Submitted by Back in 2001, there was a company who thought they could launch a sustainable business model around a file manager. They wrote the file manager itself, and figured they could profit from offering online services delivered through the file manager. However, the company ran out of money quickly, and wen they released version 1.0 of their file manager, they had to fire everyone, only to go down a few months later. That company was Eazel, and the file manager was Nautilus. Apparently, some saw this as the demise of the Linux desktop – others didn’t.Due to the position of Red Hat back in those days, many thought that Red Hat was Linux, and as such, the problems in the GNOME world were seen as much bigger problems for Linux than they actually were. GNOME may have been in trouble, but there was still KDE. “Because of the association of Red Hat with all things Linux at the time, many people had forgotten that another desktop environment, KDE, existed and was not harmed in the least by Eazel’s death,” Butler writes. GNOME itself wasn’t affected much either – it has thrived ever since.
In fact, the Linux desktop itself thrived. “Things have been successful – yet in May of 2001, I would have predicted far more success,” Butler writes. Sure, Ubuntu has risen to the top, major PC vendors now ship Linux, and Red Hat and Novell are making money off Linux. “But despite all the progress, when I look at the experience of using Linux in 2001 and compare it today, I have to ask, “Where did the last seven years go?”
According to Butler, it should have been Linux, not Apple, to challenge Microsoft on the desktop. However, Linux lacks what Apple does have: vision.
The problem is the same problem that doomed companies like Eazel: vision. The idea that a file manager could provide a sustainable business model in the twenty first century was somewhat silly at best. They may have had a good idea, but no vision for how to develop it into something that would pull in users and keep the company afloat. The Linux desktop, to the dismay of someone like myself, who founded Open for Business for the precise purpose of communicating Linux’s virtues, lacks vision. To beat the competitors, one needs either amazing volume or amazing vision. The former belongs to Microsoft, the latter to Apple. What then belongs to Linux?
Vision would be an advantage of development in a corporate setting, I guess. In community things like Ubuntu’s brainstorm, quite often good ideas get drowned out in the noise of other ideas (some good, some not). When a company like Apple decides on a future direction, they do it (I imagine – I have no real idea) around a table, bouncing ideas back and forth, and forming some kind of goal. Sometimes the community can’t focus on one idea and say “I want that in the next version”.
Apple is actually a great example, or Steve Jobs to be more specific. He is a leader with vision and the ability to recognize and surround himself with talented people, and then ride them mercilessly until he gets the results he wants.
You can say a lot of things about the KDE community, but they have a vision and by the time 4.1 hits major distros a lot of people will begin see it. Some people probably will not like it.
But I think it will be great and so far it is shaping up quite nicely.
Just look at this:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Glassified?content=81388
http://www.notmart.org/index.php/Graphics/4.1_times_more_Prettyness
I think “Elegance” looks better than both the default theme, and “Glassified”
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Elegance+(for+theme+contest)?content=78034
Isn’t that the same as in the second link?
Very nice screencast:
http://www.ereslibre.es/?p=104
Innovative user interaction is vision. Scalable, easy-to-use data management is vision. An installation/configuration/troubleshooting process that doesn’t lead to white screens on boot/logout due to some opaque, unmentioned hardware conflict or longstanding kernel bug followed by hours and hours of trudging through inadequate FAQs and user-to-user forums in an enthusiasm-destroying attempt to find some sort of fix would be major vision.
Skinning is the domain of idle hacks that want all of the attention without doing any of the hard, thankless but necessary work that goes into making a platform genuinely not suck. I get more than enough silly eye-candy from OS X already; if Linux wants to retain a place on my boxen then it’s going to have to better the competition in ways that actually matter. Otherwise it’s just another partition I can find a more productive use for.
It seems the ppl above confused visuals with vision…
Luckily, the KDE project has both
Unfortunately, the first one depends on taste, so not everyone recognizes it. The second one is, despite being much less tangible and obvious, easier to see.
I agree that a lack of vision might very well have been the largest setback for Linux on the desktop.
GNOME used to have a strong idea of where to go. Usability was the credo. But that vision waned, it’s target was mostly reached – more is possible, but a real challenge it isn’t anymore. Recently, Gnome has had talks about Global Online Desktop, and mobile efforts have emerged. Neither of them seems to have the necessary mindshare and worse, they don’t seem to raise the bar enough to offer a compelling, challenging target.
In contrast to the unfortunate lack of ambition in the Gnome camp, KDE is currently thriving.
The KDE project didn’t have a pervasive, widely-supported vision during the development of KDE 3, but energy seems to have returned during the 4.x cycle. The community seems vibrating with ideas, and the vision seems rather clear: create something new and innovative with technology and freedom as enablers. Innovation is, imho, a true challenge – yet something Free Software should (theoretically) be very good at. So I have high hopes for the direction the KDE project is taking.
Personally, I don’t see the Free Desktop succeed without the energy, inspiration and motivation brought by a strong vision. Let’s hope the KDE project can keep the current flowing, it’s the only way the Free Desktop has a future.
The reason global online desktop is an idea too soon is that the Telco’s have realised free, city-wide WiFi is bad for them and they’re pulling out. They want to instead continue to sell the same service to everybody individually. Therefore it’s still difficult even today to be truly “always on”. It just doesn’t happen. The computer is not programmed under the same assumption that it is online, as say the same assumption that a CPU has a math co-processor.
Without free, public, mesh-based internet connectivity is the norm, every computer will need to have an Internet account from a Telco, linked tightly to the owner. We are not in the computing position that a computer can be switched on for the first time and it already be online and working from the cloud. Only then could an online-desktop actually work.
Agreed.
GNOME used to have a goal of what to achieve. This goal is mostly reached, and all they’ve been doing for the past releases is copy everybody else or add minor features that are anything but compelling. Like I’ve said before, on OSNews and my blog, GNOME lacks vision. There’s no plan for the future, and without a plan for the future in such an always-rapidly changing environment (the software world), you’re more or less dead.
KDE was in a similar place, but it overcome its problems. KDE4 might not yet be to my liking, and I have my doubts it ever will, but it’s a vision materialising before our very eyes.
And that’s something GNOME doesn’t have. Not anymore, at least.
That’s a pretty big assumption. Do users care about vision or do they care about getting stuff done? I suspect it depends on the type of user we’re talking about.
Certainly a lot of people won’t give a damn as long as it works.
Hmm.. I can’t sympathize with that way of thinking. I use KDE. And KDE4 is evolving nicely into what I like to use. But I’m using it because the apps and the environment kicks ass, not because it has vision. You say you may never like KDE4, so what is that vision worth to you then?
I would argue that Gnome has vision with their online desktop thing. But that doesn’t make me want to tolerate the interface (plus the fact that I don’t think the vision is a useful one).
Vision of a project doesn’t really matter for the users. But it does for the developers and others in a community. Heck, companies go bankrupt and die due to lack of vision – certainly it’s effects on a community of volunteers are even larger.
I don’t agree with that, GNOME’s vision has always been clear, make the user being productive with good defaults and simplicity, KDE by the other way is always experimenting with the user and never have had a clear goal, they try to be like windows and like the mac at the same time, but never getting its own personallity, the only “innovation” they would have now is plasma and honestly I thing it doesn’t bring nothing new to the table of experience, yeah you can have widgets and rotate them and containers, etc, etc. but at the end I got tired of those and just want to work and not experiment with my desktop, and GNOME is perfect for that, it doesn’t get in your way like KDE.
And some people may argue that akanodi, phonon and the rest of the pillars are innovations, but they aren’t. those are concepts tried before but not with same magnitude.
I tried KDE 4.1 beta recently, and I can feel the pain of KDE 3.5 users, is just to limitant, nothing to do with KDE 3.5.
Edited 2008-06-01 14:09 UTC
While both KDE and GNOME have vision they seem to very different visions and at very different levels.
GNOME seems to have a very evolutionary vision of making small incremental changes and not rocking the boat or scaring their users with too drastic changes. Sometimes this happens at the cost of not using the latest and greatest bits and pieces, but that seems to a cost they’re willing to pay.
KDE on the other hand have a more revolutionary vision. Trying to push the boundaries of what current technology can let you do with a desktop and exploring different and better ways to do things. Sometimes this happens at a cost of annoying current users, but that seems to a cost they’re willing to pay.
As to which is better is really up to each individual to decide.
I’m far from a KDE4 fanboy, but this simply isn’t true. While Plasma is the only change you can easily see from screenshots, under the hood all kinds of amazing things have been added. Like their goal of KDE4 making a truly cross platform application development environment with things like the Phonon multimedia library and solid hardware library. Or for that matter the all the strangely named projects like Nepomuk and Akonadi. Qt 4.4 is pretty damn amazing as well.
Admittedly many of these things aren’t finished or fully integrated into KDE4 yet and some may never turn out to work quite as well as the developers envisioned, but to call plasma the only innovation in KDE4 is simply disingenuous, no matter what your opinion on the actual KDE desktop environment.
Making cross platform libraries or frameworks is not innovation as I mentioned, those are concepts tried before.
Cross platform sound libraries well, not libraries, abstraction libraries, is something I do all the time, the difference is that is used now in a DE and not in a group of programs as I do. If you take a look to .NET and Java you will see that is full of those kind of abtractions.
Thenor or wahtever is called now was supposed to be the “next gen” desktop search engine with semantics etc, but aint nothing like a simple search with taggin system that relies in a SQL database with a semantic pluggin,I’ve seen the same pluggin in beagle, so, there is no innnovation about it.
Akanodi is like Evolution Data Center buth with more options, is not new.
KDE4 just have resulted to be as overhyped as Vista was in its time, the difference is that Vista was delivered more complete and with less bugs.
Edited 2008-06-01 16:13 UTC
You do realize that by that logic there is no innovation in software anywhere, right?
Every new thing is just “old thing” + x. That’s kind of the point of building on previous work.
Oh, there is innovation,like the apple’s iphone or MS surface, etc.
Or take a look to the MS Mesh video at channel 9, you’ll see what’s innovation.
All of those things are evolutions on what was done before. It just depends on your definition of innovation.
Multitouch is innovation to me, it opens the door to a new level of programs and experiences. It is innovation because it is new and from there many will make it a start point, the library abstraction is nothing new and pretty much done everywhere.
MS Mesh is another great innovation in a different level.
Edited 2008-06-01 17:23 UTC
Multi-touch is not a new concept at all, and it isn’t the holy grail because it introduces a way of interaction that doesn’t cover all the bases.
Oh, so that’s where you’re coming from? Mesh is online syncing, sharing and storage between many different devices – as long as you use Microsoft’s technology and all on Microsoft’s servers. No, there is nothing new about it.
In reality, what people want is to synchronise their contacts, mail and other useful nuggets of information between their different devices. Microsoft simply won’t do that because it threatens Exchange, so I wouldn’t bother looking at ‘innovation’ from that direction.
In practice, Mesh rehashes what a lot of people are already doing and repackaging it as innovative (I ask you, they use phrases like “To Live the Mesh Lifestyle”), doesn’t take the concept to a logical conclusion because it threatens Microsoft’s licensing model, and is basically useless. What did you say about over hyping again?
Multitouch is innovation, but multitouch has been around for a very long time (1982 according to wikipedia). Long before Microsoft Surface was even an idea. We have a multitouch table at my university, and they have been quite prevalent in research.
New to you. Not new in general.
Not to say that there is no innovation in Microsoft Surface. Of course there are new ideas there, but like everything else, it’s 95% old ideas and 5% new ones. That’s how technology advances.
You’re being intentionally thick. Of course the concept of library abstraction is not innovation. But a cross platform desktop environment is a step above what has been done before. Just like multitouch is not innovation at this point, but MS Surface as a package has some new elements.
Innovation is practically always a combination of existing technologies. The day of the lone scientist discovering great things are long gone. Progress goes in small steps.
Which has been the case for a long time.
I decent (not perfect) example I always use is the steamtrain. It was an innovation, right? With clear benefits, economically and socially.
Yet – what was actually new about it? The wheel? Iron? Steam machine? Rails? All of those were known to humankind for hundreds or even thousands of years.
You have a very selective perspective if you view those as innovations while dismissing KDE has being derivative.
Or you’re just very naive.
There is no such thing left as innovation in software, everything has been done before. All that’s left is to build upon the work others have done before, and to do it better, and/or in different ways. That’s how we progress. Doesn’t matter if you’re Apple, Microsoft, or a FLOSS project.
You’re simply a victim of the marketing, and there’s no shame in that. Just accept it for what it is.
Im so tired of you, always seeking to attack GNOME in every oportunity you have, for the last time, we are not swiching to KDE, take your poison else where.
Yep, that’s Superstoned. Let me pose a question (a few questions?), which I believe to be relevant to all FOSS desktop advocates:
Would KDE benefit from an influx of current Gnome users? Would Gnome benefit from an influx of current KDE users?
I phrase the question(s) in terms of Gnome and KDE, but one can easily generalize to E and other desktops.
Let’s just live and let live. The current desktops all provide something that their current user base appreciates. Would any of us benefit from being forced onto one set of mailing lists to battle it out? No matter what desktop you currently prefer, it would mean an influx of people arguing to turn it into something else. Is that really what any of us wants?
I prefer Gnome. And I am happy that those who prefer KDE *have* KDE to use. It is good that people have desktops that they like. But even if I were in a selfish mood, I would still not want a mass of people trying to turn my desktop into something that it was never intended to be.
I imagine this movement happens all the time back and forth.
Neither project benefits so much from a few extra users. But extra developers make a big difference. .
That doesn’t really make sense. If Gnome users switched to KDE, they obviously did it because they didn’t like Gnome for some reason. They wouldn’t be arguing to make KDE like Gnome. Same goes for the reverse direction.
Of course it’s good that both projects exist, but people switching between the two are not a problem at all.
Leos,
You are referring to people who switch because they find that they prefer a new desktop. I am speaking of people who are switched because they do not have an alternative. That is not the situation currently. But I get the impression that some people think that it would be good if it were. I do not think that you are one of those people. The desktop wars are silly. The “divide and conquer’ strategy is effective. There are entities which would like to employ it against our Free desktops. But it only works when the victims allow it to. It works even better when we divide and destroy ourselves. Please read what I am saying here and do not take it in a confrontational way. We are on the same side, you and I.
-Steve
And never will be, so there isn’t much point in discussing it.
But this reminds me of a movie called “Thank you for smoking” (hopefully someone has seen it), in which the dad teaches his kid how to win arguments. He tells the kid that the debate is between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. So the kid starts and says vanilla is the best flavour because it tastes good (or something). Then the dad says he wants a world where people can choose their own flavour and aren’t forced to just eat vanilla ice cream.
That’s classic straw man. And it’s the same with this situation. No one is arguing to force people into using one desktop environment. I don’t think you will find anyone that thinks it’s a good idea.
Well, yes. There is at least some positive relation between the number of users and the number of developers in an open source software project. Granted, few veteran developers of either project would be likely to jump ship and join the other project, but for the budding FOSS developers, they are going to be more inclined to join a software project that they actually use.
(Very)Generally speaking, more developers means more features, more rapid development and more eyeballs making those annoying bugs that much shallower.
Is this a good reason to evangelize your desktop environment? Probably not, but it certainly makes sense from a users POV.
A better reason to ‘spread the message’ is that I enjoy my DE of choice (in my case, KDE). I naturally think it is superior to other DEs, otherwise I would be using those. If I think it is superior software, I of course think that everyone would benefit by using it over others. From my POV, encouraging people to use KDE (or GNOME, if that is your preference) is doing them a favour. I have their best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, we are all too willing to be blinded by our preference, to the point where we sometimes refuse to acknowledge that is just that – a matter of preference.
Indeed we are, rexstuff. Indeed we are.
Which is where I’ll chime in to remind people that KDE has progressed from being simply yet another free desktop, to being a cross-platform application environment, with a desktop component for *nix users.
KDE will be bringing “native” applications to Win and OSX, and by making their rich application framework available to those platforms, hopefully encourage developers from those platforms to bring their expertise to the KDE community. Even now, KDE has developers working on core projects using non-linux platforms. This benefits the entire KDE userbase, and will help encourage wider KDE adoption across a variety of platforms.
Will things change overnight? No, of course not. Will things change at all? Who knows?
But they have a vision that dwarfs what Gnome or the other “DE”‘s are doing at this point. I find it amusing that people pontificate about how KDE is second-rate on the basis of a screenshot. The true potential and real sexiness of KDE lies beneath the surface, and cannot be seen in screen grabs. It hasn’t even had enough time for developers to truly start leveraging the new frameworks.
Of course, it may lead nowhere, and KDE may remain as nothing more than yet another linux desktop. But the ambition is tangible, and shouldn’t be dismissed.
It is a bold vision, certainly, but I don’t see it take OS X or Windows by storm.
OS X is primarily used because it is OS X and a Frankenstein combination of Darwin with KDE on top won’t do.
If KDE ever gains marginal success on Win32, we all know what will happen to “the air supply”.
So it will most probably stay a Freenix desktop.
I didn’t see him attacking Gnome. He, and Thom underneath, have called the situation as they see it.
The situation that we have at the moment is that free desktops need to move on to the kinds of stuff that Vista and Mac OS are doing, both visually, and in a development sense to attract more users, and hopefully, more developers. KDE is currently going through a painful medium/long-term process to try and get there. Gnome isn’t, and it doesn’t look as if any process will be started any time soon.
That’s absolutely fine for you, but there will come a point where people will look at what’s on offer and many will. People and development tend to go where the development and the weight is.
Look who is talking, the other anti-GNOME/Mono troll.
Edited 2008-06-01 16:59 UTC
*Shrugs shoulders*.
I can see you have a really worthwhile and well informed opinion about the whole thing. I feel quite sorry for you really, because the article above is looking at what happened seven years ago and where we are now. Goodness knows how you’ll feel in seven years’ time ;-).
Indeed, thank you.
I do have one thing to say about this statement you made:
Gnome isn’t, and it doesn’t look as if any process will be started any time soon.
I think that’s not true. They are thinking about a large change, a cleanup. I listened to some brainstorming about that when I was at Guademy, the joint KDE-Gnome meeting. I did have the impression they were not very ambitious, they just wanted to catch up to what Apple, MS and KDE/Qt have been doing. Not really a compelling vision. When I asked about that they didn’t really have an extensive response, other than ‘our resources are limited’ and ‘we want to keep it as incremental as possible’.
Imho sad – for the Free Desktop. In contrary to what *someone* suggested, I’d rather see Gnome win than MS or Apple. Unfortunately, I personally believe innovation is the way to achieve supremacy, and I simply don’t seem to share that vision with the Gnome developers…
Can’t blame them for it though. KDE benefits from all the low-level stuff being handled for them with Qt. Qt is excellent because lots of people are paid to work on it, and KDE can build on that very solid base to do more of the higher level stuff.
GTK advances quite slowly, and a lot of the higher level stuff isn’t easily possible without the toolkit support. So concentrating on the low-level stuff is a decent strategy from my perspective.
It would be nice if someone put resources into GTK to let the Gnome guys worry less about the basics and more about innovating on top of them.
I’m not sure that sepremacy should be the goal. Infighting is going to bring us all down if we are not careful. If KDE shines, stand back and let it shine. Don’t stand in its way. Let it shine, shine, shine, all around the world. You don’t have to shout about how everyone else sucks if your own product is really superior. Do you?
Edited 2008-06-01 19:57 UTC
You attach far too much significance to our comments here. They mean nothing. Infighting on a comment board on osnews won’t impact free software one iota. Both projects will continue to advance regardless of anything that is said on the intertubes.
Perhaps I am attaching too much importance. Perhaps you are attaching too little. The truth likely lies somewhere in between. I try to err on the side of caution. But I suspect you might think the same.
Squabbles on OSNews are not that important, though, are they? 🙂
I wish I could mod that up, but I already posted on this thread.
#1 sign that someone is insecure in their beliefs is if they need to convince everyone else around them just to validate themselves.
If you really believe X is the the right Y, you will want to share that knowledge with people, you won’t feel obliged to defend it.
I’m sorry, did I say Gnome sucks? I guess I’m having a hard time finding myself say that anywhere in this thread, but I suppose I’m overlooking it.
I believe more than enough in the story of Free Software and KDE not to have to attack other projects – be it MS or Gnome. Now of course I do have an opinion on those, which sometimes gets out. Sorry for those cases I’m being too rude.
But be honest, aren’t some of the more glaring deficiencies in MS’ products a bit of a too-easy target? It’s not like it’s hard to make fun of Gnome – nor KDE, for that matter either, of course…
I *really* hope so. A strong GTK and a good bunch of Gnome libraries helps all of us, because like it or not, we need a broad development platform on the free desktop that’s able to keep up together to produce good applications. It’s all about development, and a broad range of applications for the free desktop, whatever they’re written with, are very important.
The last I looked at Project Topaz it was very much on the tenth back burner. There’s a lot of things that need to be done in order, with a lot of lower level refactoring to be done first.
Edited 2008-06-02 00:17 UTC
Your comment was completely unnecessary. He stated his point of view (which is what the comment section is for). You aren’t being forced to read or agree with what he said.
Do you know what I’m tired of? I’m tired of the constant bickering that goes on between Gnome and KDE fanatics. I mean, my friends at work and I poke fun at each other’s DE of choice. But it’s all in good fun, and we all understand that in the FOSS community, people use the desktop that suites their needs best, and no amount of derision is going to change a person’s mind.
I also find it interesting to look at the comment statistics in your OS News profile as well as superstoned’s. His profile shows that the vast majority of his comments are voted up and for every 5 votes he casts, 4 of them are positive. Your profile shows, on the other hand, that you vote lots of comments down, and your comments are voted down often. From my point of view, you appear to be the poison in this community. If you cannot be constructive here, I suggest you find a community in which you can be.
I think Linux does have vision.
I think it just lacks perspective.
To me, the ‘vision’ is a software utopia, where innovation is rife, because every link in the chain is entirely hackable.
The perspective it lacks, is that, whilst they have pulled off the desired flexibility, it has been to the detriment of users who do not desire that flexibility. They haven’t killed both birds with the one stone, and now the remaining bird is proving impossible to hit.
The “vision” in Apple’s context is when they take something that “works” in a geeks mind, and then apply their programmers to use their balls and actually make decisions rather than config-options and create something like Time Machine- where there are essentially no options. Linux lacks this kind of “vision”, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Ubuntu is the closest thing to Apple’s “My way or the highway” approach, which is really good if you want to go that direction; but then the software diversity of the whole Linux ecosystem covers for where Apple do not want to go.
The reason why Apple turned around has nothing to do with vision, or clarity or perspective. It has to do with money! Apple makes money and thus can hire developers. And when you can hire people things get done!
Open Source truly does have the problem of money… Developers need money to live and Open Source does not provide that.
WTF?
You believe OSS developers aren’t employed?
OSS makes them more employable.
Nothing to do with vision?
What was the iMac compared to the Packard Bells of the time!?
This article, interesting as it is, overlooks the vital factor affecting adoption of Linux on the desktop – Advertising, Apple and Microsoft have large budgets for advertising, giving them the ability to reach out to the masses easily. For many people unaware of the technical world, they will buy what they see advertised on TV or in magazines. In the past, Microsoft was the only choice, now they see the Apple ads, many choose to buy them.
The Desktop may be a particularly visible front, but IMO focussing on this one aspect is missing the point. Linux and FOSS are taking over the world by stealth, and the action is with those of us using it and developing for it
Well, I dont think advertising is the only problem.
For example ? Google. It works well and plus the chit-chat of your friends telling that its “GREAT!!” makes a huge deal.
Linux is already hyped in magazines and sites but the traction of the users is yet to be seen… Why ? Dunno, if I would find out I would make my self a company to get some share of that pie.
Bad analogy. The switching cost for search engines is essentially zero. I can use Windows live search now and Google in the next minute with no negative effects. Switching operating systems is a lot of work.
Huh? Tech sites and tech magazines maybe (and even there only the Linux focused ones) but it certainly doesn’t have a mention in any mainstream media.
I don’t where you are living, but certainly in both Norway and Sweden (the last two countries I’ve lived) it’s mentioned at least semi regularly. For example there was an editorial in this weekends business newspaper that not only mentioned Linux, but implicitly assumed that everybody reading the paper knew what Linux was. I have seen a fair few mainstream news media articles that talk about Linux and mention it as a viable alternative to Windows (but often with the caveat that it’s only for people who like to fiddle with their computers to make things work). On the whole I find that most people know, at least generally, what Linux is.
here in finland as well it gets a lot of press…
And I think in the US market as well with major companies like Dell, Lenovo and even Walmart selling pc’s with pre-installed linux… And also brazil and germany (countries that I lived)
And my point wasnt about the “negative effects” it was the press, advertisement and buzz… Maybe where you come from still Linux pre-loaded machines are a distant future.
Linux gets subtle advertising that isnt really noticed, but its there
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/default.stm
bbc’s click online is a ‘tech show’ aimed at the general public (those without degrees in IT) shown as part of bbc news/worldwide. I consistently follow it to keep a footing on general public perception and adoption of consumer IT
A couple of weeks back they had a segment on linux and oss software (I sent a link to OSNEWS but it wasnt ‘printed’) In my eyes this alone is showing linux and oss is starting to become viable for the general public to use
I agree that awareness of Linux is growing – it is mentioned from time to time in the mainstream media here (Australia). It is a kind of subtle advertising as running Linux isn’t perceived as such a ‘radical’ thing to do anymore.
My point was more that say with Apple, they advertise lots on TV and other mediums, and so lots of people buy Macs even though they are quite different to a PC for someone accustomed to Windows. Now with the Eeepc, there still seems to be a wariness about buying one in many people as it is perceived as a bit ‘unfamiliar’, yet they they feel more reassured in buying a Mac.
Nobody seems to mention the fact that most computers in this world still comes with Windows pre-installed…
I think this is still what hurts Linux the most. Offer customers the choice and sure it would take time to change the mindset but eventually Linux would then have a much better chance at competing with Windows…
One of the awesome things about the Free Software / Open Source ecosystem is that there is room for lots of visions. I agree with the point that having a unifying vision is important for a particular project. But it’s worth reiterating that “the Linux desktop” is a lot of separate projects. I’m sure the author of the original article realises this but it seemed worth emphasizing.
The problem remains that each project within a Free Software desktop perhaps needs some kind of vision in order to produce something good. The handy thing here is that there are often lots of competing projects to choose from, so if one lacks a coherent vision you can jump across to another. There’s a range of different apps for almost every purpose.
There are lots of layers of visions too. Since a distributor has the freedom to patch the code, it’s possible for a piece of software to be customised to adapt it to fit a higher-level vision involving other pieces of software.
Ultimately, I think my point is that individual projects – programming languages, applications, desktop environments, kernels, distributions – all benefit from having some kind of leadership and vision to help them hold a steady course and fulfill a need. But there’s still room for a whole load of different visions in there, there doesn’t need to be one overarching vision. Every Linux distributor – RedHat, Novell, Ubuntu, you – has the option of having their own specific vision, choosing and customizing components to fit it, then releasing the result as a coherent whole
Open Source evolves organically around problems and towards improvement. A wide selection of different visions enables it to do this rapidly, which is a huge strength in my opinion.
The biggest problem is lack of realism.
You don’t have to beat Windows on Volume to be a succesful desktop. GNU/Linux already do if you take all class of desktop that exists :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Classes_of_computers
You don’t have to beat Apple on vision to have vision either and again GNU/Linux as more vision over all :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_window_manager
—–
The distorted perception that GNU/Linux as to beat Windows or Apple at anything is false.
GNU/Linux as to do things better for itself. Sure GNU/Linux could be more advanced , but people mostly invested in SUSE and Red Hat. Who took the money and delivered Corporate solutions ( Server – Workstations ) …
Ubuntu suck at computer delivery. That’s what people buy this day turn key complete solution. Asus EEE PC and G/OS got more visibility then Dell offers who are still hidden …
Even the iPhone predicted 10 million is already beaten by GNU/Linux offers and Android who is coming soon will make it look like they made the same mistake as they did for computers …
– There as never been a 100% solution that pleased everyone.
Apple is a small player on computers anyway :
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20080306PR203.html
Everyone else ship twice as more then they do …
Ummm, That points out something to me, ah yes, all those posts saying that the playsforsure will kill the iPod .
That quite true
But probably the most influential
I remember a longtime Austrian chancellor who was once quoted saying “Visions? If I have visions, I’ll go and see the doctor”
Really, I don’t understand what we are talking about here all the time.
GNOME had the usability thing. Call it a vision, I call it a big plan to improve the product. They pretty much did it and now they are improving on what they have. There is still lots left to do, and new things keep popping in as technology advances. That’s really enough to keep you busy. Just recently someone announced that HAL will be replaced by a new technology – there IS constant work on GNOME to improve the user experience.
I’ll go as far as to say that KDE messed up big time with KDE 4. Right now they lost almost a year (or two?) and we keep hearing that the next version will finally be usable. You call it visions – I call that a disaster! If they don’t get their act together pretty soon, KDE might be related to a second tier platform in the future.
And that’s a pretty bad vision, I guess…
You confuse vision for the future with current state of an actual product 😉
The focus of the KDE project for the last few years has been on foundations. The target is world domination – through better technology. We want to get ahead of the competition. By making much possible, much will be done. We can try new things, easily and fast – while others would have to spend lots of resources. That’s important if you want to innovate. Innovating is risky. Ideas often don’t work (I did research, as a psychology student, in this area – one thing I also quoted in my paper is how it takes, on average, 3000 ideas to form one viable product…). The ability to try new things by just tying together some powerful, high-level technologies is much more important than you think. Through it we hope to create something so much better than the competition it will persuade users, companies and governments to follow us and use it.
(we realize there are other factors at work – political, economical etc – but we’re a technology project, and let the FSF and SFLC do what they do best, while we focus on what we do best)
To say it with a former german chancelor:
People having visions should go see a doctor.
That said, does the article consist of anything but broad assertions not backed up by anything? Got substance?
I think they are thriving because a lot of people want something other than Windows. KDE and gnome have become fine desktops. Linux is ready for the desktop. All that’s left is getting those commercial vendors to support it with applications.
that has nothing at all to do with the article….
IMO this is the reason that at least the higher level OSS projects that are the most successful are based on existing products in the commercial space. Its no secret that seth nickel is a mac classic fanboy (thats not an insult, I am too 😉 ), and you can see windows ideas throughout kde (dialog design, dcom, kparts, etc). Would we have the GIMP without photoshop? Linux or the rest of GNU without UNIX? Inkscape without Illustrator? OO.o without MSOffice?
(note: im not making any judgements on quality, especially in the case of kde, many of the ideas were implemented in a cleaner and more sane manner then windows did.)
IMO this is because developers are really good at innovating with lower level stuff (network protocols, filesystems, software architecture, etc), but when it comes to higher level consumer products, it takes alot more then a developer, because it involves ways of thinking that are not our strengths. When it comes to higher level stuff, especially in a loosely hierarchical system like floss projects, it is alot easier to say “I want to do something like this, but better” then to come up with and communicate a clear vision that is outside the realm of our professional requirements (I.E. languages, compilers, ide’s, text editors, etc).
Sucks, I kinda liked KDE until 4.0 (Gnome is my desktop of choice). Now? Now it just looks like the dev team took every last drop of ugly out of MacOS, XP, Vista, and GNOME and labeled it KDE 4.0.
It’s the most hell bent on looking like Windows desktop out there, it’s a worse case of copycat-ism(tm) than Windows vs Mac 20 years ago.
Seems that’s what it’s users want though:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/V-like?content=79643
More power to them I suppose.
That said, this article isn’t about KDE. It’s about Vision, and as twisted and backwards as it is KDE does have vision. Fortunately, so does GNOME. Just look at Gnome current vs 1.0.
’nuff said.
Edited 2008-06-01 18:14 UTC
So you pick some non-standard random theme and label it as proof KDE is trying to copy Windows? Smart.
http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/63734-1.jpg
Look familiar at all?
Edited 2008-06-01 21:01 UTC
Oh, I’m sorry.
Here: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/screenshots/desktop.jpg
What’s that? It looks like Vista you say?
Well, no shit.
Black panel, geez, that’s damning. Be specific. Saying it looks like Vista doesn’t make it so, in what ways? The two look, and feel, completely different.
I’m glad they went down the crapper. The last thing I want is the file manager, which is a basic component, to flood me with ads.
Linux is attacked. I use Linux all the time. It gets better and better no matter if I use KDE or Gnome. But..
There is of course some places where the desktop concept is left behind. I do not believe that kernel-desktop is a well integrated entity.
This should become better with new releases of GNOME nadXorg.
But having Xorg not finding my screen rsolutions on an TFT monitor seems a bit problematic. There is also no gnome configuration tool to change the device drivers or pass parameters to them.
Another one, MS had an INF file parser to setup serial modems. The parser read the appropriated commands for the modem and it used them to connect. No such tool exists.
CUPS printing. Many times with supported printers there are problems.There is no PJL montor like in Windows that negotiates status and data between the printer and the spooler. How can I know what went wrong?
Try KDE. 3.5 has some amazing stuff for printing, and Kubuntu has had the tools for changing X configuration for years before Ubuntu got them. Suse, by the way, does an even better job at the two things you complain about.
KDE 4.0 unfortunately lost a lot of printing stuff, which won’t be back before 4.2.