How Apple Killed the Linux Desktop

[kuvanito]

interesting!
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/27/tech/web/apple-linux-desktop/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

[neu5eeCh]

I thought the article was fairly explicit about where the blame lay; and that's not on Apple -- contrary to the headline.


...he thinks the real reason Linux lost is that developers started defecting to OS X because the developers behind the toolkits used to build graphical Linux applications didn't do a good enough job ensuring backward compatibility between different versions of their APIs.

He blames the developers behind the toolkits used to build graphical Linux applications.

[kuvanito]

i look at apple as another linux distro,in fact some linux distro are far better that mac osx but a very expensive glossy hardware which the user pays for to enrich apples trunk

[mamamia88]

i look at apple as another linux distro,in fact some linux distro are far better that mac osx but a very expensive glossy hardware which the user pays for to enrich apples trunk

to be fair they do make some pretty damn sexy hardware. the problem i have is that when you put so much focus on the exterior the interior has to suffer to keep prices down to a reasonable level.

[mastablasta]

to be fair they do make some pretty damn sexy hardware.

they make? i doubt they make anyhting there. foxconn makes it and samsung and maybe gorilla or whatever the company behind the glass is called. they don't make anything themselves as i understand.

there is a very good video on you tube (forgot from which tech blogger it is) where they offer reward to those that can actually figure out what apple invented/made after wozniac left them.and the choice is so very slim.

they do design things which is why they cling on to it in their lawsuits. they do not have anything else that is genuinley theirs to show....

[Erik1984]

Even if they did not invent much themselves they are the first company to assemble those pieces together in a very nice package. Look I absolutely dislike the company, their business practices and ethics but they must have done some things very right.

[evilsoup]

Look at the Retina displays: that technology has been around for ages, and really should be the standard by now. But only Apple are willing to sink enough money into buying in large enough bulk (they routinely buy the entire output of factories, so manufacturers love them) & marketing it to make it profitable. Soon, other manufacturers will play catchup, and retina-type high-resolution monitors will become the standard.

[neu5eeCh]

Look at the Retina displays: that technology has been around for ages, and really should be the standard by now. But only Apple are willing to sink enough money into buying in large enough bulk (they routinely buy the entire output of factories, so manufacturers love them) & marketing it to make it profitable. Soon, other manufacturers will play catchup, and retina-type high-resolution monitors will become the standard.

There was an article I read about two weeks ago that definitively demolished the hype surrounding the retina display. I'm looking for it and will link once a find it. Essentially, it goes like this: The ability of the human eye to detect pixelation is a function of distance. Pixel density is secondary. So, my old 1280 x 768 LCD is also a "retina display" when I'm not holding it to my nose.

So, the only advantage to a "retina display" (and remember, all displays are retina displays, including your old Sylvania TV) is that you can hold it flat against your nose without detecting pixelation. Other than that, even though the battery life of the new iPad is something like 2.5 times longer than the previous iPad, you only get 3/4's the life because the retina display burns through the charge.

The retina display is complete marketing hype -- all displays are retina displays. I see no need for the world to adopt Apple's marketing gimmick and hope they don't.

[Dragonbite]

i look at apple as another linux distro,in fact some linux distro are far better that mac osx but a very expensive glossy hardware which the user pays for to enrich apples trunk

That was thinking when I was using Windows 7; it is the most Linux-like release yet! It may help that all of the feature they included I had been using in KDE for a while except things were snappier and it didn't require a special video card that was "up to snuff".


Even if they did not invent much themselves they are the first company to assemble those pieces together in a very nice package. Look I absolutely dislike the company, their business practices and ethics but they must have done some things very right.

I noticed how Apple worked when they released the iTunes and iPod together. Seeing how these two devices integrated so well, so seamlessly and naturally I realized that Apple wasn't a product that made X and Y and Z, it made XYZ a blend that improves each other making X and Y and Z become WXYZ! (hope this makes sense)

[Jakin]

Mac OS X is proprietary UNIX with its own set of propietary drivers and kernals- ect HARDWARE (well maybe thats not so true when they went intel based), its very hard to just look at it as a linux distro.

[mr john]

Linux had a great chance every when Vista came out. Sadly Apple put more money, resources and effort into advertising and getting media support. The final nail in the coffin was the end of the Gnome2 interface

[Dragonbite]

Linux had a great chance every when Vista came out. Sadly Apple put more money, resources and effort into advertising and getting media support. The final nail in the coffin was the end of the Gnome2 interface

As the Monty Python skit goes...
I'm not dead yet!

[Mikeb85]

Linux had a great chance every when Vista came out. Sadly Apple put more money, resources and effort into advertising and getting media support. The final nail in the coffin was the end of the Gnome2 interface

Gnome stopping development of Gnome 2 has absolutely nothing to do with Linux's lack of success. Gnome 3 is much better.

[Szor3n]

Gnome stopping development of Gnome 2 has absolutely nothing to do with Linux's lack of success. Gnome 3 is much better.


Yes. IMO Gnome 3 / Unity are a step in the right direction for desktop OS's. You can kind of see it in Windows 8 / OSX, but personally I think Unity did it best. You have integraded search, a non horribly glossy UX, and everything is fairly minimal, without going overboard.

Other than the fact that they don't run so well on older hardware, I really don't understand the massive 'outrage' in the linux community against these new designs.

[Mikeb85]

Yes. IMO Gnome 3 / Unity are a step in the right direction for desktop OS's. You can kind of see it in Windows 8 / OSX, but personally I think Unity did it best. You have integraded search, a non horribly glossy UX, and everything is fairly minimal, without going overboard.

Other than the fact that they don't run so well on older hardware, I really don't understand the massive 'outrage' in the linux community against these new designs.

The massive outrage is people who get stuck in their ways, don't want to learn, and see it as being more 'hardcore' to hate on the new paradigm...

People resist progression in every facet of life, computers are no different. Inevitably though, progress passes them by, and they become like dinosaurs...

[jwbrase]

Gnome stopping development of Gnome 2 has absolutely nothing to do with Linux's lack of success. Gnome 3 is much better.

I very much agree with the first sentence and vehemently disagree with the second.

Linux's lack of success on the desktop is a result of chasing an entrenched incumbent in the desktop OS market (a difficult situation in the first place), and of anticompetitive practices on the part of its competitors (Microsoft and Apple).

Furthermore, the Linux desktop isn't dead: mobile is starting to take over more and more of the role of the desktop, and Android is doing very well in the mobile market. In ten years or less I predict it will be commonplace to plug your phone into a terminal at your desk and use it like a desktop when you're at home or work rather than on the move. We're already starting to see some of that, though the current phones that do it present crap interfaces when docked (basically, a duplicate of their touch interface, which isn't exactly great for use with a mouse). So it's arguable that the long awaited "Year of the Linux Desktop" has already happened (call it 2010 or 2011). The biggest threat in this respect is that Apple and MS will manage to kill Android with lawsuits.

EDIT: With regards to the article linked in the OP, even if OS X becomes mainstream instead of Linux when Microsoft eventually falls apart (assuming that mobile hasn't completely taken over the role of the desktop by then), Linux is likely to do better (even though it still may not exactly thrive) in an OS X dominated market than in a Windows dominated one, due to somewhat better API compatibility (due to OS X also being a *n?x).

[vexorian]

The guy CNN mention is Miguel de Icaza. Sorry, but no, thanks. I'll give 0 credibility to this article.

The guy is so full of it. Really? Does he really think the issue with Linux is that we are losing developers? Sorry, but is he on crack?

Is there an "issue" with Linux? The numbers have stayed stable for years. Until last year when we supposedly had a surge. CNN links to it: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Linux-Foundation-enterprise-Linux-survey-plus-Net-Applications-desktop-stats/

Otherwise, who cares?


Mobile development is also on de Icaza's mind. Since 2001 he's been working on Mono, an open source framework for running Microsoft's .NET languages on non-Microsoft operating systems like Linux and OS X. Now the project is available on Android and iOS as well. Ah so he cares. The whole silly claim was a dull attempt to promote his little dead horse and make people move to Microsoft instead of Apple.


i look at apple as another linux distro
That's a VERY wrong way to view things. It is at best a very proprietary FreeBSD distro.

[cariboo]

Maybe Miguel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza) should have stuck with Gnome. :-D

[vexorian]

And seriously, since the web platform works nicely in Linux, is it not a good thing that it is getting popular?

I guess for Icaza anything not MS encumbered .NET is bad for business Linux.

[mamamia88]

Meh until I can get a mac without a 30% markup over pc hardware I'll continue to use linux. Heck I'll probably contiune using linux because I can contiune running a modern desktop indefinitely without new hardware (within reason). I guess macs are good if you really need mac specific software but come on windows with 90% market share so gets most apps.

[forrestcupp]

Gnome stopping development of Gnome 2 has absolutely nothing to do with Linux's lack of success. Gnome 3 is much better.KDE is much better.


The massive outrage is people who get stuck in their ways, don't want to learn, and see it as being more 'hardcore' to hate on the new paradigm...

People resist progression in every facet of life, computers are no different. Inevitably though, progress passes them by, and they become like dinosaurs...The "new paradigm" sucks for the desktop. The old paradigm does, too. KDE is doing a great job at making things modern without kowtowing to the tablet (even though they are working to make the experience better on tablets).

[aysiu]

Meh until I can get a mac without a 30% markup over pc hardware I'll continue to use linux. Heck I'll probably contiune using linux because I can contiune running a modern desktop indefinitely without new hardware (within reason). I guess macs are good if you really need mac specific software but come on windows with 90% market share so gets most apps. There's only a "30% markup" if you consider processor speed, RAM amount, and hard drive space to be the only factors involved in specifications and pricing.

I don't.

I can't really say Mac desktops are worth the money, but I've definitely found recent Mac laptops to be (the current and previous line of Macbook Pros, for example). Just as a few examples--waking from sleep, instant; reconnecting to wireless after waking from sleep, almost instant; no latch or button to push to open the lid; magnetic power cord for clutzes like me who trip on (and subsequently break) power cords often (yes, this happened to my Ubuntu netbook power cord, for example); great (at least in my experience) customer service.

That's just stuff I can name off the top of my head.

Not trying to convince you to buy a Mac. Just trying to let you know Mac-specific software is not the only reason to buy one. And I definitely don't care about Windows having more software since almost all software I use is cross-platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux (TeamViewer, Dropbox, Firefox, Chrome, FileZilla, etc.).

[Dragonbite]

KDE is much better.

The "new paradigm" sucks for the desktop. The old paradigm does, too. KDE is doing a great job at making things modern without kowtowing to the tablet (even though they are working to make the experience better on tablets).

Actually, KDE has had a netbook plasma for a while when Netbooks was all the rage, and now there is Plasma Active for tablets.

So they aren't kowtowing, but they are facilitating! And if I remember right, some of this flexibility was one of the reasons they did the drastic change from KDE 3 to KDE 4. All that complaining and "losing users" for technology sake is paying back in spades! I wonder if Gnome has built in such investments?

[Mikeb85]

KDE is much better.

The "new paradigm" sucks for the desktop. The old paradigm does, too. KDE is doing a great job at making things modern without kowtowing to the tablet (even though they are working to make the experience better on tablets).

KDE is alright. I prefer the minimalism of Gnome, but I also liked the customizability of KDE. KDE also has alot of great tools, and some of questionable quality...

I do prefer the new paradigm though, the easy quick searching that Gnome 3 and Unity bring. If I wasn't using Gnome 3 right now though I'd be using KDE.

[mamamia88]

There's only a "30% markup" if you consider processor speed, RAM amount, and hard drive space to be the only factors involved in specifications and pricing.

I don't.

I can't really say Mac desktops are worth the money, but I've definitely found recent Mac laptops to be (the current and previous line of Macbook Pros, for example). Just as a few examples--waking from sleep, instant; reconnecting to wireless after waking from sleep, almost instant; no latch or button to push to open the lid; magnetic power cord for clutzes like me who trip on (and subsequently break) power cords often (yes, this happened to my Ubuntu netbook power cord, for example); great (at least in my experience) customer service.

That's just stuff I can name off the top of my head.

Not trying to convince you to buy a Mac. Just trying to let you know Mac-specific software is not the only reason to buy one. And I definitely don't care about Windows having more software since almost all software I use is cross-platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux (TeamViewer, Dropbox, Firefox, Chrome, FileZilla, etc.).

i'll deal with the 5-10 second wake from sleep and 95% as nice hardware to save $300. just saying. i will probably buy a macbook air someday just because i find installing arch to be a fun way to kill a day and having something that "just works" would be great to access the arch wiki

[forrestcupp]

Actually, KDE has had a netbook plasma for a while when Netbooks was all the rage, and now there is Plasma Active for tablets.

So they aren't kowtowing, but they are facilitating! And if I remember right, some of this flexibility was one of the reasons they did the drastic change from KDE 3 to KDE 4. All that complaining and "losing users" for technology sake is paying back in spades! I wonder if Gnome has built in such investments?That's what I'm saying. KDE is doing things for the tablet, but not at the expense of the desktop. That's what I like about it.


KDE is alright. I prefer the minimalism of Gnome, but I also liked the customizability of KDE. KDE also has alot of great tools, and some of questionable quality...

I do prefer the new paradigm though, the easy quick searching that Gnome 3 and Unity bring. If I wasn't using Gnome 3 right now though I'd be using KDE.
I never could get into Unity, but I did use Gnome Shell for a while, and loved it. But when I tried out the latest KDE, I kind of wondered why I loved Gnome Shell so much. I like features more than minimalism. One great thing about Linux is that we have choices to satisfy our personal preferences.

[mamamia88]

That's what I'm saying. KDE is doing things for the tablet, but not at the expense of the desktop. That's what I like about it.


I never could get into Unity, but I did use Gnome Shell for a while, and loved it. But when I tried out the latest KDE, I kind of wondered why I loved Gnome Shell so much. I like features more than minimalism. One great thing about Linux is that we have choices to satisfy our personal preferences.

ever wonder if there is such a thing as too much customization? i've spent the last 2 days obscessing about getting my arch install perfect and not really getting anything important done. or is that just an impule control order?

[aysiu]

i'll deal with the 5-10 second wake from sleep and 95% as nice hardware to save $300. just saying. And I won't. Just saying. Those were just some examples. There are others.

[mamamia88]

And I won't. Just saying. Those were just some examples. There are others.

oh i'm not gonna argue with you. macs are good machines. in fact with rooting my android phone and installing daily roms and installing arch on my netbook i might get one eventually just to bring some sanity back to my computing landscape. if you have the money by all means go for it.

[vexorian]

KDE4 had a lot more time to polish than GNOME3. I remember that the first releases were just as awful.

[mr john]

I'm a software developer. Here are the reasons why I don't develop Ubuntu specific apps:

deb packaging is extra work on top of the development. On Windows it's much easier to make a setup.exe using various tools like innosetup. If you're really lazy you can just use a zip. On Android the compiler generates the APK automatically and you can just upload that to Google Play. However with Ubuntu it's very fiddly getting the file system exactly right for a deb.

If your app is in the Ubuntu repositories then you have no control over when updates are rolled out. With Google Play you can decide when you want to roll out updates.

If you want to have your own repository so you can control updates you have to go to the bother of setting all that up and also writing/publishing documentation so users know how to install it


You can roll out your deb file on your website, but that wont guarantee automatic updates. If you have in-app updating then you will need to make sure you have the right permissions set for your application directory.



Visual Studio is very good for developing apps for Windows and the Android SDK plugins for Eclipse are very good. However, there is nothing quite as good for people who want to develop Ubuntu apps. Having an Ubuntu plugin for Eclipse that works similarly to the Android plugin would be useful, but only if there was an easier way to submit the apps to the Ubuntu app market.

[Dragonbite]

ever wonder if there is such a thing as too much customization? i've spent the last 2 days obscessing about getting my arch install perfect and not really getting anything important done. or is that just an impule control order?

I found myself wasting a lot of time installing a new distribution or desktop environment then tweaking it to my likes just to switch to something else (shiny!) and go through it again.

That's why I have been trying to force myself to stick with one distribution that makes things easy and doesn't require as long to customize while it will last a long time between releases.

So I use Windows.

:lolflag:

(only in-between using Ubuntu .... :) )

[buzzingrobot]

i look at apple as another linux distro,in fact some linux distro are far better that mac osx but a very expensive glossy hardware which the user pays for to enrich apples trunk

What leads you to make such an erroneous statement?

[buzzingrobot]

they make? i doubt they make anyhting there. foxconn makes it and samsung and maybe gorilla or whatever the company behind the glass is called. they don't make anything themselves as i understand.

there is a very good video on you tube (forgot from which tech blogger it is) where they offer reward to those that can actually figure out what apple invented/made after wozniac left them.and the choice is so very slim.

they do design things which is why they cling on to it in their lawsuits. they do not have anything else that is genuinley theirs to show....

Apple does design its own hardware and Foxconn and other companies build their products according to Apple specs. They also build other products for other companies.

I can't think of a tech vendor that does not use Asian manufacturers to build its hardware.

You appear to be fundamentally uninformed about this issue.

[BrianBlaze]

As long as windows, unix and OSX all exist it is better for all of us regular people so they will keep making it better... How I feel about all this is just that apple made it's own linux distro and because it is founded by trillions off apple dollars it is the best linux "distro" but people like me (who will never own an apple PC) it inspires us to make sure the free stuff is just as good. Coming from a company that develops web sites and all our developpers use OSX I can see how the backwards compatibility can be a huge problem with some updates on some linux... although I have seen the same thing happen on OSX so really nothing is perfect and keep the competition coming :)

[evilsoup]

Apple's OSX is actually (IIRC) based on one of the BSDs, which are similar to Linux, but not Linux.

OSX has a common ancestor (UNIX) with Linux, and so has a lot of similarities, but to call it a Linux distro is simply wrong.

[KiwiNZ]

Apple's OSX is actually (IIRC) based on one of the BSDs, which are similar to Linux, but not Linux.

OSX has a common ancestor (UNIX) with Linux, and so has a lot of similarities, but to call it a Linux distro is simply wrong.

OSX is based on the March Kernel, bits and pieces of FreeBSD,NetBSD/Unix and of course Nextstep.

[BrianBlaze]

Apple's OSX is actually (IIRC) based on one of the BSDs, which are similar to Linux, but not Linux.

OSX has a common ancestor (UNIX) with Linux, and so has a lot of similarities, but to call it a Linux distro is simply wrong.

Unix is the word I should have used :)

[KiwiNZ]

Unix is the word I should have used :)

OSX is Unix certified, Linux like OSX is "Unix like"

[BrianBlaze]

OSX is Unix certified, Linux like OSX is "Unix like"

Word! I wasn't trying to be too specific because just like you can't say debian is just like red hat they are very similar IMO. But like real life we like to separate what we like from other things so some people would say they are a religion other people would say they are a color and me I say I am a human :)

[forrestcupp]

Word! I wasn't trying to be too specific because just like you can't say debian is just like red hat they are very similar IMO. But like real life we like to separate what we like from other things so some people would say they are a religion other people would say they are a color and me I say I am a human :)

Let me just add fuel to the fire by saying that Linux was modeled after Minix, not Unix. :lol:

[BrianBlaze]

Let me just add fuel to the fire by saying that Linux was modeled after Minix, not Unix. :lol:

DOH! :lolflag:

[buzzingrobot]

OSX is based on the March Kernel, bits and pieces of FreeBSD,NetBSD/Unix and of course Nextstep.

Mach, not March.

Apple's integration of its own proprietary code into the BSD code it leveraged a decade or so ago is much more extensive than in the typical Linux distribution.

One of the smarter things Apple did was ignore X. They did ship it with the dev tools until the latest release.

[KiwiNZ]

Mach, not March.

Apple's integration of its own proprietary code into the BSD code it leveraged a decade or so ago is much more extensive than in the typical Linux distribution.

One of the smarter things Apple did was ignore X. They did ship it with the dev tools until the latest release.

A spelling error, sue me

[lykwydchykyn]

Miguel + Apple + "The death of the linux desktop" = pure, unadulterated link bait.

Protip: any article puporting to tell you the simple, single reason why "Linux failed" is going to be rubbish.

[jonnyboysmithy]

ever wonder if there is such a thing as too much customization? i've spent the last 2 days obscessing about getting my arch install perfect and not really getting anything important done. or is that just an impule control order? sounds familiar..:-\"
I think a lot of us do that. or at least I do.. :P

[buzzingrobot]

Let me just add fuel to the fire by saying that Linux was modeled after Minix, not Unix. :lol:

Well, Andy Tannenbaum created Minix because he's an academic who wanted to teach an OS course with access to actual code. He could not do that with Unix due to licensing. So, he wrote Minix, and a nice textbook to go with it. It is still a valuable read for anyone interested in fundamental OS concepts, and it uses Minix for its examples.

Torvalds bootstrapped off Minix.

[fontis]

Sounds like poor Miguel is crying about the fact that he has 0 credibility.

Gnome people have always been known to be fanatics. And mind you, only reason why Gnome even became popular was because KDE4 was released and was terrible in the first few go's, which made a lot of people just switch to Gnome which didn't suffer from the same performance drag at the time. That combined with popular distro's building on top of it like Ubuntu.

But ever since KDE4 matured.. there really isn't much reason to stick with Gnome should they pull for weird changes. Which arguably they are.

Maybe one day the Unity experience will be far richer and greater than it is at the moment. But right now I would have to say that I prefer KDE. (Ironically my only linux installation atm is running Unity lol.)

[Mikeb85]

Sounds like poor Miguel is crying about the fact that he has 0 credibility.

Gnome people have always been known to be fanatics. And mind you, only reason why Gnome even became popular was because KDE4 was released and was terrible in the first few go's, which made a lot of people just switch to Gnome which didn't suffer from the same performance drag at the time. That combined with popular distro's building on top of it like Ubuntu.

But ever since KDE4 matured.. there really isn't much reason to stick with Gnome should they pull for weird changes. Which arguably they are.

Maybe one day the Unity experience will be far richer and greater than it is at the moment. But right now I would have to say that I prefer KDE. (Ironically my only linux installation atm is running Unity lol.)

I wouldn't entirely agree. KDE is buggy, with some pretty raw (and sometimes sub-par) software, and has some strange design choices. I will still probably try out KDE 5 when it's released, but I'm definitely not a fan of KDE 4. It works, but Gnome 3 is a nicer DE, much more pleasant to look at, a little less customizable, and with better software. KDE however IS functional, pretty quick, and you can modify just about anything about it...

[buzzingrobot]

Sounds like poor Miguel is crying about the fact that he has 0 credibility.

Gnome people have always been known to be fanatics...

Your comment provides no evidence that you have read de Icaza's article. His criticisms have little, if anything, to do with Gnome or KDE or XFCE specifically. He attributes the current stagnation of the Linux desktop to its failure to create and nurture an independent application ecology of sufficient strength and variety to drive demand for Linux on the desktop. We are in a position that sees users adopt Gnome or KDE or XFCE and then go looking for applications. It should be the other way around.

This, in turn, he attributes to widespread disregard for things like backwards compatibility and API stability and the never-ending differences between, and within, distributions. Why should a Linux developer bother to create an app for, say, Ubuntu, if he can't be sure it will work on the next version of Ubuntu, or the current versions of Fedora or Red Hat or Debian or Arch or whatever. If you re going to try to make your living as an independent developer, you are inevitably contstrained to developing for Windows or Apple, who have an interest in sustaining your success that the Linux community does not. Hence, we are left almost entirely with developers who are, by definition, amateurs.

By way of illustration, MIguel sites examples of Linux developers knowingly altering code to address issues only they have identified even though they know it will break existing applications. I.e., developers serving their own interests at the expense of users.

He contrasts this with the vibrancy of the OS X independent developer space. Linux enthusiasts deny this is the case, even though they don't own a Mac and have no idea what is available in the Mac App Store.

No matter how good, or how flawed, Gnome, KDE and XFCE may be, they are shells intended to make it more convenient to use applications. Linux developers have been, and are, neglecting the application space. We see too few original and innovative responses to user needs, and for too many music players, etc. The availability of source has led, not to more original applications, but to seemingly endless mimicry and modification of existing solutions. In that sense, open source is a drag on innovation. Why, for example, do something original and innovative when you can fork an old application in some minor and humdrum fashion?

[Dragonbite]

Sounds like poor Miguel is crying about the fact that he has 0 credibility.

Gnome people have always been known to be fanatics. And mind you, only reason why Gnome even became popular was because KDE4 was released and was terrible in the first few go's, which made a lot of people just switch to Gnome which didn't suffer from the same performance drag at the time. That combined with popular distro's building on top of it like Ubuntu.

Before that Gnome got a foothold because the #1 distribution of the time (Red Hat) used it, and KDE is built on Qt which was going through some legal questions that turned a lot of open source people at the time off of it.

Eventually Qt's licensing and reputation got cleared up but the damage was done and until KDE 4 and Gnome-shell/Unity has been running second-fiddle.

What also didn't help was that KDE did use more resources in the beginning and it still has that reputation even though the difference has shrunken to very little and computers have so much extra horsepower these days that difference doesn't mean much with reasonably up-to-date hardware.

As for credibility, anybody here help start a desktop system (Gnome) that eventually outgrows you and is used by a large population of Linux users (including Ubuntu)? Anybody here start a framework (Mono) that has truly become cross-platform (Windows, Linux, OS X, Android, iOS and WP7+)? Anybody here start their own company? (Xamrin) Anybody here take criticism from arm-chair FOSS gestapo and don't let it break him down?

I think he's got a little more credibility than the majority of people in these forums (including myself).

[fontis]

Your comment provides no evidence that you have read de Icaza's article. His criticisms have little, if anything, to do with Gnome or KDE or XFCE specifically. He attributes the current stagnation of the Linux desktop to its failure to create and nurture an independent application ecology of sufficient strength and variety to drive demand for Linux on the desktop. We are in a position that sees users adopt Gnome or KDE or XFCE and then go looking for applications. It should be the other way around.

This, in turn, he attributes to widespread disregard for things like backwards compatibility and API stability and the never-ending differences between, and within, distributions. Why should a Linux developer bother to create an app for, say, Ubuntu, if he can't be sure it will work on the next version of Ubuntu, or the current versions of Fedora or Red Hat or Debian or Arch or whatever. If you re going to try to make your living as an independent developer, you are inevitably contstrained to developing for Windows or Apple, who have an interest in sustaining your success that the Linux community does not. Hence, we are left almost entirely with developers who are, by definition, amateurs.

By way of illustration, MIguel sites examples of Linux developers knowingly altering code to address issues only they have identified even though they know it will break existing applications. I.e., developers serving their own interests at the expense of users.

He contrasts this with the vibrancy of the OS X independent developer space. Linux enthusiasts deny this is the case, even though they don't own a Mac and have no idea what is available in the Mac App Store.

No matter how good, or how flawed, Gnome, KDE and XFCE may be, they are shells intended to make it more convenient to use applications. Linux developers have been, and are, neglecting the application space. We see too few original and innovative responses to user needs, and for too many music players, etc. The availability of source has led, not to more original applications, but to seemingly endless mimicry and modification of existing solutions. In that sense, open source is a drag on innovation. Why, for example, do something original and innovative when you can fork an old application in some minor and humdrum fashion?

*snip*
The rate at which Linux has grown and matured is remarkable and quite frankly there is nothing in the software industry which can correlate to it in terms of rapid expansion and adaption.

He has always been whining and crying wolf about some stuff for as far back as I can remember. Over-dramatizing something because people don't agree with his view on how things should run or with what software. Just look at this whole Mono business. He has always had an agenda behind every speech he lays out and therefore he holds no grounds whatsoever.

Nobody ever stated that the future development of Linux or any of the distros running the kernel should be focused in some form, and that is actually the beauty of it. And so what, he is whining about backwards compatibility? Try running Windows 3.11 software on your Windows XP/Vista machine and lets see how compatible it is. Same goes for Mac OSX. Ton's of software don't "work" and break with subsequent releases and changes. If anything, the backwards and compatibility of Linux software across platforms is quite remarkable and unseen of in the industry.

So no, he does not raise any significant points that I can honestly say holds any grounds. To me, that article is nothing more than a public cry for attention.

Now, he DOES deserve credit for the effort he has put in but that doesn't mean he is some untouchable person who cannot be criticized.

[graabein]

Haha I laughed and laughed.

[buzzingrobot]

*snip*
The rate at which Linux has grown and matured is remarkable and quite frankly there is nothing in the software industry which can correlate to it in terms of rapid expansion and adaption.

OS X is several years younger than Linux. iOS is only a few years old. Their market penetration is significantly in excess of Linux, especially the latter OS.

The point at here, though, is that the penetration of the Linux desktop into the market is stagnant. The pattern of marginal changes in usage levels from year to year seems fixed.


He has always been whining and crying wolf about some stuff for as far back as I can remember. Over-dramatizing something because people don't agree with his view on how things should run or with what software. Just look at this whole Mono business. He has always had an agenda behind every speech he lays out and therefore he holds no grounds whatsoever.

That's a dubious and unsubstantiated attack on one individual that has nothing at all to do with the issues I raised in my comment. You would do better to address those issues instead of launching an ad hominem attack on de Icaza.


Nobody ever stated that the future development of Linux or any of the distros running the kernel should be focused in some form, and that is actually the beauty of it. And so what, he is whining about backwards compatibility?

If you want independent software vendors to write applications for your OS, especially commercial developers, then you need to give them a stable platform. That means, at a very basic level, that Linux presents an API that is uniform across all distributions and does not change every time some obscure kernel developer has a whim and convinces Torvalds to go along with it. As a target for application developers, Linux is a confused, unstable, mishmash of hundreds of different versions of itself.

De Icaza is not talking about running Windows 3.11 apps on Windows XP (if memory serves, that was quite often possible), he is talking about such things as running applications written on 2011 Ubuntu on 2012 openSUSE or applications written on Fedora 17 on Slackware 14, *and* he is talking about the ability to do this at the binary level, not by recompiling with the tool stack specific on each distribution. And, btw, not needing to maintain umpteen different versions to account for umpteen different packaging and dependency resolution schemes.

(The mere fact that Linux is compelled to sue complex dependency resolution schemes is evidence of the mishmash that it presents to developers. Developers can't even be sure what libraries are on their user's machines. Linux forces *uses* to deal with this, and that is just plain wrong. Dependency software has become reliable and sophisticated, but it exists to deal with a problem, and that problem is still here)

If a developer wants to develop an app for Linux, he or she is compelled to choose a specific version of a specific distribution to use as his development machine. He must be cognizant of every distribution-specific difference that impacts his code if he wants that application to work on his users' machines. He also needs to track kernel changes, and kernel changes made by each distribution. And then he needs to account for all those changes happening as each Linux distribution releases a new version. Then, he needs to start worry about Gnome and KDE and glib and qt, etc. ,etc. etc.

When a coder decides to try his luck at making a living by creating software applications, he must choose a target platform. He needs to be able to create software that can be installed and used, without alteration and without recompilation, on all the current versions of his target platform, on all of its hardware platforms. He wants to be able to follow changes to a single target platform so he can update his software as necessary when that platform changes. It is much, much easier to do that with Windows and OS X than it is with Linux. That is why Linux on the desktop is stagnating.

Linux does not permit developers to create an application that they can sell to users who can then have confidence they can successfully install and execute it on the Linux distribution of their choice. That just does not happen on Linux and it never has.

That is de Icaza's point: If you want the Linux desktop to be a viable competitor, then you need to nurture a strong community of independent software developers. To make that possible, you need to give them a stable and consistent platform. Linux is not now that platform.

9EDIT: The latest GIMP release provides an example. GIMP developers released a binary version for Windows and OS X. They did not for Linux. Why? Because they cannot. They can only release a version for a specific version of a specific distribution. If they want to release, maintain and, crucially, support, binary version of GIMP, they must build and maintain individual version for each version of each distribution. That is clearly not possible. Instead, like other Linux developers, they have no choice but to pass control to the individual distributions, which modify and build GIMP as they choose. Then they package their unique binaries with distribution-specific dependency rules and release it. The original developers have no certain dea what is actually executing on any given user's hardware.)

(BTW, I've used OS X since version one. Your assertion that new OS X releases commonly break existing applications is false. Independent developers have access to forthcoming version of OS X for months prior to release. Breakage occurs, of course, if a develop ignores Apple guidelines and rules, just as in any OS platform. In my own experience, it has only happened with Adobe products, which are often examples of software that violates Apple's standards.)

[mamamia88]

True story Steve Jobs tried to hire Linus Torvalds. He must have been doing something right.

[buzzingrobot]

True story Steve Jobs tried to hire Linus Torvalds. He must have been doing something right.

Torvalds is a low-level kernel coder, not a desktop application coder. His personal skills as a coder are irrelevant to this discussion.

[SeijiSensei]

If a developer wants to develop an app for Linux, he or she is compelled to choose a specific version of a specific distribution to use as his development machine.

Isn't compilation with static libraries the standard solution to this problem? I believe that Windows developers often use static libraries as well because they cannot be certain all the .dll's they need will be available.

[buzzingrobot]

Isn't compilation with static libraries the standard solution to this problem? I believe that Windows developers often use static libraries as well because they cannot be certain all the .dll's they need will be available.

Static libraries help. Much the same can be accomplished if developers can know which libraries, dll's and otherwise, are in an OS release. They do with OS X, and they can also know what Microsoft puts in a Windows release. What they may not know is what third-party libraries have been added to a users machines. If they write code that is dependent on the libraries that the OS vendor supports and documents, then they should be in good shape. If they write code that depends on undocumented libraries, on on third-party code, then they are vulnerable.

In a broader sense, that is the point of an OS vendor creating an API. The vendor says to developers: Code to these standards and your software will run on our OS, even if we change library and other underlying code. We promise to maintain the consistency of our API, so write code that conforms to it and stay away from making specific calls to the underlying code.

Linux -- viewed as a single OS platform comprising kernel, libraries, apps, etc. -- does not do that. As it stands now, I don't think it can.

[forrestcupp]

Gnome people have always been known to be fanatics. And mind you, only reason why Gnome even became popular was because KDE4 was released and was terrible in the first few go's, which made a lot of people just switch to Gnome which didn't suffer from the same performance drag at the time. That combined with popular distro's building on top of it like Ubuntu.What? Gnome was popular a long time before KDE 4 was even thought of.


Torvalds is a low-level kernel coder, not a desktop application coder. His personal skills as a coder are irrelevant to this discussion.Torvalds has contributed a lot to some of the various desktop environments, too. His coding skills are definitely not limited to low-level kernel stuff. He would have been a good asset to Apple.

[Dragonbite]

If you want independent software vendors to write applications for your OS, especially commercial developers, then you need to give them a stable platform. That means, at a very basic level, that Linux presents an API that is uniform across all distributions and does not change every time some obscure kernel developer has a whim and convinces Torvalds to go along with it. As a target for application developers, Linux is a confused, unstable, mishmash of hundreds of different versions of itself.

De Icaza is not talking about running Windows 3.11 apps on Windows XP (if memory serves, that was quite often possible), he is talking about such things as running applications written on 2011 Ubuntu on 2012 openSUSE or applications written on Fedora 17 on Slackware 14, *and* he is talking about the ability to do this at the binary level, not by recompiling with the tool stack specific on each distribution. And, btw, not needing to maintain umpteen different versions to account for umpteen different packaging and dependency resolution schemes.

Is this something that Open Build Service (https://build.opensuse.org/) (OBS) is trying to help deal with? It isn't fixing the root of the issue but is trying to streamline developing for multiple distributions.
The openSUSE Build Service is the the public instance of the Open Build Service (OBS) used for development of the openSUSE distribution and to offer packages from same source for Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other distributions..

[alexfish]

OS X is several years younger than Linux. iOS is only a few years old. Their market penetration is significantly in excess of Linux, especially the latter OS.

The point at here, though, is that the penetration of the Linux desktop into the market is stagnant. The pattern of marginal changes in usage levels from year to year seems fixed.



That's a dubious and unsubstantiated attack on one individual that has nothing at all to do with the issues I raised in my comment. You would do better to address those issues instead of launching an ad hominem attack on de Icaza.



If you want independent software vendors to write applications for your OS, especially commercial developers, then you need to give them a stable platform. That means, at a very basic level, that Linux presents an API that is uniform across all distributions and does not change every time some obscure kernel developer has a whim and convinces Torvalds to go along with it. As a target for application developers, Linux is a confused, unstable, mishmash of hundreds of different versions of itself.

De Icaza is not talking about running Windows 3.11 apps on Windows XP (if memory serves, that was quite often possible), he is talking about such things as running applications written on 2011 Ubuntu on 2012 openSUSE or applications written on Fedora 17 on Slackware 14, *and* he is talking about the ability to do this at the binary level, not by recompiling with the tool stack specific on each distribution. And, btw, not needing to maintain umpteen different versions to account for umpteen different packaging and dependency resolution schemes.

(The mere fact that Linux is compelled to sue complex dependency resolution schemes is evidence of the mishmash that it presents to developers. Developers can't even be sure what libraries are on their user's machines. Linux forces *uses* to deal with this, and that is just plain wrong. Dependency software has become reliable and sophisticated, but it exists to deal with a problem, and that problem is still here)

If a developer wants to develop an app for Linux, he or she is compelled to choose a specific version of a specific distribution to use as his development machine. He must be cognizant of every distribution-specific difference that impacts his code if he wants that application to work on his users' machines. He also needs to track kernel changes, and kernel changes made by each distribution. And then he needs to account for all those changes happening as each Linux distribution releases a new version. Then, he needs to start worry about Gnome and KDE and glib and qt, etc. ,etc. etc.

When a coder decides to try his luck at making a living by creating software applications, he must choose a target platform. He needs to be able to create software that can be installed and used, without alteration and without recompilation, on all the current versions of his target platform, on all of its hardware platforms. He wants to be able to follow changes to a single target platform so he can update his software as necessary when that platform changes. It is much, much easier to do that with Windows and OS X than it is with Linux. That is why Linux on the desktop is stagnating.

Linux does not permit developers to create an application that they can sell to users who can then have confidence they can successfully install and execute it on the Linux distribution of their choice. That just does not happen on Linux and it never has.

That is de Icaza's point: If you want the Linux desktop to be a viable competitor, then you need to nurture a strong community of independent software developers. To make that possible, you need to give them a stable and consistent platform. Linux is not now that platform.

9EDIT: The latest GIMP release provides an example. GIMP developers released a binary version for Windows and OS X. They did not for Linux. Why? Because they cannot. They can only release a version for a specific version of a specific distribution. If they want to release, maintain and, crucially, support, binary version of GIMP, they must build and maintain individual version for each version of each distribution. That is clearly not possible. Instead, like other Linux developers, they have no choice but to pass control to the individual distributions, which modify and build GIMP as they choose. Then they package their unique binaries with distribution-specific dependency rules and release it. The original developers have no certain dea what is actually executing on any given user's hardware.)

(BTW, I've used OS X since version one. Your assertion that new OS X releases commonly break existing applications is false. Independent developers have access to forthcoming version of OS X for months prior to release. Breakage occurs, of course, if a develop ignores Apple guidelines and rules, just as in any OS platform. In my own experience, it has only happened with Adobe products, which are often examples of software that violates Apple's standards.)
Hence Script:
You are so oblivious to what programming is about.
least of all how programmers or RE: developers:= "achieving" code =" the end result"
get yourself a "life" .

Post something positive.


E="something"So I would be interested in your Programming Language if you have one.


I Can't wait for a reply to this.Regards

alexfish

PS: there is a Spell checker available + Preview Post available within this forum

[mr john]

Linux does not permit developers to create an application that they can sell to users who can then have confidence they can successfully install and execute it on the Linux distribution of their choiceIn case you haven't realized, most applications are moving to the cloud. As long as you have a good web browser it shouldn't matter which operating system you are using.

As for compiling stuff for multiple distros, the distros are free... Unlike Windows/OSX. If I wanted to compile on those platforms I'd need to pay once for Windows and also for a copy of OSX. Since OSX is tied to Apple hardware I'd need to at least buy a Mac (very expensive). If I wanted to increase my user base I'd need to test it on XP and older versions of OSX and that would cost even more time, resources and money. Then there's mobile devices that people are using more frequently so I'd need to buy an iPhone, a mac, an iPad, an android phone & tablet and a blackberry tablet & phone. Fragmentation isn't just in Linux, it's in the whole industry. If you can't deal with those issues then you shouldn't be in the programming business.

[szymon_g]

In case you haven't realized, most applications are moving to the cloud. As long as you have a good web browser it shouldn't matter which operating system you are using.

no, not most. some- yes, but still great majority of them is native



As for compiling stuff for multiple distros, the distros are free... Unlike Windows/OSX. If I wanted to compile on those platforms I'd need to pay once for Windows and also for a copy of OSX. Since OSX is tied to Apple hardware I'd need to at least buy a Mac (very expensive)

Luke, use VM

[buzzingrobot]

In case you haven't realized, most applications are moving to the cloud. As long as you have a good web browser it shouldn't matter which operating system you are using.

Numbers and evidence?


As for compiling stuff for multiple distros, the distros are free... Unlike Windows/OSX. If I wanted to compile on those platforms... I'd need to pay once for Windows and also for a copy of OSX. Since OSX is tied to Apple hardware I'd need to at least buy a Mac (very expensive). If I wanted to increase my user base I'd need to test it on XP and older versions of OSX and that would cost even more time, resources and money. Then there's mobile devices that people are using more frequently so I'd need to buy an iPhone, a mac, an iPad, an android phone & tablet and a blackberry tablet & phone. Fragmentation isn't just in Linux, it's in the whole industry. If you can't deal with those issues then you shouldn't be in the programming business.

The point is that you are not going to sell anything to anyone if they need to compile it before they can use it. That's why my posts talk about binary products, products ready to run.

The fundamental issue I've raised, that you don't address, is that Linux lacks a community of independent software developers that can compare with the community that supports OS X. De Icaza thinks that is the primary reason Linux on the desktop is stagnating, i.e., because few compelling applications offering capabilities that can't be found in OS X or Windows exist for Linux. I agree with that. I think the reasons can be found in Linux culture and ideology, which attack the idea of a *commercial* software developer and reward forks and repurposing of existing code rather than true innovation.

Evidence for all that is in some of the responses to my posts here. They almost entirely ignore the substance of my comment. Instead, they either attack me, attack de Icaza, attack OS X (with bogus information), or repeat boilerplate Linux fanboi enthusiasm. None of that has any merit, and all of it is a reflection of the problem.

[buzzingrobot]

Hence Script:
You are so oblivious to what programming is about.


Programming??

This is about customers, not programmers.

You can't make a living selling software that the user needs to compile or write code to use. How many Soccer Moms and Dads are going to do that?

[lykwydchykyn]

I've observed that, when a potential for profit exists, programmers seem to get over the difficulties of linux packaging pretty quickly. same goes for other platforms.

I've also observed that many commercial packages I've used on Linux forego the package manager altogether and just provide a binary installer that writes to /opt.

All the hoopla about deb/rpm/etc being a hindrance to developers is just nonsense. It may be an annoyance, but all platforms have annoyances, and with sufficient profit motive, people endure annoyance.

[buzzingrobot]

I've observed that, when a potential for profit exists, programmers seem to get over the difficulties of linux packaging pretty quickly. same goes for other platforms.

I've also observed that many commercial packages I've used on Linux forego the package manager altogether and just provide a binary installer that writes to /opt.


True. Avoiding packaging schemes by distributing a single binary for any distribution avoids limiting your market to users who have a particular packaging scheme. That's easier said than done. E.g, you either need to account for all possible locations of standard config files in every targeted distribution, or you need to do something nonstandard like putting everything your app needs in directories internal to that app.


All the hoopla about deb/rpm/etc being a hindrance to developers is just nonsense. It may be an annoyance, but all platforms have annoyances, and with sufficient profit motive, people endure annoyance.

It's the dependency resolution that's more an issue than the packaging, which amounts to archiving.

Dependency resolution solves a problem that exists in Linux/Unix to a much greater degree than it does in Windows and, particularly, in OS X. Software distributors have no certain way of knowing if the support requirements for their product are available on any given user's machine. Hundreds of different distributions exist. The code is available to anyone to build and distribute, perhaps with modifications. There's just no telling what is on a machine. Dependency resolvers address that problem very well. But, because different resolution schemes exist, prospective vendors are forced to maintain their product in multiple formats, or narrow their potential market by fixing on one approach.

I can't speak from personal experience about dependency resolution on Windows (I suspect it is easier if you stick to MS products from MS sources.) I can speak from more than 20 years of experience with Macs, where dependency resolution is very seldom an issue. In large measure this seems due to Apple's introduction into OS X of an application "Package" approach, which gives developers the ability to contain files relevant to their app within a disguised directory. Well-designed OS X apps do that, with a very small number of system-wide config files going into standard locations. This means an app distributor can provide for simple updates because he knows where everything is.

(In 15-plus years of Linux experience, it has been an issue when I installed "foreign" software in locations that the distribution expected to have to itself. That's my fault for not confining that software to /home, /opt, etc. Software vendors cannot count on users having the knowledge, skills, or interest to do that.)

Packaging and dependency resolution are not issues that affect actual development work. But they are issues that a developer would consider before committing himself to making a living by selling his software.

Linux makes it cheap and easy for a developer to learn his craft. But, Linux and the culture that surround it raise a number of obstacles that can dissuade someone from going the commercial independent developer route with Linux, rather than OS X or even Windows.

That's not an attack on Linux. It's my assessment, one I think is accurate, and made to indicate one way to improve Linux. I wouldn't have used Linux for all this time if I wasn't interested in it.

[mr john]

The point is that you are not going to sell anything to anyone if they need to compile it before they can use it.

Where did I say the user would be compiling anything? That's the responsibility of the developer and the user shouldn't have anything to do with that. It is possible for the developer to compile on any Linux distro without having to pay for the OS or a compiler.

The developer can compile on any Linux platform for free because the distros are free. To compile on Windows/Mac you need to pay for those operating systems.

There is fragmentation on all platforms, not just Linux. But Linux is cheaper to get hold of than most of the others except maybe Android, because it can run off a cheap mobile device.

[mr john]

The point is that you are not going to sell anything to anyone if they need to compile it before they can use it.

Where did I say the user would be compiling anything? That's the responsibility of the developer and the user shouldn't have anything to do with that. It is possible for the developer to compile on any Linux distro without having to pay for the OS or a compiler.

The developer can compile on any Linux platform for free because the distros are free. To compile on Windows/Mac you need to pay for those operating systems.

[buzzingrobot]

Where did I say the user would be compiling anything? That's the responsibility of the developer and the user shouldn't have anything to do with that. It is possible for the developer to compile on any Linux distro without having to pay for the OS or a compiler.

The developer can compile on any Linux platform for free because the distros are free. To compile on Windows/Mac you need to pay for those operating systems.
The Linux market is terribly fragmented. Each distribution, each version of the kernel that is still out there in a distribution, KDE, Gnome, Unity, XFCE, AMD drivers, Nvidia drivers, etc., etc.... it's all fragmentation. Choice and open source create fragmentation as an inevitable byproduct.

If someone is choosing which OS to support as a commercial independent software developer, the need to recompile and repackage your product for, potentially, hundreds of distributions is a strong disincentive to choosing to sell into the Linux market. Besides the hassle and time needed to do the recompilations and repackaging, the developer needs to provide support for each version, which means spending time staying current with the status of each distribution.

In addition to coping with different distributions, the developer needs to test his product against different kernel versions, different libraries, different versions of KDE, Gnome, Unity, XFCE, etc., etc.

This is all extra work that is unique to Linux that does not produce any income.

All that extra unproductive time and effort away from actual development work to support an OS that offers a market that, if anything, is smaller than the OS X market. That doesn't add up to a good business decision.

Hardware and software costs aren't a real issue for someone writing software for a living. Very likely, as well, they can expense the purchases out for tax purposes.

[Paqman]

The developer can compile on any Linux platform for free because the distros are free. To compile on Windows/Mac you need to pay for those operating systems.

It's not the licencing costs which are the problem, it's the man-hours. Supporting multiple different distros that release to different cadences is labour-intensive. Keeping up with the technical changes between Debian, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc and their various flavours and derivatives, then testing your software against each new release as it comes along every few months and fixing the bugs that arise is a big commitment.

Linux is a constantly-moving target. Providing a stable API to code against would make life much simpler and less risky for big expensive apps like games, MS Office and Photoshop.

[forrestcupp]

The point is that you are not going to sell anything to anyone if they need to compile it before they can use it. That's why my posts talk about binary products, products ready to run.

Something that a lot of people don't understand is that an executable binary compiled for Linux will run on any distribution. The problem isn't with how the binary is compiled, but mostly with dependencies and file/directory hierarchies.

The way you get around this is by doing it a little closer to the Windows way. You either install the app to its own folder in /home or /opt, like Liquid Chicken said. Then you include all of the necessary lib file dependencies in the app's directory, kind of like how Windows apps include their necessary dll's in their own directory. Then you can just run the executable binary, and it will work in any distro out there, as long as it was compiled for the right architecture. If you remember the old Loki game installers, that's how they worked. That's how you get around the whole distro fragmentation thing.

It's very possible; it's just not standard. It's probably easier to do things this way than to try to package everything. The only downside is that you don't get all the benefits of how the package manager works. But that's the cost of better compatibility, if it's necessary.

[Grenage]

Apple? More likely the updates and upgrades that trash systems, and poor professional software offerings. Not that things aren't getting better.

[mamamia88]

Something that a lot of people don't understand is that an executable binary compiled for Linux will run on any distribution. The problem isn't with how the binary is compiled, but mostly with dependencies and file/directory hierarchies.

The way you get around this is by doing it a little closer to the Windows way. You either install the app to its own folder in /home or /opt, like Liquid Chicken said. Then you include all of the necessary lib file dependencies in the app's directory, kind of like how Windows apps include their necessary dll's in their own directory. Then you can just run the executable binary, and it will work in any distro out there, as long as it was compiled for the right architecture. If you remember the old Loki game installers, that's how they worked. That's how you get around the whole distro fragmentation thing.

It's very possible; it's just not standard. It's probably easier to do things this way than to try to package everything. The only downside is that you don't get all the benefits of how the package manager works. But that's the cost of better compatibility, if it's necessary.
I'm no expert but is it possible to include some kind of script included in a tar file called install.sh or something that creates some kind of ties to the package manager to at least try and keep the dependencies up to date? or maybe just host a git repo that you can just cd /directory of app and then git pull so that the end user doesn't have to actually compile anything?

[Warpnow]

I'm no expert but is it possible to include some kind of script included in a tar file called install.sh or something that creates some kind of ties to the package manager to at least try and keep the dependencies up to date? or maybe just host a git repo that you can just cd /directory of app and then git pull so that the end user doesn't have to actually compile anything?

Would defeat the purpose.

You'd have to customize your script to every distro, which involves many of the same steps of releasing on every platform.

There is also the very complicated aspect of dealing with conflicting dependency version and configuration files. Keeping the whole thing is separate is the whole point of it, stripping away the package management makes it distro neutral. Reincorporating it would just cause those problems all over again.

[mamamia88]

Would defeat the purpose.

You'd have to customize your script to every distro, which involves many of the same steps of releasing on every platform.

There is also the very complicated aspect of dealing with conflicting dependency version and configuration files. Keeping the whole thing is separate is the whole point of it, stripping away the package management makes it distro neutral. Reincorporating it would just cause those problems all over again.

fair enough. your solution sounds reasonable enough. only problem would be that you would have to check for upgrades automatically but i guess that is the price you pay for having it guaranteed to work

[Warpnow]

fair enough. your solution sounds reasonable enough. only problem would be that you would have to check for upgrades automatically but i guess that is the price you pay for having it guaranteed to work

Sometimes you don't want to upgrade.

Let's say you have program X installed, and it depends on program Y.

Program X needs Y version 2.3.4, but the one in the ubuntu repositories (that everything on your current setup depends on) is 2.3.6.

Basically program X needs an outdated version of the program, because it hasn't been updated to work with the newest version.

The easiest way to deal with this from a development aspect is to just take 2.3.4 and put it into the folder, that way no matter how much you update your PC, the one you need (the outdated one) is still used by the program.

Sometimes upgrades can actually cause the problem. If its tied back into the package manager, it may update the dependency, and the new version has conflicting needs and it breaks the program.

Its all very frustrating and complicated.

[overcast]

Just another fanboy rant. Apple is far from killing linux. Besides, who affords apple? Hell, We don't even have service centers for apple in my country. Linux is populated here in india and apple is just another hype, it will slow down once people understand patent trolling and innovation curbing from apple.

[jmate24]

they make? i doubt they make anyhting there. foxconn makes it and samsung and maybe gorilla or whatever the company behind the glass is called. they don't make anything themselves as i understand.

there is a very good video on you tube (forgot from which tech blogger it is) where they offer reward to those that can actually figure out what apple invented/made after wozniac left them.and the choice is so very slim.

they do design things which is why they cling on to it in their lawsuits. they do not have anything else that is genuinley theirs to show....

Foxconn makes Apple too. it is a shame because I built a Foxconn and the only thing I could put on it that worked was Lubuntu.

[exploder]

I have a computer with a Foxconn motherboard, it is a total piece of junk. If Foxconn manufacturers parts for Apple I would certainly question the reliability of Apple's products.

[Mikeb85]

I have a computer with a Foxconn motherboard, it is a total piece of junk. If Foxconn manufacturers parts for Apple I would certainly question the reliability of Apple's products.

Foxconn does manufacturer Apple stuff to a higher standard than say, a 400 dollar HP notebook, but Apple's products are much less reliable than they get credit for. They simply are good at the customer service side of things. Apple's products are more reliable then most brands though, from what I hear only Lenovo and HP's business lines (Thinkpad and Elitebook) and ASUS are more reliable...

[evilsoup]

Apple's products are much less reliable than they get credit for. They simply are good at the customer service side of things.

That's not something to be dismissed, though.

[exploder]

I have an HP quad core system with Ubuntu 12.04 installed and in my opinion it is just as elegant if not more so than a Mac and it cost a fraction of what the Apple equivalent would cost.

Sorry, I just think Apple products are way overrated.

[Jakin]

Sorry, I just think Apple products are way overrated.

Even more so now, being they are basically a common PC (certainly with some extra innovations), with NOT EVEN top end hardware. They just have some kinda binary protection, so that OS X only works with that hardware.

I know its possible through hack and tricks to get it to install with the right PC hardware, albeit not 100% software compatible.
Even if you paid for the OS X installed disc, it may not be completely legal.

(to be clear i just mean the computer itself, not other apple devices)

[Primefalcon]

I wish people would stop listening to Miguel de Icaza

[mamamia88]

Foxconn does manufacturer Apple stuff to a higher standard than say, a 400 dollar HP notebook, but Apple's products are much less reliable than they get credit for. They simply are good at the customer service side of things. Apple's products are more reliable then most brands though, from what I hear only Lenovo and HP's business lines (Thinkpad and Elitebook) and ASUS are more reliable...
the important parts from any computer are all going to come from the same group of suppliers no matter which brand of computer you decide to buy. it's just going to come down too if you will be on the phone for 10 minutes or 2 hours trying to get your repair authorized. apple products are pcs with some nice premium features added like a shiny case, backlit keyboard, better trackpad, and a power cable that won't drag your entilre laptop to the ground if you trip on it. That and it comes with a proprietary version of unix and some apple apps. Personally I don't really need any of the apple apps and those extra features while nice aren't worth it to me. But don't kid yourself. Apple is getting their components from the same pool of suppliers as everyone else.

[KiwiNZ]

Apple products are very well made, they have quality components, well designed and spec'd and have great features. It is a shame that they are being ruined by PR and down right annoying to use for everyday tasks. Android tablets are just so convenient as are the Android smart phones in comparison.

[Paqman]

Apple products are very well made, they have quality components, well designed and spec'd and have great features.

Yes and no. Some of the components are good, some are average and some are surprisingly poor. Take the first generation of SSDs in the Macbooks, they were the exact same rubbish Samsung drive that Dell were shipping at the same time, for a substantial premium. Those drives were the worst performing SSDs on the market at the time, but because they were available in large quantities that's what both Apple and Dell chose to ship.

The myth of Apple's quality invincibility is durable. Apple do make products for the luxury end of the market and they are generally specced appropriately, but they are a lot less impeccable than most fanboys would like to admit. I'm not saying they're bad products because they aren't, but these days the innards of an Apple PC can be quite ordinary.

[KiwiNZ]

Yes and no. Some of the components are good, some are average and some are surprisingly poor. Take the first generation of SSDs in the Macbooks, they were the exact same rubbish Samsung drive that Dell were shipping at the same time, for a substantial premium. Those drives were the worst performing SSDs on the market at the time, but because they were available in large quantities that's what both Apple and Dell chose to ship.

The myth of Apple's quality invincibility is durable. Apple do make products for the luxury end of the market and they are generally specced appropriately, but they are a lot less impeccable than most fanboys would like to admit. I'm not saying they're bad products because they aren't, but these days the innards of an Apple PC can be quite ordinary.

No OEM is perfect, no product line is fault free Apple included.However Apple has a better track record than HP (consumer range),Dell,Acer etc.

Fanboys are a products enemy.

[Mikeb85]

the important parts from any computer are all going to come from the same group of suppliers no matter which brand of computer you decide to buy. it's just going to come down too if you will be on the phone for 10 minutes or 2 hours trying to get your repair authorized. apple products are pcs with some nice premium features added like a shiny case, backlit keyboard, better trackpad, and a power cable that won't drag your entilre laptop to the ground if you trip on it. That and it comes with a proprietary version of unix and some apple apps. Personally I don't really need any of the apple apps and those extra features while nice aren't worth it to me. But don't kid yourself. Apple is getting their components from the same pool of suppliers as everyone else.

Have you ever compared an ASUS video card to say, a Sapphire video card? Both nVidia chips, both the same specs, main difference - one will blow up after a year or two, one won't...

While it's true that Apple gets their parts from the same pool of components, they do get some of the better components, as do business notebooks compared to cheap consumer notebooks, and of course ASUS makes some of the nicest components in my experience. Apple hardware is good for the price, really it comes down to price - buy a $2000 notebook, whether HP, Lenovo, Apple - it will be much more solid than an $800 notebook.

[Mikeb85]

No OEM is perfect, no product line is fault free Apple included.However Apple has a better track record than HP (consumer range),Dell,Acer etc.

Fanboys are a products enemy.

Honestly, I have no idea how Dell, Acer, Toshiba, HP are able to stay in the consumer notebook business... So many companies putting out such rubbish. If I didn't get a Thinkpad I would have probably got a Macbook, most of the Windows OEMs are just handing the market to Apple, I think Lenovo is the only Windows OEM actually increasing market share and profits...

[Paqman]

No OEM is perfect, no product line is fault free Apple included.However Apple has a better track record than HP (consumer range),Dell,Acer etc.


Depends what you look at. It's comparing apples to oranges much of the time. The other brands you mention produce a lot of lower-end machines that aren't comparable to Apple's high-end offerings, and not all machines across a brand's range are comparable.

The UK consumer organisation Which? did release some laptop reliability data recently. Interestingly there was almost nothing between any of the major brands (Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba) they were all clustered 86-88% (likelihood of a laptop needing repair over four years). Dell was down on 84%. Where Apple did shine was on customer satisfaction, so it seems that where they do have an advantage is in industrial design and software.

[Warpnow]

Depends what you look at. It's comparing apples to oranges much of the time. The other brands you mention produce a lot of lower-end machines that aren't comparable to Apple's high-end offerings, and not all machines across a brand's range are comparable.

The UK consumer organisation Which? did release some laptop reliability data recently. Interestingly there was almost nothing between any of the major brands (Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba) they were all clustered 86-88% (likelihood of a laptop needing repair over four years). Dell was down on 84%. Where Apple did shine was on customer satisfaction, so it seems that where they do have an advantage is in industrial design and software.

The psych principal of Cognitive Dissonance has been used to explain why hazing works. Why people enjoy organizations more when they suffer to get in. The same is the case with products people pay more money for. The more money you pay for something, the more satisfied you will feel, regardless of actual performance.

I am reminded of Penn and Teller's explanation of the bottled water business. They filled bottles of water with tap water, and told people they cost $6+ a bottle and did a taste comparison with "tap" water, and virtually everyone said they preferred the bottled water and tasted a notable difference, despite the fact that the two types of water were identical in every way,

I'm not saying Apple's products don't cause customer satisfaction, I'm just saying its expected, from what we know of human behavior that satisfaction will increase as price increases.

[Paqman]

I'm not saying Apple's products don't cause customer satisfaction, I'm just saying its expected, from what we know of human behavior that satisfaction will increase as price increases.

I agree, I'm reminded of another brand who used to flog their wares with the line "Reassuringly expensive". People do conflate price with value, when in reality prices are set purely by supply and demand, not quality.

FWIW the same thing does rear it's head amongst Linux users. I think we've all seen and heard from long-time Linux users who complain that if you make it too simple to use, just anybody will be able to install it and they'll lose their 1337 status! Like you say, setting a barrier for entry to the little club makes the members feel better about being on the inside.

From what I've heard marketing expensive stuff is a weird game. Much of the marketing for very large ticket items like cars is done to reassure people who've already purchased and are feeling anxious about the amount they've spent. I wonder if that's done for luxury tech brands too...

[aysiu]

Honestly, I have no idea how Dell, Acer, Toshiba, HP are able to stay in the consumer notebook business... So many companies putting out such rubbish. If I didn't get a Thinkpad I would have probably got a Macbook, most of the Windows OEMs are just handing the market to Apple, I think Lenovo is the only Windows OEM actually increasing market share and profits... In all my workplaces, even if there are Macs in the organization, there are definitely Windows PCs, and the organization will choose one particular vendor (HP or Dell) and stick with it for ease of maintenance and interchangeability of parts (chargers, for example).

Even the supposedly "Mac-only" organizations I've seen have had to use Windows PCs for accounting and other admin offices. They also use Microsoft Exchange for email generally.

[Dragonbite]

Taking out the click-bait of the article there are some truth to parts of the article.

Apple didn't kill the Linux desktop, the "desktop" target is moving.

Yes, there have been a lot of confusion and angry words regarding Gnome3 & Unity. I saw people in the computer club become apprehensive about Linux due to some of this confusion.

Coupled with the Windows 7 release, some potential Linux users have opted out of trying, or even left Linux, in favor of Windows.

Didn't Ubuntu just run an application competition? They also provide an easy means for making applications ("quick") which I think both are fairly Ubuntu-focused at this point (applications people made for the competition and the resulting "quick" applications).

It shouldn't take too much to port them over to other distributions, but the initial developers aren't doing it and until there is an interested person stepping forward, the distribution isn't going to either.

I don't develop on OS X, so I don't know how backwards compatible they are. I would imagine that it is pretty good, though.

One of my laptops got hit with the i815 Intel video error. My other laptop requires the non-PAE kernel. There has been a few times that I get "bit" by something that worked before and doesn't now. I have also been pleasantly surprised when something that didn't work before works with a newer release but I think I had 95% compatibility a few years ago and is slightly less (90%?) now.

When the article mentions "development shifting to the web" I am wondering how much of that includes mobile platforms?

I understand that there is a growing number of applications popping up on the web (accounting, development, image/video/sound editing, file synchronization, PIM, etc.) and a growing number of them that use the web technology to also pull in the mobile market. Even common native applications like Office and Photoshop are building web-based versions.

Of course an increase in market share depends on the size you are comparing to
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fastest_growing.png

[forrestcupp]

I'm no expert but is it possible to include some kind of script included in a tar file called install.sh or something that creates some kind of ties to the package manager to at least try and keep the dependencies up to date? or maybe just host a git repo that you can just cd /directory of app and then git pull so that the end user doesn't have to actually compile anything?Like someone already said, that would defeat the purpose, since every distro would be different. But about compiling, what I'm talking about has no compiling at all. Like with the Loki installers, they just came as an executable .bin file that was like an installer. When you ran them, they installed a folder in /home with all of the binaries and libs. You could just install them and run them, no compiling, and they worked on any distro.


fair enough. your solution sounds reasonable enough. only problem would be that you would have to check for upgrades automatically but i guess that is the price you pay for having it guaranteed to workThere's no reason you couldn't make a /home installed, distro-agnostic app that checks for its own updates. There are plenty of Windows apps that automatically check for updates and download the necessary files from their servers. If you're using app specific libs in the app's directory, instead of reusable system-wide libs, there's no reason you couldn't do that in Linux, too. The downside is that you might have the same lib file stored in multiple locations, which is one thing package managers alleviate. The upside is that it will work on any distro.

[mamamia88]

Have you ever compared an ASUS video card to say, a Sapphire video card? Both nVidia chips, both the same specs, main difference - one will blow up after a year or two, one won't...

While it's true that Apple gets their parts from the same pool of components, they do get some of the better components, as do business notebooks compared to cheap consumer notebooks, and of course ASUS makes some of the nicest components in my experience. Apple hardware is good for the price, really it comes down to price - buy a $2000 notebook, whether HP, Lenovo, Apple - it will be much more solid than an $800 notebook.

One could only hope ;). Still $800 should net you a pretty damn reliable computer. After all $800 is still alot of money. It's not like pcs are failing left and right. If that was the case those companies would be out of business. No a computer is probably one of the more expensive things a person owns. If that product fails on you it would alienate you for life from that particular brand. And these companies can't afford to be losing customers

[Dragonbite]

Now Linux chimes in and de Icaza responds.

Linus Torvalds: “GNOME Are In Total Denial” (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/linus-torvalds-gnome-are-in-total-denial)


Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has hit back at recent claims by that ‘desktop Linux is dead’, describing parts of the argument as ‘laughable’.

[doktorOblivion]

Well there is always the price for Snow Lepard or some other osX version, which when compared to some flavors of Linux might be too expensive. When taking the h/w into account it will be much more expensive, if one want to stick with Apple products. Yes the Apple products are sexy and very usable. But I must admit, I feel a bit constrained using them; and if I want to develop, like MS, I find even more trapped.

[snip3r8]

they make? i doubt they make anyhting there. foxconn makes it and samsung and maybe gorilla or whatever the company behind the glass is called. they don't make anything themselves as i understand.

there is a very good video on you tube (forgot from which tech blogger it is) where they offer reward to those that can actually figure out what apple invented/made after wozniac left them.and the choice is so very slim.

they do design things which is why they cling on to it in their lawsuits. they do not have anything else that is genuinley theirs to show....
That would be http://teksyndicate.com/

Also , I switched to OSX for developing instead of windows , my pc still runs linux and the only reason i keep windows around is for gaming. That said im sitting here downloading Half-Life 2 for mac ,and when steam for linux is released it will go there too (more power than my mac mini). at that point i will make my windows partition boot into skyrim , because thats all ill be using it for. OSX is moving developers away from Windows as well , and with windows 8 , microsoft will be moving users away from them .I love how the future looks. I hope that when i have children they will look at me with the same blank look when i talk about C:\\ as when i talk about VHS.

[Eddie Wilson]

Mac OS X is proprietary UNIX with its own set of propietary drivers and kernals- ect HARDWARE (well maybe thats not so true when they went intel based), its very hard to just look at it as a linux distro.

I look at it more as BSD than Linux. It's really irrelevant tho. Since they have their own hardware made for them they can develop their own drivers without problems.

[SeijiSensei]

People do conflate price with value, when in reality prices are set purely by supply and demand, not quality.

This viewpoint poses a perennial obstacle when trying to encourage companies to adopt Linux. "If it's free, it can't be any good" is a common reaction.

[KiwiNZ]

This viewpoint poses a perennial obstacle when trying to encourage companies to adopt Linux. "If it's free, it can't be any good" is a common reaction.

This has not been my experience, well for the Desktop, for the server side price is a big seller and quality is known.

For the Desktop it is not free for enterprises in the sense that the cost of conversion, implementation and support is very high. This is a primary objection. Others include quality and compatibility, fragmentation and source.

[forrestcupp]

For the Desktop it is not free for enterprises in the sense that the cost of conversion, implementation and support is very high. This is a primary objection. Others include quality and compatibility, fragmentation and source.

And all of that causes downtime, which is very expensive, and in some cases, a killer.

[KiwiNZ]

And all of that causes downtime, which is very expensive, and in some cases, a killer.

+1

but not just down time but slow time due to unfamiliarity etc

[SeijiSensei]

for the server side price is a big seller and quality is known.

Maybe people are more open-minded living thousands of miles across the Pacific from Redmond, Washington.

[KiwiNZ]

Maybe people are more open-minded living thousands of miles across the Pacific from Redmond, Washington.


My wife sells a far greater number Linux powered servers to those with other OS's. The License cost on non Linux servers especially when one is paying per cow can be huge.

[Artemis3]

at that point i will make my windows partition boot into skyrim , because thats all ill be using it for.

Funny, been playing game for various weeks on wine 1.4; works perfectly after you patch the binary to be "large address aware". Performance is excellent with the 460.

About the article: I don't agree. It was gnome devs who killed gnome, not the distros. The distros are simply scrambling away from the alienating bomb that is gnome3, each one picking their good or not so good path. Popular was gnome2, not gnome3, this is ignored by the article.

How Apple killed the linux desktop? I don't see how. iOS? MacOS X? I don't see myself purchasing any Apple device anytime soon. Windows in my machine ceased to function and i stopped to bother fixing it anymore.

Linus, Ubuntustudio and Debian chose a very reasonable path. XFCE can be made to look just like gnome2, and take about the same resources, and is less buggy (vertical panels anyone?). Canonical went with Unity, Mint has forked the shell, the login manager and even the file manager now :) Others have picked Mate, a gnome2 fork; etc. Core developers have left gnome for good reasons; i don't think asking one of the gnome guys was smart; perhaps someone from kde would have been better.

Also, i don't think the linux desktop is dead at all. Pre-install is the key. Do you purchase your macs without OS and then you install it afterwards? No.

Windows new interface is very alienating as well, people are going to look for alternatives while others stick to 7 as long as they can.

Interesting times indeed, far from "killed" the desktop is :)

[szymon_g]

I look at it more as BSD than Linux. It's really irrelevant tho. Since they have their own hardware made for them they can develop their own drivers without problems.

everyone (who can do it) can develop drivers for it without any problems- Darwin is an opensource project; in hackintosh community they are plenty of drivers ("kernel extensions"; kext) for non-apple hardware.

[Darth Matthias]

I will never buy a new Mac, I will never install Windows as a main operating system, I will never Leave Linux. My first experience with Linux was Debian for PPC on a PowerBook G4. I got the book for 99 bucks and used for as long as I could, but I couldn't get some of my school's web applications to run on it (kinda crucial) I looked into Debian and fell in love. Now my Desktop runs Ubuntu 12.04, Now I am shopping around for a used Macbook so that I can install more distros.

[pr0misc]

Apple overprices their hardware. That is a real point.

I have a Macbook Pro running Ubuntu natively and I really love the experience. I bought it second-handed but it was a great deal.

IMHO the real problem with Apple it's their business model. They took advantage of the licence mess with BSD and created an overpriced product.

But I really don't think that Linux and Apple should be included on the same sentence when regarding questions of competition.

[Dragonbite]

for the server side price is a big seller and quality is known.

Our System Administrator is a BSD guy (now OS X, but that's another story) so he knows about open source alternatives and pushes for that type of solution when all else is equal.

His thinking is more along the lines of avoiding vendor lock-in so long as it does what is necessary, is stable and secure.

But if a System Administrator is a Windows push-button monkey then thinking about open source is counter to the "make it easy" principal Windows follows and makes it harder to shift gears.


Apple overprices their hardware. That is a real point.

If people are willing to buy it, then it isn't overpriced.

It may be too much for YOU to spend, but that doesn't mean other people aren't willing to spend it. It only becomes overpriced if they cannot sell the product, or sell enough to keep stakeholders happy.

Apple does some brilliant moves such as bundling and making it seamless and easy (thus adding value) to the iPod + iTunes symbiotic relationship years ago! Brilliant! At that time, there was little careful integration like this and the most notable exception was the MS Office suite products (and even THEY were funky at times).

Does Linux have systems that integrate seamlessly like this?

[forrestcupp]

I will never buy a new Mac,

...

Now I am shopping around for a used Macbook so that I can install more distros.

Why not just buy a cheaper x86 based laptop, which will have much better Linux support. From what I've seen in the Mac section of this forum, it seems to be much more of a headache getting things to work properly on Mac hardware.

[Paqman]

Apple overprices their hardware. That is a real point.


You're also making the mistake conflating price with value. As Dragonbite says, the price of Apple hardware isn't related to the value of the components, it's simply about what the market is willing to pay for an Apple machine.

Apple are both smart and lucky to be in the position they're in, and it shows in their bottom line.

I'm no economist, but I suspect that it's the same for most luxury goods. What relationship there is between price and quality only approaches linear at the bottom of the price range. As you near the top end the two would decouple. Just look at what prices people are willing to pay for designer perfumes/cologne, shoes, handbags, jeans, etc.

[graabein]

Problems arise when it's the non tech guys in suits that overrun the tech guys, and they say, we're a Microsoft shop, so we should use a full Microsoft stack no matter what, from e-mail, through Office to SharePoint, .NET, Visual Studio and TFS.

Or they look at something white and shiny and say, make it like Apple. Look at me, I control the Internet with my hand while clutching the little computer. I'm in control.

They know it's widely accepted or that it's new and shiny, so they assume it's good. They don't actually have much knowledge on the subject before they decide for everyone.

:confused:

When the suits trust the tech guys on the other hand. Good things happen.

[Mikeb85]

Problems arise when it's the non tech guys in suits that overrun the tech guys, and they say, we're a Microsoft shop, so we should use a full Microsoft stack no matter what, from e-mail, through Office to SharePoint, .NET, Visual Studio and TFS.

Or they look at something white and shiny and say, make it like Apple. Look at me, I control the Internet with my hand while clutching the little computer. I'm in control.

They know it's widely accepted or that it's new and shiny, so they assume it's good. They don't actually have much knowledge on the subject before they decide for everyone.

:confused:

When the suits trust the tech guys on the other hand. Good things happen.

There are plenty of tech guys who are behind the times. Not every programmer or IT guy is completely up to date on the latest technology, in fact, I'd wager many if not a majority are way behind the times.

[lykwydchykyn]

There are plenty of tech guys who are behind the times. Not every programmer or IT guy is completely up to date on the latest technology, in fact, I'd wager many if not a majority are way behind the times.

I'd say just about all of us are. There's no way to keep up with all the latest greatest advances in everything while simultaneously supporting what people actually use.