For what it's worth, I only need Xorg, xpdf and xterm to take care of my graphics needs. Everything that doesn't involve coding happens on linux, mac and winxp.
As long as a distro can support Xorg, it is viable for me. So whatever you guys do, please don't remove the basic graphics capability! On May 9, 2013 7:20 PM, "Garrett D'Amore" <garrett.dam...@dey-sys.com> wrote: > > On May 9, 2013, at 4:00 PM, Bob Friesenhahn <bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us> > wrote: > > > On Thu, 9 May 2013, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > >> > >> Upshot, *today* anyone who thinks there is a commercial future in > illumos on the desktop is probably smoking something. There are a few > people who would be willing to pay for it, but it needs more than a few > dozen people willing to pay a couple hundred dollars (more often > substantially less) to make this a viable and interesting (economically) > venture. > > > > There is little "commercial future" in the desktop for Linux > distributions as well yet almost all of them have a graphical desktop. > > Admittedly true. And yet, most of them *started* on the desktop. Linux's > roots are in the desktop. Most of those distros took off because they had > a groundswell of support from developer users who wanted it on the desktop > -- they didn't have servers, and options like VMware simply didn't exist at > the time. I'd argue that this is largely an artifact of history. I would > be entirely *unsurprised* if distro vendors like RedHat and Oracle simply > *ditched* their desktop support at some point in the future -- its clear to > me at least that folks aren't running those distros on the desktop. > > In fact, I can't think of *anyone* who's paying for a desktop OS that > doesn't come from either Apple or Microsoft. > > > Availability of a graphical desktop is seen as a requirement for common > acceptance. > > Historically true, but I seriously doubt it now. SmartOS is the counter > example from this community. I think there are others. For example, > OpenBSD was highly popular for a long time for its security emphasis, but I > don't know *anyone* who ran it on a desktop. > > The widespread availability of virtualization like VMware, VirtualBox, and > Parallels means that there is little need to take over the user's desktop > to provide a reasonable environment. Most people these days develop using > SSH, etc. The folks I know who use Linux would, apart from a few > extremists, not care whether the desktop ran Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris, as > long as it Just Worked and provided a familiar UNIX-like backend. (I > contend that these principles have lead strongly to the uptake of MacOS in > the developer community…. I use an Apple laptop for my own environment, > even though I wouldn't *dream* of using MacOS in a server capacity.) For > me, Terminal.app and ssh is along with VMware gives me everything I need > for doing cool things with illumos on my desktop. I explicitly *disable* > the graphical login on illumos. :-) > > > Much/most of the graphical desktop development taking place for Linux > does not seem to be done by the companies which popularly peddle it (e.g. > Canonical has been more of a desktop packager except for its useless Unity). > > Only partly true (Qt is the counter example). But yes, a lot of the > desktop development in Gnome and company is done by community members who > are passionate about this. And guess what -- almost all those guys are > Linux "bigots". There's a huge trend in those spaces to adopt technologies > that are Linux-specific, to the point of near active hostility towards > other FOSS. That creates a huge barrier for leveraging their efforts. Do > we have the kind of volunteerism here to take up a duplicate effort? And > why just duplicate? If we have *that* kind of interest and volunteerism, > I'd recommend actually doing something *cooler* and better. Of course, > that flies in the face of legacy compatibility…. > > > > > > The argument about "no commerical future" is becoming worn out and tired > since that (commercial purpose) is not why OpenIndiana/Illmos users want to > log into a graphical desktop. > > Worn out and tired it may be, and *yet* people complain about the lack of > leadership and progress. I don't know about you, but I have to pay for > housing, groceries, and gasoline (among other things). So I have to work > at things that pay the bills. I am lucky enough that this maps well to > things that are also interesting to me. Maybe its unfortunate that folks > aren't finding ways to make a living at this, so that a developer community > will spring up around it. But more constructive than whinging about it > will be to find ways to either a) make a commercially viable case for it so > people can get paid to work on it, or b) lead a volunteer effort to make > this work. > > The problem with "b" is that its a very large, and often thankless, job. > People spend more time complaining about broken things on the desktop, > than they do actually helping fix things. Individual leaders get > exhausted, and move on. This is a recurring theme in this community -- > Nexenta desktop, StormOS, AuroraUX, OI, etc. > > So, it comes, for me at least, back to "a". Figure out a way to make a > commercially viable story so that you keep a small group of developers > paid. Right now, I don't know of any such story, and when I bring this up, > the responses like yours Bob, amount to nothing more than putting your head > in the sand. > > Put another way -- even if there were a million illumos users wanting a > graphical desktop (there aren't), it wouldn't matter *unless* amongst them > there were either the people with the talent and inclination to create and > maintain the graphical desktop, or people willing to pay enough money to > *employ* someone to do it. (Alternatively, a business case showing that > desktop use is sufficiently important to non-desktop commercial use to > justify funding that work.) To date, none of these have converged. > > Frankly, none of this is surprising. Our desktop technology is inferior > in substantial ways to pretty much *every* OS (excepting perhaps NetBSD and > OpenBSD.) > > - Garrett > > > > _______________________________________________ > oi-dev mailing list > oi-dev@openindiana.org > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev >
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