outrageous claims, calling the author names or putting down other on the forum doesn't make you seem like a decent person.

3. Ignore it.
So, let's say the author called your mom fat. OK, fling poo at him all day. Otherwise, just shake it off. Is it really that important? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Very nice article and I agree completely. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? All these choices are fine when it's your own machine in your own little world. But what about when you need to start sharing all those documents and spreadsheets with others? If everyone is using a different word editor or spreadsheet program, it makes things much easier.

Language is similar. Everyone has their own unique slang for the peer group they are in. But we speak a common language to communicate ideas between these various groups. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? /me puts on the fake moustache

Precisely! Choice is what is keeping users, USERS, away from Linux! Tons of them! Lots of USERS! LOTS! AWAY! Gone forever! Because choice was forced upon them! Unbeknownst! As is it wasn't bad enough to chose between Pepsi and Coke, McDonalds and Burger King, poor users have to chose between distibutions! Between applications! OMG!

Of course, we all know how to fix it: Microsoft's marketing division once aptly advertised Internet Explorer with "one operating system, one web, one browser". That is the path we must follow.

We must learn from se leaders! Choice is se enemy! A parasite! It must be errradicated! Our fight must be continued, to convince se 'vacky' 'zealot' 'monks' of their errrors! Sey make it harrrd! Sey LOVE to make it harrd! On US! Sey ... seir DEGENERATED obsession with choice hurrrts US! It forces us to SINK! To make DECISIONS! Noone should be able to do sat to us! Choice is .... chrr ... straffen .... chrrr ... strunzbunz! Jawoll!

/me removes the fake moustache

Ahem. Feel free to remove as much choice as you want. The free software licenses allow you to do that, if that makes you happy. I don't get why limiting choices is a good thing from the article, but hey, if it works for you, that's fine, too.

I doubt that calling people 'wacky' was that useful, but I guess the author didn't have that much choice, right?

have fun implemenating it,
dalibor topic Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Okay, when you're installing any distro of Linux, like Mandrake, RH, anything...you have the choice of which packages to install. Whether you're wanting to install only open office and some media programs, or development tools, etc. The main problem for the everyday home user, like the article stated, is that people are uninformed. With each distro download, or if you buy one, should be accompanied by a little info guide, that explains things simply, like "Okay, you'll need OpenOffice if you're wanting to do this. You'll need to install samba if you want to access a windows network" And then, the guides should even come with recommendations for user type, whether you just do office work, you deal with multimedia, you just want a regular home experience, etc.

Honestly, half of the time you install a distro, you have everything you need at your fingertips right along with the distro, so alot of times there's no need to compile a program or anything...people just need a guide on what to use. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? who keep replying with "...if you don't like it, don't use it," or the like. This really concerns me. How are those using that rationale really thinking that linux will truly contend with microsoft on the desktop?

I am in agreement with the article. I think too much choice for the beginner or convert may be a bit overwhelming. Install with a limited set of apps so as to minimize confusion. But, do make it available and easy for the user to add more later. Flex, and also unflex. Distros like Xandros already do this, and do it rather well, but I think what the author meant was to actually standardize this sort of behavior. I honestly believe it'll do wonders for linux' popularity and adoption.

cheers Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? We need Linuxsoft! And the advantages of Linuxsoft, being free, more secure, etc, outweight anything that Microsoft can come up with. You don't understand, but if you do as I say, we can do it. Every enterprise as well as every user will think very serious of Linux if we standardize everything, creating what will be from now on known as Linuxsoft. I could be the head of it, for my idea is original and I deserve to be known for it, but I'm willing to let anyone use my idea as they please, because the humanity wellbeing is above my one. :-) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? is the most piss poor article I've seen posted here. This is propoganda from outside the community. The reason Linux has so much choice is because that is the priciple it's community founded it upon. Also...learn to spell and use proper grammar. Totally nonprofessional articles like this one cease to interest me. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If we we're comparing apples to apples, the author would have a good point about standards and choice being contradictory. However, when he gives examples of choice, then making mention of the LSB, he is comparing apples with oranges.

The LSB is aiming at the API's and ABI's, file system organization, and package management, to help avoid Linux forking and making sure that softare developers/vendors and service providers are not shooting at a moving target.

But the application and DE choices the author mentions encompass the software that runs on top of the API's and ABI's, the file system, and the package management system.

So, having "standards" and having "choice" are not mutually exclusive. You can have "standards" for the base system, but then provide plenty of "choice" for the user to run on top of that base system. Ultimately, this is the best way to go - you get the best of both worlds. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? We see this dissolving into the anti-linux crowd saying choice is bad, and the pro-linux crowd saying choice is good. I would assume all of the anti-choice people are still using IE 6.0, right? And for you Americans, you don't mind if I cast your vote for President, do you? I think I'll write myself in as a candidate with your vote. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I read all the comments so far (+75), and there seems to be something clear; Linux lovers, users and advocates are trying to prove that the choice is good. But these guys do not understand. Choice is great; look at OS X. It has little choices when you install it. Then you can choose virtually from thousands of applications. I'd say that 80% of the OS X users, never discovered the icon called Terminal.
That means, they don't care about anything; they have their set of [insert your app here] and that's what they do. Who cares about choice. They Don't. Do we? More or less, yes.

But this is a complex subject. You can twist the subject as much as you can and you will discover, depending upon your relative point of view at the time of writting, that Linux may be ready for the desktop, that linux is not ready, linux will never be ready, and things like those. The PC userbase around the world is huge, you just can't pretend that this will please 'em all "just one day".

Think of this, if you use linux, (at least for more than two months) then you're capable of choosing, you're probably used to your system, the system you've chosen. If, on the other hand you don't use linux, then you could find it easy to start with or NOT AT ALL. You may end up overwhelmed.

Because the vast amount of 'good' choices are exactly that, TOO VAST. Being a techie geek who compiles a kernel three times a day is not an excuse for having that freedom -if you get my point-. Is not about "i do it because I can", "I have choice if I want", "I have this and that"...

A linux distribution Must take over windows, not please a geeky market (small if you excuse me). Those will always get what they want, i.e.: hack the kernel. But the secretary sitting a few feet from you, doesn't give a damn sh**.

As UserFriendly.Org said:

"I will love you, when all users on earth agree on which distribution of Linux is the best".

Choice.. choice? Choose whatever you want, but to fight windows, use standards, define rules, eliminate duplicates. In the end, linux is "as open" as you want it to be. Think of OS X here.

And think of this, don't be a flamer.. THINK, linux is NOT an OS? Ok... but neither it's YOUR kernel... and if it is.. then it will NEVER conquer the market outside server world.

ymmv.

(Mac OS X, Windows, OpenBSD and some Linux Servers user/admin) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So you want a distro that limits choice, going with "best of bread" programs to bundle with it, thus avoiding newbie confusion? Well, there are plenty of them:

Linspire
Xandros
Lycoris

To name but a few, and they all seem to standardize on Debian base system/packages, KDE, OpenOffice, and Mozilla.

You want more than what these distros bundle? No problem. You can either download more programs from these distros' repositories, or you can get a distro that bundles lots of extra goodies, like Mandrake, SuSE, Fedora, or Debian. Also, these distros come in a "base/newbie/cheap" version, if that is what is desired.

So, the article is really bitching about a non-issue. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So secure in his knowledge and superiority over all those Joe Sixpacks.

Just repeating what I have been told by people in the US .. I didn't make the stuff up. In fact, I was told by a grandma just last night .. "I want it to work just like a calculator. If not, I'm going to bed."
Maybe it's different in other countries.

So condescending about what they need or want or their abilities and so full of self-righteous indignation at the 3000, yes, not 2000 or 2500 but 3000 text editors that every distribution offers.

Actually, I mis-spoke .. it's 2999. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Choice is great; look at OS X. It has little choices when you install it. Then you can choose virtually from thousands of applications. I'd say that 80% of the OS X users, never discovered the icon called Terminal.
That means, they don't care about anything

Huh? What do you mean with "don't care about anything"? Don't you think that when they'd want a different app, they're able to chose for that? According to this, you do:

they have their set of [insert your app here] and that's what they do.

Therefore

Who cares about choice. They Don't.

Obviously, they do care about the freedom to make a choice in this aspect. Just because they can't chose everything, don't chose what you want, or aren't able or do make a choice on every (tiny little non-issue) proposition doesn't disprive that.

Is not about "i do it because I can", "I have choice if I want"

And.. why not?

As UserFriendly.Org said:

"I will love you, when all users on earth agree on which distribution of Linux is the best".

That's a joke, duh! You can't reasonably say that was meant serious.

"I will love you, when all humans on earth agree on which political system and party is the best"

Well duh, won't happen. Besides the elements being in motion (Linux 2 years ago != Linux right now, Repubs 100 years ago != Repubs as of now, etc etc) it is also simply not PRACTICAL there will be a consensus. Hence you get either fragmentation or opressed, forced choice.

Instead, what matters is on what layers that fragmentation versus already chosed are made. Language? Please give me the choice to run the Linux kernel programmed in BASIC. Please give me VMS, with the Linux kernel. See some choices aren't practical because you can't make 'em, because they're based on other choices made which cannot be turned back (easily or not at all). Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You were going so well up till you hit this part.

"...If you ask me, I'll tell you straight out: I'm all for
removal of choice from Linux distributions..."

and sir, quite frankly if you ask me, I'll tell you straight out: that is one of the most moronic things ever said. It is exactly this choice that has made the open source community what it is, too much choice isn't a bad thing, more options give you more to learn, more choices gives you more things to explore. Removal of that plethora of choices means you have less to learn, less to explore, less to play with, and that someone knows better than you do what you should be using. Sir, fsck that. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? z1xq: "is the most piss poor article I've seen posted here. This is propoganda from outside the community. The reason Linux has so much choice is because that is the priciple it's community founded it upon. Also...learn to spell and use proper grammar. Totally nonprofessional articles like this one cease to interest me."

That would be "its community", not "it's." Also, "cease to interest me" would imply that you had interest in it at one point but no longer. What you want is "fail to interest"; something along those lines. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Bah. I find it quite sad most of the readership who are replying here just aren't able to develop some kind of nuance, instead relying on classic, flawed dogma. Always the same in topics like this: far too generalizing, not constructive, dogmatic/zealotic, and never looking futher than their nose long is. Only whine, whine, whine. Where are the constructive replies? I'm able to count them on 2 hands with both 5 fingers...

Had the author included the aspect JeffS addressed in detail though with a few words only (comment #93, here: http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=8304&offset=90&ro...) the discussion would be more constructive perhaps. At least i hope so. Because right now its more of a flamewar than anything else, omitting anythingh constructive. Bah. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Removal of that plethora of choices means you have less to learn, less to explore, less to play with, and that someone knows better than you do what you should be using. Sir, fsck that.

Not by definition: Or good standards to work upon, to create choices. If the standards ain't good, its time to address Houston though.

Think about it: do you want 100 versions of C just for the sake of choice? I don't. I don't want 10 multimedia players in my DE either so i chose a few i like most and don't install the others.

In Windows this is in some cases just less of a problem because there's one 'standard' choice and because of piracy. Think about Photoshop (although on Linux, GIMP2 is more or less the standard on home-end user desktops, i guess.).

(Although even if standards are good, marketing dept. can fuck it up. See the DEC / Alpha / OpenVMS debacle.) Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you look at the trends in the Linux community you see there is a general trend in which explosions of choice follow inadequacies of choice. In short, when there are few good choices, the community decides to bombard itself with many choices, some of which may be good.

Well, what happens next is that the community tends to cull out the poor choices, and consolidate around good choices. In the end, most Linux distros and the community at large agree to follow sets of best-practices that consolidate on a converging set of choices.

So what does this mean? It means that at any moment, the community is busy defining the nature of its good choices and working to improve them. Look at desktops. KDE and GNOME (I'll not mention the other DEs), while different in many regards, are converging in many fundamental ways. For the forseable future, they will use different core languages and widget sets, but their methods of interacting with the system and together are converging. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It is short sighted to assume that computer users have the same problems to solve. Computer users are as diverse as the human race and the elements within nature. And so are their problems.

The reason I use a computer is very different from the reason my mother uses one. How I use a computer is also quite different from how she, my mother, does. In a computing utopia, the tools my mother uses to solve her problems will vary drastically from the tools I use to tackle mine. Hence, their needs to be a diversity in tools to satisfy the multifaceted nature of our needs.

People advocating no choice, one distribution, one application and so on, are selfish, self-centered and extremely short sighted. More often than not, they are seeing things from their own perspective, rather than accepting the diversity of our problem space.

Linux remains one of the free computing tools that enables entities customize solutions for their problem spaces. Yet people inadvertently seek to destroy the very essence that makes Linux, free and open-source software powerful. Which is the fact that I am free to choose between KDE and GNOME knowing fully well that one size never fits all.

If it weren't for diversity, the human race would have been extinct centuries ago. Lets learn to take a cue from nature. Asking whether or not choice is good or bad, is a like asking whether or not freedom is healthy. Time and again fields of human knowledge show that choice and diversity is essential for evolution to occur. If there is no choice, consequently, there will be no diversity, and therefore, little to no (r)evolutionary change.

There is a reason why Linux, free and open source software advance faster than their proprietary cousins. I leave that as an exercise for your intellectual capacities. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hmm, there's to much choice in women. Some people prefer blondes, some prefer brunettes. Some particularly dastardly fellows prefer red-heads and black-haired women.

Heck some fellows like fair-skinned women, some like tanned, some like dark, chocolate skinned women. Some women are colored somewhat more red or yellow.

And then there are eyes. Green. Hazel. Brown. Blue. Grey. Its all so confusing. Why couldn't nature just decide on a color and stick with it.

And then some women are tall or short, skinny or full-bodied, small-breasted or busty, alto or soprano. Some are young, some are old, some are even older. Some like guys like me, some like guys not like me, some like other women.

Some like to talk, some like to listen. Some laugh at my jokes (very rare) and some think I'm dull.

Oh, why, oh why, oh why, do we have so much choice.

Why don't we all agree that women should be blue-skinned with green hair and red eyes, medium-breasted, with long legs and always laugh at our jokes? It be best for everyone if we could just agree to that. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not keen on medium-breasted. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not keen on medium-breasted.

After-market augmentation or reduction is available for the tastes of all couples.

Its for the best if we simply standardize our tastes in women.

PS -- for the ladies (boy, do I love geek women): everything applies as well to your tast in men. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? binary longevity.... hmmmm never had a problem there sorry, now if he had said .so files, then that would be a different matter.

kde/gnome... the author is mistaken when he says you need to load all the APIs to support kde or gnome apps.. they load as they are needed.

My Documents and Program Files folders... NO NO NO, this is wrong and evil on so many levels..... and another thing, they are not even called folders, they are DIRECTORIES, get it right.

choice is very important, and if you dont like it, use something that gives you less of a choice, Xandros, Linspire etc... and never, ever, run apt-get on them hahaha



this article proves the old saying once again.

"Linux is not ready for HIS desktop ?
No HE is not ready for Linux!" (c)2004 raver31

if the author was to forget all his silly ideas of turning Linux into a Windows clone and trying Linux for the system it is instead, then it would have been a much better article. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'd love to talk to you about your theory of "software evolution" in 10 years time. I'm pretty sure Longhorn*1.5 will still be ahead. Because that species will develop stronger, to extend that analogy.
The reason will still be the inability of the Linux "community" to recognise the importance of consistency and usability as raised in this article.
That's one of the fundamental flaws of Linux (as in OS, not in pedantic "kernel"). You'll never get its contributors/distros/third party open source apps to agree on some standards. (and that criticism's much broader than free desktop dot org!)
They'll collectively still be chasing the MS standards. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "binary longevity.... hmmmm never had a problem there sorry, now if he had said .so files, then that would be a different matter. "
Yes.... And the computing public will love that distinction!
"My Documents and Program Files folders... NO NO NO, this is wrong and evil on so many levels..... and another thing, they are not even called folders, they are DIRECTORIES, get it right."
Directories gave way to Folders in 1995. If you're that out of date, maybe you should have second, third and fourth thoughts about commenting on 2004 issues. And exactly how are they more evil than /home/* and /usr/local/* or /opt/* folders? Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? so the developers, including distributions, need to choose who their audience is.

and the market chooses which distributions they prefer.

all good. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I'd love to talk to you about your theory of "software
> evolution" in 10 years time. I'm pretty sure Longhorn*1.5
>will still be ahead. Because that species will develop >stronger, to extend that analogy.

A species that have yet to be breed.


>The reason will still be the inability of the Linux >"community" to recognise the importance of consistency and
>usability as raised in this article.

look at hcibib.org and let me know if something stands out to you.

>That's one of the fundamental flaws of Linux (as in OS, not
>in pedantic "kernel"). You'll never get its >contributors/distros/third party open source apps to agree
>on some standards. (and that criticism's much broader than >free desktop dot org!)

standards. there are lots of open standards, which are you referring to kind sir?

>They'll collectively still be chasing the MS standards.

that sentence is so profoundly wrong. MSFT does not define standards they partake in the standards process.

YHBTHAND Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Most of you love having a choice, some of you think Linux should run for president. But your utmost disrespect for every other IT professionals choice in OS expertise is revolting. You disgust the IT world.

Your bandwagon antics don't mean squat in every other persons and/or corporations world. People use the best tool for the job and/or whatever the hell they feel like. So what if someone else is using another OS. 5 years ago it used to be cool to run a less-than-mainstream OS with the latest toys configured.

Your rants about how cool it is b/c you 'run' linux on your pc are entirely stupid. Someone impresses us when we hear that your typing a post from a Linux PS2 or from a gamboy...that's cool. Did you ever run apache from an as/400? No? Well let me tell you: It's completely useless but it's cool. Linux on PC isn't cool anymore - it's regular. Who doesn't do it? You can't make it through an accredited college without seeing the linux kernel in action.

My only question is: When will you ranters stop talking about your kernel like it's the 2nd coming. Show me the great apps...that's how you sell. You Linux trolls are no longer even promoting a hobby OS anymore. Your advertising for free for many different companies one of which is big bad IBM. They'll find a way to make money from you. Stupid....

And NOTICE: I did not promote any OS. If it works for you fine. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry, I didn't read all 109 posts, I skimmed most of them....

I don't think that 'choice' is the issue... whether you think 'choice' is good, bad, or misunderstood... OK, I'll stop there.

The point I intended to make is this:
If there isn't a solution you are completely satisfied with, you create your own solution. This is what happens in the non-commercial software world. I've long considered writing my own window manager, simply because after having tried just about every WM I can find, I have specific ideas of what I would like to have in a WM that aren't all fully implemented in one specific WM. Some would argue there are already too many WMs, and nobody needs another one. Some would argue that my concepts are valid and another WM offering is needed.

"I like feature A from application X, and feature B from application Y. I wish I could have both features in one application."
And that is why there is choice to begin with. One person or a group of people may have decided that they weren't satisfied with current offerings, so they decided to create their own. No one forces anyone to use this new offering, but people will use it because there will undoubtedly be others who feel the same way. You may find a text editor that does everything you want, in which case it is not anyone's fault that you felt you needed to try out 34 other editors before making a final decision except your own. For instance I prefer vim (vim -y actually) and SCiTE. There are many other editors I have never tried, but that doesn't bother me because I'm completely satisfied with the two that I use. I like the idea that across the world somebody probaly relies on pico and gedit, whether they have ever used my editors of choice or not.

The "Standardization Path" leads to one point, in which nearly all code of a certain genre will perform the same functions in the same way, and looking similar while they do it. I feel this is a "bad thing".

Of course, some things are needing standardization. I feel file format standards are good (providing they don't limit programmers or functionality). I feel that filesystem heirarchy standards are good. I feel that standardized network protocols are good. I feel that user-interface standards are bad.

And as far as Linux (the kernel, folks) goes...
This always has been and is to this day Linus's project, and it is our "choice" to use it. A large userbase doesn't warrant changes and additions that are contradictory to what an artist wishes of his art.

Just my opinion, and sorry if this seemed to ramble a bit. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If choice is such an issue, then create an installer that gives the user the choice of standard installed packages (0ffice, web browser, IM's, email, etc.) after DE and OS install. Double click an icon, get a list for each major section of programs normally included in a Linux Distribution; let the user decide which one's they want.

Have the community come up with accepted descriptions of these standards, then implement them and let the user decide.

That's what choice is all about.

Or if they don't want to decide, at the installer give them the choice of an install with one Office package, one browser, one email reader, etc...

Make it so that people who don't want to choose and people who want choices have an equal decision. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Standardization is necessary, but how do you do that? Linux users are happy the way things are, they can't care less about next week, much less 5 years from now, you see them in this forum, most are a bunch of yahoos, trolling and missing your point, arguing non-sensically about gnome vs kde. I don't know...i'm happy with Sarge and icewm, can't see you wasting your time, trying to illuminate the unwashed masses. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A good idea or not, it was shot down without even being understood. I learned to never try. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >If choice is such an issue, then create an installer that >gives the user the choice of standard installed packages >(0ffice, web browser, IM's, email, etc.) after DE and OS >install. Double click an icon, get a list for each major >section of programs normally included in a Linux >Distribution; let the user decide which one's they want.

--snip--

>Or if they don't want to decide, at the installer give them >the choice of an install with one Office package, one >browser, one email reader, etc...

of the distros I've tried, SuSE & Slackware both do this during the install process.. Slackware's isn't graphical an arguably requires more knowledge & experience... SuSE 8.2 & 9.2 (haven't tried earlier) use YaST during the install & after installed, which is graphical (uses QT iirc) or nongraphical (curses iirc). Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Some of the "user friendly" commercial distros are narrowing the choice of installable softtware already, and making sane defaults for the users that dont know what or dont want to choose.

This is perfectly ok.

On the other side, the author wishes to mandate choice reduction to _all_ remaining distros, the whole Free Software / Linux community. I dont see a point in his article because there already are not few distros that do exactly what he proposes, and have success with that, within their target audience.

How I understand the author, he seems to think that the other distributions, who exercise their Free Software right to make choice available, encumber the few commercial ones to represent the term "Linux" as a stremlined, polished commercial product which could compete the products Windows and OS X.

The author is sorry that those uncommercial Distros even can be connected to the, in his view, trademark "Linux", and represent it in a anarchistic way, that in no way can compete with the more professional offerings by Microsoft and Apple.

What he would like to see is to forbid all them to use the well established name "Linux", and to reserve the usage of this name to the Distros more competitive in the end user desktop market.

He talks about "removing choice" but means removing/hiding the confusion (in form of all the anticommercial community distros) from Joe User about what "Linux" is. You just cant sell Joe User the products Lycoris, Linspire or Xandros when there are Debian, Crux or Slack who also dare to call themselves a "Linux", and I think that is what in fact the autor is against. Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? (in form of all the anticommercial community distros)

Non-commercial != anti-commercial.

Nice summary though. Sat, 18 Sep 2004 01:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? 1. Go to www.gnu.org and read about the GNU project and GNU/Linux operating system. And you will see that GNU/Linux is standardized. You simply can't compare GNU/Linux distros with MS Windows. GNU/Linux distros are GNU/Linux variants which is possible and normal because GNU/Linux is an open source project. You don't have Windows variants because MS Windows is a propriatary and closed source project. If MS Windows was open sourced you would see as many clones and variants as in GNU/Linux world.

2. Yes, GNU/Linux distributions don't have a standard 'dummy' installation. So when you choose a 'dummy' installation you get what you deserved. Or better, 'what you give is what you get'. See my nick: wygiwig. Most of GNU/Linux distributions give you an option during installation process to choose or not to choose particular application. So, if you don't kick your ass and spend a couple of minutes on choosing what you really want you can end with two or three browsers, two or three IRC clients etc. in your default setup.

3. Yes, on application level GNU/Linux distros and MS Windows are like apples and bananas. What do you get when you buy, for example, MS Windows XP? A kernel, shell/gui layer, a vulnerable browser, a vulnerable email client, a crippled cd-burner, a cd and movie player, and some outdated card games. And you blame GNU/Linux distros because they treat you less dumb then you are. And they give you some choices, because they know that you might have been lazy (or ignorant) not to make these choices yourself (during install procedure).

4. MS Windows doesn't give you any choices, and you proclaime it better than GNU/Linux distributions which give you more than one choice. And the lack of choices you call 'a standard'.

5. Although Microsoft Windows is closed source and proprietary, and full variants are not possible on kernel level, there are many variants of Windows on gui level. So called shell replacements. Litestep, Geoshell, Talisman and many, many others. Actualy, there are more shell replacements for Windows than window managers for GNU/Linux. So where is your standard?

6. As far as I know GNU/Linux distributions defaults only on two most advanced desktop environments, either KDE or Gnome. And you suggest that one of them should be removed in the name of standards. No way. Both of them are standard, because they follow the standard paradigm how the modern GUI should behave and operate. Both of them have start menu, taskbar, desktop, icons, file managers, etc. Some minor things are different but not so different that a n user with a little experience wouldn't be able to manage his/her tasks in both environments easily.

7. You mentioned in your article that your primary operating system is Windows XP. But mostly all applications you use on Windows come from GNU/Linux world (OpenOffice, Firefox/Mozilla, etc.). You are preaching about what standard GNU/Linux applications should appear in every GNU/Linux default setup, you blame them for a lack of standard setup, and at the same time you don't use the standard Windows setup which comes with Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and other crap.

8. Let's see. I have Windows XP on my machine and I want to
find an image manipulation program. Ooops, there isn't one in the rogram menu. Ok, let's buy or download a free one. But which one is standard? There are trillions of image manipulation programs when I google on them. Let's try another one. IRC client. Ooops, there isn't one. Again. I google. There are billions of IRC clients on the internet. But which one is standard? Is it Mirc, is it Kvirc, is it...? So many music players, so many text editors, so many browsers, so many email clients for windows... Which ones are standard? I am lost

Yours,

wygiwyg (what you give is what you get) Sat, 18 Sep 2004 06:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I remember reading a while back about how having too many choices in a grocery store can actually decrease sales. I can't find that particular article, but here is a similar one.

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/mktg_consumerchoice.shtml

Since we are talking about choice in general, I think it would be helpful to consider actual market research. Sat, 18 Sep 2004 08:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The choice of what software to use on my own machine affects one person: me. And that person is in complete control of that choice.

The choice whether or not to adhere to standards when publishing web sites affects anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions of people, depending on the popularity of the website. Depending on the nature of it, it may be a vitally important part of someone's life. Yet that choice is in the control of only one person or organisation: the one who provides the web site.

This is why choice in one case is good, and "choice" in the other case is bad.

Was that simply enough put? Sat, 18 Sep 2004 15:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You said that the same people for choice supports monolithic standards. Yes we do, we support standards so that you can have a choice as to what program you use to access the information. Like instant messaging you can have any application you like and you know that it will work perfectly talking to someone else using a different one because the standard jabber protocol is in place. Take mp3's for instance they are the de facto standard for digital music (at least for now) It is for all intents and purposes a standard file format. I can play my mp3's with: amaroK, Juk, XMMS, Kaboodle, xine, gmplayer, iTunes, winamp, windows media player, my iPod, my mp3 cd players, and even my dvd player. That is just what i personally use in my own home. You see amaroK is not a drop in replacement for xmms they do the same thing at a very simple level "they play music" but the way in which they do this and the method in which they do this is completely different. If you have 40 mp3's you are going to use xmms no problem it is lighter weight and you can say you like how it looks. If you have 14,000 mp3' you might want to check out amaroK or Juk. I like the endless features with amaroK but can see how someone would prefer the cleaner simpler interface of juk. Open source is about those programs that do the same things working together even sharing code to reach their goals but to not be the same program offering the same thing. Sat, 18 Sep 2004 19:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Standards are important. What would the world be like if we
>didn't standardize lights on a car? What would the world be
>like if we didn't decide that green means go and red means
>stop? What would our civilization be if we didn't decide
>what's a G and what's a T? Standards are what organizes the
>world around you.

As usuall you are uncorrect and comparing apples to pears.
Light on a car are a function wich can be found on any car just like a mouse cursor but have you ever tried to put a Renault lamp in a Volvo light? It does not work...

Linux uses a lot of standards like TCP/IP/NFS/POSSIX/KERBEROS/SMTP/SNMP/POP etc.
Is companies like MS that are actually fighting standards, why do they not give the SMB protocol free so we can on build on it??

ps. Why are you involved in SkyOS translation if you think we need just one standard. Stick to Windows and be happy. Sat, 18 Sep 2004 21:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The first 50 posts was utterly confused, so I'll assume the other 70 is that too.

It all breaks down to language. We just talk past eachother because ther are so many overloaded words in the Linux world.

Just take "Linux" it can mean just about anything from kernel source code to integrated and deployed system.

Choice... in general choice is good but there should be layers. Just like any good software system provides a general api for the lower layers. The problem seems to be that the market hasn't found its layers yet.

Many distributions just collect a bunch of software alternatives and ship it with some tools to deply chosen software. This is a great product to buy IF you are a company trying to sell computer systems.

Problem arises when the distributors market their product as a consumer product. It is not.

An analogy in hardware would be if a distributor collected a bunch of chips and shipped that with their pcb and soldering tools. It's just not aimed at end-users.

To remove choice, by law or any other means, is just foolish. To have a sensible chain of decision makeres between the raw material and the end-user would be good. Sun, 19 Sep 2004 03:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The article wasn't about whether choice is good or not. It was an hypothesis on what Linux would need in order to kill MS Windows, from the authors perspective.

Indeed, Linux lacks an uniform look and some functionality, this is bad. But it lacks proper documentation. Sure, existing Linux user-base deals with it nicely. But what about new users? Many times man pages are contradictory, saying stuff is in /etc, or /usr/local/etc, or /opt/appname/etc ... Linux already has most of the things the author suggests, but many large distros are yet to implement it correctly.

And some kind of package that makes installation easy would be good. This would mean a standard build environment, and a standard set of tools and libraries -- perhaps in a FreeBSD fashion, so that they won't conflict with your compiler/linker/make of choice. And then a standard package, which probably would include precompiled code and some kernel dependant source to be compiled. And make all distros compatible with such standard.

Distro installation should be made easier also. It involves too many hardware-oriented questions that are nontrivial. At least it's getting better, pretty much reducing it to "do you have any SCSI stuff?" or so.

Notice that choice would not be lost, and nobody would get hurt by all that, au contraire: many people who has the itch for trying Linux would get to scratch it off, and existing users will survive and move on. Using any unix-based system will never be easy. But Linux should also be feasible for the not-so-geeks -- the so-called "power users", then you have more people, more money, and then industry won't deny the importance of Linux and will support it.

Also notice that Linux will never really kill Windows. The later shall always exist, for the sake of choice, and for the users who don't want to learn -- or those who like it, learn it and choose it. Sun, 19 Sep 2004 05:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? hanky wrote: "But we still have a lot of choice when compiling the kernel, between file systems, schedulers, firewalls etc. "

Exactly! Wasn't the article about what has to be changed before Linux got generally adopted by the rest of the world (not us unix geeks, techs, sysadmins, developers etc.) Most people don't even know what compiling is, they don't want to know and thus will never learn. Heck, ask 100 people on the street what a OS kernel is and see how many answers correctly. Leno should ask that one on Jay Walk;)

Also some people argue "Don't like it, don't use it". I think that's what most people do and that's also part of the authors point. Most ordinary people wouldn't like Linux because of the problems mentioned in the article. And they wouldn't use it. Perhaps they would use Mac OS X which shows the potential of UN*X as an OS for ordinary users.

I agree with the article. If Linux are going to make a big break on the desktop things are going to change. It doesn't mean we can't keep our own favorite distributions (Slackware!!!) but there has to be a standard Linux (or a couple of them:). It's probably up to IBM, Red Hat, Novell to make that work. Then perhaps Linux can be an alternative for more people. Sun, 19 Sep 2004 12:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The writer makes many good points, but I think in some respects he confuses lack of choice with orderliness. It's not necessary to remove choice to bring more order to the "Linux" experience. My preference is to provide maximum choice—an important hallmark of the open source movement, after all—while offering this choice within a context of order. Choice is not some fluff that confuses things. Chaos is the necessary ground of creativity. Evolution requires that experiments are possible. And new experiments add new choices. Once upon a time, Linux was an annoying choice ("Why can't we just stay with UNIX? Or DOS?!"). In the meantime, pick whatever you like and stay with it. No one is pointing a gun to your head and asking you to switch among four word processors and six email clients, etc. There seems to be defacto favorites now in any event (e.g. OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, etc.).

Now STANDARDS: that's what the Linux world really needs. Users should be able to try any and all packages they want. However, those packages should be designed for total interoperability within each logical domain (e.g. all word processor file formats should be open and readable by all other word processors—the obvious exception here is that, in the real world, each will also have to deal with Microsoft's proprietary file formats—bleh!). That's where standards are valuable. Another "standard" related to "choice within a context of order" is for there to be a "Linux" standard for installing and removing programs, one with the ease and transparency of, say, a Mac. Although there are pros and cons for the many current ways of doing this, it's a tower of Babel that does nothing to advance the spread of FOSS. There should also be standard directory structures, a standard networking user interface, standard approaches to handling printers, etc. Maybe it's still too early, and developers need the leeway to move toward a best of breed. But if that doesn't happen soon, Linux's big chance at popular acceptance may be squandered.

A word about GUIs. To each their own taste. I subscribe to no particular religion. But there needs to be a way for any program to run easily and smoothly under any GUI. I don't know how that gets resolved, but basically it seems that either each developer of an application has to create version for each GUI; or one GUI "wins" and the developers have only one GUI to code for. Right now it's a bit of a nightmare all around.

For all that we have problems with the Microsoft monopoly, their de-facto standardization is a major reason for the spectacular growth of the personal computer. Unfortunately, the "standards" imposed by Microsoft were of the wrong kind (i.e. designed for lock-in; they standardized on one model of automobile rather than standardizing on gasoline, usable by any auto). The FOSS community has an opportunity to create better standards, ones which benefit users rather than monopoly capitalists while allowing for the creativity that advances human civilization. Sun, 19 Sep 2004 16:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Indeed, Linux lacks an uniform look and some functionality, this is bad. But it lacks proper documentation. Sure, existing Linux user-base deals with it nicely. But what about new users? Many times man pages are contradictory, saying stuff is in /etc, or /usr/local/etc, or /opt/appname/etc ... Linux already has most of the things the author suggests, but many large distros are yet to implement it correctly.

Do you know any project or platform which tries to target this problem (and only this problem)? Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Most distros have sane default installations; there may be some redundancy with KDE-based distros also including Mozilla, but I'm sure people can handle that. Anyway, when we follow Adam's proposal, and remove all redundancy - all choice - from a distro, what will we gain? Nothing at all, IMO. Eighter most distros will use the same choices, thus creating a monopoly of say KDE over Gnome, or every distro looks and works different from the other. You must be very zynical to say "Fedora users who want KDE should download and install it themself". And there is something you cannot ignore: sometimes you need more than one program of a kind to fullfill all your tasks. For example, OOo writer is probably the most advanced text processor, in my experience the one which opens most MSWord documents correctly. On the other hand, Abiword is about the only one to open WordPerfect files. Since I've used WordPerfect for many years before switching to Linux, beeing able to open WP matters to me. So while every distro should make sure it's default installation is sane, perfectly useable and well-documented, it should not pretend to perfectly know it's users' needs and cut all choices. It doesn't hurt to have the other program on the CD, too! Mon, 20 Sep 2004 06:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Now vote me dictator for life, I mean, why should you have choice?

----
Are you sure you aren't the Matrix's Architect? Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The article is correct, but worded a bit poorly.

I am new to Linux, and I have tried MANY distros (about 20). My opinion of most of the most common distros are that they are all really about the same. They all have KDE *AND* GNOME *AND* xfce, several browsers, several editors, on and on.

This is too much. Which ones do I select? I tried to install and deselect some of the mail clients and other redundant options, but it broke the distro.

I don't want 7 email clients, I dont want Links and Lynks and Mozilla and Firefox and Opera and Konquer. I'm not looking to "explore" my options by being drowned by them. Besides, most distros do a poor job at laying out a distro in a newbie fassion. No, Mandrake sucked, Suse is SO much worse.

I want to get my work done. Not try to figure out which program to use, where it is, and how to configure it. Wed, 22 Sep 2004 23:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you don't want to choose fine, get someone to choose for you. Just don't mess with my own choices. Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The Linux Kernel itself is better off the way it is.

Now, Desktop Linux, that could be a standard worth working for. Too many people gripe about what should do what in a desktop distro, etc.

But the Kernel? Nah, leave it as is. Thu, 23 Sep 2004 01:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Horrible to get these issues confused. A standard says: "there's one way to do X because without a single way of doing X, the benefits of system Y would be useless or unavailable to most users and/or developers." A lack of choice says: "There's only one way to do X... just cause."

So, yes, HTML, CSS, these are standards. Are they suboptimal? Maybe. But if there were 65 different markup languages/style sheet specifications out there, the web would be useless. So a standard was necessary necessary.

That's why good standards tend to last a long time. Other ones tend to get phased out. For example, HTML is a standard, but XHTML (some might argue) is a better standard, which is phasing HTML out (in the long term).

ASCII was a standard for a long time. UTF-8/Unicode is now considered a better standard, and is phasing ASCII out.

There's no paradox in saying, "I want to have the choice to use emacs, vim, or gedit, but I also want there to be only one encoding for text files so that I can send those files to my friends or cut and paste their content into other programs." Again, if there were no text encoding standard, then computer systems as a whole would more or less break down as there would be no application interoperability.

So please be clear on these definitions! I don't think UNIX developers want to "have it both ways." I think they are being completely sane about this. We want choice in applications, but standards among them. Thu, 23 Sep 2004 01:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok having many choices leaves many people confused, and this could lead to less people going over to linux..

BUT, still I see Gentoo, a linux distribution that is all about the choice, and would make any one confused.. And its growing more and more popular!!
And I always hear that people starting using gentoo..

So choice made it more popular... Thu, 23 Sep 2004 18:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you are old enough to use a text editor instead of a word-processor, then you are old enough to find the text editor that suits you... Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hitler or Stalin could have perfectly signed this article.

choice is life. Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The author refers to "choice" in several distinct ways:

A) The power to use different, separate pieces of software to create a single system.

B) The power to determine how software will interact with other software.

I think the paradox is resolved if we do with this "choice/choice" debate what we've all done with the "free as in beer/as in speech" one.

If we think of standards as language, then the pieces of software we choose are our vocabulary. Some people use very specific, powerful, hard-to-pronounce words. Others use shorter, less-nuanced words. Many people just swear up a storm. But everyone uses different levels depending on the context; and so having the choice available is a good thing.

Adhering to standards is like adhering to a language: it's an okay trade-off for the expressive power it gives us. Were everyone to make their own language, there would only be unintelligibility.

So yes, there is a slight paradox: we adhere to standards in order to preserve effective choice. Okay--duh. Just as we accept the principle of government in order to preserve an effective (and not just ideal and impractical) form of freedom. Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments