The Year of the ___ Desktop

[howlingmadhowie]

Ah yeah, definitely. The whole point is that people can write software for all platforms without costing more than just supporting one platform. If we had a diverse OS market, where everyone could write software that would work on them all, it would certainly not be a bad thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that for technical reasons, this is probably quite hard to achieve.

ah, the java ideal. i'm not sure that's the ideal, myself. i would however say that the people who write the software should not necessarily be involved in its packaging for each and every operating system. this is something the gnu/linux and *bsd distributions get very right--programmer A releases a new version of her project and package maintainers B through P go about packaging it (though this is probably mostly automated) for various gnu/linux and *bsd distributions.

of course all this is idle speculation. in 5 years we'll all be running html6 applications with 3d acceleration in google chrome and the one language to rule them all will be javascript. (I can't believe i wasted that sentence now instead of saving it for halloween).

Another thought occurs to me. the big american dream of capitalism and free-market economy is based on the idea that competition for money will tend to produce the best products. but even the most ardent proponent of the free market would agree that certain checks and balances are necessary, otherwise you get a situation like Ma Bell or microsoft where innovation is stifled. Free software shows that competition comes from a number of sources and doesn't have to be just about getting richer than the other guy. Why is the linux kernel, the gcc or the apache web server so good? It isn't about distorted financial gain, though i imagine the main developers get by quite comfortably---the wealth involved is peanuts compared with the 30 odd billion a year microsoft makes in pure profit for software which is probably used less than the linux kernel or the gcc.

I think that free software shows that you can have top quality products without capitalism. Instead software development becomes far more about a developer wanting to do her best and release (and share) the best possible product.

[JDShu]

ah, the java ideal. i'm not sure that's the ideal, myself. i would however say that the people who write the software should not necessarily be involved in its packaging for each and every operating system. this is something the gnu/linux and *bsd distributions get very right--programmer A releases a new version of her project and package maintainers B through P go about packaging it (though this is probably mostly automated) for various gnu/linux and *bsd distributions.

This would be another alternative, but would require the whole software world to go open source. I think that this is less realistic than having a free operating system dominate the desktop. Equally or perhaps even more desirable though.