In version 91 of Firefox, released on August 10th, Mozilla has reverse engineered the way Microsoft sets Edge as default in Windows 10, and enabled Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Before this change, Firefox users would be sent to the Settings part of Windows 10 to then have to select Firefox as a default browser and ignore Microsoft’s plea to keep Edge.
Mozilla’s reverse engineering means you can now set Firefox as the default from within the browser, and it does all the work in the background with no additional prompts. This circumvents Microsoft’s anti-hijacking protections that the company built into Windows 10 to ensure malware couldn’t hijack default apps. Microsoft tells us this is not supported in Windows.
Sadly, this does not work on Windows 11, where Microsoft is now forcing users to change the default handler for every individual file type a browser might use.
Could they not just update the technique to hit each individual file type?
I’m not a fan of workarounds which let the vendor off the hook. Neither can you rely on workarounds as they often break during an update. It’s very irresponsible of Mozilla to jump the gun so unprofessionally.
Then there is Mozilla contributing to the Windows upgrade rachet by deprecating still in use systems. 99.9% of security problems are with the application or user not the system. Between the two Mozilla scored an own goal.
Myself I feel organisations and people should view the end of support for Windows 10 as a hard deadline for quitting Microsoft products. There’s no reason why developers cannot take portability seriously as step one and port to alternative systems. But then I look as Linux with its hideously small sweetspot which if you step outside of this you run into a cliff edge nightmare and egotists. They’re like the permanent Marxist revolutionaries on the left or Libertarians on the right. Both are addicted to the fight.
I am curious, how long do you think Microsoft, Mozilla, etc should be required to support old systems? What is the cutoff point when they can deprecate those systems? Can you provide me data on just how many of those non supported systems are out there still running windows, so we can have a conversation based on the numbers?
She won’t answer that question. It’s been asked of her many times, but she never answers.
Personally I’d suggest they should support them as long as they remain proprietary. They could sublicense maintenance/support out to someone else (like occurred with OS/2) or open-source it.
For Mozilla this isn’t an issue, since it’s open to begin with – anyone can pick up support or self-support any given version.
So would this apply to all proprietary operating systems? The most popular? Should it apply to other kinds of software?
Ideally, yes – if you refuse to support or sell something anymore, then someone else can pick up the torch. If you don’t want to nominate someone to do that, then anyone should be able to.
That’d be applicable to everything from a 1979 atari 2600 game to Unix or Windows, or even the embedded firmware in a piece of commodity hardware.
If someone leverages their public grant of copyright to profit off something, they should be required to continue making it available and service it, or lose their monopoly.
As Alfman mentions though, it’s not something ever likely to happen – intellectual property extension and exploitation is a big money maker for several industries – both directly and indirectly (eg industries using superfluous copyright-protected electronics on parts to limit servicability, repairability and competition). Money talks louder than principle and public benefit.
The1stImmortal,
I wish this were the case with hardware. When the manufacture stops supporting drivers & hardware, it should become public domain. If they don’t want it to be public domain, then they should support it. This way customers will never be left high and dry and will always have support options be it from the manufacturer or the FOSS community.
Of course this is just wishful thinking and would never actually happen, but it would provide a decent solution to manufacturers that stop supporting old hardware because it isn’t worth their time. The community should be allowed to step in and continue support independently.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it might also greatly reduce the treadmill of releasing new models.
More likely these companies will just double down on planned obsolescence. 🙁 Just introduce more parts in the system to make sure the hardware breaks and can’t be fixed.
Generally the answer is “as long as is profitable”. There are companies descended from DEC that are still developing and supporting VAX software. There is also a small but not-insignificant industry around the even older PDP-11.
What systems do you mean? I work at Mozilla, and we still support Window 7. Are you suggesting we should support XP or Vista? XP is catastrophically out of date and would require a lot of extra code to actually support (it lacks a LOT of modern APIs introduced in Vista in particular).
Are you suggesting that we should support Vista or XP? There would be an increasing amount of infrastructure and developer time for an increasingly small amount of benefit. Mozilla generally does accept patches for otherwise unsupported platforms (this is something that is pretty rare for Chromium to do) too, if you someone else wanted to take on that support work.
I’ll also say that supporting even Window 7 and 10 at once is a real investment. It requires testing and build infrastructure, and Windows 7 in particular has many flaky subsystems which I would be very surprised if Microsoft ever fixes. As an example, it’s common to hit strange intermittent bugs with Windows 7 having issues with fonts. Just “supporting more platforms” requires dev and infra investment.
@FlyingJester
I know what portability and legacy support is from step one including low level portability layer and abstractions, and testing. Been there. Done that. So please spare the excuses when you have revenue measured in millions. And if you’re the idiot who cannot manage abstractions as well as not leaping on every single clickbait feature Microsoft introduces you wouldn’t have the problem maintaining it would you? Tell me what is in Firefox that makes it utterly impossible to support back to Windows 95 and NT4? I cannot think of a single reason off the top of my head and if there is a reason you can bring up whose fault is that?
You also forgot about Android 4.3 didn’t you?
I have no idea whether you are junior or senior staff or what your coding background is or where you are or are not with what is happening within Mozilla but in all honesty I’m not impressed in the slightest. Not remotely so. As far as industrial support standards go you’re a joke.
@HollyB what systems have Mozilla dropped support for that you think should be supported. Actually back up your arguments
Don’t bother engaging here. She’s just blowing smoke, just like in every other comment.
Yeah, at this point there seems to be mental health issues or old age at play.
It’s getting ridiculous. I hope they get help.
@javiercero1 agreed
@jock
I don’t waste my time with people who cannot listen or comprehend. See paragraph two. It could not be any plainer. I have also written about this before but the majority of keyboard warriors on here are trying to engineer a pile on not pay attention to position points as they roll in and are explained.
If you don’t have a clue the first time I don’t owe you anything. What are you? Five?
The first paragraph is very specific. I’ve discussed these issues before too but none of you pay attention. Not a single one of you have ever engaged in discussion on exactly what is a low level portability layer. Not one. And no I don’t mean limited platform availability bloat like SDL. Don’t be amateurs. And no I’m not spoonfeeding you like a self entitled lazy boyfriend. Make an effort.
@HollyB
– you aren’t as clear as you think you are
– you don’t support your arguments with facts
– you are abusive and hurtful, but get outrages whenever you think you have been insulted (regardless if you have been or not)
– you make arguments that don’t make sense (why does saying I think 10 years of support mean I should pay people to upgrade?)
– you make use physical ailments as insults (your lawyers with ED comment)
– you don’t bother to accurately read what other people write
@HollyB One more:
– You aren’t sex-positive (because you keep bringing up OKCupid like it is a moral deficit. In fact why do you care if I am on there or not?)
Yes, Windows 95 and NT4, and while we’re at it, also Win32S and NT 3.51. You do realize that the compositor actually requires GDI+ or even DirectX and “outsources” scrolling and many others to the GPU. The UI is not a dumb framebuffer anymore. Sure, in theory you could make Firefox run in MS-DOS with Glide, on Voodoo 1, but someone has to write the code for it.
Futhermore, considering that 95 and NT4 are running on double or triple digit single CPU speeds, it would be useless. Try browsing Facebook on Windows 7 on a single-core 1GHz cpu with 512MB of RAM, that is already above the highest config for Windows 95. Then you’ll realize that it’s a pointless struggle.
That would perhaps constraints sites to be more lightweight, because having to download so much stuff and scripts just to show ads, really ?
@d3v1
My low level portabily layer covered pretty much every OS version and compiler out there including Windows, Linux (GCC) and consoles, as well as all the relevant SDK’s for Windows. It’s a really really thin layer which covers language and platform quirks and different variable memory sizes and 32 and 64 bit etcetera.
The lowest level graphics layer basically dealt with loading OpenGL. I had the Glide SDK but never included it. I used the 3DFx “miniGL” which was a subset of OpenGL.
I’ve discussed my framework before. It was heavily based on Borland VCL. The GUI framework could either be used as a native interface including providing drawing surfaces for direct operations windowed or fullscreen, or the GUI could run on a drawing surface whether OpenGL or Direct3D or any other graphics surface like GDI which had an abstraction. All graphics surfaces shared the same object model. This was before OS interface “compositing” was a thing.
Yes my framework also had an HTML component. At the time I stopped the HTML component wasn’t 100% finished and tested. It’s so long ago I cannot remember what state it was in. The XML component certainly was finished. This was before browsers exploded in size but it would have been no more than a few days work to code a bare bones working browser. At the time I had more important things to work on and a CSS module would have been months down the road at the earliest.
As for performance you’re having a conversation without a person who coded high performance graphics software and I’ve been on this planet long enough to remember all the major technology changes since whenever and yes this includes browsers.
My game engine sat on top of a VM. I hadn’t got around to including a compiler to native code but remember looking deeply into a custom form of simple C as a scripting language. Some engines at the time used Java as a scripting language then LUA took off and LLVM not long afterwards. JIT scripting for web pages has only recently become a thing but if you join the dots you will notice this was in hand with my own engine around the early 200o’s. No it hadn’t been completed because I had a long list of other tasks like the editor which ran on the VM to complete and work on art scaling, and maps loading and replay. About 90% of the editor would be scripting which is how Alias Wavefront’s Maya worked. That was back when 200-400Mhz machines were the average.
Not to put too fine a point on it I know how to produce tight, readable, and maintainable code. I know the difference between something which is well formed and functional versus bloated memory hogging latency. I also do not owe Facebook et al a living. If they cannot code performant web pages that’s their problem.
You were saying?
@HollyB
Can you cite commercial products in which your engine was used and deployed.
@HollyB can you tell us what company it was for? What games/apps used it? How scalable was it to multi threaded/multi core systems?
I mean Derek Smart made a lot of claims about his games, but was terrible at execution. Show us how good it was, and we can believe you
@javiercero1, @jockm
None of you are demonstrating any ability to discuss specific simple low level concepts and technology so you will excuse me if I cease my side of the discussion and let your boundary pushing whataboutery hang in their air before it crashes to the ground like Wile E Coyote. That really is the level you are at.
I’m not making any claims simply giving a brief outline of an unfinished project you know nothing about. You are not owed any explanation.
If you can’t pass that minimal test in my mind you’re just forum fodder. That’s what jockm doesn’t get when I bring up his being on OKCupid. If you’re on OKCupid for more than three weeks you’re not AAA material or you don’t know what you’re doing, or both. Neither sex positive or Derek Smart have nothing to do with anything.
Make an effort and raise the bar. (Jesus wept…)
@HollyB
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
And if you actually know something about me, don’t be a coward, say it. But it is time to stop implying
FlyingJester,
Thank you for your honesty. Yes, maintenance is a full time job, and it becomes increasingly tedious as time passes, and platforms age.
I think it could *technically* be possible to use Wine / Proton source code to back port some of the newer Windows API. However since nobody seems to be doing it, there is absolutely zero value in it at the moment.
Although it did not stop people from running Wine on WSL on Windows: https://liliputing.com/2019/08/wine-on-windows-lets-you-run-windows-apps-on-windows-through-windows-subsystem-for-linux.html 🙂
sukru,
I think this is a very fun topic for something that very few people actually have any use for, haha 🙂
To be fair, people have run WINE on Windows before, using CygWIN. I believe there was some work on making it work natively, but i don’t think it got much further than text-based programs
There was a curious branch of ReactOS a few years ago called ARWINSS (Another ReWrite of the WIN32 SubSystem), which was essentially the entire WINE userland running on top of the NT-like ReactOS kernel, with graphics running through an X server. It helped expose a lot of bugs in ReactOS whilst providing much better app compatibility compared to the ReactOS userland at the time. I believe it’s now obsolete and not maintained.
https://reactos.org/wiki/Arwinss
@FlyingJester
I’m a programmer too, and I understand your problem.
I dont’know for which os you started to develop your product, so I can only suggest to freeze the sources at every os change, and start with a new copy.
Since there will be non more updates to WinXP, Win7 and Win8 You should have not any problem.
That is, you should support only the current and previous version of the OS
Obviously, no backporting.
They essentially do this. Everything in the repositories are release tagged and you can download older versions: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
HollyB was talking about supporting XP and Win95 with current releases in perpetuity
@jockm
There’s nothing wrong or imposible or even difficult about that. It’s trivial. But no the biggest problem is with their basic work practices.
They’re spending more time chasing bling and avoiding the technical issues and whining rather than getting it right, They would rather chase feature creep and lazily blow millions of other peoples money than focus on basic simple skills and management. You don’t seem to get this either which is why I we question your 30 years plus of “experience”. Gold stars for turning up really doesn’t cut it when it is obvious you cannot acknowledge let alone grasp the concepts I’m discussing.
@HollyB if you don’t like being insulted, why do you repeatedly insult others? Don’t you see how this invites the behavior you claim to hate?
@jockm
You ducked an entire post about professional standards. I suspect professional standards is harder than projecting hence your bullishness. I noticed it the other day when you were getting bullish with someone else and then you were the one who demanded an apology.
Seriously when have you ever engaged with or contributed to any discussion raising the bar? I can’t think of a single time.
@HollyB you didn’t actually ask a clear question, but you have ignored so many legitimate questions from me, and been insulting since our first conversation, I don’t see why I should take you seriously.
It amazes me that people still want to use an operating system where the vendor is making it harder for the user with each new version. And as their daily driver too? Perhaps some people like pain and struggle.
I don’t think it is as hard as you think it is for most people. Most people just use computers to get stuff done, aside from making it harder to change browsers (which most people don’t do very often), windows 11 will be about as easy as windows 10. Most people won’t be rushing out to upgrade, or really care. If their systems support 11 then they will, if they don’t most won’t worry. When they get a new system it will come with 11 and they will move on.
I am not saying this isn’t a PITA, and I believe MS should change this so something much more user friendly. I just don’t think this is the big deal people in niche highly technical communities think it is.
@Jockm
Yet another person who seems too thick to get the idea some people don’t want to have their machines artificially obsoleted.
And your basis for this claim is? What about the 90%+ of users who have had their machines artificially obsoleted? Are you going to personally pay for them to get a new machine?
This is the same kind of nonsense you get with everday sexism. No wonder you’re an “expert” OKCupid user. Look, sweets. If you’re on there for more than three weeks you’re not an expert. Three years is heading into questionable territory. It’s like saying you’re had 1000 job interviews without getting a job so are expert at job interviews.
@HollyB I didn’t insult you, so please don’t insult me. All I said is that when people eventually upgrade their computers they will get windows 11. I didn’t claim they would be forced to, because they aren’t
The basis of my claim is decades of observation, doing customer support, development work, and looking at data. But if you have other data, then please supply it now. I keep asking for it, and you keep not supplying it.
All you are doing is acting like a bully
@jockm
I don’t like my intelligence being insulted and called you out on it. Nor do I like repeating myself and it must be getting on for at least half a dozen times just on this one bullet point alone. Your later comments reek of marking your own homework with a “shut up, woman” slapped on the end.
I don’t owe a multibillion international monopoly an income nor legions of hangers on supporting systems broken by design. Nor do I owe the legions of marketers and lawyers and overweight middle management with ED an income no matter how shouty and purple faced they get.
I’m sorry sweetie but we all know for the average user computers peaked some years ago. Tell me why I should spend my money just to fulfill your hobby.
@HollyB you don’t like being insulted, but have no problem insulting others.
In no way was I telling you to shut up because of your gender, but because you refuse to engage with data, and result to insults and innuendo.
And instead of answering some fairly simple questions, you choose to attack. You have nothing, you are a massive hypocrite, and behave like a bully. You destroyed your own credibility “sweetie”
@HollyB In fact I challenge you to show me where in my comment to @tingo I said that people would be forced to upgrade, Provide counter evidence, and justify why bringing up OkCupid was valid. All three or forever hold your peace
@jockm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_in_the_Community#:~:text=Care%20in%20the%20Community%20(also,rather%20than%20in%20an%20institution.
@zayn yes I have seen you post that before. I don’t think it adds to the discourse
@jockm
First time I’ve posted it. Might have been someone else.
I don’t think you’re going to get much discourse out of this.
I have a relative that displays pretty much the exact same behaviour. It’s like pissing in the wind with them.
@Zayn my apologies, it genuinely looked like you had posted the xkcd comic again. I mean that on my phone that was the url I saw, and when I looked at it just now it was obviously different. Again I apologize
I am not actually trying to get HollyB to admit she is wrong, but to get her behavior documented sufficiently so anyone can see she doesn’t respond logically. In the beginning some months ago (in a conversation about RISC-V) she had be genuinely questioning if I was misunderstanding her, or unintentionally causing offense.
Her arguments and behavior has changed dramatically over the last few weeks, and I want to make sure there is a record that she isn’t being misunderstood, but behaving badly
@jockm
You avoided the very simple programming and practice and management issues I raised earlier up the thread as well as being nowhere to be found on very specific issues I’ve raised in previous topics. So your claim to be collecting evidence is really just your male ego not admitting it and trying to “frame a narrative” where you mark your own homework and call yourself the winner. Sorry but no. I’m calling you on this.
Correct me if I’m wrong but with a project you are currently porting you’re very light on details and I’m cirous if you’re not making the very same mistakes I have mentioned in this thread. You’re avoiding mentioning what the new interface is and what it is being changed from. Where’s the big secret in this?
I would also lay money on that code having no portability layer at all.
So really what this is all about is you’re not up to standard and tbh I doubt many of you are. In fact I’d say most of you are actively concealing bad practice which is why you run shy of portability disucssion.
@HollyB
Because the work isn’t done yet and the client wants it kept confidential until release. Also I don’t trust you knowing the name of my client or much about my personal life
@jockm
Understood, no apology needed.
Narcissists will never admit their bad behaviour though. It’s always someone else’s fault as the narcissist could never be wrong…
jockm,
That’s all true, but at the same time I know there are people who resent being forced to buy a new unwanted OS due to mandatory bundling when they buy a computer. I’m not going to take the argument to an absurd extreme like some others are doing, but I do sympathize with those who feel their choices have been artificially limited or manipulated via forced bundling. I too have been in that boat too many times. Many people object to this sort of thing and it’s a rational reaction.
Obviously this happens with operating systems, but it’s long been the case with certain services like carriers & television packages,. More recently we’re seeing retailers like newegg using forced bundling to offload products that aren’t selling well on their own. If people want or need one thing badly enough, they’ll also buy other bundled things they didn’t want with bad reviews just to get the first thing. This is really annoying for system builders who are forced to use or at least pay for hardware/software they never intended to buy.
When it comes to operating systems, and windows in particular, I think microsoft’s record on long term support has been historically good. But for the people who are fed up with unwanted changes, I don’t think any amount of long term support would be enough. They want to stick with only driver & security updates indefinitely. The problem of course is that they can’t do that, at least not if they want support. The world doesn’t work that way.
@alfman I am not going to argue with you, but ask one question: do you think the people you mention represent the average user? Or are they in the minority? I ask because my point was about the average user
jockm,
We talked about this recently, yes absolutely I’m talking about average users. A lot of average users are tired of microsoft pushing unwanted changes. Every user will have their own opinion though. Some are ok with change for change’s sake while others find it to be a bother.
Edit: I do appreciate the fact that I am a relatively niche buyer, but even average buyers may prefer for things not to change.
@alfman and I am just going to say I disagree with you about the average user and unless either of us get data to share, we can just leave it there.
Aside from my challenges to HollyB to actually back up what she says
jockm,
I’m not sure why the idea that some people don’t like or want change has to be such an incredulous idea. My dad moved recently got a new phone because his old device had no coverage where he moved. He lamented about the problems he was having with his new phone because things changed on him. Like you, I have no idea if there’s any public data about this, but I’m inclined to believe that people like my dad are not the exception but the norm, or at least far more common than you are allowing for. But yeah I figured we were always going to disagree.
Good luck.
@Alfman My lived experience, and what I have read about neuroplasticity in general tells me that when we are younger we are deeply receptive to change and learning, and as we age this declines. We tend to accept change in the things we are most interested in, and resist in the everything else. I am of course speaking very broadly.
So early in my career I worked on the WordMARC word processor. I am fairly sure you never heard of it, but it was a legitimate competitor in law firms against WordPerfect. No matter what we did to the software, gui features we added, etc, we knew we always had to keep compatibility with with the wang-style gold key commands; because the users knew the gold keys and didn’t want to learn something new. Our usage data showed us that new features were mostly used by people who were first learning the software
At another point I worked for a company that made software for car dealers to configure and price new and used cars. It was imperative we made new features as automatic as possible and introduced as few UI changes as we could; because the users resisted any change. Personally I think we indulged this too much, but I was leading other products.
Now I do a lot of embedded engineering and I have a client that makes and industrial control unit thingy (best way to describe it without disclosing it). For the last 20 years it’s had a 2 line by 20 character LCD as the UI. I am now porting it to a much more advanced display technology, but we picked one with a similar (but larger) shape, and poured a lot of energy into introducing a more modern UI but make it feel the old as much as possible.
In my experience most people don’t really care about computers (and I am including smartphones in this generalization), they are the thing they have to use to do things they want/need to. And so no, they don’t like change that gets in the way, because it makes it harder to do the things they require a computer for.
I mean I hate that every few months Plex seems to change their UI without any apparent guiding principal as to why.
If you can make their experience better without changing how they do it, then users will be receptive to the change. If you put obstacles in their way then they won’t like it.
jockm,
I completely agree with you on this. Logically when you’re first learning something you have relatively few preconceptions. There’s less to compare things against.
I’m not quite short what you mean “most people don’t really care about computers”. People who don’t care about computers generally won’t own one. They’re more likely to use one at work where it’s part of their job, but in that case someone else is buying it and the worker’s opinion usually isn’t very relevant.
I understand that. But I still think it’s fair to say that microsoft have implemented a lot of changes that people don’t like.
I didn’t say hate or dislike, but don’t care. I mean that they care what you do with one, social media, streaming video, playing games, etc
But they don’t care about the hardware, the object itself, it is a means to an end, and in general people learn just enough to be able to do what they want to do with them, but they aren’t generally interested in them
jock,
I would take that to mean they do have opinions on computers, but I guess it’s a matter of perspective. Oh well.
I agree that hardware is only a means to an end, but we should not ignore that some people hate when the means to an end changes underneath their feet. While I acknowledge anecdotal evidence won’t mean much, I hear from lots of people who feel this way. Granted you have a difference of opinion, but I don’t know why we should dismiss their points of view. You say they don’t exist, but I see it often. Perhaps it’s because I’m in a position of being called when people have problems. If I weren’t in a position that exposes me to this side of the industry, perhaps I’d see people complaining about change less often. I don’t know.
Of course they get over it, they don’t have much choice. Just like when I give up and buy a product or service that isn’t what I wanted. It’s one thing to say they’ll get over it, they will, but it would be misleading to conclude it’s what they want.
I’m very opinionated too, but I do try to be reasonable in acknowledging other opinions. Alas, I don’t know whether the people who disagree with me think I’m reasonable, haha.
I don’t believe I ever said that, but please correct me if I am wrong. I am talking about the scale of issues around updates, feature changes, etc. I fully admit they are an issue for some people, but disagree about the scale and how important it is relative to what other people are saying.
Most of the time 😉
jockm,
Well, implying they don’t exist in relevant numbers is what I should have said. A lot of them do exist in my circles, and I think they may even be the majority for older generations. Anyways we’ve already gone over this so I don’t really have any new points to add to the discussion.
🙂
@Alfman
Most of you are so busy nerding out on new API’s you’re blissfully ingoring most users are stuck with older API’s and will never actually ever have an upgrade. F-Droid of all people should get this and they monumentally fail by not being able to handle more than one thought at the same time. They are adding to the ratchet effect themselves by chasing the latest shiny and deprecating old but perfectly usable and still in use versions of Android. They are limiting their own market.
Why does Google tolerate F-Droid? Well, duh. They’re just playing Google’s game. F-Droid is a rebellion in name only and one of many who simply do not get even the basics of portability and legacy support. It’s easy. Trivial. Once done almost cost free.
HollyB,
You tagged me in your post, but I don’t see anything that relates to what I was talking about. I didn’t even mention fdroid in this thread.
We like seeing our hardware with officially supported drivers. And an OS with a decent app ecosystem. And not having to deal with “repositories”.
‘Not having to deal with ‘repositories’’
I always find this argument rather ridiculous. The issue isn’t the repositories, it’s the difference in how you think a system should be set up. Which, in turn, is actually kind of funny. The Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Windows Store, whatever Sony calls their PSN storefront, Steam, GoG, EGS, itch.io, all of them are package managers using specifically curated repositories, and I can pretty much guarantee you use at least one, probably two or more, on a regular basis.
IOW, the issue isn’t with package repositories, or even package managers, it’s almost always that things are ‘different’ and nobody wants to change despite the significant benefits to doing so, such as setting up a new system exponentially faster or being able to strictly manage software versions in one place.
ahferroin7,
Agreed. Practically nobody is not using linux on account of it having repositories for the same reason that practically nobody is not using android or IOS on account of their having repositories. There are plenty of reasons users might dislike linux, including the other reasons given, but this one sounds hollow.
Well, the most common argument is that it’s difficult to install a more updated version of a given software package which is not present in your distribution’s repository. This means you have to either install outside the repository from a tarball (a major pita), add another repository if available (can be a pita if dependencies get screwy) or install flatpak or something along those lines. Aside from just waiting for your distro to update its own repository, absolutely none of these are as easy as download and run. It’s not the idea of a repository that causes an issue, as Apple’s and Google’s stores clearly demonstrate. It is the way the repository model is implemented in most Linux distributions that is the problem.
darknexus,
Ok, what your talking about is the difficulty of sideloading for normal users, which is a completely valid point BTW, but that’s not a criticism of repos as such. If kurkosdr had said it’s too difficult to sideload applications (due to DLL-hell/whatever) I’d be more inclined to agree with that. Although flatpak and snaps have significantly improved this process to the point where I don’t think the criticisms of the past have as much traction as they used to.
How so? And I also have to contest the point about apple and google repos being trouble free. Developers can struggle to push updates to these too. I don’t know how to quantify the relative scope of problems in each respective store, but needless to say all of them have problems.
Here’s an example of one that effects me.
https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux_Google_Play
The reason has to do with google mandating the use of new APIs that forcefully deprecate process execution features needed to run a linux shell environment on android.
https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/1072
Obviously android should have a permission for this, but instead google decided to unilaterally take away the functionality. For now such apps can still be sideloaded.
@HollyB
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
@kurkosdr
People are missing the point again. They don’t get the end user experience of one click installs. No Windows was not perfect and could be quite the nightmare with dependencies which is why game developers began insisting on users installing IE5/6 on their systems as it installed a lot of other stuff so provided a baseline. But the one click install as a thing couldn’t be easier.
A few topics back someone triumphantly declared repositories are there to solve the system integration and testing issues with Linux so the small sweet spot and brittle state of linux is *tadah* solved by the Linux expert Well, no. The respoitory is in effect a walled garden. It’s basically blackmailing end users into an “our way or no way” approach with crusty edgelords eyeing their precious status and pay cheques. If it was easy they would be out of a job.
People are too stupid to get the difference between a store experience (whether it is a single store providing many different applications from different vednors and an update mechanism) or a basic web page “store” from a single ISV; and they’re incapable of seperating “store” from system integration.
HollyB,
@Alfman
You think I don’t spot you guys arguing one way this week then arguing the other way next week?
No sorry but I think what I was discussing was A.) The overall problem space and B.) Your own description of the function of repositories you made only last week. As for Jockm being a soft headed evasive nincompoop I’m not even going to wrestle with that.
Seriously I’m beyond bored. The commentary on The Register is ten times more up with professional standards than anything I have read in here which is mostly point scoring edgelord whataboutery.
HollyB,
Cite a link/quote, and don’t cop out.
Linux is not a walled garden if by “walled garden” we’re talking about a platform that blocks outside apps. Apple’s IOS is likely the highest ranking example of a wallen garden that everyone thinks of today. What definition of walled garden would you have us in order to make me wrong?
Take a look in the mirror. I mean you injected your “whatabout mozilla” & “whatabout fdroid” gripes into a discussion that had nothing to do with either of them. Everyone is trying to have a professional discussion with you, you are the one dragging the level of professionalism down. It’s obvious you’re just going to reply with a contrarian response and blame everyone else. Whatever, go ahead and blame me, but please in the future let’s aim for discussions that are insightful, lighthearted and fun. That’s what I want, is it too much to ask? Is it? I can work on being friendlier & more professional, but nothing is going to change if you don’t do it too.
@Alfman
I’m not doing the leg work for lazy men. If you can’t remember what you said from one week to the next that’s your problem. As for whether it is genuine or a concious or unconcious “competitive strategy” from yet another member of the “bro pack” that’s on you.
Time and time again I have discussed technical specifics and time and time again you reframe away from it and act baffled yet when another man says exactly the same thing I did somewhere else it’s “yo bro” fist bumps all round.
@HollyB
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
HollyB,
That’s the cop out I was expecting. The onus is on you to provide evidence for your argument. Expecting me to make your arguments for you? That’s lazy.
I think that there might be a different reason to why people choose different browser than Firefox.
I’ve read a lot of good points in this thread and don’t have anything to offer that hasn’t already been said. But, I don’t think users are entitled to unlimited support equally as much as I don’t think companies should be able to profit off technology products they don’t support for a subjectively “reasonable” length of time. I like the idea that once software support has been expired for X number of days/years, it should automatically become public domain and able to be picked up by anyone, which will absolutely never happen. I do not agree with naming a custodian who would have the option of just sitting on it after being named, which absolutely would be the loophole that would be abused should that kind of `public domain` law be enacted.
friedchicken,
Yeah we all agree it will never happen and companies would find ways around it if we tried. But what’s nice about officially obsolete products becoming public domain is that the community would ultimately decide when support would end. So long as there’s a community anywhere who feel there’s still value in something, then it can be supported and the original creator wouldn’t have to foot the bill. This is good because cost & labor is usually the big reason cited for terminating support. Obviously I mentioned hardware before, but this would be good for things like online games that users can no longer play because the servers are eventually shut down. When the company decides it’s not worth running servers anymore, ideally the community should be able to take over to continue support for as long as they’re willing to use their own resources to do so.
I think this idea has a lot of merit, but it would require companies to hand over retired code, and I can’t see that happening. Although there have been some notable exceptions like Quake, where the code was officially released when they stopped support and the community has really stepped up, adding support for new technologies like ray tracing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9vXz9-C-AY
It’s a good example of how things should work.
@Alfman
If well funded or popular products from vendors like Mozilla or F-Droid are not managed properly and have no meangfully decent portability layer and they deprecate at the drop of a hat themselves then what you are saying is false hope. It’s only available in theory only. It doesn’t happen much at all in practice so really just one big lie. Puffery.
Not a single “professional” in this thread wants to admit basic industrial quality practice is lacking hence trying to reframe the subject onto something else all the time or have “bro club” chats among yourselves alleging hysterics.
I don’t know how much Mozilla spend on their build farm and testing but from what the Mozilla guy said earlier they’d rather blow tens of millions on shiny new upgrades than say £10-100K on one professional who knows what they are doing to sort out their portability layer including higher level abstractions so legacy support and uptake of new features is managed more wisely.
There’s lots of NIH going on here as well as a suspicion of a “milk the customer” development treadmill.
HollyB,
I don’t see why you’re taking a stand against F-Droid and mozilla all of a sudden. What we’re talking about doesn’t have much to do with them. I mean sure they are obviously benefactors of FOSS, but no more than anyone else. If obsolete software & devices went into the public domain, nobody is saying it would automatically produce a strong community. Someone would still have to pick up the reigns and do the work, but at least now they can. What good is it to remain unsupported by anyone and locked away forever?
@Alfman
I’m sticking up for professional pratice and if Mozilla and F-Droid fall short as stated and for all the reasons as stated and, yes, even the odd details as stated then that’s their problem. Sorry but I don’t discuss things with people not paying attention or who want to reframe the discussion and begin gaslighting with moans about anything else but the critical issues, They measure up or they don’t. It’s that simple.
I have minimum standards I work to and I decline the majority of client enquiries. This is nothing special as most businesses are like this even if your average tech person never gets to see the sales wing of the business. Most alleged self-employed contractors never see it either.
I don’t think you’ve figured out your BS doesn’t fly.
@HollyB
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
HollyB,
How is that my problem, or even your problem? Neither of them have anything close to a monopoly, If you don’t like them, don’t use them. Am I right or am I right 🙂
I think this is more of a strawman than anything to do with me. I have no idea what you’re even talking about since I haven’t even stated any opinions about mozilla and fdroid here. Yet you are still judging me by pretending to be informed about what I think. How exactly is that supposed to work? I don’t know what to tell you, I think you just enjoy being angry at people even if they’ve done nothing to earn it.
@Alfman
What part of this didn’t you read and comprehend?
Standards have nothing to do with monopolies or how rich people are market size or anything. You’re up to the standard or you’re not. It’s that simple. The standard matters or it doesn’t.
Have you actually paid any attention to portabi;lity and legcacy support issues at all? You never ever quite get there and slide off with some wild reframing about everything else but the actual technical topic. As for jockm with his claims of being a super genius IT professional with a laundry list of wide ranging experience from development to support to super secret clients and 30 years experience I’m kind of doubting it.
Pretty much anyone on The Register would get what I’m saying instantly so your games in here are lazy BS.
HollyB,
Your argument makes no sense in context of the discussion. You’ve pick two random projects to criticize and then you start complaining about standards. Whatever, I haven’t even commented on that, because it’s unrelated to the idea being discussed, which is making unsupported proprietary commercial code public domain, nothing to do with mozilla or fdroid. In so far as whether the code follows standards, who knows, but one thing is certain: you’ve been attacking the wrong parties for it.
I give plenty of leeway and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you’re just misunderstood and have trouble expressing your thoughts. But the more you post the more it seems like you’re just trolling everybody and you’re very good at it. I want to take you seriously but you’re not adding anything insightful or relevant to the discussion, just ranting about unrelated pet peeves. Do you have anything to say on point or not?
@HollyB I have a question for you, one I hope you genuinely take the time to answer: You are obviously concerned about Racism and Fascism, you have said so in the comments of recent stories; so given that why do you think it is OK to make insulting comments about people’s weight, erectile dysfunction, if someone is one a dating site or not, how someone looks in their gravatar, etc?
I am genuinely interested in your answer, and everyone else I would ask you not to reply and just leave this one to HollyB