Miguel de Icaza: "To sum up: (a) First dimension: things change too quickly, breaking both open source and proprietary software alike; (b) incompatibility across Linux distributions. This killed the ecosystem for third party developers trying to target Linux on the desktop. You would try once, do your best effort to support the 'top' distro or if you were feeling generous 'the top three' distros. Only to find out that your software no longer worked six months later. Supporting Linux on the desktop became a burden for independent developers." Mac OS X came along to scoop up the Linux defectors.
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Member since:2007-12-15
Linux is a kernel, making Android as much Linux as is Ubuntu.
So, yeah, Linux is pretty much alive on both Desktop (never been better numbers-wise), Servers, Tablets, Phones etc.
Don't know why this article is linked on OSnews. It is painfully obvious that the writer fell in love (his words) with iPhone and OSX and is now making the, well known argument "I'm switching to [whatever], therefore everyone ("many hackers") is doing it" and this article is just him rationalizing it to himself.
Getting emotional about software and his iPhone aside, I disagree with him on his main point that "compatibility across Linux distributions" is a problem. It is the package maintainer's task to make sure that the software is well implemented in the distro's environment, not developers'
What he probably meant to say was that non-FOSSoftware is a hassle to maintain. Well, I will agree with that, but this opens an entirely different. more then a decade old, can of worms called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
Oh, and I would like him to explain to me, what exactly is a "third party developer" in an OSS ecosystem?
Member since:2005-09-01
(edit) It didn't contradict you, maintaining 3rd party sw products is not commercially sustainable in OSS systems.
Besides, the whole approach lenient to compatibility breakage of individual projects creates a complex set of hard dependencies that are not manageable even to dedicated system integrators (distro makers) resulting in all kinds of update headaches. While every component might be technically of good quality, the composition of them is failing constantly.
Edited 2012-08-30 10:07 UTC
Member since:2006-05-23
Re the desktop ceasing to exist, I think it would be better to say that the desktop may cease to exist as a separate device.
Some things are much more easily done on a desktop. Coding, writing, image editing... Smart phones can do these things now, but don't have the right display and input mechanisms for it.
My suspicion is that, in 10 years or so, a "desktop" will be a combined monitor, keyboard, and I/O hub that you plug your phone into. IOW then-current desktops will not be separate devices for most people, because smart phones will be powerful enough to do everything a modern desktop can; but the role of the desktop will still be there, because there simply isn't a better way to do a lot of things.
Member since:2007-11-11
Not gonna happen, and here is why: mobile chips are naturally designed for battery life above all and even the latest and greatest has MUCH worse IPC than even a 6 year old C2D much less the new AMD and Intel multicore monsters.
Can we put that "Tablets are killing the desktop!" meme to bed already? I've been selling systems since 1993, right down in the trenches, and what I'm seeing is the exact opposite in that there are more x86 systems than ever and THAT is why sales are down, not because anything is replacing anything. What jobs do your average user have that a Phenom I X4 or C2Q can't do with cycles left over? None, that's what. Heck I'm gaming on a 3 year old Phenom II X6 and my youngest took my Phenom II X4 has a "hand me down" and both sit there twiddling their thumbs while playing the latest games!
The simple fact is in their "war of the cores" both AMD and Intel leapfrogged right past good enough and went even past insanely overpowered and right to ludicrous speed! People are buying tablets and smartphones because in the case of the tablets they are filling a niche, the "check my email while plopped on the couch" niche while the smartphones are having their own MHz war and as such the phone you bought last year won't run the latest this year.
Desktops aren't going anywhere, they are simply a mature market. Since ARM is already talking about "dark silicon" where the chip will have more transistors than the battery can feed give it 3 years and you'll see the same thing happen with mobile, then like desktops folks won't replace them until they die.
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Member since:
2005-11-10
And whilst everybody continues to argue about Linux and application support, millions and millions of iPads (and soon Google tablets) are being sold and users are getting their stuff done on all new apps that only exist on mobile platforms.
By the time Linux catches up to the desktop of now, the desktop won't exist any more, and the next gen of apps that consumers require won't be on Linux either.
Making Linux for the average user should be dropped immediately and a single, unified, concerted effort should be put into a single, unified mobile platform.