“The growing maturity of Linux is demonstrated by the way in which major vendors are beginning to deploy enterprise-class IT services on the operating system. Conversely, however, the open source environment’s lack of maturity is clearly demonstrated by the fact that there is no single unified vision of its role in the corporate world. Instead respective vendors of the platform are busy tailoring very different products and services based on the operating system which integrate with their existing core business offerings. For the corporate IT manager these wildly divergent Linux strategies create little more than the familiar recipe of fear, uncertainly and doubt.” Read the article at PCW.
Linux Suffers Growing Pains
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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“lack of maturity is clearly demonstrated by the fact that there is no single unified vision of its role in the corporate world”
Wow, these people really dont understand Open Source. The whole point is that there is not a unified vision! We don’t WANT a unified vision – and I don’t think our customers do either.
The point is that we can deploy linux the way WE want to – not the way some marketing droid tells us it should be deployed. If one of my customers has a need – and I think linux can fill the gap – I will recommend it. I don’t care if it has been used that way before, or if that was its intended purpose, but what my client gets is a customized solution that fits their very needs. This is the power of open source.
Linux has its fingers in so many markets (desktop, server, devices, realtime, etc…) for a reason. It is able to adapt and evolve easily, and it will continue to do so – and this fact will continue to be our #1 strength.
Derek
This is like complaining about free markets, because a planned economy is more predictable and has a ‘unified vision’…
Personally, I think different implementations of Linux has a much more negative impact on the desktop than it does the server. On the server side, it should be possible to customize the solution for whatever the purpose is, whether it be an web server running apache or php or a cluster of servers pushing an Oracle database.
On the desktop, however, it might get a little more confusing to users if they were to learn one vendors desktop and then (for whatever reason) have to transition to another and then nothing looks or acts the way it did on their old box.
I agree. On the Server side people know what they are doing. We hope!
The desktop, people need consistency. So it may or may not be a problem. If they try to change to often it will be for a lot of people.
“This is like complaining about free markets, because a planned economy is more predictable and has a ‘unified vision’… ”
Even a free market has defined currencies – you don’t see people trading in hard chicken currency or silk stockings currency.
“Wow, these people really dont understand Open Source. The whole point is that there is not a unified vision! We don’t WANT a unified vision – and I don’t think our customers do either.”
#1 if ther was no unified vision you wouldn’t have a linux kernel.
#2 In general it seems a lot of (NOT ALL) Open Source advocates dont give a damn about “customers” – you don’t pay for open source, so expecting them to fit into a market ecomony is a bit too much.
I say leave them behind and get some people who care about customers, vision and marketing to develop a linux desktop.
Maybe one day I will be able to cut text from an app and paste it into another app without wondering if they are both KDE or both GNOME etc.
But if you read the article you’ll notice that the quote is rather out of context and that authors aren’t quite as stupid as it makes them out to be. (Not that they seem especially smart.)
//If one of my customers has a need – and I think linux can fill the gap – I will recommend it.//
Ok, so what happens if you get hit by a bus? Of if your business dies?
What happens when your custom application — for whatever reason — breaks, and you’re not around to fix it? Fat chance they can find anyone else who knows how to do it.
Now, with “closed-source” software, your customer could pick up the phone and call hundreds of folks whom could help them out.
>>Maybe one day I will be able to cut text from an app and
>>paste it into another app without wondering if they are
>>both KDE or both GNOME etc.
seriously. if you are upset with cut/paste then you also have problems highlighting and middle-clicking. i know that sometimes its confusing, but there is always an easy way. you just have to remember that linux right now isn’t for the brain dead. say that to yourself over and over and …
” seriously. if you are upset with cut/paste then you also have problems highlighting and middle-clicking. i know that sometimes its confusing, but there is always an easy way. you just have to remember that linux right now isn’t for the brain dead. say that to yourself over and over and … ”
Try middle clicking on a two button mouse…
“Ok, so what happens if you get hit by a bus? Of if your business dies?
What happens when your custom application — for whatever reason — breaks, and you’re not around to fix it? Fat chance they can find anyone else who knows how to do it.
Now, with “closed-source” software, your customer could pick up the phone and call hundreds of folks whom could help them out. ”
Oh God you got to be kidding me. Get a clue already. You think there are no vendors or network consulting firms out there that support Open-source software?
Here’s another thought. If your company uses an opensource product at least there is a chance you can call in a consultant who can go over the code and fix it etc. Try that with a closed source product where the company who made it went out of business. Also to take your exact example, what do you do when a closed source developer who wrote a custom app gets hit by a bus? Right.
I’m no open source bigot so its fine if you don’t like or use opensource software, but if your going to argue against it, try not to use arguements that were debunked years ago.
server.clarktoyota.com:80
Maybe it is time for a united desktop
Combine the good and bad from KDE with the good and bad from GNOME
Just for the desktop users in a Office.
the KGOD Kde Gnome Office Desktop.
So use gnome cq kde if you like but for workplases in a office use the KGOD.
“What happens when your custom application — for whatever reason — breaks, and you’re not around to
fix it? Fat chance they can find anyone else who knows how to do it.
Now, with “closed-source” software, your customer could pick up the phone and call hundreds of folks
whom could help them out. ”
If the open source program has code available (as it should), you can
hire somebody to update it. If the code is badly written, that might
be hard to do, but it’s always possible.
Amiga users are very familiar with closed source programs from
companies which have gone out of business or left the market. These
programs cannot be updated at all. The source code may well no longer
exist anywhere. Nobody can “help out” except by rewriting the entire
program from scratch.
>> //If one of my customers has a need – and I think linux can
>> fill the gap – I will recommend it.//
>> Ok, so what happens if you get hit by a bus? Of if your
>> business dies?
You get another sysadmin or another programmer by phone just like the “monolitic unified software”.
The unified software is misleading easy to install, but try to tweak it and it is just like a linux box… Full of secret registery entries, dubious configuration options and horrible user interfaces… [which are ok to do the normal stuff, but are unable to answer to the special things]. Just ask any Windows Sys Adm which administers about 2000 machines and 3 or 4 diferent domains distributed in a wan configuration and you will find that they use special tools to aid in the job… because the unified vision doesn’t allow for basic operations that easylly]…
The lack of skills isn’t the issue, mayhappen the company doesn’t wan’t to pay for the services the cost, but that is another issue entirelly…
Cheers…
Just forget the “unified desktop” idea of Gnome and KDE . A good integration would mean either a almost-complete rewrite of all KDE apps, or an almost-complete rewrite of all Gnome applications. As neither KDE nor Gnome people are going to do this, it’s up to the users to decide for one desktop system, and up to the developers to decide which environment is more comfortable for them. Make your decision.
You can, of course, still use applications of the other DE, but dont expect that they will behave identically. Things like cut&paste or the system tray may work better in the future, and in distributions like RH they may use the same theme, but they wont share a central configuration, they wont use the same file dialogs and the same KIO Modules/VFS Plugins, the same printing sub system, the same IPC mechanism, the same embedding mechanism (KPart vs Bonobo) and so on… The apps of the ‘wrong’ DE will never behave like the apps of your native system.
The amount of work to “unify” them would be so large that the environment, that starts to adapt, would lose, because this would stall any innovation for years.
The ‘problem’ will be solved when one of the DEs is so much ahead of the competition that users and maybe even developers of the other DE will start to switch. But no one can say which DE will be the one. IMHO KDE will win, because its architecture will pay off in the long run. It is *much* more productive and also more appealing to Windows programmers (which will be the major source for future devs). But I am a KDE dev, so I am probably biased and already made my decision
. The reasons for Gnome are that companies like large Sun are investing a lot of effort in it, that the LGPL is more friendly for commercial 3rd party apps, and that many ‘old school’ unix developers prefer pure C and hate C++.
Actually, I will have to submit that you aren’t quite getting it. Let’s say that you are the CTO for a very large organization and you want to begin to standardize on Linux. You standardize so that you can utilize your people where they are needed, when they are needed and they will be able to pick up and run with what is in front of them.
In order to Standardize, you need to have a consistent look, feel and operation with the least amount of fuss, so that you are able to quickly implement new systems without causing slow-downs or breaks in the machine. Without this, you have a hodge-podge of configurations that everyone will need to relearn everytime they might be moved to another office due to a promotion or other position change.
Some Linux vendors have concentrated on building great desktop solutions, some have concentrated on building great multi-media solutions, some on clustering servers, some one Enterprise level server configurations. Each one of thes vendors has their own way of doing things.
If you went with the best Linux vendor for each aspect of your business, you would need to have on-staff experts with each one of those vendor’s distributions.
I am off-base? How many distributions have you used? Are you familiar with all of the subtle differences between all of the versions of Linux out there? If you do, then you are possibly close to one of the following; you are either a true-genius (Of which there are very few in corporate America.) or you are someone without a life that does nothing but study and keep up with all the subtle differences between Linux distros. (Again, there are very few of those within the halls of Corporate America.)
For instance, there are about a half-dozen ways that each distro can setup the shell prompt for user accounts. There are about a half dozen ways that distrobutions can setup their xinit files and XFree86 configurations. There are also a number of other ways to configure a number of other standard components of an OS that is called Linux. Each vendor chooses their own way of configuring those things.
Now, look at Windows, regardless of the platform you are running on, a “model year” (In this case, the Windows 2000 Family) is configured rather identically across all types of platform, whether it be Workstation, Small Office Server or BIG Corporate Server. (Of course, Windows does have it’s shortcomings, that’s another discussion…)
Also take a look at Solaris, unless I am mistaken, most configurations for Solaris (Let’s just say Solaris 8) are identical, whether you are running it on a UltraSparc1 Workstation, SunBlade, Sunfire or any other piece of Sun Equipment. I believe that it is also identical on the x86 platform, except for the Sparc hardware specific configuration tools.
Linux has wonderful strengths, it also has glaring weaknesses as well. With the work that RedHat is doing with creating various versions of its OS, they are showing the unifying “vision” that is discussed in the article.
As much as you, myself and many other people dislike the “one vendor” approach, that approach can potentially save a corporation hundreds of thousands in training and upkeep costs over the life of such a business decision.