Linked by tessmonsta on Tue 16th Mar 2010 08:55 UTC
Today's mobile space is owned by the likes of Nokia, RIM, Apple, and Google. While some of these corporations have embraced some open source components, a full FLOSS solution has yet to gain traction. Why? Blogger Bradley M. Kuhn posts thoughtful analysis of the current state of Open Source in the mobile space.
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Member since:2007-02-17
Android is doing so well compared to other FLOSS*- initiatives because Google took a cathedral approach and unilaterally decided on one API, mostly one user interface, and one bytecode to rule them all. The result is that Android is consistent and easy to use. A typical bazaar approach would give us 5 widget toolkit, 10 selectable 'surface managers', and at least as many ways to get and install software. Of course, this is totally uninteresting to the phone user that just wants to make phone calls, surf the web, and do occasional Twittering.
Open source systems can be viable, but they need to be rolled out in a controlled fashion. Or you will end up with the mess that is the Linux desktop (No, I can really not explain to family/friends/whatever that their sound stopped working because someone decided to rewrite the sound server.).
Open source systems can be viable, but they need to be rolled out in a controlled fashion. Or you will end up with the mess that is the Linux desktop (No, I can really not explain to family/friends/whatever that their sound stopped working because someone decided to rewrite the sound server.).
Your mistake here is in thinking that "open source" is one product. It isn't. "Open source" is a vast array of software covering multiple things.
You need to compare Android to say Meego and to the iPhone OS. You need to compare an OSX or Windows 7 desktop to a Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSuse desktop ... one at a time. Mandriva does not have "5 widget toolkits, 10 selectable 'surface managers', and at least as many ways to get and install software", it has just one of each. So too does Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Debian and OpenSuse ... each one has just one widget toolkit, one 'surface manager', and one way to get and install software.
When you have wrapped your head around that, then come back with a real comment. Until then, you are sprouting nonsense.
Edited 2010-03-17 00:38 UTC
Member since:2007-12-10
One of each?
My Ubuntu system at work has:
apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, Software Center, and dpkg (if you feel like counting the low-level stuff too). At least 3 of these are there by default (I think aptitude is as well, not sure about synaptic).
Also, since I have installed amarok on it, it also contains Qt, Gtk, and also the default X athena widgets. Even without amarok it has 2 widget toolkits.
It also contains 2 window managers by default (more if you want them), Gnome and TWM.
So I'm not sure why you were brow-beating your parent poster; he was using a slight hyperbole, but his point is vastly more correct than yours.
Member since:2005-11-18
When you have wrapped your head around that, then come back with a real comment. Until then, you are sprouting nonsense.
Well, except that (big fallacy follows) I was a co-developer for a commercial distribution, and know how much support load this multitude of options caused. And then we were even recommending users to restrict their use to our blessed environment. It is a real problem, and Linux (except for very restricted environments such as Android) is losing users because of this. Ask the man in the street who one tried Linux
. Edited 2010-03-17 16:29 UTC
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Member since:
2005-11-18
Correct. There is plenty of innovation, especially if you consider that a fair share of academic CS work is made available as open source software.
The departments where open source software is clearly lacking is: usability, polish, uniformity, and marketing. The first three can make a random daily task of, say a Windows or OS X user, a hell on the average Linux desktop.
Android is doing so well compared to other FLOSS*- initiatives because Google took a cathedral approach and unilaterally decided on one API, mostly one user interface, and one bytecode to rule them all. The result is that Android is consistent and easy to use. A typical bazaar approach would give us 5 widget toolkit, 10 selectable 'surface managers', and at least as many ways to get and install software. Of course, this is totally uninteresting to the phone user that just wants to make phone calls, surf the web, and do occasional Twittering.
Open source systems can be viable, but they need to be rolled out in a controlled fashion. Or you will end up with the mess that is the Linux desktop (No, I can really not explain to family/friends/whatever that their sound stopped working because someone decided to rewrite the sound server.).
I used to be a big proponent of Linux on the desktop, but these days I just advise people to buy OS X if they want a usable UNIX desktop. Yes, it's evil, unethical, etc. But most friends rather care about doing their work and managing their holiday photos than to be pulled into philosophical discussion about why information should be free, and live with a broken system. That's how the world works, and Google understands it.