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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byCyberK ( 1191465 ) writes:
Let's face it, one of the things all Linux evangelists like to emphasise is the opportunity to use whatever you want and even build it yourself if you want to. But it's maddening for developers to create something that will work on every kind of linux desktop in existence. From political choices of free vs. non-free, to preferred distribution, version numbers, favourite window manager and a host of other choices, no two desktops will be the same. Linux isn't an operating system, it's an operating eco-system. Taking Google as an example, today I tried to install Google Earth on my Ubuntu 9.04 laptop to no avail, despite it having installed without a hitch on my Xubuntu 7.04 Pentium III plaything in my room back in my parent's house. The exact same version of the program with dramatic differences depending on where you try it, that quickly becomes a support nightmare.
Now for the dedicated GNOME/KDE/xfce/whatever volunteer this does not pose much of a problem because your target audience has broadly the same machine makeup as you do, but for a commercial developer looking for a good ROI it quickly becomes untenable. Windows and Mac OS provide a devoloper with a guaranteed stable platform development-wise, and as such are much safer bets.
I agree that the only way Linux can make itself more attractive to commercial desktop program developers is with a mighty amount of consolidation, but the problem is that I don't think it will happen. The great OS wars that went before the dominance of Windows had winners and losers because they were systems of a closed nature, and so if you held with a losing team they closed down because it wasn't economically viable and you had to move to something more mainstream, thus consolidating the market. With Linux a project will never close down as long as someone like it more than something else.
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byDaniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * writes:
Windows and Mac OS provide a devoloper with a guaranteed stable platform development-wise, and as such are much safer bets.
Pretty much every major release of Windows or of OS X is guaranteed to break someone's application. More stable than Linux? Maybe so. Really, truly stable? Not so much.
byCyberK ( 1191465 ) writes:
Windows and Mac OS provide a devoloper with a guaranteed stable platform development-wise, and as such are much safer bets.
Pretty much every major release of Windows or of OS X is guaranteed to break someone's application. More stable than Linux? Maybe so. Really, truly stable? Not so much.
Quite true, but that brings us to another of Linux's double-edged swords. Windows and Mac OS have many years between each monolithic release, whereas typical distributions make new semi-major releases twice a year. Great for geeks like me who like the bleeding edge, another headache for developers who have to cope with constantly shifting goalposts.
bysynthespian ( 563437 ) writes:
Every software you buy for Windows will probably run in the next releases. This is important if your not a freeloader or a kid but rather someone who depends on sophisticated software (engineering, etc.) made by third-party experts.
With Linux, just you try. Six months from now, when Ubuntu fucks up their upgrading, everything will brake and you will realize that you live in an ocean of pain. Maybe you like reverse-engineering proprietary software just to get it working, but I do not.
byjbolden ( 176878 ) writes:
Application developers shouldn't be targeting desktops. They should be working with the distribution system. So in other words helping: RedHat, Mandriva, Debian... bring out their version of Chrome and let them distribute the packages.
That's the big problem, commercial app developers want to bypass the distributions without understanding that is the natural point of contact.
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byTheSunborn ( 68004 ) writes:
So you want them to write 3 gui's for their browser. One for gtk+ and one for QT4 and one for motif(Lesstif) ??
byjbolden ( 176878 ) writes:
Where did I say that? Debian, Fedora, Suse... all support GTK. This has nothing to do with creating GUIs it has to do with link locations and dependencies.
bypizzach ( 1011925 ) writes:
He was insinuating to let the distributions make sure the required dependencies are there. Not program for every single combination. Hey, it works for Mozilla Firefox and Adobe Flash, doesn't it?
bydodobh ( 65811 ) writes:
Write for any one UI toolkit. We users don't really care.
If the code is out there, someone will write a wrapper for the other two if they want.
bysynthespian ( 563437 ) writes:
Now, that was the stupidest comment in this whole discussion. How in the world someone modded you insightful is beyond my comprehension.
You actually like the mess we're in, don't you? Let me guess...a Debian developer?
byjbolden ( 176878 ) writes:
What mess is that? The GNU project I signed up for was to create a free Unix not a free Windows.
byducomputergeek ( 595742 ) writes:
Company I worked for many moons ago had an IRIX application they ported to linux. Those were back in the days of Dependancy hell, libraries inconsistent across distros, so we settled on supporting Redhat 4 (might have been 5, i can't remember). Linux accounted for less than 5% of sales and something like 20% of support requests. Mostly it was people trying the trial version and the linux people emailing us with questions like, "What won't this run on my custom compiled slackware kernel with XYZ and..."
bysynthespian ( 563437 ) writes:
Standartization is not even the issue. Stupid choices are the issue. If Linux had as many choices as today, but with inovative stuff, that would be fine. But KDE is behind Apple, Gnome is behind everyone else (it still uses Apple's HIG from last century), etc. Linux developers take pride in the fact there's no binary backwards compatibillty (it being C source code, actually). You can even be extremely cool and intelligent, write a Master's theses and develop sophisticated tech like NixOS (solves the library
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