The RixStep distro - where is it?

[stream303]

For a long time I have been reading (with a grain of salt!) the OSX, and now recently, the Ubuntu commentary on rixstep.com's Industry-Watch and Learning Curve sections.

Warning: there is NO need to exchange tit-for-tat pleasantries here. :)

I think we can learn something. However, I think they can too, even though the initial attempt to bring us together failed.

The one thing I think that talented crew can learn is that if one has an itch-to-scratch, there is nothing stopping you in open-source.

1) They have the talent to produce good code.

2) They have the means to distribute it.

3) They seem objective enough to comment on their own code.

4) The certainly know about how to implement a good User Interface.

5) They have the tools at their disposal, free of charge. Ok, maybe the GPL isn't for them, but it should be obvious that the BSD tools are readily available (among others) if they want to go commercial.

6) If nobody seems able to acommodate them, there is nothing stopping them from starting to code their own distro today.

With that in mind, I'd actually like to encourage them to start up with their own desktop product, (again) even if Ubuntu and Rixstep aren't currently a good fit. Ubuntu isn't the only fish in the sea.

So rather than get involved in possible inflammatory debates, can we look beyond the curtain, and encourage them in their own endeavour?

I'm ready for your betas, free or not.

[AlphaMack]

I'm not affiliated with the 'NeXTbuntu' project but this may provide some insight into what happened, if you can set aside Rick's usual biting commentary:

The Technological: Shuttleworth (http://rixstep.com/1/1/20080724,01.shtml)

[Rick 1]

Cut Alpha some slack, OK?

Now let me ask you this. How do you go about turning down a deal you can't refuse?

Shuttleworth's got a deal you can't refuse. He gives you an operating system for free. He doesn't only let you download it for free. The thousand and one other Linux distros already let you do that and they can't dent the market. No: he ships it to your door for free. As many copies as you want.

And he's got a stable release of Linux on there and Linux is a Unix and Unix is impenetrable and bulletproof - in contrast to Microsoft Windows which redefines the expression 'as ... as Swiss cheese'.

And Shuttleworth takes $10 million out of his own pocket every year to make this possible.

And yet for all the years he's been doing this he still can't make a dent in the market either. His distros get the lion's share of the Linux market which all told is perhaps 1% of the total market, maybe on a good day 2%. But that's it.

How do you go about turning down a deal like that? For say what you want, posture yourself with hurt feelings, look lovingly upon your makeshift PC with Ubuntu with its GNOME or KDE desktop, feel a loyalty bubbling up from within you that surpasses what you used to feel for your baseball and football heroes - and the fact remains: the market's turned Shuttleworth down.

How did they go about that?

You want us to organise a killer distro? Sure - you give us the $200 K no strings and up front we asked for. So we can quit our jobs and work full time towards this goal. But it's mostly useless today anyway.

The original proposition came at a propitious time for Open Sauce™ and Ubuntu in general. Shuttleworth had promised three years support for the then current version and we figured we needed to have something to show him at least one year before those three years ran out. And we'd need two years to do it.

Besides: you're not going to make a market killing by introducing yet another Open Sauce™ project that's run by moonlighting engineers working for peanuts. If you want to make a dent in the market you're going to have to invest in it.

Shuttleworth's got enough. Or at least he appears to. He's got enough he could set up a sweatshop in the UK or somewhere with a few hundred programmers and a good spec. He could recreate the glory of NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. No problems there at all. They did it once; they could do it again. If Shuttleworth so badly wants to overtake Apple he could do it.

But I have two objections to such an ambition.

1. Overtaking Apple is a really cowardly goal. It's reasonable - they have perhaps 5% of the market and it's pretty obvious by now not only that they're going nowhere but that they don't want to go anywhere either. No: instead of doing the obvious thing and learning how to market their bloody system, instead of overtaking Windows and making some REAL MONEY, they go about inventing new GADGETS instead. It's been years since Apple's computer division's made most of the money for that company. The bulk of their revenues today come from handsets. Their computer division isn't going anywhere. Challenging the hegemony of a 5% market player is pretty feeble.

2. Overtaking Microsoft is the real deal. It's the real deal because it's the only goal that's at all challenging. It's not about having prettier icons - although the first thing people see (and perhaps talk about) is the brilliance of the graphics. Something here haunts - and those with no experience beyond Windows and Ubuntu are never going to see it.

Tell us this: do you feel snug with your Ubuntu box? Totally satisfied? It's pretty cool, you think? Things work mostly OK today and you've nary a worry about malware or spam or viruses or trojans or worms? You feel secure in the knowledge your box is never going to send you a postcard from a botnet?

Then we should all feel very happy for you, should we not?

Or do you ever think about the other 90+% out there? The other 90+% who are running Windows, who are responsible for the deplorable condition on the Internet today? But maybe you don't really care about that or care about them?

Tell us this: what do you think it feels like growing up with a computer in the corner of the family room that everybody's vaguely afraid of? This machine that always feels a bit 'junky', a bit out of control? What does it feel like knowing there are all these dangers out there - and that ultimately you can't really defend yourself against them?

Tell us how this is going to affect your attitude towards the Internet in general.

And I'm not talking about porn and stuff like that. I could care less about porn and my children could care less about it too. Porn is only the way children in some countries discover how twisted their parents and their parents' friends are. I'm talking about the ramshackle quality of the Internet - the fact most people see it as JUST A BAD NEIGHBOURHOOD. How often do you eagerly motor through a neighborhood as bad as the Internet's become?

You know the stats. Or at least you should. You know that the overwhelming majority of electronic mail messages - 80-90% - are spam messages laden with malware. You know Windows users need do no more than 'drive by' bad sites and their computers are compromised. You know that identity theft is still on the rise and represents one of the biggest threats to civilised life we have today. You know people lose their houses, their life savings, their everything to Internet threats all the time. And you know this happens solely because they're running Windows.

And everyone knows that. F-Secure, McAfee, Symantec, and all the rest know that. Even Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates know it somewhere in the murky regions of their minds. Amit Yoran told everybody to stay away from Microsoft as his last act as head of the DHS. Bruce Schneier has been telling people the same thing for years. So have we. The GAO in the US condemned Microsoft software years ago. Has it helped?

No. Why not?

Now what follows is opinion and when you're testing the unknown you go forward, take your best shot, and you never give up. If at first you don't succeed etc. But the best bet - what I would call a 'sure bet' - is that nothing has supplanted Microsoft Windows because nothing is obviously better.

Microsoft were able to neutralise Netscape not because IE was better but because IE could be used as a replacement for Netscape and because Microsoft had the clout of a market monopoly. Anyone coming after Microsoft now won't be able to bully the others around. They don't have the market clout.

But corruption is a two way street. It's one thing for Microsoft to continue to churn out substandard 'unfit for use' products - but that's not enough for success. For Microsoft to succeed they need people to buy their substandard products as well.

Why do people insist on buying Microsoft products when all of us know how bad they are? Several reasons. Software lock-ins play a part to be sure. But how about Joe and Joanna at PC World? Why do they choose Microsoft Windows?

A suggestion: they choose Microsoft Windows because they've yet to see anything else that's CLEARLY BETTER. That's worth the risk involved.

Please don't come and claim Ubuntu/Linux is clearly better than Windows. It's better and we all know that but it's not 'clearly' better - not to Joe and Joanna at PC World it's not. Joe and Joanna don't know anything about security and all that - they know only what they see.

And what do they see when they look at Ubuntu? A WINDOWS CLONE.

Is Ubuntu cheaper? Probably not - not when you factor Microsoft OEM agreements into it.

So why should they take a chance on Ubuntu? For it is truly about taking a chance: Ubuntu to Joe and Joanna is an 'unknown'. 'Better the devil you know' and all that. They know what they get with Windows. They don't like all of it - perhaps they like very little of it - but they're fairly sure they can cope and they have no way of knowing Ubuntu won't be worse. They're just ordinary punters. THEY DON'T KNOW.

You need something extra to introduce the 'new': you have to be 'clearly better'. OBVIOUSLY better. You have to have something that makes you stand apart from the rest from get-go. You need something shop clerks can wax lyrical about. You need something that creates a 'buzz'. AND YOU NEED SOMETHING MICROSOFT CAN NEVER CATCH YOU ON.

Quick lesson in Windows architecture: it's flawed. Deeply. And I don't mean only the security nightmare. How as Bill Joy put it they took a standalone system and put it on the Internet. I'm talking about what Joe and Joanna see: the interface.

The Microsoft Windows interface is deeply - irrevocably - flawed. And there's nothing Microsoft can do about it today. To do something about it they'd have to scrap their entire body of API support, double cross all their millions of third party vendors, in effect break every application running with their system. Every last one.

Which is why Microsoft are doomed. And it's not just about Web 2.0. Or Google. Microsoft are doomed on the desktop, with the desktop OS. Their time has come. If only someone would enter the arena and claim victory.

And the world would benefit. The Internet isn't supposed to be a bad neighbourhood of illiterate Digg and YouTube rats. The Internet has fantastic resources and an unbelievable potential and according to some (including ourselves) represents the biggest watershed in human civilisation, easily surpassing the printing press.

If it's used properly. If it's not a bad neighbourhood. If people can see it for its potential and not as something sinister lurking in their homes, always poised to do them in and destroy them.

The object oriented development environment of NS/OS has everyone beat hands down. Development cycles are up to five times faster. It's a completely intuitive way of creating software.

The symbiosis between developers and users is unparalleled.

The ease of use is also unparalleled - and the only reason you or someone else might not realise this today is YOU'VE BEEN USING WINDOWS AND WINDOWS CLONES TOO LONG.

Put a real OO desktop on Linux and get it on boxes and get those boxes out to Best Buy, Circuit City, Dixons, PC World, and all the rest and you have a chance. You might end up being the Betamax of the desktops but at least you have a chance.

Otherwise you're going to remain where you are today: a Windows clone with a fraction of 1% of a market share, whining that people aren't impressed and expect you to do more.

You don't have to write all the code from scratch. The Open Sauce™ movement has an insurmountable advantage over in-house software development. There are bits and pieces of projects that can be pulled together. The biggest obstacle as I see it isn't getting the code to integrate properly but to get all the obnoxious egos to quit their games and work together.

Take GNUstep as an example. 17 years into the project and it's still not turnkey. Worse still: it's not a complete desktop GUI. It's only a bunch of supportive code written long ago by someone else. And after 17 years, after being lapped time and again by KDE and GNOME, all the GNUstep people can say is 'it's hard work' and 'you don't understand how difficult this is'. After 17 years.

NeXTSTEP had their GUI up and running 21 years ago. GNUstep's been around 17 of those years. They still don't have a working system.

To get past this - to get all this disparate code and all these desultory developers to start working together - isn't impossible but it's a lot of work.

We had a volunteer for this part of the project. He presented his credentials. He showed us newspaper clippings of what he'd done. He demonstrated that he was a doer and could organise people and things 'ad hoc'. He asked for the job. He wanted to help. We said yes.

Then he put his participation on hold for half a year. After that half year his time was his own but his health took a serious turn for the worse. And at that point there was no way we could have something ready a full year before the next release of Ubuntu. So we dropped the idea.

But someone has to pick the idea up. It doesn't have to be us. For example it could be Shuttleworth himself.

Shuttleworth could do all this. But he'd have to grab the bull by the horns and I don't think he has the guts to do this. He'd have to tell RMS where to get off and he'd have to come out in an open and real challenge to Microsoft. And he'd have to invest a lot more money. A LOT more.

Asking people to create pretty icons pro bono for Open Sauce™ isn't going to get him or you or anyone anywhere. Only back to this forum so you can complain again.

It's not about how good your platform is. Or how good the other platforms are. It's not about you at all. Not anyone in particular. It's about those other 90+% of the 1.3 billion users on the Internet today. Who could unite and 'come together' - if only Microsoft weren't in the way.

So if you want to wire us $200 K we'll look into it. Actually the cost of living's gone up and the dollar's totally tanked so those $200 K won't carry us very far anymore. We'd better ask for $600 K instead. Treble that. Half a million in a pinch. Then we can buy the armada of test equipment we need, we can all quit teaching, traveling, writing our own software - and devote ourselves full time (and more) to getting this thing going.

But it's all useless if the man at the top isn't in on it. And if he's in on it then he surely has better ways to organise it and wouldn't need us at all.

But all I see is he wants good graphics people to make pretty icons pro bono for Open Sauce™. If that's the limit of his understanding - and yours - then so be it. But if anyone calls you 'narrow minded' and 'egocentric' and 'selfish' you'll know why.

[AlphaMack]

Rick summed it up well.

To add to this discussion, I think that we have lost focus on Bug #1. Who cares about Apple and their walled garden of gadgets?

They took a perfectly viable OS handed to them (NeXTSTEP) and bastardized it into a hodgepodge of mess underneath that pretty UI. They have come up with their own undocumented formats and lock you into their apps with no easy way out...certainly without data degradation. Rob Braun and Mark Pilgrim among other people have been complaining about Apple's behavior for years.

Sure, OS X has been scaled down to the iPhone, but would you want to pony up for that walled garden running root by default with a secret kill switch for anything Apple objects to?

The open source movement obviously does not want that. We're all about transparency and open formats, not walled gardens, DRM, kill switches and backdoors, or the like.

Tell that to Joe User. They don't know the difference or don't care, as Rick has touched upon in his marketshare argument. On many occasions I have been approached and asked what version of Windows I am running. When I tell them that I am running Ubuntu I'm met with a blank stare. They thought I was running Windows!

But Linux is not Windows and is just an alternative, right? So why do GNOME and KDE both try to shamelessly copy UI elements from Windows? GNOME even has a registry like Windows! Why not at least copy Apple if we're going to reinvent the wheel? After all, they painstakingly spent resources to come up with their HIG (whether they really follow it is another matter). Or better yet, why not something innovative? That takes resources and money.

As it has been said elsewhere: You want pretty? You better open up your wallet.

But it's not about pretty as Vista has shown us. With Vista, MS thought that it was all about copying Apple's lickable UI in hopes that the cohort of Windows users would pony up for their new OS. Strip away Aero and the transparency and glass and what is beneath the surface?

Same old NTFS.
Same old registry.
Same old single-user base with a multi-user hack and now the annoying UAC.
DRM.
Ridiculous hardware requirements as a result of bloat.

You might as well call it WinXP 2nd edition.

Is it any wonder why no one wants Vista? I don't know a single person in my circle who wants Vista except for a corporate-issued box. Every friend who bought a new PC (myself included) turned down Vista for XP or simply wiped the drive.

Is Vista more secure? Take away UAC and what are you left with?

Windows will never be secure unless you completely scrap its base and take all of that marketshare and software library with it. Linux/UNIX have the upper hand as the base was built with security in mind from the ground up.

So we do have the base and it works pretty damn well. What is the problem again?

The UI.

Ever try to run a GTK app in KDE? What do you see? You have to apply a fix to make it look something more like an app that belongs in KDE.

What about running a KDE app in GNOME? The icons don't match. The way to configure your preferences are fundamentally different. You even get the KDE blue unless you slap in a matching theme.

Want to customize the Nautilus toolbar? What's this about hacking text files?

Don't get me wrong; I'm 100% Ubuntu over here, but let's be realistic about wanting to overtake Apple in prettiness. Make everything work in unison at the UI level and worry about the pretty later. Make the whole package compelling enough so that it stands out against Windows in a shop window display.

Unfortunately, as long as there are these GNOME vs. KDE vs. XFCE vs. Fluxbox vs. E17 vs. whatever tit-for-tats I don't see that happening.

[3rdalbum]

Mac OS X is clinging to their 5% because there's not a lot more room to grow out of it.

Windows users got hot and bothered about Vista, which has small changes to the UI and requires minor computer upgrades. Most Windows users are like this - they've been with XP for too long and they now don't like change. These people are highly unlikely to switch to OS X, no matter how whizzy it is, because it's designed to look and feel completely different.

There will always be some, but not enough.

Linux, on the other hand, is creeping into the "too-familiar-with-XP" user segment, because the basic look and feel is similar enough to XP, and because of certain subnotebooks where the interface looks like a stripped-down XP.

That same certain subnotebook is also appealing to people who are not familiar at all with XP, and who are open to change. Do computer newbies buy Macs? No, I don't believe they do, and this is the blind spot of Apple's marketing. Newbies get confused by the iPod-iTunes-iTMS garden and are unlikely to buy an iPhone, thus completely negating "the halo effect".

The future of computing belongs to the young - either the kids, or those who are young at computers. This is where I've seen Linux creeping in and gaining a hold. Linux still needs to be easier to use, but it needs to be easier for computer newbies to use, not more Windows-like, and not more OS X-like.

[stream303]

Thank you for the reply! I'd really like to get more input, but we've got to throw away the references to fanboyism, gray-box mentality, etc - I understand all about that, even though I'm running Ubuntu on *this* machine at the moment.

I have experience with more than Ubuntu - on the flip side let me say that I've enjoyed OpenBSD for almost 10 years for entirely different reasons - once I wrapped my head around it's brutal honesty, I found it refreshing. Much like your articles.

Let me digest all of the above, and maybe then we can get something started constructively.

[stream303]

Ok, now that I've digested it...

(BTW, let me thank you for CLIX! I'm a shell-freak as well, particularly KSH.)

You've been saying what I've been trying to express for years. You don't have to convince me.

Note that my opinions are just from an average user, not from any sort of official Ubuntu status. I don't seek status, but I'd like to see change in the global open-source marketplace.

Now, coming from a guy who runs and understands the OpenBSD mindset, I'll be brutally honest about the common misunderstanding about Ubuntu:

It isn't always about the money. Like it or not, Ubuntu is run from a code-of-conduct that may not be the best fit for your team. So, while I run OpenBSD, I leave that shut-up-and-code mindset there when I come here, and do the "when in Rome" thing when I'm in the Ubuntu house.

I am not making a moral judgement here, just an observation. I explain this to a lot of people that call me a hippy when explaining that Ubuntu isn't always about the money. :)

So how do we move forward? I'll cut to the chase: I really think that OpenBSD is where you'll get the most traction, and satisfaction with the project.

I'm just saying that if your team can produce a world-changing product, don't let an obstacle like a little over 6K apiece for the 30 team members stop you. You'll be laughing from your yacht when you look back in a few years.

Thing is, if money was the only object, somebody would have beaten you to the punch by now. There has to be something more driving your project that has nothing to do with money.

I truly want to see you succeed, because as much as I like my 6-month releases of BOTH various Linux and BSD's, I'd like to see a little variation on that theme.

[stream303]

Btw, sorry if I got off track with OpenBSD - I should be sleeping right now instead of reading forums. :)

Yes, I agree that a wallet should have been opened long ago, but not necessarily Shuttleworth's. He's done enough already in my book. Again, imho.

I think that focusing on Ubuntu alone to be the sole host of an open-source gadget is a mistake. For it to happen, the entire community would have to get together to make it happen.

And more importantly, I think that revisiting the Next/OpenStep code could really bring some fresh life, if not outright innovation.

[stream303]

Put a real OO desktop on Linux and get it on boxes and get those boxes out to Best Buy, Circuit City, Dixons, PC World, and all the rest and you have a chance. You might end up being the Betamax of the desktops but at least you have a chance.

I forgot to mention that I recently picked up an Apple iTouch for just this reason. I needed some of it's functions, and it is available *now*, and subject to an impulse-buy at brick-n-mortar outlets, not just online or in the grey-market.

I just don't have the patience or willingness to gamble that something like this might appear with an open-source platform 5 years from now - if that. Every day that goes by with us talking about it, is another day that impulse-buys like mine get made with closed-systems, as much as I don't like doing it. I just don't see a open-source option yet.

I think we're all pretty much on the same page, maybe with different ways of expressing it.

[Rick 1]

I don't think open is necessary for a GUI. Everybody's got the right to get paid for their work. Closed is OK as long as you don't do what Apple do. But in the open world you can't (tsk tsk) do that anyway: muck with the underbody. If the underbody is standard and used 'as is' then from the security POV the GUI doesn't have to be open.

OTOH you then need a vendor (Apple) who want to make this GUI spread throughout the industry. Something a lot of us 'assumed' would happen.

But after seven years of blood sweat tears patience and checking the calendar it's pretty obvious Apple don't want to do that. And that to me is one of the biggest IT crimes ever.

And yes - this leaves only the open alternative. But as Roger Moore says in 'The Spy Who Loved Me': 'there is no alternative'. Apple aren't going to make computers for the entire planet - there isn't that much thermal grease to go around - and a healthy market demands actual choice.

There is choice today in the underbody - FreeBSD or Linux. They're both good. There can be similar choice in the GUI. Sun control Java; Apple could control 'OpenStep'. And I don't much mind if they reveal the code or any of that as long as they don't muck with the underbody as they do today.

But what I -do- mind is a world with Windows screwing everything up. Want to talk about comparing operating systems? Sure - as soon as Windows is gone. Want to discuss the pros and cons of open systems? Sure - as soon as Windows is gone. If we had any sense we'd rally around this one thing and nothing else and not stop or take a deep breath until it was gone gone gone really gone. The Internet is literally falling apart and we're wondering if the iPhone OS is OK? We don't have time. 'There is no alternative.'

I think sometimes we forget how good we've got it - or how the world of Windows has got geometrically (astrnomically) worse since we got the F away from it.

http://rixstep.com/1/1/20080814,00.shtml

[Rick 1]

BTW, let me thank you for CLIX!
Oh NP. Cheers. And get the latest. Released the last day or two. And stop by our forum. We need script gurus! ;)

[Rick 1]

I forgot to mention that I recently picked up an Apple iTouch for just this reason.
Ceteris paribus that's a kitchen table issue. Kitchen table users don't often remember computing is to a great extent an industrial issue. You have the incredible machine parks, the banks, the insurance companies, the corporations, the airports, the bleeding airplanes, and so forth. They run something. And too many of them run Windows.

Linus made it to Mars; it doesn't look like Bill Gates will ever make it there. But we could always hope he would: for with his software he'd never make it back. ;)

The web servers are basically OK. Something like 70% run Apache with a Unix underbody. That's cool. It's things like what Gary McKinnon discovered that are not OK, that are downright unforgivable if not outright criminal - Windows all over the place in the US DOD, the NSA, NASA - what are they thinking? What are any of these idiot corporations thinking? What about all the hacked banks and online sales points? What about people purchasing things online at insecure Microsoft ASP/IIS sites that are then hacked so all their personal info gets 'out there', they lose their identities, and so forth - all thanks to Microsoft products?

What about Bill Gates once upon a time seriously demanding backbone providers beef up their security to protect his pathetic Windows machines? As in bad traffic that isn't stopped is going to clobber any Windows machine it comes into contact with? And Bill Gates thinks it's the responsibility of the Internet to protect Windows?

Hello? ;)

It's no longer a viable excuse to say Microsoft are selling the stuff - corporations and individuals alike have an alternative. It's not something punters will feel particularly attracted to - 'yet'. But corporations can opt for an alternative. They can force it on their employees. Having all the major players still stuck in Microsoft products is quite possibly the most debilitating thing going today. If people were forced to use an alternative at work odds are they'd use the same at home.

Sun found OpenOffice wouldn't get legs because it didn't come with support. Red Hat sell support; support is BIG. IBM make all of their major $$$ off support (and they're good at it).

- Who supports open systems - aside from Red Hat? (I don't know - maybe there are others. Can one count Sun today? Are there others?) This is a key issue. Clue: Microsoft are really really good at support. They speak the language of the enterprise. Their products are horrible but their relations with corporations can be very good. Where's the alternative?

- What inroads can the above corporations make?

- What kind of corporate/government initiative have Apple had? (Clue: none - they totally blew it years ago and today say they are not even interested in enterprise clients anymore; they're a solution? :lol:)

To me it's enterprise computing that matters. That's what I've always worked with and it's the only sector I'd ever want to work with. And enterprise computing is what makes the world of IT go round. And Apple can sell all the handsets they want and will never be more than a cultural oddity - they'll never be the alternative everyone's waiting for. You can't revolutionise computing in general if you outright eschew the corporate world and only have iPod this and that as your inroads into a market you say you don't even have an interest in. Apple are a gadget company. Computers are a statistical sideline today for them.

A solid viable 'commodity' is what's needed for enterprise computing. We got the kernels; now we need a commodity API for application programming. If somebody wants to control that as Sun control Java - that's OK by me. But it needs to get out there. And I still believe Windows clones will never come close to doing that.

As happy as Sir Tim can appear I don't believe even he thinks this is the way the Internet (the 'web') is supposed to work. It's a junkyard. A ghetto. A really bad neighbourhood. It's a mess. What do people think when factoring the 'Internet' into their lives? There are so many possibilities - but you won't see them unleashed by a new standard for kitchen table or handset software. You need to grab the industry by the crown jewels - you need to transform enterprise computing. IBM are trying; Red Hat and Sun are trying; it's the influence of the gadget world that contaminates. Know how many times good IT departments have had to nix use of Unix because some idiot manager wants to run Windows games in his office?

[stream303]

I don't think open is necessary for a GUI. Everybody's got the right to get paid for their work. Closed is OK as long as you don't do what Apple do. But in the open world you can't (tsk tsk) do that anyway: muck with the underbody. If the underbody is standard and used 'as is' then from the security POV the GUI doesn't have to be open.

Can you say NextBSD?

This is where BSD might be ideal. As much as some BSD developers don't like it, the BSD license permits one to take the underbody, and close shop with it, as long as the attributes and other issues are followed (like NetBSD's bsd license is now only TWO points long !!)

Ok, Apple uses the Mach microkernel, but underneath is very much BSD - a conglomeration of BSD userland, with their own Aqua on top. Yeah, this is a very simplified explanation, but you know what's up.

Could not the same be done with say an OpenBSD underbody, layered with RixNext code for graphics and UI? Is this not similar to what Apple has done themselves - although this is a very rough/poor analogy.

OpenBSD could provide the rigorous security and developer platform / relationship that might be ideal for the underbody - and still remain open. Your graphics on top - open or closed - your choice. And you can in good conscious ask for payment. Nothing in the BSD license says you can't.

[stream303]

Oh NP. Cheers. And get the latest. Released the last day or two. And stop by our forum. We need script gurus! ;)

Clix is fantastic. I'd love to see it available for Linux / BSD, but for now my OSX box is just fine.

I wish I was a guru, but sadly no. Just a duffer that likes KSH because I can do simple mathematics with decimal precision without having to drop down in to the bc calculator in my stupid self-learning scripts. I need to do more of that.

That's what really blew me away about when I found your site a few years ago - is that you understand both extremes - OO gui and UI issues, and then the goodness of the CLI that is timeless and future-proof precisely because it lacks any real interface at all - except for one's imagination.

That kind of well-rounded attention to detail made me sit up and take notice.

[stream303]

Kitchen-table? How'd you know that's where I usually end up with it? :)

Strangely, I couldn't purchase any real local shells like ksh or even ash for it at the iTunes store. If I don't see one soon, it might end up at the back of the drawer somewhere. :)

I've got to admit that as great as open-source is, I'm wondering if we aren't just repeating the history of the commercial *nix-wars of the past, only this time with distros, while the closed source world is passing us by - for good or naught while our eyes are too focused on basically rehashed dot-com era issues.

You've got my head boiling with ideas again, and how we can live up to Sir Tim's dream. There's got to be a way!

[AlphaMack]

Windows users got hot and bothered about Vista, which has small changes to the UI and requires minor computer upgrades. Most Windows users are like this - they've been with XP for too long and they now don't like change.

I disagree with this premise. The reason users are bugged about Vista (YMMV) is because MS are charging $$$ for an uncompelling upgrade. Vista was hyped to no end by MS and after enough delays ended up falling far short of what it was to be capable of.

As I said previously (and YMMV), every friend of mine who bought a PC either went for XP (myself included) or wiped Vista for XP. Why? It's not because of change; it's because of driver issues, bloat, slower file functions, and especially UAC.

Despite being 7 years old, XP flies on the same hardware.

[3rdalbum]

As I said previously (and YMMV), every friend of mine who bought a PC either went for XP (myself included) or wiped Vista for XP. Why? It's not because of change; it's because of driver issues, bloat, slower file functions, and especially UAC.

This is curious, because I've just unpacked and set up a brand new Vista-based machine for somebody.

It's got a fairly weak processor (Pentium D) with 2 gigs of RAM. It feels quite snappy with Vista, even when I was installing all sorts of programs for this person. I installed a printer; no problems. I went to a computer shop to buy an internal modem that's Vista-compatible - I was told "They're all Vista compatible now". UAC was kind of annoying, but how often do you install a program really?

The complaints that I heard about Vista simply are not true. It is not slow on new computers unless they are underpowered to begin with. Yeah, the memory requirement is shocking, but all new computers now come with at least 1 gig of RAM in response, so the eaten memory is compensated for. I encountered no driver issues, and even if drivers were lacking, it would be the fault of the hardware manufacturers.

Despite being 7 years old, XP flies on the same hardware.

No; *because* of being 7 years old, XP runs faster. If you put a lightweight operating system onto a computer, it will run faster than a heavier, more modern, more secure operating system.

I'm no Windows fan (heck, I'm not even a Windows user :-) ) but I don't see the source of all the Vista melodrama. After all, Vista is causing people to go back to what they're familiar with, rather than something new that might work better (Linux). It really does seem to me that everybody is too used to XP and won't accept anything different.