I was getting a bit tired of saying the same things over and over to friends on the net. I was getting tired of repetitiously posting in forums the same sentiment over and over. Yet, just like getting a second wind in a long and tiring race…my tiredness melts away and I find myself feeling refreshed and anew. What the subject of this rant has to say and what I have to say in the paragraphs below are NOT written to start a flame war. I am a user of Ubuntu and a strong supporter of all Debian based distros. This article is written to allow insight into where I believe Linux needs to go to succeed. I’m not out to win any popularity contests…I’m not out to garner a bunch of page hits to generate ad revenue. I’m just out to help the Linux community and rant a bit when I find a subject that strikes a nerve. The subject at hand is Why Ubuntu is NOT New Linux Users.
Category: Rants
Opinion: Why Some Linux News Sites Aren’t Succeeding
I always hate it when a Linux “news” website publishes things that aren’t news. It would be like having a hosting website that doesn’t do hosting…what’s the point really? IF you can call a news article the gathering together of various other news sources, threading them together in one incoherent and blabbering “news” article and then ending the entire article on a point that the headline doesn’t even address…nor the first paragraph for that matter…then I guess LinuxInsider has got a dollop of fecal inspired “journalism” for you right on their front page. A retarded baboon could thread a bunch of stories together and draw a conclusion that doesn’t have anything to do with any other part by smacking a brick on a typewriter. I suggest LinuxInsider employ a retarded baboon as opposed to the author of this horrible piece.
What’s going on with many Linux news websites today? It used to be about the proliferation of Linux and Linux IN THE NEWS. Nowadays it’s about who can be the most creative with their Linux aphorisms and who can draw the most conclusions about nothing all while ensuring that as many advertisements as possible barrage their readers. This is why I only go to 2 websites for general Linux NEWS…Lxer.com and LWN.net. Newsforge is a good place to go as well…but the rest seem to do nothing but dance around the idea that they can widen out and cover all business news, report a little bit on Linux, and become a ‘catch all’ for savvy “geeks” while being sure to saturate themselves with ads. Sites should understand more about their target audience…and that just isn’t happening now.
I think it comes down to a faulty business model. Target audiences are changing faster than the technology that is released daily. Larger news websites whether Linux based or not are counting on “clickthroughs” and ad “impressions” to tell them what their readers want. They’re counting on their names to carry them and they’re wrong in accepting this matter. In the past, Linux has been somewhat geeks only…or at least rumored to be. That has changed. Most news sites haven’t.
Continue reading “Opinion: Why Some Linux News Sites Aren’t Succeeding”
Stephen Harpster, Professional Hot Air Balloon and JDS Director…
Sorry Stephen, but Tom Adelstein was right…JDS is a throw away desktop…that’s what you do to old Linux distros that stop their development.
Your response left much to be desired.
Allow me to put this in simple terms. The last release of JDS (2.0) came in May of 2004. Prior to that, JDS had released 6 months before in 2003…that would have been a good model to emulate…6 month release cycles. Perhaps even a published timeline and established release cycle would help…but all of this is dust in the wind and is obviously not on the forefront of Sun’s mind.
Never mind that you guys promised to release JDS 3.0 sometime in the early part of 2005…broken promises don’t matter do they? You can continually take open source code and not give back without the community giving any care at all right?
Wait, stop the presses. JDS 3.0 was previewed at LinuxWorld in Boston earlier this year. Allow me to quote Mr. Jonathan Schwartz from LinuxWorld 2005: “Sun continues to drive leadership in the Linux community with the world’s most popular desktop offering, the Java Desktop System,” said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of software, Sun Microsystems. “While the competition continues to hire evangelists and call that a Linux strategy, we’re demonstrating commitment by building and shipping indemnified products, safe for corporate deployment, that save millions of dollars each and every day.”
Wow. I’m speechless. That is an outright ridiculous claim. After all, distrowatch.com, which tracks hits per day on Linux distributions doesn’t even have JDS in its top 100. Looks like there is something in the water over at Sun that is influencing people to speak without thinking eh? Did anyone over there happen to invent the question mark? Do people come to work with meat helmets?
JDS is stagnant for Linux no matter what you say or do; no matter the number of press releases. No matter if you combine it with Project Looking Glass (Another stagnant project on Linux)…it’s not going to help things a bit. You can say that development is continuing on all you want…but there hasn’t been a release announced for Linux in over a year and that signifies dead or dying. I’ll give you all at Sun a free piece of advice as I’ve done in the past: Stop reacting to the community and start enacting in the community…not that it will help at this time, JDS on Linux is already too far gone. The community will reject you as you rejected it first. You’ve officially placed “less emphasis” on JDS and Linux right? What do you care?
In closing, if you guys are committed to Linux…find out where the community is and communicate with it. Really, I shouldn’t have to tell you to go to distrowatch and announce new versions. I shouldn’t have to tell you to base your desktop availability model on SuSe and Fedora Core or Mandriva Community Edition. All the other major players in Linux seem to get it. Why don’t you guys? When you place less emphasis on the Linux desktop you shouldn’t turn right around and claim the number one desktop for Linux in the world…you sound like a band of raving lunatics. Since you guys are on shaky ground with the community anyway (as pointed out to the article you link to in your blog), it would be wise to refrain from tirades such as your current blog entry…and if you insist on one, perhaps a more thought out response would be more appreciated.
Regards
What’s in a Name?
With Knoppix at least they named the distros differently. With KDE and Gnome, taking the first letter of the names was good enough. But Ubuntu and those using it have developed a silly idea and are trying desperately to make it ‘cool’. Unfortunately, most people seem to agree with them that this naming convention is just that…cool. My stomach turns…
I disagree with this notion of ‘cool’. I think it is silly and unprofessional. For those that have no idea what I’m speaking of, please take special note of the names of the following distros:
- Edubuntu
- Kubuntu
- Ubuntu
- What next?
Perhaps some of you may think I’m being harsh. I don’t think so. Adding oddly named distros of Linux that are so similar in name have a chance of confusing the general public. Is there anything to stop these projects from popping up? Will there be derrivatives such as Gamebuntu or other such oddities as GovBuntu or Serverbuntu/Mailbuntu in months and years to come? Not if good taste comes into play. I defeatedly will wait for Pornbuntu to come out sometime in the next few years (ok…perhaps I’m stretching, but you should get the picture). Why didn’t Canonical just name it Ubuntu – Education Edition, Ubuntu – KDE Edition, or something along those lines. Why try to make it ‘cool’ to have Ubuntu inside that new name for the new project? Why Why Why?
Linux-Blog: Gartner needs to get a clue ASAP
Gartner: Linux ‘five years away from mainstream use’ I read that little gem above and laughed aloud. Mainly because if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year you might agree with that. However, with Novell entering the community with SuSe, Red Hat’s Fedora, and Mandriva’s 2005/6 editions I don’t think we’ll have to wait 5 years for things to happen. It’s obvious that Microsoft doesn’t think so either…otherwise, why are they advertising on television and launching a major ad campaign? Don’t you usually do this when sales are slow or interest is abysmal? By the way, who is it that they are competing against in the desktop area again? Oh that’s right, 90% of all desktops use Windows already. So in this case, they are either A) beating a long dead horse, B) slightly worried, or C) all of the above. When in doubt, choose C. So Microsoft might be slightly worried by Linux/Mac/BSD intruding into the desktop arena…and subsequently mainstream. But Gartner doesn’t seem to think that it is an issue until 2010. If you’d have caught me in about 2002 or previous years I might have agreed with them. However, there are some things that are making Linux into a force to be reckoned with. These are small programs that have begun to make desktop Linux exciting. These programs are often referred to in group by the label “Project Utopia.” Basically, what they do is work with each other to automatically add any device you plug in to your computer. Continue reading “Linux-Blog: Gartner needs to get a clue ASAP”
State of Linux: The Linux Wizard
I started asking myself questions about Linux the other day. I began to think about what Linux lacked that Windows had (trying to get into the head of a die hard Windows fan and persuade them to think Linux). Certainly it isn’t appearance. Windows is actually behind Linux in this area. Certainly it isn’t detectability. Linux is also ahead of Windows in this area. Driver support? Yes…big gap…but one that we as Linux programmers, developers, and users are all well aware of and one that cannot be improved drammatically unless manufacturers get behind Linux. So what is left? Wizards. Wizards? That’s right. Wizards. No, not the D&D spellcasting folk…put your twenty sided die away. I’m speaking of the nice trail of menu’s that greet you to set up a function in your operating system.
