Linus Torvalds made a provocative statement about Free Software recently. What does it mean?
I’m not about to attack Linus Torvalds in any way whatsoever, so if any of you poop-flingers are waiting on that, you can just move on now.
During an interview with Linux Magazine about the recent code submission by Microsoft, Linus said the following:
I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other
people and companies out.There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.
Wow. Linus know how to set us up the bomb, that’s for sure.
In any case, it is no secret that Linus does not think highly of the FSF. Consider this article on him back in 2006:
[The GPLv3] is purely a firebrand, and only good for the extremist policies of the FSF.
[...]
The FSF has been acting idiotic for the last decade. Why do you think it’s called ‘open source’ in the first place? Exactly because the FSF has made a dirty word out of freedom.
[...]
Every single big and fundamental addition to the GPL 3 is about hate and fear.
There’s really not much to say, because this is not a new stance. Linus has always been firmly in the “pragmatic” camp, and to be brutally honest, that’s probably a very good thing.
On the statement itself
I do agree that “Microsoft Hatred” is a disease – in the over-dramatized sense that it weakens what it touches. However, I probably have a different idea of what hatred is than some others. I don’t hate Microsoft, for example. And I welcome “open development” – so long as everyone is playing by the same rules. So I don’t really see much to disagree with in the first part. If Microsoft wants to play by the rules, then welcome to the game.
The second part of course I respectfully disagree with, because I think it has an implication that the entire Free Software movement is an extremist movement all about exclusion and hatred. I know that’s not exactly what he said, but I guarantee you that is what a lot of the “pragmatic” Open Source people with run with. Some of them are starting already.
Patented brilliant analysis presented for your ruminating pleasure
I see the situation like this:
1. Oversimplifying a situation into a dilemma is a fallacy, but that won’t stop me here: If you want to picture situation in the FLOSS world as having two poles, with rms and “Freedom or Death” on one end, and Linus “Shut up and code” on the other, then that’s fine. The bottom line is Free Software is here to stay because of the GPL, so even the most pragmatic pragmatist needs to come to terms with that. The converse is true, as well, of course.
2. If you blindly and unequivocally side with Linus, you are just as much in error as if you blindly and unequivocally side with rms. Neither are gods, both are men trying to figure out the best way to do things.
For some reason “pragmatism” is seen as a more noble goal than “idealism”, I suppose this is because it produces quicker results. A good idea may pay off enourmous dividends, but spread over a wider area and longer time. A pragmatic idea may get the job done now, and be discarded and forgotten immediately.
[[Post edited to remove snark. I just can't work up a good rage right now.]]
#1 by Dan Serban on July 24th, 2009
RMS is the anchor at the end of the spectrum reminding us every so often to make a mental distinction between the software that we use which is truly Free (free as in GPL’d and free as in unencumbered by patent uncertainties) on the one hand and the software that is de-facto-proprietary-but-gratis on the other hand.
Without that mental distinction to serve as a guide, the Linux software ecosystem would slowly but surely be eaten alive by the same creeping copy-protection-followed-by-cracking-and-keygenning underground culture that we hate so much in the mainstream computing ecosystem.
#2 by Jason on July 24th, 2009
@ Dan,
Thank you for that – good point.
Also, I’d like to take this chance to repost a question I asked back in “Does Mono hurt Microsoft?” that no one took up – I think it might apply here:
#3 by Jo Shields on July 24th, 2009
No. I don’t. Largely because of the name “Microsoft”, of course, but Java’s proprietary nature held it back as far as desktop users were concerned for YEARS.
It’s not about ideals though, not really. Patents are the ever-discussed topic, and they don’t interest me – all I want is the freedom to improve my own tools. Proprietary software doesn’t give me that, which is why Free Software always has the potential to be better, and why Mono interests me more than .NET-for-Linux. Free doesn’t always mean better (and god, Free games tend to suck so bad), but the ability is there. The only ideal I care about is the freedom to improve, for myself and others.
#4 by Jason on July 24th, 2009
@Jo,
I see your point, except I would say it is exactly “ideals” that gives you the freedom to improve your own tools.
Every thing else – copyright, patents, NDAs, etc. – are all designed to remove freedoms, including the freedom to improve.
So, that’s kinda where I’m coming from; even if you don’t accept the “ideal” as the end, you sorta have to acknowledge it as the means.
#5 by Jo Shields on July 24th, 2009
But we’re ALL flawed. Myself included (and you confessed yourself to it here). DeCSS, libavcodec-unstripped, ripping my DVDs to patented h.264, NVIDIA drivers, and so on. We are ALL pragmatists to some degree, and ALL go back on the ideals we claim to stand by. The question is where that degree line is placed.
My personal feeling is: fuck software patents. Distributions need to be more careful than I do though – and reach their own conclusions as to how much “risk” is balanced. Which is why (for example) some distros provide no support for MP3, whilst others have MP3 playback right in the non-proprietary repository, or even installed by default. Patents don’t prevent me from improving my tools, they just have the potential to cause me problems for doing so (just ask the companies physically attacked at trade shows by Sisvel). But, just because you have a mouse trap shoved in a box somewhere, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on a mouse murderin’ spree or even that the trap is positioned (or even working properly). Even if you REALLY hate mice.
#6 by Jason on July 24th, 2009
@Jo
Oh yeah, I’m not a purist by any stretch of the imagination – just trying to speak up for Free a little, since it took a beating today!
#7 by Jo Shields on July 24th, 2009
Note that unlike Linus, I’m still happy to use the term “Free Software”
#8 by trmanco on July 25th, 2009
I think this quote might put an end point for those who question themselves about why there is so much Microsoft hate around these days :
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ubuntu.user/191076
Cheers!
#9 by Anonymous on July 25th, 2009
Here’s where I think you’re relatively wrong:
RMS’s pole opposite seems to be proprietary software, not Linus Trovalds. In fact, some people(cnet) compare the GPL to be similar to proprietary software except that you have the source and the other freedoms. Another pole in the extremes is the OSI and the BSD folks. I’m sure Linus has many points of agreement with rms.
I really like Linus Trovalds because he’s all about “Show me the code”. At the end of the day, source code is source code, whether it’s lisp or C#, and contributions are contributions.
There are millions of users who just want good apps to help make their computer work better. For me, whatever mesoscopic little I give back to the community is about helping those users. It’s not about overthrowing some company or changing the world – it’s about making people’s lives easier and better.
We’re all opinionated and will stick to what we believe in. It won’t be long before we realize the futility of this debate that hasn’t gone anywhere and probably never will. Fire up vim and write some code.
#10 by jcwarrior on July 25th, 2009
I am somehow dissapointed to see that the comment I posted on Mr. Schlesinger blog has not been published yet. Apparently I said something that he did not want to hear. I hope to be mistaken and I want to think that he has not published the comment because he had some sort of “technical problem”. But I can see that there are already two comments which were posted after my own and have been published already. Unfortunately if I am correct, that only shows that Mr. Schlesinger is not willing to accept opinions that are different from his own point of view.
The post from Mr. Schlesinger I am referring to is this:
http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/linus-on-extremism.html
I posted also my point of view on Jason’s blog previously:
http://mono-nono.com/2009/07/23/coming-out-of-the-closet/#comments
(I posted that same comment here and on Mr. Schlesinger blog. You can tell me if it really deserves some censorship.)
And what a difference. My comment was published here within minutes of posting it, and Mr. Schlesinger has not done so even after 12 hours have passed from the moment of posting. As I said, that is dissapointing.
#11 by Jo Shields on July 25th, 2009
emacs!
#12 by jcwarrior on July 25th, 2009
@Anonymous
That is a wrong assertion. Proprietary software is not the “pole opposite” of Richard Stallman. Proprietary software is the opposite of Free Software. The position of Richard Stallman is an ethical one. The position of Linus Torvalds is a pragmatic one.
Please see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Anonymous said:
I can only see one similarity between proprietary software and free software. They are both software. But maybe you can put a reference to that comparison so it can be discussed.
I have nothing against that way of thinking. That is from my perspective, a very productive mentality. The problem comes when you try to separate that from the ethical part.
For me this discussion is everything but futile. Please do not ask us to focus only on the practical part of the problem. We should not put the ethical part aside. Free software is not just about writing code.
#13 by Anonymous on July 25th, 2009
jcwarrior:
Yeah, I was mistaken claiming that proprietary binaries are pole opposite to rms as a person. But yes, free software and closed software have a lot of very stark, contrasting, almost mirrored differences which is kind of interesting.
The ethical part is absolutely essential. The ethics in question here are whether you’re going to lock out a contribution because it’s from someone who opposes free software, and doesn’t help many people? Some people say yes, Linus says no, I say ‘huh?’
Free software is not just about writing code, but writing code is a pretty large part of it (guess where the ’source’ in ‘open source’ comes from). I’m questioning how many of these debates are being waged to help the community and how many just because we don’t like being wrong.
Jo:
Fried chinchillas on a stick! I always thought you were a vi person. There’s another debate that will never be settled.
#14 by Robert Millan on July 25th, 2009
In other words: hating Microsoft is sine qua non requisite for advocating free software. In Linus’ mind it’s not conceiveable that you could care about freedom without hating anyone.
The scary thing is that I don’t think he’s liing. He believes in what he said.
Now tell me, who’s the extremist?
#15 by Jo Shields on July 25th, 2009
This guy is.
#16 by Nobody Reeal on July 25th, 2009
Linus is not the polar opposite of RMS. Microsoft is. Linus is a centrist with Microsoft on one end and RMS on the other.
The same is true of the software itself, with Free Software one one side, Open source in the middle, and Proprietary on the other side.
#17 by jcwarrior on July 25th, 2009
Anonymous:
I am afraid I do not undestand you entirely. When you say we don’t like being wrong, what exactly are you referring to?
Apparently this has something to do with the recently contributed code from Microsoft to the Linux kernel. At this moment, I can not think of a reason for excluding that code, even if it is written from Microsoft with a selfish purpose as some people are saying. I am talking my time to consider my position on this, since I want to hear opinions from many people. But at the moment, as I said, I do not think it should be excluded.
#18 by Michael on July 25th, 2009
I think calling Linus and his ilk `pragmatists’ is a bit of a stretch and gives them a bit too much credit.
`popularists’ might be more on the mark. They only seem to be interested in the widest adoption of their ideas and spread of their intellectual `seed’
.
You know, that `world domination’ thing.
Which is only pragmatic in any way if you’re on the top of that heap …
And what’s wrong with hating things – emotions exist for a reason. The world has been treated very very badly by this organisation, there are many practical and pragmatic reasons to dislike them, even to the point of hate. It has cost us all real money directly as well as through lost productivity. And if you can’t get worked up enough about losing your freedoms (a stated aim of this organisation), perhaps you don’t deserve them in the first place.
#19 by zekopeko on July 25th, 2009
He/she was referring to debates that turn to “I’m right and you are wrong” while ignoring the debate’s usefulness and validity behind each side’s argument.
Linus is on a roll this past few days:
#20 by Jason on July 25th, 2009
@Anonymous and @Nobody Real,
The post said:
So “proprietary software” and “Microsoft” are not the polar opposite, because the context is explicitly being constrained to the FLOSS world.
#21 by vexorian on July 25th, 2009
Heh honestly, both RMS and Linus are freaks, both are quite an extremist in their own way as well. I think that it is such a case of opposing forces colliding that has given us much of the good things about free software.
I mean really, “I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.” The level of alienation in that statement does confirm it, he is an extremist, just like RMS is an extremist. We should BTW stop reading words like “extremist” and relating it to the likes of the Taliban… Linus is an extremist in what he calls pragmatism and opposition to FSF ‘extremists’ . Anybody with some passion inside that makes him want the whole world to know he is right and the other is wrong is an extremist. Linus has continuously shown this sort of crazyness in the past, look up for “Con Kolivas” for an example. The fact he even played an active role in the KDE vs. gnome flames is another sign.
Honestly, if we only had RMS or only Linus, We wold have absolutely no free software/open source. Perhaps some sort of magic licenses that are meant for voluntary developers to give free code to some guys like MS’ proprietary code… With a community going too much towards one of the sides we would have been doomed long ago. We need this ‘balance’, let’s call it.
Imho, the mono debate is not different we anti-mono crowd are not any less of a group of extremists than the pro-mono side. The joys of extremism, we don’t want any Mono in the default, and some don’t’ even want any mono at all. While the mono guys want every single app to depend on it. We are extremists, enjoy our future.
#22 by vexorian on July 25th, 2009
Oh I forgot, the very good thing about “our leaders” is that both Linus and RMS are very consistent with what they say and do. You can say anything about them but you won’t find a double-face in any of them.
#23 by zekopeko on July 25th, 2009
What sort of craziness? Choosing one of two equally viable solutions for inclusion into the kernel as a Benevolent Dictator of kernel development? Expressing his preference for one of two equally nice desktop environments? Imagine that! He did his job and expressed his opinion. What was he thinking?!
In 20 years time Linus’ “pragmatic” approach will get more results then RMS’. In 20 years Linux will achieve total world domination and will spread the open source way of thinking more effectively then constant preaching.
The mono debate is very different. “We” “pro-mono” crowd don’t want every app to depend on Mono for the sole reason of depending on Mono. Developers want good platforms to build their applications. Mono is one of them.
What “we” “pro-mono” crowd want is for people to stop demonizing the platform for the sole reason that it was envisioned in Microsoft’s “underground lair while little children and puppies were sacrificed on the Altar of Profit”.
So who are the extremists? People that go with “live and let live” or people that go with “destroy everything that doesn’t adhere to my way of thinking”? Think about it. Think about it long and hard.
P.S. If you are going to pull the “Miguel said he would like GNOME 4.0 to be in .NET”, then let me make something clear: He isn’t shoving it down anyone’s throat. It’s optional and up to the developer to choose her development platform .
#24 by Dan Serban on July 25th, 2009
Here a quote from:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
Does the recently contributed code count as applications?
lol
#25 by vexorian on July 25th, 2009
There’s no point in Linux achieving world domination.
“World domination”, how non-extremist of you. World domination of any platform is harmful to the whole industry, as evident by Microsoft windows. Linux ruling the world wouldn’t be much different, specially if it is a 100% “pragmatic” Linux, which means it will come with every single proprietary hook and market drug possible.
20 years is a lot of time, I am sorry that I do not have a time machine to verify your claim, neither do you. It is not like these sort of claims really matter or add to the discussion at all.
The good thing about it is, that we won’t get to be able to confirm your assertion. There won’t be open source/free software without those two sides, it is unlikely any of them will go away. My point is that the balance is great. Thanks to the other side RMS will lose sometimes, in case of video card drivers. Thanks to RMS we will not be conformed with a proprietary web browser, or proprietary technology at all. The GPLv2, is still the FSF creation, and pragmatists seem to like it.
We have a case study with just ‘pragmatists’ in charge. FreeBSD, it is nice and all, but is it doing much better than Linux in that world domination agenda?… Your extremism in supporting Linus’ ways supports my point further.
The problems with windows are not just inherent to it, but to its huge market share. The ideal world I would like to see is one with 5 major OSes, each getting around 18% of the market share. Imagine a world in which Toyota provided 99% of the cars. Would it be any better if we replaced it with Nisan?
heh.
There are extremists and zealots on the pro-mono side, and I hope you don’t begin to try to deny so, as it is quite clear.
We have people claiming that Mono is the ONLY good platform for developer. A full lot of Tomboy devs that in their ‘pragmatism’ don’t seem to understand that open source is about choice. And we have Jo Shields, that will only teach you to make debian packages if it is exclusively in case of packaging Mono apps. If the push for rushing the addition Banshee to default ubuntu does not come from plain extremism, then I don’t get what’s it about.
hahaha!
It is awesome that when somebody opposed to pushing Mono in the default of major distributions puts his opinion, he is subsequently punished as an extremist, zealot, “religious fanatic”, crazy idealist. Etc. But then Linus Torvalds basically says you’ll have to be an idiot to like gnome. And it is just an opinion or him doing his job…
#26 by makomk on July 26th, 2009
I’ve already commented on this somewhere totally different, but Linus has always been a pragmatist. In fact, possibly too much so.
Recall the last example of Linus’ pragmatism – using the closed-source version control program Bitkeeper. Not only was it closed source, the license agreement was downright nasty. If you’d ever contributed to a competing version control system, or were ever going to, you weren’t allowed to use Bitkeeper. This didn’t just mean that you couldn’t do significant Linux kernel development – it also meant you couldn’t even check out the latest bleeding-edge copy of the kernel.
(There was stuff like source dumps, but they threw away most of the metadata as well as the seperation into individual patches, and even the most frequently-generated ones were only updated every few hours.)
This wasn’t just a theoretical problem, either; at least one major Linux kernel contributor was also a CVS developer and therefore couldn’t legally use it. It was also a big headache for the various commercial distros since they needed to be free to patch the version control software they shipped, which meant their employees couldn’t touch Bitkeeper and were locked out of the kernel source repositories.
The whole mess ended with BitMover taking their toys and going home, supposedly due to someone reverse-engineering enough of the repository access protocol to be able to check out remote Bitkeeper repositories with open source software. (The other reason, of course, was that now they’d gotten all the good PR they needed, there wasn’t any profit in keeping the free edition around.)
#27 by Jo Shields on July 26th, 2009
I’m sorry you’re offended that I would want to teach what I know, not something I don’t. Would you ask a surgeon for advice on car engine repair, or a fisherman for advice on flying a plane?
As for Banshee, I’m reasonably sure that at every single juncture, I’ve said that Ubuntu should use the best app – and that in my view, Banshee’s rate of improvement compared to Rhythmbox means it is or will soon be the best choice. You’d have to ask people who were actually in Barcelona about how extremist I was in pushing my evil agenda of doom.
#28 by zekopeko on July 26th, 2009
World domination of FLOSS software is extremist? The ability to fork your software at any time and develop it in the direction you wish is extremist? Oh, my I wonder if FLOSS should then even exist. It’s goal is SOOOO EVIL and extreme , not to mention socially negative.
Check the rate of FLOSS adoptation. It is growing at an exponential rate. 2029 is a *conservative* estimate. And it certainly doesn’t prove that it WILL happen but at least I didn’t pull it out of my a**.
I wonder then why the kernel isn’t moving to GPLv3 then?
Your problem is that everything has to be on the extremes of the spectrum. Linus is a pragmatist but not at the expense of FLOSS ideals. He neatly fall’s in the middle, and moderates always win in the long run.
You also defeat your own point by talking about FreeBSD and comparing it to Linux. If Linus is such a pragmatist, then why Linux doesn’t have adoptation problems like the “pragmatist” FreeBSD?
You do realize that my statement of “total world domination” included distributions? We can already see that Linux has 1-2% market share but in those 1-2% are 100s of distribution that all do Linux their way.
Your analogy falls flat. A better one would be that Toyota provides a highly modular engine to car manufactures and they create different cars for different purposes.
I don’t know of any “pro-mono” zealots that try to destroy a part of FLOSS.
mmmm… maybe because Banshee offers a better user experience? You know how they replaced the gnome-bittorent-client with transmission? And nobody is shoving Banshee down your throat. If they fix the blocker bugs then it will be included in Ubuntu. You should read Jo’s post on that. You know, the same guy that advocated for Banshee’s inclusion on Ubuntu CD.
I didn’t see Linus having a website demanding Gnome’s destruction. Did I miss it?
And z-lots are only “punished” once they turn against their own communities. With anti-mono z-lots it’s happening a lot faster. Moderates, dude , moderates rule not extremists.
#29 by makomk on July 26th, 2009
mmmm… maybe because Banshee offers a better user experience? You know how they replaced the gnome-bittorent-client with transmission?
That’s the odd thing… it doesn’t exactly. It may have a nice UI (or at least a shiny one), but it’s still missing obvious stuff like automatically updating its collection when files are added on-disk. (That’s pretty much a standard expected feature for collection-based music players on Linux these days.)
Ubuntu is considering including Banshee not based on its quality now, but based on what they’re hoping it will be by the time they’ve shipped. Due to the feature freeze deadline, they’re going to have to make the decision on whether or not to include it before it’s actually ready, based on whether they’re convinced the 1.6.0 non-beta release will come out on time and with the required features.
http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/153/ is also interesting – apparently, Banshee accessibility is broken, and can’t be fixed easily due to design flaws in the Atk# bindings themselves.
Also, the overall Banshee UI design and layout appears to be very, very similar to Rhythmbox, at least judging from the screenshots. Just with slightly more shiny. It has some nice features that Rhythmbox doesn’t have, but also lacks some – and I’m not sure we’ll find out the full list until users start complaining.
#30 by zekopeko on July 26th, 2009
Auto update of collection is being worked on as one of the blocker bugs for Karmic.
So were is your problem then if Banshee won’t be included if it’s not ready? And if you have no problem with that then why do you comment on the obvious?
This statement pretty much shoots down vexorian’s claim that pushing Banshee for inclusion is a form of extremism.
And there is a proposed workaround for that.
One of the reason Banshee is being considered is because of the larger, more responsive upstream.
If some features are missing compared to RB then that is a regression. But all regressions are not equal. Following that logic we should never include something if it isn’t on par with what is being replaced or better while ignoring the fact that it has a far better chance of becoming better with more exposure since more users can report bugs or complain about missing features.
#31 by Dan Serban on July 26th, 2009
Pushing Banshee for inclusion is a form of extremism, especially since Mono has proven to be so unpopular, as evidenced by googling “site:brainstorm.ubuntu.com Mono”.
And that’s exactly why Tomboy should be replaced with Gnote, even if some consider it a regression.
#32 by zomg! on July 27th, 2009
We live on a corporate planet. The “pragmatic” camp goes down easier within that paradigm. That’s all there is to it. People naturally don’t want to rock the boat and become an outcast in their own society, so they play whatever game their masters want to play. I trust that I don’t need to cite historical examples of this human tendency to follow the leader.
“Open Source” is palatable to our corporate masters. Talk of freedom makes them squirm, because they know that it means freedom from them. It takes an iron will to stick to your principles when you’re surrounded by slavish sycophants who are constantly aping their masters.
The freedom camp is going to be ridiculed mercilessly until there’s a paradigm shift and people begin to value freedom over convenience, or, if you like, people over profits.
Oh jeepers, that sounds like socialism! Yes, let’s not beat around the bush. We all know what this is *really* all about, at bottom. It’s no accident that the “pragmatic”/Open Source camp is filled with gung-ho pro-capitalists, while the Free Software camp is home to more folks who, like myself, aren’t so enthusiastic about economic feudalism.
That’s not to say that Free Software is inherently hostile to the masters, because it isn’t. But the masters are certainly hostile to freedom, as a rule. So when those of us who love freedom above convenience take a stand and are ostracized for it, we tend to gravitate naturally to the camp that our ostracizers are hostile toward.
As for me, I tend to be doubly ridiculed, because I actually say this stuff out loud, whereas most people, in both camps, prefer to believe that society is one big happy family without any serious lingering divisions, just different preferences. Ha, ha.
#33 by zomg! on July 27th, 2009
But that’s not what the Free Software camp is about. That’s what the Open Source camp is about. Compare ESR’s “World Domination” line with RMS’s freedom line. The pragmatists want to “win,” which leads them to support e.g. Linspire’s licensing of technologies, because it makes the transition from Windows less painful for newbies. Conversely, the freedom-lovers would rather run e.g. gNewSense and tolerate having nothing work, at least until it can be made to work without getting blood on their hands.
#34 by zekopeko on July 27th, 2009
Do I have to link to the (in)famous MARBLE CAKE Times online poll? Gaming the system isn’t hard for a relatively small number of people. It’s unpopular because you make it seem to be unpopular. Most people just don’t care for the underlaying technology. They care for the application and what they can do with it.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=gnote
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=tomboy
Check the number of developers that are working on gnote then on tomboy. I explicitly mentioned that as one of the main reasons for Banshee’s inclusion.
So what is better: a larger upstream, more features, shared dependencies between 2 (possibly 3) applications you ship with your distro or an upstream with one developer, less features, and dependencies that only benefit this one app?
So pushing gnote as a default note taking application is more inline with extremism then pushing Banshee.
I’m leaving the answer to that question to your very creative and selective thinking.
#35 by Dan Serban on July 27th, 2009
Let me rephrase what you’re saying: you claim that there is a big conspiracy going on in Brainstorm to fudge some numbers in order to make Mono seem unpopular. And you reject the idea off-hand that a large number of people might not want Mono by default. And you do that on what basis? On the basis of a conspiracy theory?
That is one person’s opinion. You don’t have any numbers, not even a set of keywords to search Google with. I’m rephrasing that statement to:
As for:
In a parallel universe there exists a very popular Linux distro that ships 2 (possibly 3) gtkmm based applications, and because of that, there isn’t any space left to include the Mono runtime. But it makes a lot of sense to use what little space is left over on the live CD to include Gnote, and that’s because of shared dependencies.
Have I proven to you that Gnote is better in that parallel universe? I hope not.
Have you proven to me that Tomboy is better in the current universe? Definitely not, and you need to do better than that.
#36 by makomk on July 27th, 2009
Along with a bunch of other fairly basic missing stuff, like documentation. As I said, Ubuntu isn’t deciding to include it based on its current state, but based on what they hope it’ll be by the time Ubuntu 9.10 is released.
Yeah – IIRC, Banshee is developed by Novell, which means they can afford to throw lots of developer time at it as part of their push for more Mono everywhere. (Seriously, I think even Jo Shields said in one of the comments here that OpenSUSE’s use of Mono apps for everything was over the top.)
Oddly, it’s not actually as good as you’d expect given the amount of effort they’re putting in. Part of the problem, of course, is that Rhythmbox is an old and widely-used app, which means that many of the little user interface and feature niggles have been fixed over the years. (Users are also used to Rhythmbox – this means the barrier for acceptance isn’t “roughly as good”, it’s “noticably better”.)
Also, note that if something goes wrong – Novell lose interest, or they make use of legally dangerous features like Moonlight in a future release like they’re considering doing – there’s no migration path back to Rhythmbox. This is a one-way trip, unless someone’s willing to write migration code back.
#37 by Jason on July 27th, 2009
@makomk,
You make a point I agree with: in some ways, the corporate “push” from Novell is “fudging the numbers”.
It’s easy for a project with a lot of commercial support to look like it has a more active development community, because people are getting paid to work on it!
That doesn’t invalidate the project, but it does leave a funny aftertaste when comparing certain projects. I would like to flesh this idea out some.
#38 by Jo Shields on July 27th, 2009
I would strongly recommend checking the names of people with commit access (and in the case of Novell employees, whether they are actually paid to work on it) rather than making any assumptions.
Also bear in mind provenance. Banshee (born as Sonance) was started in 2004 by Aaron Bockover, who was hired by Novell in 2005. So is it a bad thing for Novell to see true community projects they think are dynamite, and hire people to work on them full or part time rather than as hobbies?
#39 by Jason on July 27th, 2009
@Jo,
No. Not necessarily. Which is why I said I would like to flesh the idea out some.
It is my understanding that some projects are basically “showcases” for Mono, and some are “genuine” I-picked-Mono-because-I-like-it projects.
It’s also a tricky area to get into, because I don’t want to reject valid contributions, but I don’t want to promote what is basically paid advertisement, either.
As I said, a tricky idea and one that I would flesh out more before committing to a decision.
#40 by Jo Shields on July 27th, 2009
Well, the question is, who is showcasing to whom? Generally, people talk about four main showcase apps – Tomboy, F-Spot, Banshee, and GNOME Do. Of those, a couple of relevant history references for you should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Perazzoli and http://abock.org/projects. GNOME Do is definitely 100% community and 0% Novell (with Mono picked by lead dev David Siegel). Tomboy I’m not 100% sure, but I believe it’s currently not got any paid developers on it (but DOES have a Novell employee with plenty of free time after other hobbies). I’m not sure about Tomboy’s history, though
#41 by makomk on July 27th, 2009
That’s entirely possible. I think task launchers, docks and note-taking apps are fairly common personal projects for open source developers. (By which I mean there are a bazillion of the things, with varying levels of quality and featuresets.)
Gnome Do certainly does look like one of the more decent examples, though. It’s definitely more… shiny than krunner, which is the rough KDE equivalent. Possibly more powerful, too, though I never use the advanced features of krunner so I couldn’t say for sure.
(It looks like it also has a decent number of bugs – the custom window behaviour required to do something like this is very non-trivial to get right, especially if you want it to work under a wide range of window managers.)
#42 by Anonymous on July 27th, 2009
I do it on the basis that online poll’s are notoriously unreliable. And that is your argument with brainstorm. The system can be gamed. Just look at Digg for proof of that.
This certainly is anecdotal evidence. I should have said so. Perhaps somebody that has access to a large pool of users could provide a better insight.
How nice. Ignoring the other points and then drawing a conclusion. One might assume you are being dishonest on purpose.
The reality of the situation is that the other points are far more important then the one you focused on.
Ubuntu has limited space for a default CD set.
So what is more prudent? Including applications that have overlapping dependencies (and therefore saving space) or using one that has a completely new set of dependencies that aren’t used (or only a small number of them) by other applications and has overlapping (even less) functionality with the application you are removing in favor of the new one.
And let me drill in another major point: a mature application with >1 developers or a new and untested application with 1 developer? What if the application developer quits? Who’s going to add new feature and fix bugs? The distribution has limited resources and can’t do it. From the viewpoint of the distro what is a better decision? Get the point(s)?
So YOU need to do better then that.
#43 by Jo Shields on July 27th, 2009
You’re absolutely right. Anyone who says GNOME Do isn’t buggy is lying. Question is “how many bugs is this worth” :p
#44 by zekopeko on July 28th, 2009
@Jason
That anon post is mine.
Can i login in with launchpad/openid when posting comments?
If so, how?
#45 by Jo Shields on July 28th, 2009
Put a valid URL in the URL box. OpenID will leap into action if it’s OpenID.