I agree, Jeremy. It's a very frustrating environment right now and while I would really like to help these ISVs get their software onto Linux and make money there, right now I find I can't even give it for free. Complaining to them and insulting them is doing nothing but making those sympathetic to our cause (the developers) lose their sympathy. The management is the one making these decisions. They're purely business decisions, and quite honestly, for the time being they're correct. The whole point of the OSDL DTL is to fix this! Vent your frustrations here, not at the ISVs.
On Wednesday 11 October 2006 18:03, Jeremy White wrote: > > Judging by the developer's comments it is more likely intentionally > > spreading misinformation. > > > > However, my experience with corporate developers, even a couple of those > > I know personally, is that they are quite undereducated regarding the > > state of Linux/free software desktops. > > I disagree, and I disagree pretty violently, at least for > the perspective of a typical ISV. (I won't speak to in house corporate > developers, I do agree that they may well be undereducated as to > the role that the Linux Desktop could play in their organizations). > > I think that most Linux developers and advocates have a rose colored view > of what the Linux development process and market really is, at least for a > an ISV that wants to create a Desktop application for sale. > > Chris Cox, apparently of Adobe, writes an opinionated > and frustrated response to a request for Photoshop on Linux. > I suspect it isn't the corporate line, but it quite clearly > demonstrates the incredible frustration that an ISV can feel when > confronted with the Linux space. > > Another great read, along those lines, is the experience of the Flash team: > http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ > > As far as I can tell, the Adobe Linux Flash team is a bunch of > competent developers, working their hearts out to do a port to Linux. > And their blog reads like people riding across the wild west, > harried by wild animals (read: "Linux Zealots") along the way. > > I wrote a much longer rant, and then deleted it; I think that > blog contains enough food for thought by itself. > > But my summary was this: > > It takes a lot of hard work to create a Desktop product for Linux > The Linux Desktop Market, such as it is, is tiny > Even worse, that market is highly fragmented > (Yes, it really does matter to an ISV that there is > Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSE, and on and on; yes, they are > 'close', but this isn't horseshoes). > It's virtually impossible to do a credible QA job > on a Linux Desktop product, because there are too many > different configurations of Linux 'in the wild'. > Similarly, it's very difficult to provide credible customer > support to the Linux Desktop market. > And all that for a market full of people who would really rather > your product was Free, and in the final analysis, are rather > reluctant to part with cold, hard, cash. > > So I think it's wrong to call Adobe programmers 'undereducated' - > they're telling it like it is. And the sooner we face that truth > and get on with doing what we can to improve the situation (yay for > xdg-utils!), the better. > > Cheers, > > Jeremy > _______________________________________________ > Desktop_architects mailing list > Desktop_architects@lists.osdl.org > https://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop_architects -- George Staikos KDE Developer http://www.kde.org/ Staikos Computing Services Inc. http://www.staikos.net/ _______________________________________________ Desktop_architects mailing list Desktop_architects@lists.osdl.org https://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop_architects
