I don't disagree with your reasoned points.
Perhaps all I advocate is a change in priorities: PC vendors will not
pre-load Linux until it is better standardized and supportable.
Therefore bellyaching about lack of pre-loads is pointless. The same
point can be made about lack of hardware support: vendors of printers
and wireless LAN cards are not interested in supporting 100 different
distros, or even the top 10. They get 95% of the market by supporting
only one: Windows.
By 32 to 64-bit transition, do you (and ESR) mean XP to Vista? I see
this as the real window of opportunity in the next few years. But Vista
runs both 32 and 64 bit apps, so users may not feel any pain from this
transition. 90% will transition when they buy a new computer with Vista
pre-loaded, and most of their old apps will run.
The problems I mentioned seem much smaller in the Windows world: it has
tight standards, excellent documentation (technical and user),
integrated apps, no issues about supporting multiple distros, fewer
obscure or hidden error messages, etc. I question whether Linux can
gain market share before it becomes more excellent and uniform itself.
If Ubuntu were to get 50% of Linux desktops, perhaps that would serve
to set a standard that vendors could go with.
Wes Morgan wrote:
You're not necessarily wrong (in fact, I agree with you on
many of your points). But, we need to take advantage of this
32-to-64-bit transition window when and while we can. And the fact of
the matter is, many of these problems are as bad if not worse in the
Windows world, and those that remain are challenges for us, not
blocking issues for having a majority market share (and thus closing
bug #1). It's all about priorities. Let's take over the world first,
then fix these other things. When you look at who's in control now, you
realize that we need not be perfect in order to be dominant.
The 5 points from the essay are not meant to be an exhaustive list of
what's wrong with Linux. They're meant to be a list of what's required
to be a contender in the looming battle for the 64-bit desktop. That's
a battle that Microsoft does _not_ have in the bag already, so it's
worth fighting. If you think some of your issues are blocking that,
then let's continue the discussion in that vein.
I believe that if Ubuntu emerged as a front runner on this stuff, then
Michael Dell wouldn't have to ask "which one?" anymore. Red Hat isn't
the only enterprise server distro in town, but Dell had no trouble
standardizing on them. It's because they provide what is needed for
Dell and its customers, and they did it better, sooner, and cheaper
than their competitors. Ubuntu can do the same on the desktop, and I
believe it's already years ahead of many (most? all?) of its
competitors here. With out-of-the-box Wine and Codex support, it would
be well-poised to become the Red Hat of the desktop space (
i.e. as dominant on the desktop as RH is in the server space, with the
added bonus that the desktop market is much, much larger than the
server market). And if we played our cards right and emerged as the
dominant 64-bit desktop platform, wow. That, in my opinion, is worth
shooting for.
Wes Morgan
On 12/27/06, mikecorn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The
5 points are OK but there are deeper problems with Linux that need
to be solved first. Ubuntu is the best Linux, but is not doing anything
to fix the real issues, IMO.
This is a (short) rant about what is wrong with Linux, so if you are
sick of reading about this you can just delete it now. I write because
most such rants miss the point (for example ESR's essay).
Linux Problems
- too many bugs and rough edges in applications
- error messages are hidden in log files, incomprehensible, or do not
exist
- technical and user docs are often missing, erroneous, or outdated
- docs are in chaos: man, info, http, text, websites, tar
(or sometimes findable only with Google)
- developer goals are not aligned with common user needs
(FOSS is not customer or market-driven)
- development is not managed (1000s of independent projects)
- developers care about creative freedom, not about utility, standards,
compatibility, fit and polish, quality documentation, etc.
- app development is 90% overlapping, a huge waste
- Linux distros are diverging, making app portability and support too
difficult for software providers. (Software I developed using Ubuntu
runs unmodified on about half the other Gnome distros I have tried.
Problems: package naming, file names and locations. KDE distros often
fail for lack of Gnome libraries - a hurdle most users are not
willing/able to overcome.)
- the LSD project is an attempt to create some useful standards and
cross-platform tools, but Mark Shuttleworth has stated he does not
believe in this.
- software providers want standards, so that installation and support
does not have a different "gotcha" with each distro. MS Windows
provides
a single standard, which is more important than its weaknesses (viruses,
etc.).
When Michael Dell was asked about providing Linux pre-installed, his
response was "which one?". From his viewpoint, he has to either pick
one
distro or try to support many distros. He believes neither option is
viable for his business, and I think he is right.
If you think I am wrong about this, please explain. I will listen.
Wes Morgan wrote:
> Most of you have probably seen ESR's recently-slashdotted essay
about
> what Linux needs to do to conquer the desktop computing world by
the
> end of 2008 (and why we need to do it by then--hint: because of
the
> 32-to-64-bit transition). If not, you can read it here:
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html
>
> Here are the "what it will take win" points from the essay:
>
> 1. Drivers for all major existing hardware.
> 2. 32-bit legacy platform emulation.
> 3. Surviving the killer app.
> 4. Enabling preinstalls.
> 5. Support for all major multimedia formats.
>
> We're in pretty good shape on numbers 1 (we have the source code
for
> lots of legacy hardware drivers, so 64-bit support is a recompile
> away) and 3 (because of the rise of web apps, an OS-specific killer
> app is less likely). But we need to do some work on 2, 4, and 5. In
> fact, solving 2 and 5 are dependencies (but not the only ones) of
> solving 4.
>
> So, we need good multimedia support out-of-the-box (to the point
where
> we have something OEMs can pre-install on new computers) and solid
> Win32 software support (the bulk of legacy 32-bit software that
can't
> easily be moved to 64-bit Linux will be Win32 apps). We don't have
> time to wait for the legal situation to improve, nor do we have
time
> to wait for our efforts to persuade content providers to use open
and
> free codecs to come to fruition. The 2008 deadline is pretty hard,
as
> the essay shows. (Because of the 32-to-64-bit transition. I know, I
> was skeptical too, but read the whole essay.)
>
> It seems to me that Ubuntu is easily the front-runner of desktop
> Linux, for a number of reasons I needn't go into here. I'd really
like
> to see it position itself to tackle bug #1 (Microsoft's majority
> market share) via this 64-bit transition window, but I think we
need a
> strategy to do so.
>
> Specifically, I believe Ubuntu should work closely with Linspire to
> bundle their "Codex" (basically a CD full of licensed proprietary
> multimedia codecs) with Ubuntu. (See the last paragraph of the
essay.)
> This could take the form of charging for the "multimedia" version
of
> Ubuntu that comes with this CD, as well as making it extremely easy
> (put the CD in the drive and click "OK") to install the Codex
later on
> any Ubuntu system. We could even charge a little extra or ask for
> donations to support giving away this "multimedia" version of
Ubuntu
> to schools or other non-profits. And possibly, in countries with
less
> screwed-up laws than certain other countries (I'm looking at you,
> U.S.), we could just give this CD away.
>
> This would then be the version of Ubuntu that we would encourage
OEMs
> to put on new systems, and the installer would ask people to
insert
> the Codex CD during installation. (And if they didn't have one, the
> installer could ask if a user wanted to purchase the Codex right
then,
> take the payment info, and then download and install the Codex in
one
> fell swoop.)
>
> But the most important thing would be this: As the authors of the
> above essay stress, Ubuntu would want to go into this situation
with a
> clear plan for getting out of it at some point. Once Linux is the
> dominant desktop distro, we should stop playing the proprietry
codec
> game and start demanding open codecs. Ubuntu should set a policy
that
> all use of the Codex be phased out by 2015 (or whatever), and then
> incremental phases leading up to that to transition us away from
it.
> Maybe even set market share triggers (for example, when Linux
desktop
> market share hits 30%, drop codecs X, Y, and Z from being
supported in
> the next release) in order to drive demand for open and free
codecs.
> An easy target to set is to drop MP3 from the Codex in 2010 when
its
> patents expire (and instead bundle it with the OS directly).
>
> In theory we could just keep doing the Wine-bundling until users no
> longer demanded it, so I don't think we need a sunset policy on
that
> like we do for the proprietary codecs. One thing the essay points
out
> that we should keep in mind, however, is that our bundled Wine must
> NOT emulate Win64. Otherwise, we'll have the OS/2 effect where it's
> Win16 support was so good, no one bothered writing OS/2-native
apps
> because the one Windows app covered those users too. We don't want
> Win64 to == Win64 and Lin64 support.
>
> What do Ubuntu devs and interested community members think of
this? I
> definitely want to help drive this effort where I can, but I want
to
> see where folks are at first. Should I make this a spec (should
> probably be two specs)? The Codex doesn't really exist yet, but the
> basic idea is obvious enough that a first draft could be put
together
> for that, and the Wine stuff is probably already out there in
> spec-land to some extent.
>
> I think if we go into this with our eyes open and a plan for using
the
> leverage we would attain to move things back towards the open and
free
> end of the spectrum, we could have much greater progress towards
> closing bug #1 than if we continue doing what we're doing now. Like
> ESR says in the essay, "We can't set the standards until /after/
we
> take over the world."
>
> Wes Morgan
>
>
--
"Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But
small acts are insufficient."
- Paul Rusesabagina, Rwandan and former hotel manager whose actions
inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda
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