Linux is not an OS

Quoting:So why does every attempt at a unified package management system fall flat on its figurative face?

The answer here is really simple: Network effects leading to lazy users & devels who are locked-in to a certain platform. Recently I have used Autopackage (provided by Dutch tax service?!), worked like a charm**.

In the past I have been using Klik, worked like a charm too, and for the part that didn't, it seems it will be fixed in Klik2. Nonetheless, most people don't know it, never used it, and don't start maintaining packages for it.

Apart from that, switching from one CLI-package manager to another is a PITA. Once I used pkg_add, when starting with Gentoo I had to learn package management again all over. Then I had to learn rpm for LPI-cert, indeed; started again. Then I did some stuff with Debian, indeed, had to start all over. Conclusion here is I had to learn 4 implementations of the same idea four times! I had that time, but everytime I started learning with dislike.

Learning how to make apt/ebuild/rpm takes even far more time. Look in the Microsoft Evangelism document; it says: "Once developers know one platform, they won't learn another". That lead to their conclusion that their platforms (Silverlight etc.) are more important than Windows!

With the advance of GUI-package managers, initiatives like PackageKit (freedesktop.org), Klik(2), Autopackage and package-managers with different front/backends this might become a thing of the past; at least I hope.

Quoting:> How *does* a company advertise Linux exactly? What *exactly* is it to be selling?

Like they always did: They advertise their cool device without mentioning Linux. That's because for most devices, OS is not that interesting to the consumer, and when it is, companies selling Linux-devices still want to distinguish from other companies. They can't do so by mentioning it runs Linux. They can do their marketing by tailoring Linux to their needs, and then showing their cool gadgets. This is exactly the way LiMo works. Their whole philosophy is the consumer should buy LiMo gadgeds because the gadgets are cool and are mady by for example Samsung; the consumer is not going to buy it because it runs Linux or LiMo. Because advertising LiMo is the opposite of the marketing strategy, (almost) nobody heard of LiMo. 30+ devices run LiMo. Only 2 or 3 run Android. Feel the difference?

It's the way Google sells Android, they don't sell Android Linux. And then in turn Vodafone doesn't even mention Android; they just say "Phone with all Google Apps". Because the consumer doesn't care about Android, LiMo or WinMobile. They want to use anything that resembles Google Maps, send photo's to other devices, share contacts etc. They don't care what it runs, as long as it works. Same thing for TiVo: Do they mention Linux? Same thing with Philips / Digital HardDisk recorders: Do they mention Linux? In fact, even most geeks don't know the latter runs Linux. Neither do I; though my parents own one. The only way to find out is by reading the manual; if the device runs Linux then Philips provides a phone number you can call to ask for source code (GPL2, huh!) Nobody ever called BTW.

And does Apple promote their iPhone by mentioning what OS it runs? No, they don't.

The only 'small' (compared to mobiles) market where OS matters is on the desk/laptop. The only reason consumers are aware is because Windows advertises itself everywhere it can (even Symbian phones doesn't give a big 'Symbian login screen' AFAIK), and OEMs advertise their products with Windows. That's why people know Windows sucks, and lots of times they don't blame their computer, but they blame Microsoft.

I'd say the desktop market is an exception to all TiVo / Android talk above where OS doesn't matter. So the only reason to start generic Linux-marketing would be for the desktop. I'm sorry I wasted the amount of space above to reach that simple conclusion.

Well, as long as consumers don't have a choice when OS for their desktop is concerned, there's no value in marketing Linux in first place. It's not a lack of marketing that causes Linux to fail, it are secret contracts* that forbid Dell etc. to even _do_ Linux marketing that stops Linux at this point. The free market fails, not Linux marketing. So guess where Canonical/RedHat/Novell has to spend their efforts! However, nobody apart from Microsoft is selling PC-OS'es to consumers (something I suddenly realized yesterday in bed, why did I never realize this before?), so no company is going to complain if Microsoft is screwing the free market for consumer-PC-OSes. (Sorry for the monstrous term of consumer-PC-OSes, but just consumer-OSes would not take Apple into account).

*Those are assumed to exist, but not proven. Otherwise they wouldn't be secret. Doh! **Almost, if I wouldn't be using an exotic unmaintained window manager which doesn't know what app to start for certain types of documents (it only had to start Firefox, but didn't!), it would probably have worked.

hkwint,

If it's known that MS bribes vendors like Dell into selling Linux, one simplistic method of winning over that is to simply offer Dell more than MS does. Who would do that? Well.. I don't know, but aside from Linux Foundation I don't see anyone except companies who have their own Linux based OSs, like RedHat, Novell and especially Canonical, which already had some success with Dell.

I'm not entirely sure that what MS does with Dell is wrong. I guess it's wrong only if Dell isn't forthcoming about the fact that they're being paid to advertise and sell Windows and instead lie and try to pretend that they're selling windows only because there's more demand for windows.

Someone committing fraud isn't a failure of the free market, but an anti-free market activity any more than it is a failure of peace and non-violence that someone shoots someone.

Anyway.. what you say still seems to favor the point of advertising each distro as an OS and experience in itself than generic markeing. At least then we don't pretend to be talking about a single thing where we in fact see multiple nor confuse newcomers when we ask them "which distro", newcomers which expected a single DVD or a download link to a "Linux OS". If there is no single download link or a DVD of Linux OS, don't advertise it as such. Offer the distro as an OS instead. I don't know how much simpler can I get with that point. I don't know how can anything else be called better marketing or anything other than instilling confusion.

In the end though, I think it doesn't stand a chance on the desktop. MS is making a little too many improvements lately, taking too many good reviews and having some sensible consistent marketing that actually knows what it sells. And I don't even have to mention Apple.

Quoting:I'm not entirely sure that what MS does with Dell is wrong.

Depends, I was hinting at a possible agreement between Dell and MS that forbids Dell to sell as much Linux as they'd like - a bit like Intel did with Mediamarkt and others 'OEMs' vs. AMD.

Quoting:Someone committing fraud isn't a failure of the free market

It is if nobody objects I guess.

Quoting:what you say still seems to favor the point of advertising each distro as an OS and experience in itself than generic markeing.

These are observations I made, what's happening right now in the market. So I'd say the ones selling Linux - devices - at this moment, favour advertising the distro, if they advertise their OS at all.

Quoting:Offer the distro as an OS instead.

You're not alone: http://symphonyos.com/cms/?page_id=2 is the one I can think of right now; though not popular.nor well maintained.

Quoting:On the Microsoft end, their improvements are miniscule

I disagree, but that's to be expected. I have to admit I didn't use it (those Win7 iso's may be laden with 3d party-malware), but apart from that the list at Wikipedia looked decent. Seems they have caught up with Linux (distro's?) a bit. But where Linux has all those features available, but not out of the box in a uniform / integrated way, Windows 7 will I guess.

However, in the light of the number of the employees and money Microsoft has available, improvements are indeed miniscule, and one would wonder why they still didn't succeed at delivering a secure OS. ED: Staring at Fedora 11 release Featurelist, indeed the improvements in Win7 are miniscule.