Hi Ruben, Here we go, huh?
> This baits me into making some comments on the pluses and minuses of the > work codeweavers have done over the years, which is something not > germane to the discussion and something I'm not willing to get baited > into at this time. If you want to move this conversation to the NYLXS > mailing list, I can better give you an entire itinerary of what I firmly > believe are mistakes by codeweaver over the last decade and so as well > as a list of things that I believe they've done which is useful. I have no idea what the NYLXS mailing list is, and I'm pretty sure I don't have the cycles, sorry. So, you'll just have to tell me we're dumb right here, I'm afraid. ;-) > I'm just going to say that IMO Codewaevers is not the gold standard for > GNU Desktop production and support. And I will not address this > discussion with regard to you as a member of CodeWeaver's any more than > I expect to you to address your discussion on desktop usability to me > with my credentials as leading proponent, organizer and educator about > Free Software through NYLXS and other venues for over a decade. I will > discuss this, however, based on the technical merits of the GNU > Desktops, they're usability and how it compares to other desktops. Ummm, wow. Okay, whatever. I guess you're the leading proponent and expert, not me. All I do is run a business that makes money in the Linux space. I'm not a GNU zealot, or Linux zealot, or an anything kind of zealot. I'm a businessman. And for the last five years CodeWeavers has run a nice little business based on nothing but generated cashflow from our products, and no venture funding, which is a damn sight more than just about any other Linux business I can think of can say. So, we may be dumb, but we're at least making (some) money. > > But I'm sorry, in terms of "perceived slickness," Windows XP ain't > > really so bad, and OS/X just has it hands down > > over everybody else. > > In regard to slickness, I have no comment on. Slickness is an adjective > which has nothing to do with the function and usability of the GNU > Desktop, or the XP or OSX desktop. Yeah, but "slickness" or "style" or "gotta have it" also sells a lot of iPods. I don't know what it is, but I know it when I see it (and so, apparently, do many other people). I'll happily adopt whatever adjective I can, if it will put money in my coffers. > > All the Wine hackers at my ranch want an iMac. > > I've never been an advocate of WINE as a project. Programs designed for > the Windows Operating System and environment are always missing key > desktop features do to the limitations imposed by Microsoft on Windows. > It is, IMO, a waste of time and resources to invest in porting over > Windows programs, which are fundamentally broken in key ways, to a > system based on GNU software because the GNU systems offers a much > richer selection of desktop and operating system features. Whatever. Yeah, I'm being openly dismissive. But you started it. Frankly, you're being totally unrealistic and ivory tower in your thinking. Again, Joe-Average business user couldn't possibly care less about the built in limitations of his/her horribly broken applications. What they *want* is for their horribly broken application to work the same way, because they're used to it, and it gets their jobs done. So you can look down your nose at Excel, or whatever, and you're certainly allowed to educate and elucidate and whatnot about those limitations all you want. But the fact remains that what CodeWeavers does is practical, immediate, non-dogmatic, and solves a real problem for end-users. If it didn't, we wouldn't make any money. > Even the simple things, like cut and paste, become like pulling teeth in > these environments. Its always been my opinion that rather than going > feature for feature for Windows programs, that it is better to make a > native GNU program that leverages the unique properties of Free Software > including the X windows application server. Many of the features > designed in these Microsoft based programs have hugely inefficient > chunks of code designed to get around the programs of operating on that > environment in the first place. Running these programs on WINE, IMO, > makes even less sense. Again, whatever. You're allowed to make all the superior GNU programs you want, of course. But no one will run them. It's a chicken and egg problem. No Linux apps = no one using Linux. And no one using Linux means that no commercial developers are creating native Linux apps. Hence, Linux market share crawls along, and grows only slowly. Our solution to that problem is to build a bridge. It may not be a pretty bridge, and it certainly won't be perfect. But it's at least there. And then you let people cross, dragging their feeble, broken, morally inferior applications along with them. Once they have reached the glistening land of freedom, and can fully comprehend its shining, inestimable wonders (oh, and maybe create some market share along the way), well *then* you'll start to get the native apps you crave out of commercial software developers. But folks like Adobe and so on won't go there until there's a market. It's as simple as that. Yarping about the feebleness of Windows apps and the technological superiority of X is absolutely meaningless. The perfect (as always) is the enemy of the good enough. And I would argue that at *this* stage of the Linux market development cycle, "good enough" is more what we need. (SNIP) > > I agree with all of that. But "out perform" is only one part > > of the equation. There's a switching cost to make that happen, > > and the truth is that most larger organizations aren't willing > > to make that transition (yet), because either 1) the transition > > cost is still perceived as being too high and/or 2) the long- > > term benefits of the transition are perceived as being too low. > > Microsoft, of course, spends big money in PR and advertising to > > feed both of those perceptions. > > Here you make excellent points that I agree with. The problem in > promoting the GNU desktops is ***BINGO*** vertical applications for > integrated business solutions. Exactly, for the reasons stated above. > Its very frustrating and I've seen > company after company blow big time business opportunities because they > haven't used the resources that they have to promote the development of > such vertical appliances in Law, Accounting, Pharmacy, Publishing, cash > Registers, and dozens of other markets. What is weird about this is > that this was the meat and potatoes of SCO's business model until they > committed virtual business suicide. Businesses are taking the short > term profitability route by making their server apps and client apps for > W32. Its a mistake, one that Borland has learned the hard way. But again, when you look at the development costs associated with cranking out a native port, and there's maybe a 1% market share out there to recoup that cost against, can you really blame a commercial software vendor for *not* taking that route? After all, if you're, say, Adobe, and some analyst looks at your internal development costs and says "What the hell is this Linux development project doing in here?!? There's no market share there!" and then he dings you in his analyst notes and your stock gets shelled the next day and the CEO loses his bonus and his Learjet. Who wants to deal with that? Far better, I think, to say, "Here's this CrossOver jazz. We can use the *same Windows client* and address a new market space, for very little money." That's something that no one's gonna balk at. Again, not a perfect solution, but in many cases a faster, more practical, and cheaper solution. > But in terms of the Desktop and its usability, there is no more advanced > and usable system as a GNU based X Windows desktop. Nothing comes > close. Not only is it ready, its been ready from the days that Macs > lost their file system and Windows was still running in 16 bits on DOS > 6. Sure. *Technically* you're absolutely right. But this has nothing to do with technology, and *everything* to do with marketing and legacy installed base. (SNIP) > > But for someone like, I dunno, Owens Corning or Rubbermaid, > > it's a whole different equation. For them, openness and > > licensing costs (while both important) probably rank well > > below risk management--"If it ain't really, *really* broke; > > don't fix it." Windows XP is probably working... okay... > > for them. Yeah, they may have more sys admins running around > > than they'd like. And they're sick to death of applying OS > > patches. But they also know that if they put in a new desktop > > solution that causes too much pain among the thousands of > > (mostly) docile cube warriors that they tend to, then hey, > > they get their butts fired. It's all very simple. It takes a > > *very* persuasive and/or powerful CTO/CIO type to push something > > like that through. > > This is of course a perception which your talking about. The key to > changing perception, more so that a good product, is a good sales force > and an always "On", always there marketing message. Absolutely. And if I wasn't a small company running off of generated cashflow, I'd have the bucks for a salesforce like that. But I'm not and I don't. And frankly, even the big boys like Novell and IBM and Sun, which *do* have that sort of muscle, aren't having that much luck changing perceptions. Why? In my humble opinion, it's because they don't have a practical bridge with which to migrate people. With IBM, they say, "Well, migrating is no problem; we'll just rip out *all* your old apps and redeploy them via Websphere." As *if.* Basically, the reason they don't have a practical bridge is because they don't take Wine seriously enough. That's what I say. Humbly, of course. ;-) (SNIP) > Hardly. wmaker is a piece of cake to configure and use. Even my > Ex-Wife does this. Here is a picture of the Ubergeeks in my family > using a GNU Desktop! > > http://www.mrbrklyn.com/purim_2006/crossfire/dsc00162.jpg *Sweet* headgear! ;-) > > You portray a desktop manager is something > > optional. > > That is the DESKTOP MANAGER, not the windows manager. My bad, you're right. (SNIP) > > Even after 4 years of working with Linux, I can't even conceive of a > > time when I'd want to just work on a command line all day. I live in > > my window manager. And frankly, for 99.9378% (approximately) of your > > average "knowledge workers," the idea of living without a desktop > > manager would be unthinkable. I don't need to "out perform." I need > > to do my work. > > Thats a training issue. Most literate people would prefer to work both > in terminals and in a clicking environment together, using either or > both as needed. Which is what I do, actually. I'm not totally stupid, just *mostly* stupid. I'm literate, too, actually, but the subject of my book probably wouldn't interest you. > > In many cases, you have to fiddle to make them go. And my > > personal kitbag of "Linux installation tricks" is rather > > limited, and for most real human beings it's even smaller. > > Hardware detection is still slicker in the other OS environments. > > At least that's my perception. > > And how do you understand your hardware on the other OSs? At least on > GNU you can always cat /proc when all else fails. Or I could if I knew what that was. But I'm *mostly* stupid, as I've already admitted. I don't want to cat / proc. I want to work in my spreadsheet; that's what we MBAs *do.* ;-) (SNIP) > > Yeah, but so are the majority of the corporate users using > > them. ;-) They wouldn't know they they had "greater network > > connectivity" if you hit them in the head with it. To them > > "Change = bad. Change = scary. I want what I already know." > > Who can blame them? > > This is the core problem and the reason I've taken the time to discuss > this (instead of busy getting kicked off of the NY Wireless Mailing list > this morning). When a Mac use tells me how great their OS is, my eyes > roll. NYLXS has wanted to run a study with children to see which OS's > they learn fastest and gain the most productivity out of. The trick is > to find children who have no previous biases or experience. It takes > some money to do such a study, but we are dedicated to do it as a double > blind controlled study for publishing. I think that's a fascinating subject for a study, actually. Of course, I will note that most knowledge workers *do* have biases, and their brains (like mine) are heavily calcified. And the fact that a child maybe can learn Linux faster than Windoze doesn't make the fact that the knowledge workers *already have* Windoze any less real. There's still going to be a learning curve there of some sort. It ain't *that* bad, true, and it's less than it was. But it's still real. (SNIP) > Welcome to the crowd. :) Now you just need to stay on message and get > some sales :) Tell me about it. ;-) Ruben, I'm sorry; we probably didn't start off this dialogue in the best way possible. I don't need people coming to me with a catalog of all the stuff we're doing wrong as a company--I'm *painfully* aware of the problems and limitations of 1) my company 2) my marketing budget, and 3) this market space. So, you just kind of hit me with both barrels at the top of the message, flaunting your industry creds, and whatnot. I didn't really need that. Frankly, I'm not interested in a bunch of theory about why Wine sucks butt and doesn't align with the true ideals of GNU open source, or whatever. I *know* all that. I *know* why folks like Richard Stallman don't like Wine. And I'm way past the point of caring about the religious wars that underly those viewpoints. I'm a pragmatist, not a crusader. I'm trying to let people work in Linux. And I think I can legitimately say that CodeWeavers has done more to create a practical, usable desktop Linux for the *businesses* than perhaps any vendor in the space, precisely because of the existence of CrossOver but more importantly because of the existence of an increasingly usable *free* Wine. Every day, we hurt our own market share (and take money outta my pocket) by making free Wine better. All religion wars aside, I think we put our money where our mouth is, and we certainly abide by the underlying spirit of open source software, which is to give back to the community, and make everybody's lives a little better by the fruits of our collective labor. As a result, attempts to educate me as to the error of our ways with Wine will undoubtedly serve to make me defensive and crabby, because if I really wanted to be making the big bucks, man, I sure wouldn't have picked the Linux desktop. Just a head's up. Suggestions here and there: welcome. "Entire itinerary of what I firmly believe are mistakes by codeweaver over the last decade": decidedly less so. No offense. Best Wishes, -jon- ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
