[KevinH]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is ironic you say that, immediately after complaining that linux requires you to mess around with LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Not really, simple command line tools should be installed in standard locations and use the PATH, both Linux and Mac OS X have that right.

And it is IMHO unreasonable to expect people to maintain lengthy PATHs in their bashrc in order to access the CLI functionality of an Application bundle that has CLI functionality.
Especially because it requires investigating what to add. People have asked here a number of times how to do it, because they tried accessing the CLI tools via what they thought was the right path, but which apparently wasn't.

It is no different from what you have to do on Linux. What's your point?

Anyway. This was just an example of one way in which I think Application bundles may have their weak points.

Application bundles are not needed for simple command line tools. That is why a hybrid system allowing the best of both words is the correct path forward in my opinion.

I am not afraid of my code being changed. It is owned by root.
The kernel is also owned by root. Maybe they will change that instead.

You will hate to know that the latest Mac OS X El Captian defaults to disabling root entirely (ie rootless) with no way to change that unless you reboot in a special way. root still exists, it is just that nothing can become root (sudo and su stops working) and a set of system level directories are locked in stone, unable to be touched in any way. If interested:

google El Captian System Integrity Protection

Linus certainly seems to agree on the need for /opt applications which don't require recompiling every time the OS gets a trivial update.
But I do not seem to see where he agrees with any of your other points.

No he agrees that distribution differences and the need to recompile are both what is killing the Linux Desktop. For the Linux Desktop to succeed, the Linux distributions must agree on how to handle all of these issues or be stuck in the past so to speak.

Both Windows and linux don't have a drag-and-drop installation.
Both store metadata in central locations. Windows has its registry, linux uses desktop files and custom-mimetype.xml stored in central directories, owned by packages, which are cached by the MIME database and can be trivially rebuilt from scratch.
(Very pissed, by the way, that defaults are essentially random and also sometimes change at random. Windows 8 fixed that, but did linux? noooo...)
As far as I know, Linus is fine with both of those.

Then he has changed his mind. Many many years ago I remember reading a rail of his against the damn registry nonsense. I will look for the link.

As far as I know, the linux package manager model is usually held up as an example of why Windows is/was massively behind the times (no centralized source for installation and updates? ) -- excepting the fragmentation of distros duplicating the same efforts, which is of course a huge problem for commercial adoption, making it equivalent to Windows.

I am not disagreeing. I think Windows could make some improvement here as well. As could Mac OS X by the way. No Desktop system is perfect, but a lot of new ideas have come forward recently and it seems like no one on the Linux side sees their value to help unify and fix the Linux Desktop.

OSX of course has had an App Store for a while. Just like linux packaging except all Applications use isolated installs (linux could, technically, do the same if that is how the distros chose to compile an application. But they won't...)

Agreed. Getting the different Linux distributions to make any consistent changes (or even decide on a standard Desktop user experience!) has been like herding cats. It simply isn't going to get done until someone like Linus pushes for it. At least, he is now seeing it as the problem it has always been.

So all three of us agree on the need for some equivalent to Windows applications that bundle their own dependencies so long as you have a working kernel (and Linus doesn't break userspace).

Yes but I am hoping for much more from Linux. They have a chance to set up something really good here if they can just focus and get something done. I am a big user of Linux but not for Desktop use. I use it to house my research data, to create software to manipulate my data and run statistical analyses. Almost all via ssh. I would love to be able use Linux on the Desktop in some sane way that did not require me to basically become my own maintainer.

Which is all I am saying, really. You seem to be discussing a couple different points lumped together.
And they seem to be OSX > Windows & linux
Not Windows & OSX > linux

Not exactly. All of these are related to the user experience and as a developer, I have to worry about and deal with all of this nonsense, as do you.

Take care,

KevinH