here we go again

Just found out about u1db.

The Ubuntu One team have started work on u1db, a project codename for an easy-to-use database API layer which can work on any platform (Ubuntu, web servers, Windows, smartphone platforms) with the existing native databases (SQLite, MySQL, API layers, everything)

Is it just me, or does this sound like the database equivalent of pulse audio? I can't wait until we have the ultimate abstracted UI. The one that lets you watch porn in the same way across all platforms. It will have to be open source, of course.

Seriously though. If I've learned anything, it's that OSS projects can't make a choice. And when you can't make a choice, what do you do? You support all options! Yay! How do we support all options? An abstraction layer! Yay! Abstraction layers are fun to write! Yay!

gold

http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2011/06/focusing-on-the-next-linux-client.html Opens with:

"Way back in 1999 I predicted a significant market for desktop Linux by 2005. (I was targeting better than Mac OS type numbers, in the 10-15% range.) It was clear back then that Linux had found a substantial adoption as a server OS, and it seemed only time before the desktop adoption rivaled at least “the other desktop”.

progress

In true open source fashion, the community debates the most important issue of the day

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678775

I for one, think we should remove the kernel version number from dmesg output. I mean, it's changing all the time anyways.

twat

I've revived my twitter account.

http://www.twitter.com/hatinglinux

I still think it's kinda lame, but posting there is just easier. Light-weight micro ranting ftw.

Sounds like fun

http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/03/11/lessons-learned/

tl;dr of the tl;dr: C.L.U.S.T.E.R.F.U.C.K.

it buuuuuuurns

Bwahahahahaahah Nokia.

What a shit show in the making. It keeps getting better. And then of course there's this article. Intel, if you have to say you're not blinking, then you're blinking.

Quoth Intel:

Our strategy has always been to provide choice when it comes to operating systems, a strategy that includes Windows, Android, and MeeGo. This is not changing.

Uh huh. Your strategy has been to develop a shitty choice that goes along less shitty choices. If you're not building the "best" and just building a "choice", that has fail written all over it.

And I love all these blogs claiming they should have gone for Android. HAVE ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY USED WP7? Seriously. Just try it. It's at least as good as Android. And it doesn't have the, "lets be like linux distros and invent a new home screen UI for every damn phone" syndrome. OMG BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE COPY AND PASTE! WTF people, Apple proved that you could ship a good phone w/o it. I'd much rather use WP7 w/o c&p than Android with it.

These bloggers smell of the "oh the last time I used anything Microsoft was windows 98 and I'm not touching anything from them again!". Is there a TM for that?

Nokia, with it's strategy of symbian, than maemo, then symbian, then meego, then qt, then symbian, then linux, then symbian, then open source symbian, then gtk, then qt, has clearly shown the open source is the way! Maybe that CEO dude meant to say open source is the burning platform. As in, it burns you every time you try to build on it.

Moar flames

Jeez, linux can only handle 5000 comments? What's up with that? MySQL FTW! Carry on.

Vuvubuntu

I just realized. Lusers are the vuvuzelas of the software world.

OMG OMG OMG. In addition to totally fucked window controls, we now have a font!

I'm so excited about this thing because it's going to fix so many problems. It's going to make my 30 inch monitor work, and give me awesome 3d graphics, and all the game companies will port to linux to take advantage of this font, and my wireless problems will go away. And it will make Intel open source their gpu, and Microsoft will roll over and die.

I mean seriously. That's what happened when they release Bitstream Vera, and Liberation. Right? All the free desktop was missing was a fucking font.

Oh btw, will this make other websties that specify the standard web fonts look good? No?

Wut

I was just taking a look at S-man's announcement for Ubuntu Unity and Light versions. Most of it is blah, except for this tidbit:

... The dual-boot, web-focused use case is sufficiently different from general-purpose desktop usage to warrant a fresh look at the way the desktop is configured. We spent quite a bit of time analyzing screenshots of a couple of hundred different desktop configurations from the current Ubuntu and Kubuntu user base, to see what people used most. We also identified the things that are NOT needed in lightweight dual-boot instant-on offerings...

Wut. Ok. Let me learn you something. I've seen lots of Linux screenshots in my time. If you were actually optimizing for the freetard, basically what you'd have is a desktop with two semi-transparent terminals. One tailing a syslog, and another showing an irc session. Oh and like some pager with a bazillion virtual desktops that are totally useless. Oh, and don't forget the scantily-clad, objectified female as the wallpaper image.

As for the rest of the article? OMG, You put a fucking dock on the side. In OSX and Win7, doing the same thing takes like 3 seconds. Do you really need to write a whole giant announcement about it?

Oh and I like the two sections at the end, about "Relationship to Gnome Shell" and "Relationship to KDE". Even the S-man has figured out that you can't just go "innovate" in the OSS community without shouting out to everyone. Because we don't want to piss off the ten people who care about Gnome Shell or KDE. Fuck. Could you imagine an Apple announcement saying something like "Relationship to Windows"?

A year later

Woah, Lundude is at it again.

Don't worry, it's mostly the same stuff. Linux Desktop sucks. It still sucks. Even a year later. When it's sucked for the last N years, why do you think N+1 will make it so much better? But I'm sooooo sure that there's just a business plan hiding under there somewhere, and I'm the only person to think this hard about it..

The rest of us know that if there were a business model that made sense and could be presented in a 45 minute slide-deck in some classroom, then someone would have done it already.

But I had some other funny thoughts:

The big players in the linux desktop are the distributions. They distribute stuff. They're somewhat ok at distributing their own stuff. But they're supremely awesome at making it hard for third parties to distribute their stuff. It's the distributions (and more precisely, the fact that there are so many of them) that make the actual distributing hard. Go figure.

Another thing. Why are y'all _still_ focused on random niche desktop thick client apps. Linux's problem is not a lack of thick client apps. Hardly anyone uses them, other than Office. And besides, that problem is solved. Distributing thick client apps to generic PC hardware is MS's turf. You wouldn't try to take on Google's search advertising business with a rag tag group of volunteers would you? So why the fuck would you go after MS's bread and butter? You win by solving the problem in a new better way, not making the problem worse in a shittier way.

Besides, the desktop is dying. Web apps are taking over. And it so happens that Linux is in a pretty good place to be an awesome web terminal. Even Google thinks so. But it still takes a google to herd enough people together to produce something like ChromeOS. Y'all could have probably put something like that together in as much time, if you could only focus and stop chasing after Microsoft's sinking boat.

Y'all bitch an complain that nobody writes apps for Linux. Boo hoo. Hardly anyone writes apps for windows either these days. They all write for the web. You got your fucking level playing field that you've been bitching about for years. But I'm sure it's still going to take some eeeevil corporation with a giant clue stick to show y'all how it's done.