Thursday, July 27, 2006

Commercial Linux Software .... What it needs to succeed

I've been reading a lot of technical articles at popular tech sites about software vendors writing a Linux version of their software. Great!!!

This means a few things:
1) Linux is being recognized by the industry as an entity that must be acknowledged because we are not going anywhere.
2) The suits are becoming aware of Linux in general and feel that there is a possibility of a market of profitability within the Linux world, which is something I think will contribute in a positive way. (Novell has proven that fact)
3) Users who were once upset because their favorite/most used application on other platforms is either on its way to the Linux world or is already available and this will drive the user base in a positive fashion.

What needs to be done in my opinion:
I think companies looking to create and distribute Linux software need atleast 5 developers on hand that run only Linux and each run a different distro. Each of these developers needs to be using one of the most commonly used distros in order to distribute packages that will play nice with the systems they target.

You need a developer running one of each: RHEL/CentOS/Fedora (I don't care which), SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, and Slackware.

Why?
Because each of these operating systems account for approximately 90% of the Linux world through child/derived distros, etc. Each of these developers should be working together to write or port the software and then package it for the distro they are working on. That way when I go out and purchase this incredible piece of software for my home machine that runs Xubuntu or for my server that runs debian; I am able to run into work to my SuSE workstation and also have the convenience of the same software. Also, I am able to spread the word and nobody is left out (because even Gentoo users can install tar.gz if they must).

Is it full-proof?
Probably not, but I think that most of the community (if not all) that is willing to pay for quality software will agree that this is a wonderful idea and would make the acceptance of commercial software into the Linux world a much more fluent process.

... That's my piece, late.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Why I don't like MySpace....

Here is the problem with MySpace: They are getting too popular on the web.

What happens to things that get too popular on the web and aren't stable enough to back it up?
They get bought out by Microsoft.

What will happen if MySpace gets bought out by Microsoft?
Microsoft will have an extremely popular wide open community that will become their favorite e-Advertising base and there isn't anything anyone could do about it.

Then What?
Well Microsoft would start to integrate MSN and MySpace services, your .NET password would work across all services seamlessly, now including MySpace, and thus all users of MySpace would be required to have an MSN account and vice-versa. There would no longer be a web mail login, it would simply be a control panel to access, modify, and update all of your current .NET enabled services. All of this playing into the monopolistic nature and then once again regaining social web dominance in favor of the evil blue empire. Then, before you know it there is an applet reserving real estate on the up and coming Vista applet bar and Microsoft is tracking every aspect of your web life thus sparking messages from the applet bar like so "I noticed you haven't blogged on Friendster in a couple days, nor have you added any photos to your MySpace, and your MSN mail box is filling up at an alarming rate. Wait, your coffee cup is still half full and you have only drank two cups this morning, shall I call a doctor via VoIP or should I just have Starbucks deliver another Capuccino?"

I am done writing about this and if you don't get the point yet, you never will....

..... Long live Tux.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The state of the GNU/Linux desktop, *buntu on the right track

Over the past year I have watched Ubuntu and its partner iterations spring from "that thing Canonical is doing" to the most widely used distro on the planet.

Do I mind?
Yes and No, No and Yes. At first I was greatly upset at how much credit and praise Ubuntu was getting for all of the debian community's hard work (mainly because my heart belongs to debian), but now we are in a time of playing nice and each organization progressing together with one another to create a development process that will benefit both projects as equally as possible. (Sources on this found here and here) But now that everything has been sorted out I am one happy camper and now consider myself a "debuntu" user because my server still strives on debian's incredible stability and security but my desktop reaps the ease of use benefits of the *buntu world. I say *buntu because I am an advocate of all Ubuntu flavors because each one offers all the great features as the last but along with the specified desktop environment that fits the target user the best.

What do I run?
Xubuntu. It gives me everything I ever wanted out of a desktop computer for personal, school, and work purposes and it does it all faster. The first time I mentioned to a friend that I ran Xfce on my new machine their reaction was a tad in the "shocked" state because they were under the impression it was a sub-par desktop environment in feature set and only existed for the interest of older hardware. I let him try Xfce for himself and quickly realized how far it has come and how fast it is. While I understand that Thunar is still under development and has some features that the user community would like to see put in it, even in its unfinished state it holds the crown of file managers in my book. So for me, Xubuntu is without doubt "for the win."

Have I tried all flavors of *buntu?
Sure have. Do I like them all? Of course, each one brings to the world the power of debian with the ideals of what the Ubuntu community sees as needs for the desktop along with special configurations for different desktop environment.

Is Xubuntu(Xfce) for everyone?
No, of course not. There are multiple choices because everyone has a different idea of how they want their desktop to interact with them, I just like things simple and fast. Once it is all said and done, its all about personal preference.

Conclusion:
For personal computing, I think *buntu is where the future lies. Yet I like to consider myself a realist and I must say that I believe Novell/SuSE is where corporate Linux is headed in the direction of.