Totally bass ackwards
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Apr 21, 2012 1:18 PM EDT |
He's got this totally backwards. The current Linux desktops (Unity, GNOME3, KDE 4) weren't Linux playing catch-up. The new desktop paradigm originated on the very successful Linux desktops of the early netbooks: Xandros Presto! introduced the current style of desktop on the ASUS Eee PC in 2007. Those sold like proverbial hotcakes. Linpus Lite on the Acer Aspire One followed after that. It was Microsoft who suddenly realized they couldn't ignore that market and successfully used strong-arm tactics to get retailers and OEMs to push the aging Windows XP instead of Linux. In the meanwhile millions of netbooks with Linux and the current desktop paradigm were sold. Windows 8 Metro and even the latest OS X are copying Linux, not the other way around. There are lots of reasons why Windows is and will likely remain dominant on conventional desktop systems but lack of a better alternative has never been one of them. His contention that the "design savvy to create something new that was better and more usable than the competition's offerings and not just mimic them just didn't exist" is arrant nonsense and represents revisionist history. I think I feel an article coming together. |
| gus3 Apr 21, 2012 5:31 PM EDT |
Thank you, caitlyn. You could do a better job debunking that than I could. |
| djohnston Apr 21, 2012 6:37 PM EDT |
I just like his spelling. Not that many native English speakers use proper English any more.Quoting:users where more than happy Users where happy? Where users happy? No, I don't think it's a typographical error. |
| caitlyn Apr 21, 2012 6:40 PM EDT |
I posted that comment on his blog. Mr. Quinn's response:Quoting:Ah but you see i never said they where playing catch up, i said when they finally got their act together is was too late for it to matter, i am well aware that the next gen desktop model has it origens in Linux and the open source community. Hence why i said the tech save *didnt* exist and not doesn't exist. My second comment: What you said is that Unity, GNOME 3 and KDE 4 "brought Linux up to speed with alternatives in the desktop space to a certain extent " That implies that Linux was behind to begin with. It never was. Linux has been ahead in terms of desktop innovation and the others have been copying for at least a decade. The reasons for Microsoft's dominance have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the Linux desktop, which has also been fine for more than a decade. It has nothing to do with what toolkit is being used. HTML5 won't solve anything even if Linux desktop developers followed your advice, which has zero chance of happening. There are only two ways Linux could make headway on the consumer desktop: the first is if Linux is available preloaded in stores the way it was on netbooks for a couple of years. That is happening with low end Android netbooks at K-Mart and similar low end stores but it's a tiny sliver of the market. There is no incentive for retailers to carry Linux even if Microsoft doesn't bring pressure to bear. If you sell a Windows system or a Mac you get to sell all sorts of software, from anti-virus to Office. With a Linux system that's all free. The markup on the systems themselves is small. There is no money to be made selling Linux retail the way the market is currently structured. The other avenue to desktop success is the corporate marketplace. The big corporate players in the server room, Red Hat and SUSE, have never devoted the marketing resources to the corporate desktop. The server is simply more profitable. The issue never was the code or the design. It never will be. The whole premise of this article doesn't stand up from where I'm sitting. |
| patrickjmquinn Apr 21, 2012 8:37 PM EDT |
@djohnston really?? out of all the things you could have picked my up on you picked me up in my incorrect use of where over were? Anyway i have corrected it. I am a computer scientist not an english professor, mistakes are to be expected, doesn't mean you cant be polite. @caitlyn this is what gnome looked like in 2002 http://projects.gnome.org/agnubis/images/agnubis-may2002.jpg this is what XP looked like: http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/128001/showcase/... and this is what Mac OS looked like: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WMxWvV7JV3s/TUmbTLWomRI/AAAAAAAAAC... Furthermore i firmly believe that Linux didn't offer enough tangible reasons for users to switch from Windows which Microsoft had already shoehorned onto their PC's and Mac users already had Mac OS which was in itself a .nix based system which had a excellent UI. I have fought long and hard for many years to get people using Linux and while the desktop's astetics didn't play much of a factor in it being a better platform or not it certainly served as the lure to draw them in. I based that article not only on my long term experience but on the thought ideology of usability design whilst getting my degree in that field. Not to say you aren't entitled to your opinion but don't tell me I'm not entitled to mine. Patrick out. |
| tracyanne Apr 21, 2012 10:10 PM EDT |
In 2002 I preferred KDE over GNOME, as I also preferred KDE over XP in 2002. It was both esthetically and functionally more pleasant to use. BTW I was a Windows programmer at the time. |
| caitlyn Apr 22, 2012 1:46 AM EDT |
Who on earth said you aren't entitled to your opinion? I never said any such thing. I just disagreed with you sharply. You showed GNOME as of 2002. Why not KDE? A little cherry picking to make your point? |
| BernardSwiss Apr 22, 2012 3:11 AM EDT |
@caitlyn "as of 2012"? Typo? |
| caitlyn Apr 22, 2012 9:51 AM EDT |
Yes, a typo, or maybe I don't like living in the past. Anyway, I edited and corrected it. Thanks |
| Koriel Apr 22, 2012 3:19 PM EDT |
@Patrick First let me apologise as they certainly won't as they are an unrepentant lot, for all the speeling and grandmar NAZIS they are a minority but unfortunately a vocal minority on LXER just ignore their pettiness. Now to the article, you may or may not be right when you say that maybe Linux didn't provide good enough reasons to switch but unfortunately this whole argument would be moot if it hadn't been for Microsofts pre-load monopoly. If it weren't for that user's wouldn't even have to consider switching as they could easily have bought a PC with Linux on it in the first place. This whole switching argument is useless as it was never about the technical merits of either system but about what you could get away with in a capitalist society using dodgy business practices. The only way Linux would of succeeded in that environment is if it could also cure cancer or provide guaranteed penis enlargement or even both. @caitlyn You should do that article |
| caitlyn Apr 22, 2012 5:07 PM EDT |
@Koriel: I'm working on it :) |
| patrickjmquinn Apr 22, 2012 5:47 PM EDT |
@caitlyn I actually had planned on including KDE 3 in that but forgot, KDE 3 was a seething mess in my opinion, cluttered, far too verbose and way too many configuration options. It shouldn't really be used as the poster boy for Linux at any rate.. @Koriel It was more down to the demand or there for lack of, which lead to OEMs not making Linux based machines readily available. If Linux was seen to offer something better like Mac OS X did (but was hindered by price) then there would be demand. Had the focus of Linux been towards the users, which is Canonical's current focus (a focus which even Linus is in praise of) then Desktop Linux could well have been a Mac OS X for the rest of us so to speak. Perhaps i am wrong, perhaps i have it all totally backwards and have been looking at the outcome recursively from completely the wrong angle (i've only been into the Linux scene for about 6 years or so and yes i release you have been using Linux since 1995 caitlyn, i've done my research) but i was trying to open up discussion on the topic and offer my suggestions on how to proceed going forward. It appears i was successful :) |
| tracyanne Apr 22, 2012 7:21 PM EDT |
@patrickjmquinn, if it hadn't been for KDE 3, I would probably never have made the switch. As a matter of fact I had no idea there were so many (wonderfully so) configuration options, until I had been using KDE for at least 6 months, probably longer. It was a breath of fresh air after the various Windows desktops I had been using at the time, including XP. To all the people who complain there are too many configuration options on any desktop, most people don't use any of them anyway, not even the minimal number that are available on Mac and Windows desktops. Not one person I've ever set up with a GNOME desktop has changed a single configuration item since I set them up, same applies to XFCE and KDE desktops. It seems the GNOME devs are right, not. Having those configurations available is what matters, not how many or even if many or most will actually use them. |
| BernardSwiss Apr 22, 2012 8:53 PM EDT |
@patrickjmquinn Dell acknowledged that fully a third of their netbook sales were for the Linux models -- even though it was hard to find them on the Dell site, and Linux versions for no plausible reason often lacked options available to those buying the Windows version (In my personal experience, trying to buy a Linux Dell netbook, longer-lasting/6-cell batteries were not available once one specified Linux for the OS -- but oddly enough Norton360 still was an option). Yet despite excellent sales, the Linux products remained relegated to the obscure corners of the Dell on-line store, ASUS actually "explained" a shortage of Linux EeePC 901's in a large British chain as consequent on their "commitment" to producing Windows and Linux models in equal numbers, allied to a shortage of Atom chips -- that's right, they essentially said that they weren't willing to make more of what was selling, and less of what wasn't. The problem was most definitely not lack of demand. For some reason, product was unavailable despite clear demand. Dell also acknowledged that the return rate was the same as for Windows models, so users were not unhappy with Linux's supposed deficiencies, either. (And remember, the whole EeePC craze actually started with Linux-only models, explicitly intended for the "school-kids and non-technically-inclined housewives" market). Arguments that Linux "failed" because of deficient user interface or usability, and/or because of arriving late on the scene, and/or because or the difficulty of switching to a different OS are classic red herrings. The interesting thing is how people (or at least "The Press") are still ignoring contrary facts, and even self-identified "Linux fans" are blinded by the flood of "everybody knows" dis-information... |
| caitlyn Apr 26, 2012 4:56 PM EDT |
@Koriel: The article ended up being just in a small part about what Patrick Quinn wrote and in a large part about debunking the slew of "the Linux desktop is dead" articles we've seen recently. It should show up on LXer shortly, but in the meanwhile: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2012/04/the-new-desktop-paradig... |
| Koriel Apr 26, 2012 5:13 PM EDT |
@caitlyn Good article, the key to success is definitely pre-loading but the question is will it ever happen, i have my doubts. |
| caitlyn Apr 26, 2012 5:16 PM EDT |
It won't happen on the conventional desktop, no. It is happening and will continue on tablets, mobile devices and netbooks. Of course, my main point is that no matter what you run, it's probably based, at least in part, on the Linux desktop if it's a recent design. The influence of the Linux desktop is huge and, once again, Linux is the leader, not the one playing catch-up. |
| gus3 Apr 26, 2012 5:54 PM EDT |
That can come back to bite Linux where it hurts. Didn't FOSS lead with the "let's merge the desktop and tablet usage patterns"? Once that gets shaken out (and I believe it will), the blame will go to those freaky-deaky Free Software types. |
| caitlyn Apr 26, 2012 5:55 PM EDT |
Oh well. The fact is that it did come from us, for better or for worse. |
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