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Originally Posted by Katsunami
Yes, so everybody tells me. It may be true for the "casual software", but certainly not for professional desktop stuff. There will never be a *true* alternative for something such as Photoshop, LightRoom, Maya, 3DMax, AutoCAD, MathLab, Chessbase (yes, this is a professional program), CuBase, Native Instruments, and more.
Of course, there are alternatives. We have GIMP, RAWTherapee/DarkTable, Blender, FreeCAD, SID Database... but each program has serious shortcomings compared to the industry standards. Yes, I use GIMP now, mainly because I detest Adobe's subscription service for Photoshop, but I am just a hobby photographer. If I was a professional, I can mention at least 5 functions that I would *NEED* that GIMP doesn't provide.
Same goes for all the others.
These programs are just too big and too expensive to develop as a community effort. They require too much research. Nobody is going to do all that for free, for the love of software only, and if they do, development will probably be slow. GIMP still doesn't have 16-bit color editing and adjustment layers. Users are asking for that for like... oh... 10 years now? Same sort of stuff can be said for other programs.
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It is true that these programs are very large; I'm not going to posit at all that FreeCAD is a perfect replacement for, say, Autodesk Inventor, which I use all day at work.
Personally, I find the crowdfunding approach to development extremely interesting- I think top notch professional quality software could easily be developed through this method.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
On a server, I'd choose Linux in a jiffy. It seems that most development effort concentrated there. On the desktop, the devs are just fighting.
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Working on different projects, even different projects meant to accomplish similar purposes, is far from "fighting"- many projects even borrow code from each other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Display... Xorg is too old! We make Wayland! No. Wayland -*-. We at Ubuntu create Mir!
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Wayland is a good idea; an attempt to replace an adequate piece of software (X) with a better piece of software. It's what development is all about.
Ubuntu's choice to create Mir after working on Wayland for years is... confusing, at best. Then again, Ubuntu has been making some extremely strange decisions in the last couple years. Different subject.
Desktops... Hey, while we're at it, lets splinter the development of the desktops too! Split MATE and Cinnamon from Gnome 2, because we hate Gnome 3. WHAT! Keep plodding along on Gnome 2 code? NO! For Ubuntu, Unity it shall be. Never mind KDE, XFCE, LXDE, LMDE, and all the others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Audio... Shudder. OSS. Old, but needs to be supported still. ALSA, a mess. Multiple different sound servers on top of that, such as ESD and ARTS. PulseAudio, trying to replace everything under the sun.
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Pulse is pretty solid. Audio is a weak point; but I must admit I have never had problems with it on any of my machines.
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Originally Posted by Katsunami
Even booting. InitV, UpStart, systemd; maybe others. People can't even make up their minds how to friggin' boot Linux.
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Again, multiple development processes- explore multiple ideas. I seriously doubt any OS publisher picks one method during the development and dogmatically sticks to it without considering any alternatives. The difference is that in Linux this development is open and public, whereas among proprietary systems it is locked up and hidden.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Believe me. I *know* Linux. I've tried to run it as my primary system for 12 years or so, sometimes switching as long as 6 months to full time Linux use (Last time was about a year ago). On the desktop, there's always something that will make it impractical, if it's only the sheer amount of time one sometimes needs to get stuff running, in case you want or need to use a certain piece of hardware, of need to set up stuff that is not in the distro's repository.
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Again, I think your statement here is somewhat dated, but this really depends on one's hardware- like I said, hardware issues for me have been absolutely minimal, and easily fixed in almost every instance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
While at this point, Ubuntu is just another distribution, "doing things differently" and contributing to the splintering, at some point it will be an operating system seperate from Linux. If the Linux community doesn't stop splintering and fighting amongst itself, then "Linux on the Desktop" will become "Ubuntu", and Ubuntu only. If it keeps this up, we will have Windows, OSX, Ubuntu, and Linux. Linux then be as it always was, while Ubuntu will be the "Microsoft of the open source world".
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I agree with you about Ubuntu; they are on the verge of wasting all their early success on an attempt to become the new Apple-of-software (IMO).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
This is meant as a joke, making a parody of EULA's:
Also, at least in Europe, NO software EULA goes above the law. They EULA can state that the company is entitled to burn down your house at any point, but it will have no meaning. If it's not allowed by law, it's not binding in the EULA, even if you sign it.
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Of course it is; but it's also a relatively powerful demonstration of the subtle "power" of EULAs- indeed they must comply with law, but there are quite a number of things that comply with the law that I still would be uncomfortable about (harvesting my data for corporate or, if the case arises, government reasons).