On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Bryan Smith <bryansmit...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 4/8/10, Chris Miller <lordsauronthegr...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 7:39 AM, Bryan Smith <bryansmit...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Amazon's Kindle runs Linux, BUT it was almost stifled by Microsoft >>> unless they signed a big fat hairy cross licensing agreement and paid >>> Microsoft $$$ to run Linux. The ipad killer is literally here already. >> >> BSD is just as capable an OS without the licensing issues. They're >> similar enough that you could deploy BSD now, and then switch to a >> Linux kernel later under the radar. > > I love BSD but the license issue BSD has is that it's license allows > people to take and take to no end, yet never give back. While this is > fine for a manufacturer and the opportunists, it's not good for the > community as a whole.
BSD is still around and still going strong, and the community is very active. I think this is mostly paranoia and unsupported accusations of extremist GNU people. And need I remind you of the developers that Apple has hired to work full time on GCC and now on LLVM/CLang. Their new Grand Central Dispatch library (libdispatch) is fully Open-Source (BSD license, if I remember correctly). They have basically been the maintainer of CUPS, so if you like to print from your Linux, you might want to drop Apple some credit. OpenCL was essentially funded by Apple... and I think I'm forgetting a few more. True, they are kind of slothful to merge stuff back onto the BSD tree (with regards to Mach). But they do eventually contribute back. >>> We have magnitudes more software available than the iphone OS can >>> imagine. >> >> No. 33,333 packages in Debian does not mean there are literally >> 33,333 bits of software for you to use. Your average tablet computer >> user doesn't care about SQL, libboost, or many of the other little >> bits of software that glue Linux together. >> >> iPhone platform has literally 100,000 actual apps for users to use. >> Granted, 95,000 of them are total garbage (probably closer to 99,000 >> of them) but that's still 1,000 or so fantastic apps for people to >> use. > No you say? It does actually mean that you are using that software if > the underlying program depends on it, regardless if the users knows > this(it's not a one line script, lol). I'm talking about practical Just because I use Debian and at any given time am using potentially thousands of libraries, it doesn't mean that I care. Many folks use package counts in their favourite distro's repository to prove how much software is there for Linux. This is a total fallacy. The software that matters is that which makes your user experience better. If a programmer uses a library, that's cool. But I don't count libraries and such because the average user doesn't benefit from it directly. > applications not the countless niche apps available for the iphone. I rather like my dictionary which I can take anywhere with me, not to mention my copy of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and complete library of religious texts. > Point in case....how many deployments of iphone OS are there and how > many built around embedded Linux? Availability of apps is another If you include everyone's wireless router (which runs embedded Linux) then millions, perhaps billions. I don't typically play pocket chess on my WRT54G though, so I'll just submit that there have been sold 35 million iPhones and 65 million iPod touch devices. There have been sold 650,000 iPad devices as of yesterday or something like that. > strong point, not having a store where everyone pays for Enterprise > level apps and get the menial entertainment apps for free or cents on > the dollar. The app store from Apple has it's own troubles. Kind of like SourceForge, with so many bits of software out there, it's remarkably difficult to find what you want. You can find thousands of apps that do what you want, but finding the one you really like the best? That could take months. :) >> In terms of realizing a dream of a better user experience, Apple is >> far ahead of Linux. Technically Linux is more open and more capable. >> Practically Apple is more advanced and more usable. > > Wow, practical on what planet, Pluto(no wonder it's not a planet > anyhow)! How long have you been using Linux/BSD? How can a system that Probably approaching my seventh or eighth year of dedicated Linux use. I don't have it in a desktop setting any more, but I hold root on either three or four servers right now (depends on whether they shut that last one down yet - it was migrated, but you know how things go). > supports a very restricted hardware set be practically more advanced > and "usable"? Do you own a mac? That kernel is so naked it's Yes, I own two Macintosh computers. A MacBook from 2008 and a 1st Generation iPod touch (which is actually getting me buy offers from other developers who covet the slower device for testing purposes). I also have built my own desktop PC for gaming purposes, which runs a copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit which I got for free through the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance programme, along with a free copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional. For the record, their C/C++ compiler is rubbish. Use GCC or LLVM/CLang. I hold root on my personal virtual private server hosted at prgmr.com, a fantastic Xen based hosting solution. I admin two servers at work that are on Slicehost, and have held root on two (now shut down) Amazon EC2 servers (work related as well). > ridiculous. I own 3 Mac's and the first thing I do is install Linux, > FreeBSD and OpenBSD. OSX has more vendor support, that's all, It's > Unix! The differences are minimal besides that horrible kernel that And a window manager that is consistent and works. I have had to restart Xorg many many times. I have had to reboot OS X maybe once (and I think that was because I was running a virtual machine, the iPhone simulator, Xcode, a web browser, a mail client, and an IRC client - all at the same time. Let me just say that my laptop hit the swapfile in a really big way). I have never had any OS X machine of mine kernel panic. I have only witnessed a kernel panic once on OS X (a friend showed me a Snow Leopard pre-release development seed). You seem to be under this delusion that the mach kernel is some load of rubbish that will segfault just as soon as load a ELF binary. It isn't. OS X is packaged such that it lacks driver support for non-Apple hardware. The Mach kernel in other settings is just as capable as BSD and other equivalent distributions. OS X is reliant on an EFI-style BIOS. Part of this is Apple trying to prevent people from using OS X on non-Apple hardware. Honestly, if you're going to whine about them using a different BIOS and then not taking the time to add support for your BIOS, you're nuts. Apple is under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to support your computer. > has literally no hardware support outside of specific chipsets. So Because it's not supported on non-Apple hardware. Duh. > practically I can't hand someone an OSX disc and say install that and > you'll have everything you need. I can't hand someone a Linux install disk without first coaching them through partitioning, then package management, ensuring their video drivers aren't royally screwed up, etc. If they have a wireless card that isn't supported by their particular kernel version, well, may Heaven have mercy on their soul! You need to know a lot more about your operating system to operate Linux. You can be relatively incompetent and still use a Mac. That's usability. The software should conform to you, not the other way around. >>> We just need someone to produce the thing, make nice pretty software >>> packages for the consumer to click and install, restrict the gui for >>> the average consumer yet allow developers and other hackers full >>> access to it. If not, people will hack it and squeeze Linux on it >> >> Some kind of store for services to allow developers to have a means of >> getting paid for their services would be nice, too. If a developer >> builds a game that sends high scores to a server, it'd be nice to have >> an easy unified payment system in the store to allow the user to pay >> the developer for keeping that scores server running. > > App stores in Open Source are epic fails generally. Ever played with > Linspire and their attempt to do as Apple has done. Provide a useless I make it a point to avoid Linspire. > system that is only truly usable when you pay for packages. I believe Why should they not be paid? They vet software for stability, they maintain servers, they package the software and ensure that it works together. That's a difficult and time-consuming job. Why do you want for people to just give you their time and talent for free? The point of projects like Debian or BSD is that the volunteers know that they're doing everything gratis. What's wrong with Linspire trying to sell their professional work? I don't use it because I don't want to pay for it. I can get along with my own talent and free stuff like Debian and BSD. Nothing wrong with that. > that the community should support the projects monetarily but Open > Source developers generally don't make software with the plans of the > software itself making money. The services and support built around If there were no money going towards computer science, then quite simply we wouldn't see professional computer scientists. If I didn't have the ability to get paid a full time job for having a deep understanding of how to write software, how to make it efficient, and how to use the right programmatic tool for the job, then I wouldn't have the means to acquire that information and concurrently perform another career. Same applies to many, many people. If there are no professional computer scientists, then you won't see professional software. Most Open-Source Software is built by professional computer scientists who are either employed elsewhere or have found ways to monetize their support skills for the software they write. Or it is built by professional computer scientists who are employed by corporations who have a stake in the software (IBM has funded Linux kernel coders for the longest of times - as a result, features that are important to IBM have a strange tendency to get done really fast because they have the coders on payroll to do it. When there are no longer any features IBM feels it needs, then the coders resume normal work that is prioritized by the community's needs and wants.) > the software create the revenue, so people must have access to it for > generate a need. Look at MySQL AB and the 1 Billion(1,000,000,000) > dollars SUN paid for it. Sun isn't the brightest corporation out there (no pun intended). It's one of the reasons their value was so low and why Oracle was able to buy them out in the middle of an economic recession. I view Sun as a corporate gravestone marking the way not to do business. -- Registered Linux Addict #431495 For Faith and Family! | John 3:16! http://www.fsdev.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Linux Users Group. To post a message, send email to linuxusersgroup@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe, send email to linuxusersgroup-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit our group at http://groups.google.com/group/linuxusersgroup
