Submitted by With the imminent release of Windows Vista to consumers this month, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, has claimed Microsoft’s latest desktop effort is over-hyped and not a revolutionary advancement. “I don’t actually think that something like Vista will change how people work that much,” Torvalds told Computerworld. “I think it, to some degree, has been over-hyped as being something completely new and I don’t actually think it is.”
True words, Vista got to much hype lately.
Its interesting that such poor designed OS can have such hype.
What MS have done fot that long 5 years? Aero?
I will only quote one of osnews.com members:
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16937&comment_id=201331
And where exactly do you get that it is so poorly designed?
Have you even used it?
Vista is mostly new. The whole network stack is new, the presentation layer is completely new, lots of new UI elements (it’s not just about Glass, the UI has changed quite significantly in many many aspects.
And you know, for the first time ever, my Windows experience has actually gotten better over time rather than worse (and I am just talking about the final build here). In previous versions of Windows, performance would get worse and worse, things would start crashing more and more often, and things would become more and more quirky.
My experience with Vista has been exactly the opposite.
Another way to tell that Microsoft actually did a pretty good job with Vista (not saying it’s perfect, at all), is that the people on MacBreak Weekly actually started to talk about Vista and they all had stuff that they liked about it. These guys are die-hard Apple fanactics and they were actually praising Windows (which they have a tendancy to trash on a regular basis).
sorry, but what is so innovative and so new that took ms 5 years to develop, with a budget like of NASA (according to them)?
kwanbis says…
sorry, but what is so innovative and so new that took ms 5 years to develop, with a budget like of NASA (according to them)?
Let see…
* Re-write of the networking parts. => Check.
* Improve security (with help from NSA) => Check.
* Unnecessary eye-candy to make it LOOK new => Check.
* Implement DRM infrastructure. => Check.
Here’s two interesting articles about the DRM implementation in Vista.
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Output Content Protection and Windows Vista
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx
(Doc is on the right-hand side)
*sarcasm*
Sounds wonderful! I can’t wait to buy it!
*sarcasm*
* Improve security (with help from NSA) => Check.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux
Linux has been doing this for years so I guess that makes Linux the innovater. Not only that, but Windows *still* has 0 forms of Mandatory Access Control like Linux, FreeBSD, and now Mac OS X (SEDarwin is being integrated into OS X proper)…
If you are comparing Windows XP vs Windows Vista, there is a TON of innovation. If you compare Vista vs the world, it isn’t all that innovative. Not only that, but a brand spanking new TCP/IP stack kind of worries me as it hasn’t had years of testing and security fixes like the one in XP has.
I am sorry, did I not put that in my post… oh wait, yes I did.
It has taken five years for Microsoft to fumble out a new release, with mostly copied ideas.
And Yet… Some hobby coders have written a whole OS in this time – Haiku.
And Still… Robert has worked damn hard full-time, and got a fairly impressive beta in SkyOS.
And maybe… Firefox has encouraged an entire rethink of the Web in general (according to some).
And finally… Ubuntu has come from oblivion to become the most talked about Linux distro[sic]
I don’t think Microsoft has been working hard enough.
Haiku is a copied OS that was NOT developed by scratch (based off of the NewOS kernel, which has been in development longer).
SkyOS is nowhere near ready, or even somewhat mature.
How exactly has Firefox encouraged a rethink of the web? Yeah, Firefox is a decent browser, certainly no where near the best (though, the 3.0 alphas are promising, and take up much less RAM).
So you are saying that in 5 years Ubuntu got a good name for itself? Wow, what an accomplishment. Yes, I like Ubuntu, but it is just another distribution.
On top of that, who the hell cares how long it took to come out? That has nothing to do with anything.
Vista wasn’t developed from scratch either. Windows was from the very beginning an (more or less) illegal ripoff of Mac OS Classic.
SkyOS is more stable than Win9x, but is however rather mature. Stability is still an issue, but so is userfriendliness and performance in Windows.
FF managed to make designers follow standards and make users make their own decisions – IE managed to ruin the work on international standards, taking the freedom away from users, and creating a market for the phishing-gangsters (probably Microsoft’s sole original contribution to mankind).
Yes, I like Ubuntu, but it is just another distribution.
Yeah, and Vista is just another version – nothing new, nothing better, nothing good. Lie down boy and wash your face.
On top of that, who the hell cares how long it took to come out? That has nothing to do with anything.
It has a lot to say. Considering all the things Vista should have been, and how much it actually isn’t and how little it is, it’s embarrasing for Microsoft that they cannot do better. All that time for nothing. It’s funny though, that “Communist Hobby Coders” (according to your beloved Master) can do MUCH better than Microsoft. The lack of a properly controlled development process ought to make everybody think twice about buying Vista.
Please point me where hobby OS coders have done better.
And please, while early versions of Windows were based off of an early copy of the Mac, they were actually nothing alike. NT is also definately not a copy of MacOS Classic… heck, Classic MacOS (including OS9) was right around Win 3.11 as far as technology goes. But again, why are we even debating this? It has nothing to do with what Vista is.
So you are saying that Microsoft and IE is the cause of phishing? Are you kidding me? You think that FF is magically secure from phishing? If you don’t know that phishing is a problem between the keyboard and the chair then you clearly no next to nothing about what you are talking about.
How is Vista nothing new? I point you back to my original post. There is very little in Vista that hasn’t been changed.
“Lie down boy and wash your face”? Are you kidding me?
I say that you haven’t even used Vista, nor do you know exactly how well Vista really works, you would be suprised, heck, I am suprised even by the final build compared to RC2.
Vista is missing ONE piece of promised technology, and that is WinFS, which, I would like to point out, was replaced by a true indexer and desktop search. Not a great replacement for what WinFS is, but still great to have that desktop search finally built into the OS.
Please point me where hobby OS coders have done better.
Linus Torvalds: “Hello everybody out there using Minix. I’ve started work on a new operating system…just a hobby, won’t be big or professional like GNU…”
And yet it crashes less than Windows98 and has better security than Vista.
And please, while early versions of Windows were based off of an early copy of the Mac, they were actually nothing alike.
Yeah, cos Apple was thumping the world and his dog with look-and-feel lawsuits.
NT is also definately not a copy of MacOS Classic…
No, it’s a copy of VMS.
How is Vista nothing new? I point you back to my original post. There is very little in Vista that hasn’t been changed.
There is also very little in Vista that isn’t a half-assed copy of a feature somebody else has been implementing properly for years.
Vista is missing ONE piece of promised technology, and that is WinFS, which, I would like to point out, was replaced by a true indexer and desktop search. Not a great replacement for what WinFS is, but still great to have that desktop search finally built into the OS.
What about PowerShower, er -Shell? And that’s without looking.
The only people interested in Vista are:
(a) OEM’s who will soon have no choice but to install Vista or risk losing their Windows “franchise” altogether.
(b) That proportion of Windows users who read sites like this, which is vanishingly small compared to both the number of Windows users in general and the number of non-Windows users who read them in particular.
You keep making these claims yet you don’t substantiate ANY of them.
Pleae point out how Linux is “more secure” than Vista, and how you came to such an early conclusion.
Again, what Vista feature is “half-assed”?
Also, what is wrong with copying a good idea?
Every company does this, no more or no less than Microsoft does.
Powershell is alive and well is has been released.
Pleae point out how Linux is “more secure” than Vista, and how you came to such an early conclusion.
What I said was that Linux has historically been more secure than Windows. Nevertheless (and this is where the half-assed bit comes in, too), if UAC proves to be such a pain that people turn it off, it won’t do Windows security much good, will it? Added to the fact that the only “authorisation” it asks for when a new program is confirmation, yes or no, and NOT a password. Ergo any chump can come up to the computer, click on a dangerous icon or download a dangerous program, and click “Yes.” Not as in “Yes, it’s safe to install this program because I’m an authorised user and I know what I’m doing;” just “Yes, install away, I could be anybody”.
Also, what is wrong with copying a good idea?
When Microsoft attempt to copy an idea (good or otherwise), they would have you believe that not only did they come up with it, but they also implemented it properly.
Ha.
Powershell is alive and well is has been released.
Link?
Whoops! I did say Linux has better security than Vista – for the reasons I outlined in the above post.
It only asks for a yes or no because default user is a pseudo admin, as a standard user it does prompt you for a password.
Also, you call NT a copy of VMS… well no crap, the guy who designed VMS designed NT. It’s not really copying when the same guy wrote both.
[link]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/…]
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/…
It only asks for a yes or no because default user is a pseudo admin, as a standard user it does prompt you for a password.
And you think that people who couldn’t be bothered to set up XP so that it is secure are going to set themselves up as a “standard user” instead of the “pseudo admin” (whatever that means) because?
As for the Windows NT/VMS angle, I’ve just spent 10 minutes looking it up and I can’t find where I saw that it says that. However, I shall keep looking.
Assuming its true, however, considering VMS’s high reputation for security and the reputation of Microsoft for the same, I suppose it just goes to show that when MS do something, they do it half-assed.
The first user has to have admin privelages, you can’t get around that.
This is true on Linux as well, why hold the two OSes to different standards?
Also, the biggest reason for not running as a standard user in XP is because most apps won’t run in standard user as they (for whatever stupid reason) write to protected parts of the registry and/or inside of the program files folder. UAC helps with these apps by intercepting these types of calls and writing the needed information to a special file, as well as protects the user from malicious apps.
As far as NT/VMS (which, again has nothing to do with Vista, but since you are looking), check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler_%28software_engineer~*…
The first user has to have admin privelages, you can’t get around that.
This is true on Linux as well, why hold the two OSes to different standards?
Your use of terms is unclear: The “first user”on Linux is always root – but people customarily log in as someone else, then su/sudo to root when necessarily (and you have been able to do this graphically for about 3 years). The “someone else” typically has no special privileges at all – some distros include a “wheel group”, but all that does is include you in a list of users who CAN log in as root, which still requires a password. Anyone not in the wheel group (on those distros) can’t log in as root at all. As for intercepting “dumb” applications, that will help, but given the rest of the implementation, probably not by much.
Thanks for the link.
That’s just it, most Linux users know to create a lesser privelaged user, most Windows uers do not, which is why Micrsoft went this route.
But, as I said, once in an actual standard user account you no longer get the yes or no dialogs (or even the “secure desktop”, you get prompted for a user name and password.
Windows has supported rights elevation for a long time, it has just become more prevelant, and easier to use for your average user.
Please tell me, again, what is wrong with the implementation. You do a task that requires rights elevation, you get prompted for a password.
That’s just it, most Linux users know to create a lesser privelaged user, most Windows uers do not, which is why Micrsoft went this route.
You don’t need to know how to create an unprivileged user – it’s done by default. Except on Lindows.
But, as I said, once in an actual standard user account you no longer get the yes or no dialogs (or even the “secure desktop”, you get prompted for a user name and password.
If a “standard user” account is not a “[/i]default[/i] user” account, and if most users don’t know how to change from one to the other, then that’s irrelevant.
Besides, if privileged operations DO require a password, then what’s with this “Click yes or no” business? If I try to (say) change the desktop background, could that be possibly because, gee, I wanted to change the desktop background? If so, what’s the point of another dialogue asking if I REALLY want to change it.
Please tell me, again, what is wrong with the implementation. You do a task that requires rights elevation, you get prompted for a password.
You make it sound as if the default account [/i]includes[/i] “rights elevation”; this is wrong. The default account should not include rights elevation
It needs to include that for the reasons stated above.
It remains to be seen how the OEMs will set up these systems. Will they make an admin account and a standard user account for the buyer? Who knows.
Now, I was part of the Vista beta and filed suggestions and left several messages on the newsgroups about why setup should create a standard user instead of what they are doing, but for whatever reason they decided to not go that route (probably for perceived user friendliness).
Almost a decade in development, including a complete restart, and system requirements that’s 10 times higher than what you would have using GNU/Linux with the same functionality (incl. 3D hardware acceleration).
So it’s broken alright.
The fact you’re a MS-zealot doesn’t change that the least bit.
My Windows experience has become better through time, too, as Microsoft keeps copying the rest of us (e.g. Microsoft is a socalled “Fast Follower”). With Windows Mac OS X/Gnome 2 (aka Windows Vista) Microsoft has been hyping a system which is basically nothing but what everybody has had for about a decade.
Oh please. A decade? Try 5 years (half the time that you stated).
The fact that you call my an MS-zealot shows how biased you are. I make comments pointing out where people like you spread BS, about any subject.
Enough with the copying. Please show me how Vista is like OSX or Gnome. Oh yeah, desktop search, oh wait now, they’ve been doing that for quite some time. Oh then there is the desktop composition… well no, that definately wasn’t an Apple idea, nor is Apple’s nearly as powerful, and Gnome doesn’t do this stuff (as it shouldn’t, not it’s place to).
Perhaps then you are talking about the actual interface, then? Oh no, OSX and Aero are absolutely nothing alike. Gnome then? Well, no, the whole Gnome interface was originally a copy of KDE, which was/is based on the Explorer UI.
Linus has always has his head on straight and this time is no different. He’s right. Vista *has* been over-hyped (like any other Microsoft OS of course) and it is indeed nothing revolutionary — simply evolutionary, just like any other new version of an OS.
It won’t change how people work on it’s own. Even if it does eventually, it will be the result of third party software written for Vista which takes advantage of the new frameworks in it, and not directly because of Vista itself.
Edited 2007-01-19 17:02
Nice piece.
And I agree, I like the level headed responses he gave, he knows where he sits in the scheme of things and doesn’t , in this particular situation , comment out of his immediate field. That’s an admirale trait, many people in his position could have been easily pompous and scathing in their response. Good one Linus
Speaking of hype? Anyone ever heard of this little-known Linux distribution called Ubuntu?
Oh, and since it’s a new year we might as well hype that as the year of the Linux desktop for another year running.
I personally use Ubuntu by the way, but honestly people.
@Zetsurin – depends who is doing the hype: actual users, who have used the product (Ubuntu, we know how quickly people turn around once they realize they don’t know how to use Linux) or the company + writers + wannabe writers + reviewers (that get free laptop with free Vista and who know what else).
Exactly. It’s not Canonical hyping Ubuntu, it’s the users. Contrast this to Vista, which is plainly over-hyped by Microsoft…
I don’t think that Ubuntu is over-hyped, actually. It’s a pretty good distro, and it has that hard-to-define quality that makes it an attractive brand. All in all I think it’s a good thing for Linux, as it seems it has an easier time catching the attention of potential users than other distros…
So we are deciding where the goal post lie on hype now are we? Hype is hype no matter where it comes from. Any sane company will be marketing their products. I personally would touch a Microsoft product with a 10 foot pole but if they aren’t out there getting it known, then they don’t deserve to be in business in the first place.
OSX Tiger, Leopard (I am an OSX user as well by the way), Ubuntu are terms which I see in the Web 2.0 world a lot more than Vista actually. I class that as hype, particularly with respect to Linux: it’s bandied around as being the second coming for desktop users, which it isn’t yet.
Kinda like how OSX is overhyped?
“Kinda like how OSX is overhyped?”
Congratulations. You understood my point. Go back and re-read my message and notice how I already say OSX and Ubuntu are over-hyped??
Dang, I responded to myself. See my reply to the original comment for the response to your post.
There is a big difference between end users praising a piece of software and a company praising it.
A end user, generally speaking, has no vested interest in ‘praising’ an application, they aren’t paid by the company (generally speaking) and simply praising it because they have a good experience, and thus, want to tell everyone else about it.
Marketing departments have a direct vested interest in hyping a product – their livelihood depends on drumming up enthusiasm about a product, no matter how minor or stupid the particular enhancement it.
One is motivated by money, the other is motivated by genuine enthusiasm about a particular product.
With that being said, Windows Vista, for all its great features, still is a fundamentally flawed product – over the last month there has been articles outlining the fundamental structural issues pertaining to the interdependence within the Windows code base, and due to that interdependence, how all hell can break lose if there is a flaw found in an underlying foundation of the operating system.
No only must Microsoft fix problems, they must make a compatible and yet secure work around of a broken feature as to maintain compatibility with an old application whilst at the same time maintaining security – so effectively, you end up doubling the size of your code base overnight with the need to create duplicate versions of a single API call – one that is fixed, one that is broken by security issue fixed.
Its complexity, and it is coming back to bite them in the ass – compare that to GNOME 2.x for instance; when the move to break compatibility was made, one of the first moves was to ensure that the desktop was modular enough as to allow rapid progress without needing to massively break compatibility, and here we are, over 4 years past the first 2.x release, and compatibility has been maintained, advances are being pushed forward, and most importantly, the degree of compexity hasn’t reached Windows proportions whilst at the same time providing, what I consider, a superior user experience than what Microsoft has been able to achieve.
Its a pretty damn sad indictment when thousands of volunteers and part time hackers can work together to produce a framework and product which provides a superior end user experience on limited resources when compared to what the financial juggernaut that is Microsoft can do – heck, even compare it to Apple, and how much they invest, they’re able to push out feature rich applications and operating system in a shorter space of time than what Microsoft could.
Look at how much each company has spent on R&D, compare what has been achieved, and quite frankly, I don’t think Microsoft has gotten value for money when you compare all the variables which go to developing an operating system.
Its a pretty damn sad indictment when thousands of volunteers and part time hackers can work together to produce a framework and product which provides a superior end user experience on limited resources when compared to what the financial juggernaut that is Microsoft can do
Well, just look at what someone against government spending would tell you – that throwing money at a problem is not necessarily going to solve it.
Having said that, it IS a pretty sad indictment, I agree, but not because they have money. It’s because:
(a) For a technical user, using the OS day-to-day, Linux was already a better product than Windows98, and it just keeps getting better; (OSes should be made for both the non-technical and the technical users. Commodore (or probably more accurately the people at Amiga, Inc, which Commodore bought) understood this, despite the fact they don’t seem to have understood much else!
(b) In terms of stability and security, again, Linux was already way ahead of Windows98. And yet by that time Microsoft had nearly 20 years of experience in designing OS’s, including a flirtation with Unix and a new operating system based on one which bills itself as being even more secure than Unix. Indeed in the eighties, when stuff like VMS and LISP Machines and ITS was (sometimes just barely) still highly visible (in computing circles), Unix was considered to be a horrendously insecure system. And yet Windows has brought us to new lows. Ouch.
(c) Microsoft spends millions on telling users how very very very good and how oh so secure their software is – and generally speaking, the masses believe it. And unfortunately so, for whilst I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt insofar as some Microsofties might actually believe it, it’s a load of hooey. And yet here you have this other system, which almost everyone who uses it long-term, uses because they like it (not least because it’s stable and secure), and chest-thumping promoters of the system, like me, are in the minority.
It’s bonkers.
*You* may consider that positive word-of-mouth about Ubuntu is hype, but I don’t. I disagree that “hype is hype”, in fact I consider this to be a smiplistic way of looking at it. To me, hype comes mainly from concerted marketing efforts on the part of the company that sells the product. With Ubuntu, it is the users, who enjoy the product, that simply express their satisfaction with the product.
I haven’t seen anyone claim that Ubuntu is the second coming, by the way. I have seen a lot of people who enjoy it for what it is, as well as for what it isn’t (i.e. a Microsoft product).
If you can’t see the difference between the personal testimonials of people who enjoy Ubuntu and the multi-million marketing effort of MS in over-promoting Vista, then that’s your problem. Most reasonable people, on the other hand, understand the difference between word-of-mouth and ad campaigns – hence the conclusion that Vista is over-hyped, to which I agree.
Exactly. It’s not Canonical hyping Ubuntu, it’s the users. Contrast this to Vista, which is plainly over-hyped by Microsoft…
Nah nah nah. The media press over-hyped Vista just like they did with Sont’s PS3, Lindows and Ubuntu.
It’s not over-hype when a) it’s driven by users, and b) it’s true. Ubuntu really *is* one of the best Linux distros out there as far as “consumer-friendliness” is concerned.
Canonical doesn’t have the kind of money MS has for pushing its new products. And – in case you hadn’t noticed – getting convincing hype for crap products costs a lot of money…
I almost modded you up, but I didn’t in the end: Lindows? When was it over-hyped? I was around, and I can only remember that Lindows was something of a pariah almost for everybody.
Presumably the OP means Lindows is overhyped by the company that develops it.
Which it was probably was, even if just for a while.
It’s a good point to make. It’s not like Canonical is holding huge events to hype up the next version of Ubuntu. By and large, the hype for Ubuntu (and Ubuntu is very heavily hyped, deservedly or not) comes from entusiastic users.
You mean like those entusiastic PS3/XBOX-360 users?
Sure. Enthusiastic users aren’t necessarily well-informed, and they can be annoying, but if your product doesn’t have such users, that’s indicative of a problem. One of the biggest issues with Vista is how tepid the response has been in the press and online. There was a time when a Microsoft OS release was hailed with loud fanfare from the computing press (the reason for that being of course that fanfare sells magazines and Microsoft didn’t have any competitors for the press to fawn over). Now that Apple is offering some visible competition for the first time in many years, the response has been much more reserved and much more skeptical.
It’s a good point to make. It’s not like Canonical is holding huge events to hype up the next version of Ubuntu. By and large, the hype for Ubuntu (and Ubuntu is very heavily hyped, deservedly or not) comes from entusiastic users.
I disagree here: Promoting a product isn’t over-hyping it. every software maker (MSFT, Canonical, whatever) can promote their products as much as they see fit; the problem is how you promote it: MSFT has been promoting Vista as the Holy Grail of operating systems, while the reality shows that they’re (in some aspects) just getting on par with the competence. Of course, there _are_ new stuff in Vista, and besides UAC it’s mostly good stuff but, hey, we’ve been waiting Vista for five long years…
And yes, there are _a lot_ of people saying “Ubuntu this” and “Ubuntu that” without even trying it. The same happens with many Vista, OS X and any othe OS detractors. There’s (and always will be) a lot of poeple talking bullshit.
Speaking of hype? Anyone ever heard of this little-known Linux distribution called Ubuntu?
Do you really think Ubuntu is that hyped? I would agree if you confined your complaint to the Linux crowd but the average person has never even heard of Ubuntu. That’s not very good hype now is it? Everyone at this point has heard of Vista and a lot of people seem to believe it is going to change the way we use computers. Not so for Ubuntu.
I agree with abraxas… as an Ubuntu user meself.. when i go to school.. with my Ubuntu hoodie on..people ask me wtf is Ubuntu? So while it may be hyped in the linux world, outside of that i think it is still relatively unknown.
…if it weren’t for the DRM limitations it imposes on its users, and the rabid protection of a double-dipping scheme Microsoft has in mind for all drivers that run on Vista.
Not to mention double-dipping terminal services.
In general, Vista is the Windows that sucks less when it comes to general use, general feature set and the like. However, it definitely isn’t a “next generation operating system” as Microsoft has been seen billing it. In general it’s just the interface quality that sets it apart from any previous release of Windows and that’s hardly worth any additional money.
Saying that Vista is the best version of Windows ever is a bit like saying Biodome was Pauly Shore’s best movie.
Edited 2007-01-19 17:08
It seems Torvalds didn’t look deep into Vista. A lot of stuff is quite a leap forward. Some things I am already using on linux, others are rather fresh in general:
1. Protecting the dumb trashware-installing-users from themselves by annoying them with security windows and running a lot of things with lower privileges. (at least 1/2 of my service calls are due to infestation)
2. Capable GUI eye-candy “scripting” engine similar to the one KDE is calling “Plasma” If you like iPhone’s UI – you will likely see that level of “liquidity” on Windows.
3. New (bundled) collaborative apps like Meeting Space and “share-able” Calendar, and easier networking set up. Not exactly hot stuff – but a as group they make Vista a “revolution” in household and small-business communication.
None of these are technological leaps, but are behavior-changing steps. And, as that – fairly large leap forward.
Point #1 is hardly revolutionary. It’s common sense, and has been part of *nix OSes for years – scratch that, decades.
Point #2 is pure eye candy. Don’t get me wrong, I love eye-candy. I’m a real sucker for it. I actually think it is the one that that will help Vista sell. That said, Beryl is already ahead of Aero, if not on a technological level (not having pixel shaders working yet) at least on an implementation level. The fact that it’s a FOSS project also means we’ll see tons of plugins (some good, some bad) for it that you won’t necessarily get on Vista.
Point #3 is a yes/no for me. There are some revolutionary apps out there that are simply ahead of their time. Google Calendar comes to mind, with shared public/private calendars and the ability to access it from wherever you are…yet these apps are not used that much. Perhaps Vista will change that, but I’m not so sure. It is users who, ultimately, decide how useful an app is.
Personally, I think web apps that do this are more interesting, because they are by nature cross-platform.
All in all, I completely agree with Linux on this one. Vista isn’t bad, but it’s incredibly over-hyped. It’s not a necessary upgrade for most users, and in fact only exists because MS needs to revitalized its OS revenue stream (and better control what users can or can’t do with their machines). I won’t advise my Windows-using friends to update to it, until they are forced to when they buy their next machine (unless it’s a Mac…)
3. New (bundled) collaborative apps like Meeting Space and “share-able” Calendar, and easier networking set up. Not exactly hot stuff – but a as group they make Vista a “revolution” in household and small-business communication.
Being a Vista Outsider some of these things make me wonder….
The Shareable calendar… is it iCal compatible? Does it import vCal files? Can it talk with Exchange?
I’m not too concerned about the “Easier Network Setup” I have a router with DHCP… plug and play for any fresh install of Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.
Do they bring back Personal Web Server? or maybe add NFS? How about compatibility with Unix file permissions so I can change them on our file server here at work?
Finally, Meeting Space… is this like a new version of NetMeeting, or MS Chat? (gotta admit…MS Chat was pretty cool with the comic-strip characters and stuff)
These are just some things I’m curious about.
Being a Vista Outsider some of these things make me wonder….
The Shareable calendar… is it iCal compatible? Does it import vCal files? Can it talk with Exchange?
iCalendar is the only format supported. Through this support, you can import/export calendars, email and/or publish them to the web or other locations and automatically sync changes, and subscribe to other calendars.
Do they bring back Personal Web Server? or maybe add NFS? How about compatibility with Unix file permissions so I can change them on our file server here at work?
IIS 7 is available in Windows Vista Home Premium and up (Starter and Home Basic include some components for WCF, but not the web server). It no longer has a connection limit.
Windows Vista (not sure if the Home editions include it) includes Services for NFS, which provides an NFS client and administration toolis. If not included, it can probably be added to the Home editions via Services for Unix as is done currently with XP.
Finally, Meeting Space… is this like a new version of NetMeeting, or MS Chat? (gotta admit…MS Chat was pretty cool with the comic-strip characters and stuff)
Meeting Space is mostly for local ad-hoc use (e.g., a meeting where multiple computers are in the same room connected via wi-fi/LAN). You can give presentations, share files, your desktop and applications. You can also use it remotely to perform the same tasks, however, you’ll need an additional application like Windows Live Messenger for chat/voice/video communication.
“Do they bring back Personal Web Server? or maybe add NFS? How about compatibility with Unix file permissions so I can change them on our file server here at work?”
Personal Webserver didn’t really go away, you could install IIS 5.1 on XP, and 5.0 on Win2k Workstation.
NFS functionality can be added with Services For Unix, which is a free download.
I don’t know about IIS in Vista, bus SFU should still work, and I am going to try it right now
1. Protecting the dumb trashware-installing-users from themselves by annoying them with security windows and running a lot of things with lower privileges. (at least 1/2 of my service calls are due to infestation)
Users are going to *maybe* read the message once, maybe not, and click OK. After that, they’ll just click OK without thinking about it, just as with most installs you just click Next until it changes to finish.
A guy I knew in college used to get an error upon booting his computer every day. He used to click it before the text even rendered. “What did that say?” “I don’t know, it comes up every day.”
1. Protecting the dumb trashware-installing-users from themselves by annoying them with security windows and running a lot of things with lower privileges. (at least 1/2 of my service calls are due to infestation)
It remains to be seen whether or not average users are going to turn UAC off or not. My guess it that they’ll turn it off. Then you’re left with virtually the same security as XP. Besides Unix has had limited accounts for a long time now. This isn’t exactly anything new.
2. Capable GUI eye-candy “scripting” engine similar to the one KDE is calling “Plasma” If you like iPhone’s UI – you will likely see that level of “liquidity” on Windows.
Again this is not new in any way. Worse yet is the fact that a large majority of computers in use today are not capable of running these effects.
3. New (bundled) collaborative apps like Meeting Space and “share-able” Calendar, and easier networking set up. Not exactly hot stuff – but a as group they make Vista a “revolution” in household and small-business communication.
Shareable calenders? That technology is already available to OSX, Linux, and Windows. Maybe I’m wrong but Meeting Space just looks like a reworked sharing interface. It’s nifty for home users but not very revolutionary, and nothing that couldn’t be accomplished before on Windows, OSX, or Linux.
None of these are technological leaps, but are behavior-changing steps. And, as that – fairly large leap forward.
I’ve played with Vista a little and I don’t really see anything behavior changing about it. This start menu is still there, The window metaphor hasn’t changed, and IE is now even shittier. Forgive me for not dropping my jaw in awe for a bloated 3D interface tacked onto a 2D metaphor, crammed full of new wizards and annoying security warning pop-ups.
Linus is mostly the level headed guy who talks sense. Even what he said about Vista is quite right. He doesn’t talk bullshit like many other OSS zealots do like Vista sucks or poor designed OS etc.
If more OSS people were like Linus, i am sure OSS users would have felt better. The OSS zealots who do constant rant against windows and try to prove everyone who like windows wrong are the biggest damage to OSS. Wish those zealots never existed.
In fact it feels sometime that Linus admire Windows OS for what they have provided and knows it is important to have those things in Linux like plugging in a camera and it works. Windowss got that right quite before Linux.
I know Vista is over hyped but i still think Vista is a nice OS, it’s install is big but with 1GB RAM it performs routine tasks way better than XP.
The looks are nice, underlying technologies got a overhaul like netwokring with NDIS 6, display drivers with XDDM, printing etc and on top the nicer and more consistent UI.
The only OS that can stand to Vista and mind it (stand to not win against) is OSX. Linux on desktop is ehhh noooooo comparison with consistent and integrated experience of Windows and OSX
Edited 2007-01-19 17:17
Umm, people who modded this guy down need to go back to Digg. Did you read the mod options presented to you on OSNEWS when you were so trigger happy with the minus sign?
>> Wish those zealots never existed.
If you had your wish, there would probably be no linux or OSS to speak of. Atleast in the state it is today.
(if you are to believe RMS that is, and i partly do)
You can scream for what you want, let them scream for freedom if they so please.
Scream for freedom from what? Is it scream for freedom for an average OS or is it scream for freedom for *NOT* paying for other people’s hard work?
What exactly is this freedom which asks software engineers to give their precious time and work for free?
If i ever have to give my work for free, i would rather use BSD because BSD is like a donation to society and GPL is NOT.
So if you follow RMS then yeah go for it. Be prepared to live a life like RMS i.e. a small apartment with no one to love, no wife, no family, no children.
RMS has essentially converted OSS to a political agenda and many big leaders like ESR and even Linus himself think that.
Read their comments in recent times on things like GPL v3 and banning properitary kernel modules from distributions.
Sorry buddy RMS is a communist whacko and i don’t want to take an example from him in this very capitalist world.
Read my previous posts on how GPL is harmful for long term growth and innovation of software industry if you don’t understand what i am talking about.
Its allways been political for RMS, hence the term “Free Software”. “Open Source” came later.
so its more the opposite effect, going more and more thowards bussines interests.
(im not saying its ALL bad though)
I agree he is a bit pedantic, but his message holds more water today than it ever did.
I don’t think you understand what is meant by “FREE”.
The “FREE” part mainly applies to developers and would-be developers. Free to modify the code. The catch is that you should offer the same freedoms to others, as was offered to you. That’s the point of the GPL.
It does NOT necessarily mean free as in give away at no cost. Even though most distros are given away for free, companies like Xandros, RedHat, Novell, Linspire, etc charge money for their distros. (For support contracts to business clients, paid support for desktop users, or to pay for proprietary codecs like MP3, WMV, etc, etc).
Those companies clearly make money on GPL’ed solutions. (Which counters your claim suggesting that you can’t make money).
And the GPL v3? Have you actually read the drafts? Or are you just basing things on hear-say?
The GPL v3 is mainly about preventing Tivo-lization. That is, delibrately using hardware (DRM) to prevent users of that device from modifying the Linux code as they wish.
GPL3 does NOT mean DRM-free content. Developers can add DRM the content they distribute. If you want DRM and don’t agree with GPL, write your own code. Its your choice.
Is that hard to understand?
Is it so hard for you to understand that the cumulative number of jobs provided to software engineers by all GPL based companies is lesser than jobs provided by a handful of commercial companies?
For the ignonrant that you are, i will copy paste my older post again:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16891&comment_id=199704
and
And read this post:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16891&comment_id=199798
Now can you answer to the question i pose in second comment?
————-
The reason is software ecosystem.
1. Universities do research and release code under BSD style license.
2. Many of these projects are very good and picked up by companies to commercialize them.
3. These companies (in turn software engineers in thse companies) makes money and make software engineering a lucrative discipline for students.
4. The companies donate some of the money back to universities.
5. Go to step 1.
This is the ecosystem promoted by BSD. GPL breaks that. If you ever read statistics, students are losing interest in computer science and once they see that it is not financial a good field to support their family, you will see even less people in this field.
That is why i like BSD and not Linux.
The all combined GPL based products have earned less money than even a handful of non-GPL products.
In a country like USA where a doctor charge 300$ for 30 minutes appointment, you need money to live a good life and GPL is not making software as an interesting field to make that kind of money.
I hope this explains well to you now.
Since some of the hype over Vista has invoked “economic impact” and since CrazyDude0 is also invoking it in his own arguments, I will point to another argument albeit less ephemeral.
One point to ponder is that the market for nonfree software accounts for no more than one-third of the entire market for software. CrazyDude0, if you are serious and will set aside some time in the future, I recommend reading a serious economic argument for things such as the GPL. Do not worry — it is recent and is not from the FSF or from GNU. The whole thing is worth reading, but you can easily narrow in on the economic bits, which will force you to confront some surprising facts:
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks
And if you insist on seeing some endorsements for this (although the logic is sound), find them, including a link to the Amazon ones, at:
http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php/Main_Page
Good luck!
Nice link – thanks. (going away now to read it properly)
What the hell does pointing to a social treatise that theorizes on how the Internet could possibly be leveraged to surpass traditional economic ventures have to do with proving whether or not the GPL has validated itself to be an economically viable alternative to closed source and job creation?
From the Editor at Amazon:
In this thick academic book, Yale law professor Benkler offers a comprehensive catalog of flashpoints in the conflict between old and new information creators. In Benkler’s view, the new “networked information economy” allows individuals and groups to be more productive than profit-seeking ventures. New types of collaboration, such as Wikipedia or SETI@Home, “offer defined improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice”-as long as government regulation aimed at protecting old-school information monoliths (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) doesn’t succeed. Non-market innovation is a good thing in itself and doesn’t even have to threaten entrenched interests, Benkler argues; rather, “social production” can use resources that the industrial information economy leaves behind. Where Benkler excels is in bringing together disparate strands of the new information economy, from the democratization of the newsmedia via blogs to the online effort publicizing weaknesses in Diebold voting machines. Though Benkler doesn’t really present any new ideas here, and sometimes draws simplistic distinctions, his defense of the Internet’s power to enrich people’s lives is often stirring.
Information exchange is critical to Liberty and building options in learning new skills. This is a rudimentary concept and should be chalked under the paradoxical notion of common sense–not to be confused with Paine’s seminal work, “Common Sense.”
However, proof is in the pudding of results. Both the BSD and GPL benefit society. The lack of individual creativity and vision is something neither can address.
The Internet has moved traditional client-server apps to slower web based client-server apps. The costs are transferred from site-licenses of shrinkwrap packages that offer some collaborative capabilities to consulting fees needed to build web collaboration networks with similar lack luster collaborative capabilities.
Neither has remotely created utopian settings (utopian in the notion that they actually profoundly improve the daily efficiencies of one’s duties) for advancing human civilization and raising our levels of curiosity to “Go where no one has gone before.”
We have crumbling infrastructures within the US and across the globe yet our “digital networks” are scaling up as fast as consumers can well be consumers.
When these networks are developed to a level of mature saturation you’ll then see a drastic cutback in employees–they only need to be maintained by much smaller pools of administrators. These cutbacks won’t be dependent upon whether the tools to create these mature networks were leveraging the BSD or GPL licenses, respectively.
Where do all these highly skilled developers then turn their skills? Unless they are skilled in other fields like traditional engineering disciplines, various sciences or other white collar disciplines they will become a “laborer.”
They will be slinging a hammer or digging ditches to rebuild the infrastructure that they ignored while living in their digital worlds.
The cost of retraining yourself to be in another field of high demand increases yearly like an exponential growth curve with a (1/2) power.
There are no long-term careers until countries need long-term infrastructure upgrades.
The Internet has produced the ability to bypass government bodies and cut through the borders of the world’s nations, in order to reach their fellow person, and exchange ideas more liberally (even this is no guarantee as governments raise and lower the degree of accessibility their citizenry can have to the Internet).
Web 2.0 appears to be a narcissitic vessel for the masses with YouTube, the iPod and other portable tunnels into watching entertainment on the go. I could list other known examples of social networking but sites like MySpace are an affront to the notion of actually having spent any useful time on the Internet. At any rate, this economic boon in building social networking is short-term, at best.
Maintenance is where the bulk of all costs accrue, in any field; and when it comes to software both the BSD and GPL have their place. So either both develop code that “needs” to be fixed routinely and thus maintain job security equally or they are both equally prone to being “full of it” when it comes to touting the virtues of either license.
When we talk about economic impacts of either we should link to treatises that actually produce the fruits of labor and show the bottom line. Charts and graphs are old school and definitely help in aiding one’s position when one is quantitatively trying to defend either license.
What the hell does pointing to a social treatise that theorizes on how the Internet could possibly be leveraged to surpass traditional economic ventures have to do with proving whether or not the GPL has validated itself to be an economically viable alternative to closed source and job creation?
Thanks for your thoughful reply. Based on my complete yet quick reading of Benkler, I will try to show how you sell him a bit short. I admit up front that the GPL seems to be “rescued” by the Net in a sense, but this rescue is little consolation to nonfree software makers. Blame Bill Gates for not knifing the Internet baby early enough with MSN.
(Note that “social treatise” should scare no one away from perusing Benkler; a few minutes’ skim will provoke most anyone, even a sympathethic reader who should verify their own economic reasoning. Benkler attacks our tunnel vision, IMHO.)
Although I will note my reservation about Benkler apart from economics if asked, for now I will try to save the reader time and show how parts I and III of Benkler address a bit of the economic myopia (including that on the GPL) found on OSNews and elsewhere. First, here’s the big picture that we (not RMS or Gates*) are missing on software:
1800s: math => conquest => imperialism
1900s: steel => industrial infrastructure => corporate power
2000s: software => enabler & exploiter of Net => social justice
Benkler shows how two special economic properties of information — nonrivalry and value of output as input — are changing the rules of human livelihood. This is the point that you, tyrione, appear to give short shrift: in particular, how the GPL follows as a natural if ingenious fit in this context. Perhaps you disagree because you have found a fault with Part I of Benkler?**
Perhaps we are talking past each other. You should see why the GPL will thrive (and evolve!) and not expect here its “quantitative” (at a lower level than Benkler’s quantitative) defense.*** Indeed, the GPL is somewhat a shadow of its rightful economic role, due to the decades of pay-to-play in D.C. that Benkler describes in Part III.
In short, tyrione, look not for recipes here but for any fault in why the GPL’s place is inevitable now, at least from an economic POV. (I would argue that other POVs supporting the GPL matter even more.)
—
(*) Bill Gates, RMS’s polar opposite, does share with him the rare appreciation of the centrality of software to our world even if he disagrees about whether or how social justice fits in.
(**) The Amazon review notes simplistic distinctions, but how does any such distinction debunk anything in his economic analysis? A fault should be found with one of Benkler’s specific claims. I have yet to find any.
(***) I would guess those with the best quantitative insight here are busy trying to cash in on Web 2.0, etc. rather than handing out recipes outside the scope of Benkler.
Edited 2007-01-21 04:52
This is the ecosystem promoted by BSD. GPL breaks that. If you ever read statistics, students are losing interest in computer science and once they see that it is not financial a good field to support their family, you will see even less people in this field.
That’s quite a leap you took to link GPL with computer science students losing interest in the field. Did you ever consider outsourcing, the dot-com bust, or the draw of other, more lucrative fields? Your conclusions come with absolutely no proof. Not very convincing. Another thing you do not consider at all is software as a commodity and how that benefits users of software including business.
There are two logical errors in your (off-topic) argument. The first is that you assume that those who promote the GPL are responsible for there being “less money” in computer science. In reality, people who *choose* to release software under the GPL do so of their own free will. No one is forcing them to do it. They choose to do it, and do so in much larger proportions than those who choose the BSDL.
Second, it does not matter whether someone chooses to release software under the GPL or the BSDL as far as *their* financial reward is concerned. In both cases, the developer is giving the code away for free, and that particular code remains free. Even if someone makes money from a derivative, the owner will not make money off of it, and so according to your *own* logic, will not have any incentive to continue providing such free code. In other words, if financial gratification is your only motive (which is what you seem to argue), then there is *no* incentive to use either BSD or GPL for your own code.
And there is absolutely no guarantee (or even likelyhood) that companies will give money back in your hypothetical “step 4” cited in your example.
What you fail to realize is that software (of many types) is rapidly becoming commoditized. This is a transformation of the software industry, and it is irreversible. So you basically have two choices: accept it, or close your eyes and put your hands over your ears while going “la la la la I can’t hear you”…
Finally, you are completely ignoring the *positive* economic aspect of FOSS, i.e. that it saves money to a *lot* of companies, which means more money for their employees, so they can pay the ridiculous doctor’s fees if they are in the U.S.
A lot of FOSS is developed by employees of companies who understand that they have much to gain from a healthy FOSS ecosystem. Sharing development means that *everyone* benefits (except those companies based on selling software as a consumer product).
Now, can we please stop this off-topic discussion?
“In a country like USA where a doctor charge 300$ for 30 minutes appointment, you need money to live a good life and GPL is not making software as an interesting field to make that kind of money.”
You did not specify the amount of money you think you need to “live a good life”, but I can tell from your post that you equate money with success and “a good life”. Statements like that pretty much sum you up cheif! Just another materialistic idiot that thinks money means happyness and “a good life”.
Personally, I know more unhappy people that are slaves to a paycheck to maintain their standard of living. I used to be one of them. After years and years of going up the ladder, I finally walked away. I make 1/3 of what I used to, but my life is actually enjoyable now.
My point, just becuase a job pays $$$$ does not mean the people doing it are doing it because they like it. In fact, I would bet that the majority of people in the high paying fields are there for one reason only. That is the money. So, what makes a person great at a job verse good at a job. Well, it is not money!
Your thought process is wacked. If programming paid $600.00 an hour, would that attrack the best programmers or just a bunch of hacks that want money and churn out code to get a check?
Myself, I can deal with the OSS guys doing it for reasons that include self satisfaction verse the hacks at MS churning out bugware version 9 SP33!
Heck, university researchers shouldn’t release their code at all. That way they can keep whatever commercial product they happen to produce all to themselves. Or wait, that’s actually quite common. So where’s that leave us?
As for students losing interest in computer science based purely on financial reasons, I’d say good. You must not know what it was like to be studying computer science around the time of the dot com boom. Luckily I went to a decent school and by my senior year most of the disguised business majors were finally majoring in business. But don’t get me wrong here, it’s not that I’m agreeing with your assertion that the gpl damages academia, in fact having worked in academia for the past 5 years I’d say far from it. To give a small example from my place, we use the GPL’d NetCDF library so that our data is in a common format that other researchers can easily deal with.
And speaking of ignorance, the majority of software is highly specialized, is produced in house, and stays in house. So businesses having a common set of tools work on and develop software with, tools that are open so you’re free to fix them or modify them as you see fit, is certainly not going to hurt the bottom line. Now sure, these tools could just as easily have a BSD style license as much as a GPL license. But let’s take Walmart for example. Just because Walmart makes some enhancement to some BSD licensed operating system they run their website on, all of a sudden they’re going to turn around and turn into a software company? It could happen I suppose. But I think what’s far more likely to happen is that their engineers release whatever enhancements they happen to make to some GPL’d software so that everyone benefits.
I hope this explains well to you now.
Is it so hard for you to understand that the cumulative number of jobs provided to software engineers
It’s not always about your job. You’d need to think a bit broader than your job wishes. Like environment protection, you have to think a bit outside your life span. Thankfully there are many of us out there whom it would take much more to convince about free software development’s supposedly caused damages.
CrazyDude0 please stay on-topic. Your anti-GPL rants have nothing to do with Vista being over-hyped.
So if you follow RMS then yeah go for it. Be prepared to live a life like RMS i.e. a small apartment with no one to love, no wife, no family, no children.
And by the looks of him, no shower either
CrazyDude0, just read what you wrote:
Sorry buddy RMS is a communist whacko and i don’t want to take an example from him in this very capitalist world.
It is very tempting to “take an example” from people, but I find that it is a tricky business. Just think for yourself and argue without invoking people like LT and RMS. If you are dead set against RMS’s ideas, you should be prepared to argue using facts and logic.
So if you follow RMS then yeah go for it. Be prepared to live a life like RMS i.e. a small apartment with no one to love, no wife, no family, no children.
Sorry buddy RMS is a communist whacko
You heard it here first, folks: release your software under the GPL, and no-one will ever love you, you disgusting filthy Commie.
I use OS X regularly (I have a MacBook), and I would not say it is more consistent than GNOME. GNOME is the most consistent desktop this side of classic MacOS, period.
That said, OS X is a prettier environment. Vista is certainly flashier than GNOME, but it still has the essential Windows incoherence that keeps me from saying it’s good looking. And Vista’s mechanics are just bad, bad, bad. What, praytell, is the logic behind the toolbar/menubar placement in Vista? And why does every Vista app seem to handle this crucial UI element differently?
In particular, I wish more people would think for themselves. You use a tiny article with a few conservative statements from Torvalds to help you generalize about how he is the model for people to follow. How convenient is his moderate tone to prop up your own positive feelings about Vista. However, Linus has also said:
“Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.”
Linus has now worked for a few years for OSDL which is the corporate side of GNU/Linux, so he has had to moderate his tone. To some people, moderation equals correctness. Those people need to introduce themselves to logic and evidence.
Is Linus the voice of reason? All I know is that he is human and makes mistakes (sometimes embarrassing ones such as the Bitkeeper debacle), which you would acknowledge if you were trying to hold him up as everyone’s model.
However, the biggest problem in your post is the implicit assumption that Torvalds’s POV, “open source”, matters more than the “free software” POV. I.e., that technical merit trumps freedom and ethics. His POV constrains his comments, and you will need to argue why his POV is superior to the others.
“Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.”
“Evil” is certainly an overused word, but it’s not like MS make “really crappy operating systems”or change the .doc standard every few years out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to promote the “goodness”of their wallets.
Linus has now worked for a few years for OSDL which is the corporate side of GNU/Linux, so he has had to moderate his tone.
I don’t see that; I think he’s always been one of those people who can make a point subtly, and perhaps more effectively for that reason.
Is Linus the voice of reason? All I know is that he is human and makes mistakes (sometimes embarrassing ones such as the Bitkeeper debacle), which you would acknowledge if you were trying to hold him up as everyone’s model.
People, (especially Linus-like and hackerish people) like him exactly because of that. It’s a nice change from the hero-worship Gates and Jobs and their companies receive and promote; to hear either of them you’d think they were incapable of mistakes. Gates was even awarded an honorary British knighthood for “services to computing” (or, to be more accurate, “sending the computing industry back into the Stone Age”), for heaven’s sake. He may be incapable of business mistakes, but judging from DOS and Windows, if he programs then he’s certainly not incapable of programming mistakes.
While I agree that Torvalds is usually better-balanced than other OSS zealots, this time he’s speaking as marketing guy rather than being objective.
I agree Vista failed to be “revolutionary” by failing to introduce ALL stuffs they planned to. However, under the hood there’s a lot of meat and even advanced stuff which most OSes aren’t featuring.
Plus, MS (as market leader) can enjoy the possibility to be very slow in their releases, as all market leaders are. Yet, with .NET 3, Office 2007 and other tools, Microsoft proved to be able to drive new paths and explore new ways, even if market leaders usually don’t do that as that’s a bet they don’t need to afford.
I’m afraid Torvalds words have a backtaste of someone who’s a bit sad not to be able to keep up, even if he’s working hard. Historically, to beat a market leader (expecially when close to monopoly), you need to release VERY revolutionary products to steal enough market share while the leader tries to keep up. I would ask Torvalds: where is your revolutionary stuff, man?
If you’re not able to deliver revolutionary products, you will only be scratching the surface of market leader and while you struggle hard to gain your 1% market share, leader will have its new products ready and will get another 2%.
Linux, being unable to keep up, is still fighting this war on the price level, not on the features level. Sad but true.
(Notice that this is different in the server market which is completely different from desktop one and where Windows had to keep up with Unix-dominant player.)
Excellent insights!
I’m afraid Torvalds words have a backtaste of someone who’s a bit sad not to be able to keep up, even if he’s working hard
I think you might be confusing Linus Torvalds with some of the developers working things which Microsoft can actually deliver something as well.
I am pretty sure that from the point of view of a Linux kernel developer Microsoft is the one who is not able to keep up, since it is essentially restricted to a very small range of hardware platforms, quite limited cluster capabilities, etc.
From a end user’s or application developer’s point of view Vista might have quite some improvements, assuming you are referring to this part when using the term “market leader”
You appear to believe that Linus, himself, personally, writes every line of every Linux app.
WOW he’s productive! No wonder he finds it difficult to keep up with Microsoft, when they are releasing such wondrous shiny innovation like Office 2007 (ever tried Office ’97 – it does everything every normal person expects from a word processor – oh! wait! it isn’t new and innovative! it’s ten years old so it must be really useless! No “new paths” or “new ways” there!)
If these products are what people see as “innovative” then God help innovation.
Linux, being unable to keep up, is still fighting this war on the price level, not on the features level. Sad but true.
Erm, since when is Linux “unable to keep up”? In 17 years it has gone from a microkernel to a fully-functional desktop OS on a par with Windows and MacOS X, whilst Windows has gone from a bloated, overhyped, crappily-implemented OS to… an ever more-bloated, over-hyped, slightly less crappily-implemented OS.
Oh, sorry; you’re right. Linux isn’t able to keep up; it’s too busy racing ahead.
I think while its worth agreeing that Torvald’s is the most reasonable advocate of linux that is commonly known if you read the article carefully he’s basically saying that all desktops are similiar in capability.
Which is very true. I think microsoft has done a fair job of marketing vista as a evolution of their client operating system. I’ve never seen a vista ad claiming to be revolutionary.
While I might have distaste and dislike for embedded DRM, or attempts at such, I know they will be defeated and that essentially for average joe Vista is another leap forward in usability and security. Yes, lets not listen to tired arguments about nothing new, we know theres a lot of new stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_features_in_Windows_Vista
Anyways, have a happy friday everyone.
I don’t know what kind of person Linus is??? uffff!!!!
He never wants to accept a good thing made by others. He don’t want to say GNU/Linux, he don’t want to accept what Tannenbaum says…DAMN Linus! He thinks he’s a great hero of GNU project only by giving a little kernel 0.01 which was developed and modified by the contribution of many developers. Huh! RMS is the real hero Linus, not you.
There are tooooo many features in Vista that are completely new in Windows. How the hell can he say that? Like morglum666 gave a nice link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_features_in_Windows_Vista
I think he haven’t used Vista yet. lol
Also check:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_05.asp
I’m really really sorry about this, and mod me down if you can, but really pisses me off when some refers new features and new blah blah stuff of Windows Vista with a link at WIKIPEDIA. Please guys, there’s more to say than just be sarcastic and put a WIKIPEDIA link.
I think there are many close minded people out there who don’t want to see what is the reality. They think the best is what they like. Just like kids…Superman is the greatest hero. Nahhh! its batman…
By the way Drune, open your eyes and see my post again. There wasn’t only wikipedia link but also winsupersite link.
If you don’t want to believe those articles then the best thing is to do practicle. Try to use Vista yourself and see that those articles are true or not.
I don’t know what kind of person Linus is??? uffff!!!!
Well he certainly doesn’t overuse question or exclamation marks.
He never wants to accept a good thing made by others.
Erm, UNIX?
He don’t want to say GNU/Linux,
Because then he’d have to say GNU/BSD/MySQL/IBM/HP/Sun/SGI/DEC/Compaq/Canonical/SPI/Gentoo/Slackware … Linux.
A little bit unwieldy, no?
He thinks he’s a great hero of GNU project only by giving a little kernel 0.01 which was developed and modified by the contribution of many developers. Huh! RMS is the real hero Linus, not you.
I don’t think you’ll find he sees himself as a hero; as for RMS, his contribution is important, but if Linux weren’t around we’d all STILL be waiting for that famed microkernel. Maybe that’s why Torvalds disagreed with Tannenbaum?
BTW, it should be blindingly obvious, but I’ll point it out anyway: Using the “Windows Super Site” as a reliable guide to information on Windows is a bit like using Soviet propaganda as a reliable guide to the state of Soviet society.
Which is very true. I think microsoft has done a fair job of marketing vista as a evolution of their client operating system. I’ve never seen a vista ad claiming to be revolutionary.
Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen a Vista add!
Not that I’m complaining!
They have to copy Apple.
Think of what would happen if they didn’t.
People would label their OS as uncool(ipod) and say it’s outdated.
Would lose market share.
Because of over hype if you install and use Vista… all the time you will ask yourself what so different here than XP? If you are a mac user…. you are definately not going to like a comparison done between Vista and Mac…. mac is way ahead in GUI effects… for that matter people who have configured XGL can challenge Vista UI too.
So because of over hype and cost you will be more disappointed.
Do you think Linus has a vested intersest in providing a poor evaluation of Vista?
FYI, he’s usually pretty quiet on the issue of Windows-vs-Linux.
Of course, these days maybe he smells blood.
the hype is bad now….
with something like a week and a half until general availability, get ready for it to get much worse…
does anybody know which distro of linux that linus prefers ?
Taking a wild guess I’d say Debian, Kubuntu, or Suse given that he is a KDE fan – but he might just use LFS or something similar.
There was once an article that said Linus wanted to use Linux on PowerPC, so he’d have to be using some distro that supports it. I would say then it’s likely he’s on either Debian or Yellow Dog.
Fedora I think. Seems like that’s what I read not too long ago anyhow.
It might be worth it on new equipment, but it’s not worth upgrading older machines. It brings little to nothing to the table that reasonably admistrated WindowsXP can’t do. Personally, I think Linux will outpace Windows during the Vista release leaving MS to play catch-up after that.
just as it is now.
when xp was released, the linux desktop was abit behind, but in between xp and vista, the linux desktop far surpassed winblows.
now with vista release, they are almost in sync, desktop effects are there for winblows, not quite for linux (default bundled, that is).
however, it will not take long to once again surpass winblows, and do alot more.
I haven’t noticed much hype for Vista and don’t know of anyone jumping at the opportunity to upgrade to Vista.
The articles I have seen on Vista are in regards to DRM, features that didn’t make it into Vista, and how it is not as pretty as OSX. If Microsoft if behind this type hype they should definitely consider firing everyone in their marketing dept responsible for marketing Vista.
I mean the entire industry is this way.
What is not over-hyped these days? I can’t think of a thing myself.
Not being an ass but what is new and revolutionary in GNU/Linux that hasn’t been there since the 80’s?
Beryl? ALSA? TuxRacer?
If you say Beryl, then Aero would be too.
I’ve been using Linux on and off for the past 6 years or so. Maybe it has been so gradual that I didn’t notice.
Or maybe the point is that Linux has made similar advancements and isn’t claiming them as revolutionary?
Okay…end of the day. I’m just babling at this point.
Yep, because Linux never gets over-hyped for no good reason. Perhaps 2007 will be the year of the Vista desktop 😛
Yep, because Linux never gets over-hyped for no good reason. Perhaps 2007 will be the year of the Vista desktop 😛
Every year is the “Year of the Linux desktop” for people who switch permanently that year. For myself, it’s been 8 happy, gloriously crap-software-free years and counting.
Everybody knows that the media writers get pimped by the money people into hyping Win since Win-3. The users are then urged and given incentive to buy new logo certified hardware. What Torvalds or the news media won’t tell you is how many of these new logo certified Win-V boxes will/won’t run software not created by MS or one of their close partners.
Vista may be a little overhyped… Then again, I’d also say Linux is very overhyped too.
I am however stoked to see what Direct X 10 can do.