| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |
| What killed the Linux desktop |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-29 22:52:10 |
| Miguel de Icaza: "To sum up: (a) First dimension: things change too quickly, breaking both open source and proprietary software alike; (b) incompatibility across Linux distributions. This killed the ecosystem for third party developers trying to target Linux on the desktop. You would try once, do your best effort to support the 'top' distro or if you were feeling generous 'the top three' distros. Only to find out that your software no longer worked six months later. Supporting Linux on the desktop became a burden for independent developers." Mac OS X came along to scoop up the Linux defectors. |
|
| ... |
| By Hiev on 2012-08-29 23:10:40 |
| I agree with him. |
 - Score: 3 |
| Comment by miscz |
| By miscz on 2012-08-29 23:14:49 |
|
Dubious moves by Ubuntu with Unity and Gnome Foundation's Gnome 3. KISS. My father and grandfather that would be less technically inclined people they are after couldn't stand how the experience changed from Gnome 2. Windows 8 was a great opportuninty as Microsoft pursued tablet experience on desktop computers (eww) but Gnome 3 made the same mistakes, just earlier. Points brought up by Miguel are valid but user experience is the key and there was very little wrong with late Gnome 2 distros. I'm under heavy influence of alcohol. Edited 2012-08-29 23:18 UTC |
| - Score: 9 |
| Comment by Vordreller |
| By Vordreller on 2012-08-29 23:17:33 |
|
Pretty much. Regular users whom I've tried to introduce to Linux are often confused by the fact that there are more than 1 versions of it. They understand older versions, but not different versions. The concept of making specialized distro's for users with different needs strikes most people I've worked with as overkill and they don't understand why you can't just have a single operating system that does everything. Like Windows or Mac. Users like to know that their choice was a good one and that it will remain that way for a long, long time. With Linux, they have no such thing. Every so many months there's a major update. Every so often 1 distro has a feature before the others do. It bothers the end-user and it's a hassle they don't want to deal with. If there's too much choice, non-specialized users will always have that nagging doubt: did I make the right choice? You don't want a user wondering that about your product! |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Comment by Vordreller |
| By Hiev on 2012-08-29 23:26:24 |
|
The problem is not the diversity, the problem is the incompatibility betwen them. Edited 2012-08-29 23:29 UTC |
| - Score: 7 |
| Pretty alive, thanks |
| By Nth_Man on 2012-08-29 23:36:29 |
|
> What killed the Linux desktop To be killed, it's pretty alive on my desktop. Thanks for your interest, Icaza :-) What we don't know if it was killed it was Icaza's interest in working at Microsoft after he was rejected, like Moondevil wrote: Miguel de Icaza was rejected to work at Microsoft, before he turned its attention to Linux. Most of the projects he touched were clones of Microsoft technology. Bonobo: COM implemented with CORBA Evolution: Outlook Mono: .Net Moonlight: Silverligt It is as like he has been trying to compensate for the fact he was not been taken by them. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Pretty alive, thanks |
| By Hiev on 2012-08-29 23:39:48 |
|
I think he answered your question from his website: I have never received a payment from Microsoft or Apple. If anything, I keep giving both money for their products. No religious/hard-line/extremi st group likes introspective criticism or anything that contradicts their long held beliefs. So the only possible explanation that you guys can muster is "how much does Microsoft pay you". And btw, he was named MVP by MS, so is not like MS didn't want him. Edited 2012-08-29 23:48 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| yep |
| By SaschaW on 2012-08-29 23:43:05 |
| Something similar happened to me. I used to be a big time Amiga user, then switched to Linux in 95. I spent the last few years with Gentoo, which I really loved tinkering with. Around 2005 I moved to Windows, but never felt quite at home. Cygwin helped a lot, though. Throughout the years I installed almost every new major distro in VMware and tried it, but none worked for me. Last year I switched to OS X, and now I feel like I am having a Super-Next-Gen Amiga with BSD under the hood. Plus I am having all my opensource tools available, thanks to MacPorts. AND proprietary software like MS office, Adobe Photoshop! Wow! All in 1 OS, no dual boot or fiddling around with VMware. I can't believe I waited this long. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Comment by woegjiub |
| By woegjiub on 2012-08-29 23:43:24 |
|
Despite completely disagreeing with the Gnome3 direction, I find myself actually agreeing with Mr. de Icaza. Someone on another article mentioned that we need a stable kernel API for drivers, so that they can write them once, and know that they will run against future kernel versions for the lifespan of their product. I would argue that the same needs to be done for applications. Unfortunately, there is never going to be a consensus on things like this, as we can see from the results of the attempt to make all distros use the same package format. It is a shame that there can not be some sort of consensus reached between the linux foundation, red hat, novell, the debian project (which would bring canonical into line, presumably) and a choice other couple of partners like arch and their ilk. Edited 2012-08-29 23:44 UTC |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: Pretty alive, thanks |
| By Nth_Man on 2012-08-29 23:53:38 |
|
> I have never received a payment I was talking about an interest, I didn't said that he was being paid. > he was named [...] so is not like MS didn't want him. After the services that were done, they could name him "valuable", it doesn't take much money, of course :-) . A different thing is being paid every month for working there. Edited 2012-08-30 00:08 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
| Linux desktop has never has a chance |
| By dariapra on 2012-08-30 00:01:19 |
|
Linux desktop - supossing it has ever existed, since there have been always several Linux desktops - never had a real chance. While I agree with de Icaza in some points, I think he misses the general picture. The average user do not use an operating system; in fact, many of them ignore what an operating system is ("Linux? Operating system? What on earth is an OS?"). What this kind of user actually uses is a set of applications. And the relevant fact is that there has never existed Linux versions of very popular applications like AutoCAD or Photoshop, to mention just two best sellers. Applications like these are the ones selling Windows machines. That is, as somebody wrote, when a user buys a Windows powered machine, what is buying is a fuzzy feeling that the applications he is used to work with will remain available. That's why Microsoft has managed to survive to a fiasco as big as Windows Vista and myriads of little and daily fiascos like blue screens of deaths, painful updates or security vulnerabilities. Edited 2012-08-30 00:02 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |