Robert Donovan([EMAIL PROTECTED])@Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 09:51:45AM -0800: <snip> > The difficulties I keep running into with Linux are related to application > functionaltiy. GNUCash, SQLedger, and Kompozer, for example, still > can't compete effectively with Quicken, Quickbooks, and Dreamweaver. > Since most non-computer people couldn't care less about whether > Linux is a better OS than Windows, if Linux can't do all the things > they are used to doing in Windows with very little transitional difficulty, > it doesn't matter how many other things it can do that Windows can't, > they will still tend to reject it. > > I view this as the last hurdle to be overcome to make Linux a fully > competitive replacement technology for Windows on all fronts. A > successful replacement technology not only has to perform all the > functions of the technology it is intended to replace better, faster, > cheaper, or more easily than the existing solutions, it must be able > go beyond the existing technology and provide additional features > the current technology can't. This is why steam-powered horseless > carriages and trolleys failed and the internal combustion engine > ultimately supplanted them. Linux has the second part, doing > more than existing technologies down six ways from Sunday. It's > coming along, but still a bit weak, on duplicating existing > functionality easily IMO.
My perspective on Linux apps is quite different. Not that I can't see room for improvement, but that I can't see value in duplicating the existing mess from one OS to the next. I don't want just a cheaper, stabler Windows than Windows. The conventions and principles that shaped the Unix environment appeal to me; they open possibilities for very different ways of developing desktop applications. Given that predisposition, I rather hope that developers of Linux apps will come up with new ways of thinking about what applications and features are important to have. I'd also like to see them find ways to keep things small, modular, and hopefully allow for several different types of interfaces to be added on as others find need of them. (MVC) As it stands, Miguel DeIcaza and a host of refugee Windows developers can't seem to extract themselves from the assumptions and trends they've been saturated with for so long. They are missing a huge opportunity to innovate and come up with some killer apps, IMO. I guess it wouldn't bother me so much except for the fact that there are so many refugee Windows *users* who influence the direction of development, and the direction of the well-known distributions. The old saying goes, "As the twig is bent, so the tree grows." To me it feels a lot like the 800 pound gorilla is sitting on the twig. *This* to me is the hurdle that Linux faces, not the features of the desktop apps. (I suppose it's obvious, but I really don't give a rodential hindquarters if the Linux Desktop ever dominates, or how many people use it. Clearly there need to be enough users to inspire continued development. Beyond that, I don't give much attention to who uses Linux, or how many users there are.) Wade Curry syntaxman -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
