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The things nobody wants to pay for

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Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#111

Post by satiric »

massysett wrote: post #17
satiric wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the ones you listed, consistency is the big downside for me. It seems like there's multiple options for everything in the Linux ecosystem. From the beginner questions (e.g., which distro), to the nerdy questions (e.g., systemd vs sysvinit), to the ones in between (e.g., vim vs emacs). I sometimes wonder if GNU Herd would have been better at this, since everything would be designed by the GNU folks for one unified…

> I sometimes wonder if GNU Herd would have been better at this, since everything would be designed by the GNU folks for one unified ecosystem. You just invented *BSD.

Which BSD has its own desktop environment? Which BSD has centralized, discoverable settings? (discoverable meaning I don't have to dig into man pages to figure out what to do). BSD is better but still doesn't go far enough IMO.

FWIW, I have never needed to dig into Windows' help system or Google to figure out how to use Windows Settings or the old Control Panel.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#112

Post by massysett »

satiric wrote: post #111
massysett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sometimes wonder if GNU Herd would have been better at this, since everything would be designed by the GNU folks for one unified ecosystem. You just invented *BSD.

Which BSD has its own desktop environment? Which BSD has centralized, discoverable settings? (discoverable meaning I don't have to dig into man pages to figure out what to do). BSD is better but still doesn't go far enough IMO. FWIW, I have never needed to dig into Windows' help system or Google to figure out how to use Windows Settings or the old Control Panel.

None of them. But GNU does not have this either. For awhile GNOME was part of the GNU project, but isn't now, and even when it was, X was not a GNU project.

GNU has this random assemblage of packages:

https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html

So add the Hurd to that, along with an actual distribution mechanism (not a trivial task), and what you get is something like a BSD.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#113

Post by ho_schi »

detourdog wrote: post #87
ho_schi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like mixing somewhat open-source with free-software? Again. Remembers me of late 90ies. And the intentions. It is fine to care about individual requirements but not all target the common society. Flutter and Chrome (Blink) are mere exclusive Google projects, they just shall strength Android, ChromeOS and their cloud business. Same for Microsoft stuff, they add stuff which strength their cloud business - with Li…

Before AT&T was broken up it was illegal to connect a fax machine or any other unauthorized equipment on their network.

I think this wasn’t an either/or decision for the (drumroll) Regan administration.

I’m also afraid that our Fax machines were even a priority.

btw. Germany has a law which enforces the endpoint and declares that customers attach their own modems. Democracy allows citizen to decide - we can prioritize people’s needs over companies?

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#114

Post by satiric »

massysett wrote: post #112
satiric wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which BSD has its own desktop environment? Which BSD has centralized, discoverable settings? (discoverable meaning I don't have to dig into man pages to figure out what to do). BSD is better but still doesn't go far enough IMO. FWIW, I have never needed to dig into Windows' help system or Google to figure out how to use Windows Settings or the old Control Panel.

None of them. But GNU does not have this either. For awhile GNOME was part of the GNU project, but isn't now, and even when it was, X was not a GNU project. GNU has this random assemblage of packages: https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html So add the Hurd to that, along with an actual distribution mechanism (not a trivial task), and what you get is something like a BSD.

Ah OK, I stand corrected. Looks like my pipe dream of getting a Unix derivative as unified as Windows stays unattainable then (although KDE Neon was pretty good last time I tried it, from a Settings point of view anyway)

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#115

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

r14c wrote: post #90
WalterBright wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source software is doing just fine. The siren song of government intervention will not make it better. > People working on software projects could apply for grants, which would be reviewed by a panel of peers and experts, then funded, and the impact of the software project can be reviewed. That's the dream. The reality is that the money will get allocated according to politics and corruption. The money will come…

If we recognize that the US government is corrupt, which I believe is a pretty universal sentiment among Americans, why aren't there any substantial anti-corruption movements?

Because the government, by and large, isn't corrupt. There are many corrupt individuals in government, but that's not the same thing.

When it's common practice to slip the town clerk a $50 to get your deck permit pulled in less than a month, then we can start to conclude that maybe government's corrupt.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#116

Post by pdonis »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #115
r14c wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we recognize that the US government is corrupt, which I believe is a pretty universal sentiment among Americans, why aren't there any substantial anti-corruption movements?

Because the government, by and large, isn't corrupt. There are many corrupt individuals in government, but that's not the same thing. When it's common practice to slip the town clerk a $50 to get your deck permit pulled in less than a month, then we can start to conclude that maybe government's corrupt.

Your definition of corruption is too narrow.

The government is systemically corrupt because it is not doing what we the people authorized it to do. It is not protecting everyone's basic rights equally. It is favoring particular special interests (which include politicians themselves--Congress has single digit approval ratings but incumbent reelection rates in the nineties).

This kind of corruption does not involve obvious violations of the letter of the law like overt bribery. But it's still corruption--and indeed it's worse than simple violations like bribery because it involves the entire system, using a process that was intended to do one thing to actually do other things that go against that one thing.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#117

Post by massysett »

satiric wrote: post #114
massysett wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of them. But GNU does not have this either. For awhile GNOME was part of the GNU project, but isn't now, and even when it was, X was not a GNU project. GNU has this random assemblage of packages: https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html So add the Hurd to that, along with an actual distribution mechanism (not a trivial task), and what you get is something like a BSD.

Ah OK, I stand corrected. Looks like my pipe dream of getting a Unix derivative as unified as Windows stays unattainable then (although KDE Neon was pretty good last time I tried it, from a Settings point of view anyway)

Oh, not at all unattainable - a Unix derivative as unified as Windows is macOS. I've got a terminal and an Emacs running on my Mac right now.

But a free software one? No - that's the point of this article: the free software desktop users aren't willing to put up the resources it would take to develop what you're seeking.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#118

Post by roenxi »

ho_schi wrote: post #74
nox101 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes open source Swift, LLVM, Clang, WebKit, darwin. They already spend millions on open source. Google makes open source Android, Chromium, Go, Dart, Flutter, Lit, ANGLE, Dawn. They also spend millions on open source. Microsoft makes C#, F#, VSCode, Electron, Powershell, and further Microsoft is providing free hosting for probably 95% of all open source projects (github) as well as free CIs (github actions) a…

Looks like mixing somewhat open-source with free-software? Again. Remembers me of late 90ies. And the intentions. It is fine to care about individual requirements but not all target the common society. Flutter and Chrome (Blink) are mere exclusive Google projects, they just shall strength Android, ChromeOS and their cloud business. Same for Microsoft stuff, they add stuff which strength their cloud business - with Li…

> The sovereign tech fund (from Germany) is a good idea.

Isn't it a non-idea? I'm seeing articles saying they spend order of magnitude single digit million dollars [0]. That doesn't sound like it'd be enough to cover the costs of much. Just look at the list of maintainers of the linux kernel, for example [1].

Germany would be doing much better if they had a few big software corporations, they tend to contribute more money voluntarily. They should focus on cutting back red tape and fostering some entrepreneurship.

> It was good and accelerated literally everything.

This position doesn't make sense, look at the the AI industry appearing out of nearly nowhere and is moving so fast even the people in the market can't keep up. And is mostly open source. We might be approaching the limit of what is physically possible.

No changes to the situation are needed if we want things to move faster. Maybe winding down IP protections to maintain the speed, once the lawyers get involved that'll kill some of the momentum.

[0] https://sciencebusiness.net/news/cybersecurity/germany-launc...

[1] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/maintainers.h...

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#119

Post by airstrike »

hammock wrote: post #72
roenxi wrote: post #4

Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. In the case of open source, that algorithm usually identifies volunteers. Sometimes it identifies businesses. Sometimes people come up with clever ways of funding projects (Red Hat the enterprise was genius from this perspective, they organised a solution…

>Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. That's an auction, not a market. Markets are two sided, there are differentiated (multidimensional) offers and bids that are seeking to get matched. Much more complex

> That's an auction, not a market. Markets are two sided, there are differentiated (multidimensional) offers and bids that are seeking to get matched. Much more complex

None of that necessarily invalidates the point that people are paid the minimum amount possible for a given pool of labor supply

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#120

Post by Ologn »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #31
huijzer wrote: post #10

I once compared Linus Torvalds' net worth to Warren Buffett's net worth. I think they are both extremely capable individuals in their fields. Torvalds earns about 10 million per year. With that income, it would take Torvalds 12k years to reach the same net worth as Buffett (about 124 billion). Put differently, Buffett could personally fund 10k open source contributors 200k per year for their lifetime (60 years) if he…

If Torvalds wants to earn more, he should focus on making Linux more user friendly rather than more Linux-geek friendly. Linux could get dramatically more resources if they could just drop their big-ego'd "CLI is god" mentality. Yes, Linux is a powerhouse OS, but it only appeals to a tiny slice of the population.

There are currently 3 billion active Android devices, and they are powered by Linux. There is a helicopter on Mars that runs Linux. I think Linus has done fine focusing on what he is focused on.
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