regdeveloper.com — Eric Raymond, one of the high priests of open source, has told the community that painful compromises are needed to the way it deals with closed source platforms and formats to avoid losing ground on desktops and new media players.
Aug 22, 2006 View in Crawl 4
ahawksAug 22, 2006
Everyone ripping on ESR here, or whining that he's wrong, or "how the hell are we supposed to do that?" etc.... shut up and listen.Linux/OSS's recent moves to exclude ANY closed-source software is a strong dividing line, and it's not a good one. Every since Fedora, Ubuntu, etc made the choice not to even have mp3 support, or Adobe Acrobat, or Real player in their default repositories, it has hurt Linux on the desktop front.Yes, a lot of tihs isn't stuff that can be addressed in a Wiki or a bugzilla record. It's politicial. It requires philosophical and business model shifts. MP3 and DVD codecs CAN be purchased. But the important first step is to stop excluding *available* packages simply because they are closed-source (real, adobe Acrobat, Java, Flash, etc).No, we won't see encrypted WMV's playing on Linux. The goal is to get Linux more popular, step by step, to where content providers can't *afford* to use proprietary Windows-only codecs.
bieberAug 23, 2006
Try a different distro. I, too, have had bad experiences with SuSE (but it was at least usable enough to get me started). My current distro is Ubuntu, and I've heard good things about that PCLinuxOS thing...
v1ncentAug 23, 2006
Linux has to develop into easily usable straight out of the box for the common man to adopt it. Web browsing, multimedia from the web, graphic cards, iPod support and all common web tools to surf and view content on the web HAS to be there for what is desire to happen; wider adoptability.
jonforthewinAug 23, 2006
I agree with you, available packages should be used, however DeCSS and MP3 codecs bring about legal issues. Patent issues and such. That's why Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora are supported while others aren't because they are patent free.Bundling DeCSS and MP3 codecs is perfectly fine, they are open. Proprietary drivers are not, are illegal, give the middle finger to the whole system, threaten the security and stability of the whole system. I agree with you, but if you agree proprietary drivers are a good idea for the sake of popularity, you are wrong. Popularity isn't important. What is important is popularity with the people who matter.
jqp123Aug 23, 2006
In order to really be successful, Open Source needs to figure out a way to stop capitalism. There are simply too many corporations building too many proprietary products that are too popular ... like the iPod for example. People just don't get it, ideology is way more important than things like convenience, ease of use and entertainment. I mean, aren't Bash shell scripts enough fun anymore?Stupid users, who needs them.
jqp123Aug 23, 2006
Go for it. Feel free to attribute it to "Anonymous Digg User" or something similar.
Closed AccountAug 23, 2006
adolfojp: "If OSS doesn't become a little more flexible to appeal to the masses it will never outgrow its niche market."And?Outgrowing a niche market is only worrisome if you want to monopolize the market. Linux does not have that goal, and God forbid it should. Go find some other rogue army to mobilize.
jqp123Aug 24, 2006
"If Linux succeeds on the desktop, it won't be because of software or drivers, it'll be from the adoption of open standards, like ODF."If Linux succeeds on the desktop, it'll be because some standards were finally applied to Linux itself, at least enough to define what a "Linux desktop" is.
flash200Aug 24, 2006
@JQP123That would help too. There are efforts underway, like LSB and the Portland project. The OSDL has been doing a lot of work on this.
divatriApr 26, 2007
Awesome. I'm not impressed. Not even a bit.