Jared White at The Idea Basket explores in this editorial the dangers and pitfalls of the practice of both propertary and open-source software bundling/integration and then offers some alternative development methodologies that could benefit both users and developers alike.
The Future of Software: Stop the Bundling, Please!
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Uh … huh huh … bundling sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before.
And media players are the worst, IMHO .. they want to be your audio player, video player, CD burner, jukebox, etc.
The biggest problem with bundled apps is that many of them only excel at doing one thing and are medicore at doing everything else. So, what normally would’ve been a 20MB app quickly turns into an 80MB with 60MB of features you’ll never use.
Of course, it may be good in the usability department (?), but I think that’s its about time to quit ruining perfectly functional apps for the sake of usability.
IMHO, there’s a difference between making something easy to use and idiot-proof.
This would be wonderful if BigEvilCompany opened up their API’s, etc. But, until that would happens, the chain reaction continues. So, for example, Apple feels they must bundle, in order to make their business plan work as a niche player. If the software market was “open” (I don’t mean OSS, but open regarding standards), the perceived need to do this would lessen greatly.
Use open formats (mail, contacts, etc) then include basic applications that make use of the formats. That way, basic users will have an app that meets their needs, while more advanced users can upgrade to more robust software without having to worry about their data. After all, it’s the data that users care about, not the software they use to read/write it.
Hello everyone, I apologize if you have any trouble getting to my site. It looks like it’s being OSNews’ed.
Hopefully it’ll stabilize soon.
Thanks for your patience,
Jared
i knew you once when you were young
you traveled light
you moved fast
life was simple
i understood you
and you understood me
but something happened
you changed your ways
and now you are carrying so much baggage
you’ve fallen down
and can’t get up
you can’t go anywhere today
#
bundling is a way to lock players out of your market.
it’s like wanting to drive down a certain road and being forced to buy a particular car to do so.
linux is great because of the choice. i hope companies like redhat don’t spoil this by doing foolish things like standardizing on one system — GNOME vs. KDE in this instance. fortunately there is gentoo who have not lost the spirit of linux.
As for Be Inc having the right idea, you can see where they ended up. I’ve used BeOS and while the OS itself was wonderful, I always felt it to be a little lacking in the standard tools department. Sure, you had some very basic apps but they were not good enough. And most of the free replacements are *still* unfinished. I wont go into the commercial side though since not many people sell BeOS software anymore. Oh and BeOS was supposedly a media OS, right? So how come we have Windows and Mac OS X kids running around saying that their application X can play every format on earth, rip CDs, burn CDs, etc, etc and all you can tell them is “umm… yeah. I think I have a media player somewhere here… Oh and mmu_man wrote something cool too… And then there’s VLC but that keeps crashing…” (No, I cant really afford to buy Soundplay)
Not beating anyone down here, just asking what went wrong with a superior OS?
As for the whole bundling issue, it’s not all bad. My take on it is that if it does not add (much) to the final cost then go ahead and bundle. Although bundling MS Windows with a new computer is wrong unless the customer chooses that option. For that money, you could get half a gig of RAM or a better graphics card. And what’s the point of bundling Windows if you’re going to be running Linux or some other OS on it? They’re just losing potential customers this way.
Sorry for the ranting, it’s very late…
“linux is great because of the choice.”
The Linux distro I bought came *bundled* with 2,300 applications! Although Linux wasn’t the intended target of the article, isn’t it the same thing?
I think most people like bundled applications, irregardless of the developers’ problems regarding open standards. If I pay a hundred dollars or more for an OS, it damn well better come with applications to make the computer useful – media player, word processor, couple of games, e-mail client, etc.
…can eventually affect productivity . In my case a simple office suite is more than enough for me. Of course I’m speaking for the rest of us.
That last sentence should read: “Of course I’m NOT speaking for the rest of us”. Sorry, I posted from my iPAQ.
I think the point is not that bunddling is bad, but that massive applications are bad. BeOS and Linux have (or used to have, for the latter’s case), a nice pretty little program for viewing JPEGs, another for GIFs, etc. If you wanted to rip a CD, you’d open Xapp and do it. If you wanted to then listen to it, you’d open Yapp. If you wanted to watch your pirated version of Spice World, you’d open Zapp. But now you open Aapp and have to dig through it to find out how to simply rip a CD. And specialized apps are getting harder and harder to find. That was my take on the whole situation, at least.
I think most people like bundled applications, irregardless of the developers’ problems regarding open standards.
What the…? What does irregardless mean!? As far as I know, it’s not a word.
From Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
ir-re-gard-less adv [prob blend of irrespective and regardless] nonstand (ca.1912): REGARDLESS
Maybe your Third Grade Reader Dictionary doesn’t have it… Heck, I even spelled it correct. If I browse through all of your old posts I’m not going to find a misused word, misspelling, or grammatical mistake?
Nice try 🙂
-Bob
ir·re·gard·less ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-gärdls)
adv. Nonstandard
Regardless.
[Probably blend of irrespective, and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
I’m not defending that it’s a *good* word, only that it was a word.
“used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing.”
I didn’t know we were being graded on technical writing abilities. I, along with everyone else, will have to go stand in the corner with our hands on our ankles.
“What the…?” isn’t even a sentence!
🙂 -Bob
linux is great because of the choice. i hope companies like redhat don’t spoil this by doing foolish things like standardizing on one system — GNOME vs. KDE in this instance. fortunately there is gentoo who have not lost the spirit of linux.
Linux is the EvilSoft out there. What other OS comes on more than one CD? All mainstream distros throw in everything and the kitchen sink. MP3 player? Check. Web browser? Check. Fiftyeleven other MP3 players and WWW browsers? Check.
As for GNOME vs. KDE, they’re also bundling-heavy. In KDE, there’s a Kanything, for instance.
And KDE and GNOME are very relevant to the author’s argument. Both environments intend to offer a solution to every user’s need, and are incompatible. The least that both teams could have done would be to establish common protocols, even if they’re religious about their toolkits. I’ve even heard that the two environments don’t even share the same clipboard.
… is that Big Evil Software, Inc has grown its empire with adopt and extend tactics. OSS tendency for open apis and formats allows BESI to use those to its advantage. If the open apis start to become popular then BESI will embrace that technology but then slowly start adding new extensions that are not compatible with the open standard. Similarly for open file formats, BESI can create perfect import filters for its competitors products but then omit an export feature to that format. This swallows up info written in the open format and locks it into the closed proprietary format. Worse, if the competitors don’t have much presence or the competitors import filters for the proprietary formats are inadequate then BESI can completely ignore them. Since file format compatibility is a necessity and everyone has set the proprietary format as the standard, it would take everyone to switch to the open standard all at the same time and leave some of their data behind in the transition because it is locked in the old standard with no way to convert or extract it to the open format.
The article has it right concerning the open source problems and steps it must take to improve itself but it is rather idealistic about BESI (MS *cough*).
Microsoft has adopted and extended HTML, Java, kerberos, and I’m sure many other open apis. MS and WordPerfect fought for years over the file format issue and we all know who one that one. Microsoft has no reason to open its apis or file formats to its competitors. People are so pissed off and upset at Microseft yet so incredibly dependent on their software for the file formats alone, that if they were opened up to everyone then overnight everyone would switch to the many free open source apps and microsoft would never make money again. Its office software would cease selling. People could begin converting to other OS’s with no fear of losing access to their data causing Windows sales to plummet. …actually this is all idealic too but I hope my point was made, its never going to happen.
Stephen Smith wrote:
I think the point is not that bundling is bad, but that massive applications are bad.
Right. If BigMegaApp locks you out of choice of components for performing small tasks because of its “black box” nature, then users ultimately suffer. For example, in Longhorn (I believe), Microsoft will be unveiling their new database-like “universal store” filesystem. And then they’ll be leveraging that built-in functionality to develop a built-in Windows content management system that’s integrated into the OS. Perhaps that’s just a rumor, but it seems pretty darn likely. So then, where does that leave the competition? Why develop and market content management systems when that functionality is built-in to the OS already?
Unfortunately, Apple isn’t trailing too far behind. They’ve been doing a pretty good job exposing new APIs for recent OS X features such as the built-in Address Book, Disc Burning, Sherlock, and other system services, but what about iLife? They don’t make it too easy to mix iPhoto with MyCoolMovieEditor, or iTunes with MyNiftyPhotoLibrarian. And what about cheap video DVD creation? If you don’t like iDVD (or don’t have a Mac with a native superdrive), you’re SOL.
It’s not that all these integrated software bundles are bad. It’s just that when you get locked into a single-source system because of closed APIs, that’s not a good thing. I think there’s plenty of opportunity for making money and selling commercial software without locking everything down so much, and hopefully the open source software community as well can spend more time focusing on this issue specifically and perhaps change things for the better.
Jared
A linux distro containing a lot of software is NOT what this article complains about.
And if you think your examples are a case of “bundling” you are mistaken.
Take KDE as an example. Yes, it comes with Keverything, but you only need to install Keverything if you want to.
If you only want a few of the applications, then only install the ones you want. Almost ALL of the “bundled” applications can run as long as you just have kdelibs present. If you also want to be able to watch help files, you will need parts of kdebase too, but not all of it. The only reason that KDE is split into about 15 large modules is to help the developers, it does not however mean that you must install all of kdemultimedia to get noatun.
If you think this all is bloated and too “bundled”, then you really should just change your distribution, or complain that most linux distributions bundle software into huge chunks, because this is where the problem is, not in the software.
There may be some open source applications that fits into the authors description of bundled software, but i dont see it really.
I personally think that the open source software is going in the right direction. A very high level of integration is a good thing, and i think there is still a long way to go before everything integrates as well as it should. This however does not prevent anyone from running the individual parts on their own without taking advantage of the integration, the problem is mainly that they are not aware of this.
What other OS comes on more than one CD?
Linux distros aren’t OSes. They’re collections of OSes. You have the EmacsOS, MozillaOS, GnomeOS, KDEOS, the list goes on… (yes, these can all run on non-Linux distros, but Linux distros still include them).
From Merrian-Webster Online:
Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.
Okay, so it is a word, but use regardless instead. 😉
What are you talking about? Mozilla is not an operating system, and I don’t think that anybody has professed such before you! Nor is Emacs, Gnome, or KDE. They cannot boot, they do not have a file system, nor can they do anything of the sort. They are applications. By your argument, calc.exe on Windows is an operating system.
As for Be Inc having the right idea, you can see where they ended up.
Where to people get this impression that the commercial failure of Be. Incorporated was somehow directly caused by some technical deficiency(ies) in the BeOS?
I’ve used BeOS and while the OS itself was wonderful, I always felt it to be a little lacking in the standard tools department. Sure, you had some very basic apps but they were not good enough.
For you, maybe. But I know of quite a few people who stuck with BeMail right up until… well, up until MDR came out.
And most of the free replacements are *still* unfinished. I wont go into the commercial side though since not many people sell BeOS software anymore.
But you do go into it… and even mention one of the commercial apps still being sold for BeOS.
Oh and BeOS was supposedly a media OS, right? So how come we have Windows and Mac OS X kids running around saying that their application X can play every format on earth,
With the exception of Sorenson and newer RealVideo files, VLC has been able to play every file I’ve thrown at it since the 0.46 CVS builds. Even crap like ASF. As for Sorenson, I’ve come to mental refer to Quicktime as “The reason I have the Bink Tools installed”.
rip CDs,
BeOS comes with a CDDA FS driver that presents the audio tracks as WAV files. And there’s FlipSide AE. And there’s a port of cdparanoia. Next?
burn CDs,
The included CD Burner app. CD Manager. Helios CD Recorder. Next?
etc, etc and all you can tell them is “umm… yeah. I think I have a media player somewhere here…
Funny, I didn’t have any problem finding the included media player – especially since they named it “Media Player”.
Oh and mmu_man wrote something cool too…
mmu_man has written quite a few cool somethings (*cough* http://www.bebits.com/devprofile/2978 *cough*), to which were you referring? nplay?
And then there’s VLC but that keeps crashing…”
When was the last time you used VLC in BeOS? I can’t remember it crashing on me since before the 0.45 builds.
(No, I cant really afford to buy Soundplay)
Huh? It’s what, $15? And even if one can’t afford fifteen dollars, there’s still CL-AMP and APlayer.
Not beating anyone down here, just asking what went wrong with a superior OS?
For pretty much the same reasons that other superior products have failed in the past.
What are you talking about?
Given that pedantry seems to be the theme of the day, I’ll point out I wasn’t talking (your emphasis, not mine) about anything.
Mozilla is not an operating system, and I don’t think that anybody has professed such before you! Nor is Emacs, Gnome, or KDE. They cannot boot, they do not have a file system, nor can they do anything of the sort. They are applications.
It depends on how you define operating system, doesn’t it? And they’re more than just applications. You can program them. Not only to linux distros come with everything and the kitchen sink, so can Emacs and Mozilla. It’s extensiblity and bundling taken to such extremes thaty ou don’t need anything but Emacs and Mozilla and something to put them on.
By your argument, calc.exe on Windows is an operating system.
Hardly. CALC.EXE does one thing: emulates a real-life calculator. Nothing else. You can’t extend it to be a text editor, webbrowser, mail client, whatever.
Good article, but I think bundling is ok for the most part(like they do in many Linux distros to make life easier). I think as long as you’re able to customize it, add or remove components without breaking, then there isn’t a problem. Like others stated, the problem comes in super-sized apps, and the lock-in that many commercial venfdors try and get you in with their products.
i.e., never apparently.
What are you talking about? Mozilla is not an operating system, and I don’t think that anybody has professed such before you! Nor is Emacs, Gnome, or KDE. They cannot boot, they do not have a file system, nor can they do anything of the sort. They are applications. By your argument, calc.exe on Windows is an operating system.
I think you misunderstood the original poster. Before the rise of windows it was often the case that people had powerful apps which did most everything they wanted. WordPerfect was the king here, and people often set their dos boxes to boot to wordperfect. It included a file manager with many of the dos command, you could go to shell, it included some graphical viewers, it included its own print drivers, the macro language was very full featured and was effectively shell scripting…. There was no real point in including its own low level disk routines but had they wanted to they could of.
Emacs similarly 10-15 years ago acted as a total environment. It let you edit files, was a complete IDE for programming, had a news reader and entire mail environment, had a built in LISP for very high power system / management + shell scripting, had some file routines….
Mozilla was going in the same direction (though I don’t know if it still is) aiming for a pure lightweight browser entered environment.
OS is a bit strong perhaps but these total environments are more than just applications.
Thankyou jbolden1517, that’s exactly what I’m saying.