On the Command Line Heroes Podcast

So awhile back I listened to the first few episodes, and felt disgusted by it, in that the history of Linux, UNIX, and the OS Wars were painfully over simplified to the point they get facts wrong, and Microsoft gets white washed.

It’s hard for me to believe this wasn’t deliberate, its not like Red Hat or IBM are too low on money to create a show that can actually factually inform listeners. Indeed, there’s plenty of good Vloggers on YouTube that love to discuss Technology, especially Computer History in detail, plus Channels featuring shows and promotional videos about technology that are no longer being aired.

Anyway, I’ll try to get around to listening to the offending episodes that made my blood boil again so I can complain in more detail, but just remember, if you want to listen to it don’t take it at face value as a real history, its propaganda.

Emulation and WINE Apps aren’t a threat to Indie Open Source OS Platforms, a draft like everything else recently

There’s a bit of arrogance, I believe, among the Elementary OS Team, but, TO BE FAIR HERE, this misconception is shared with a few too many others in the Open Source Desktop communities.

So here’s the thing, that lots of people including those with Liberal and Progressive leanings forget when discussing trying to make Operating Systems for Desktops successful that aren’t backed by Trillion dollar companies-

Microsoft and Apple HAVE economic and political power. Canonical and nearly every other wannabe out there do not. ie, Capitalism rewards evil monopolies. You don’t have power in this system, and most big name software businesses don’t have to care about your favorite 3rd option OS Alternative.

You can’t just state that Windows doesn’t need Mac apps as though that somehow is a useful or meaningful insight about why Linux, BSD, or Haiku supposedly doesn’t need WINE, because Windows simply has the most Apps, period, especially professional and prosumer Desktop Apps now, and even if MS dies suddenly there will be legacy support needed for hundreds of millions if not billions of users for decades to come. And no amount of arms twisting will force developers to suddenly make the games and software for the OS you want.

Apple though? Mac users have a history of buying and using Windows emulation software long before Mac OS X debuted, so of course the advent of WINE for Linux and UNIX was like a godsend as well, indeed there ARE businesses selling versions of WINE/Wine Is Not An Emulator for Mac and Linux users WILLING TO PAY UP.

Why on earth would this be any different for Linux or FreeBSD much less Haiku OS? Certainly the state of Gaming for Linux wouldn’t be close to what it is today without WINE’s help, along with a great many emulators for retrogaming.

Indeed, if it wasn’t for the ability to Dual boot and or have WINE or Windows emulation software, non Windows OS’s are simply NOT an option for MANY.

So like, I don’t want to be a dick about it, but leaders of a project with what is at least as far as I’m concerned a failed business model in terms of their version of an App Store that isn’t even breaking even really don’t have the right to comment about what real end user needs are, much less if the ability to run some Windows apps and games are a good idea or not by this point, because its clear they’ve all been wrong all along in the first place.

ETA: Okay, I was partly wrong regarding an aspect of Gaming on Linux and elsewhere, that being the rise of Proton, and its additional importance to Steam. That said, the dismissiveness of co-founders of eOS can just as easily applied to that too, and WINE still has a history which is still very important regarding Gaming and Apps for Linux and other OS’s.

Elementary OS’s AppCenter

Tech Journalism is dead, because almost no one is willing to be honest about how awful the selection is, and that the real money in Software doesn’t come from people afraid to use Computers to the point they’ll only use Apps with very few functions, but professionals whose jobs and creative output depend on the Software they use.

As shocking as it might sound to some people, proprietary software, even ones costing up to thousands of dollars, is still sold and marketed to Workstation users including using Linux users for multimedia development, including CGI.

I’d call this an Emperor without clothing situation, but there’s not much in the way of power or resources to contend with here.

Speaking of Haiku OS and BeOS

This Twitter thread started by Thomas Howlerda ticked me off, so other than agreeing with the developers of the Haiku OS who’ve been at for practically two decades raised very important counterpoints which are certainly true and correct, I’ll add something too:

By the time BeOS was available for x86, if you ignored the hype peddled by fanboys like Scot Hacker, Linux and a lesser extent FreeBSD had several times more native Desktop Applications than BeOS already, Free and NetBSD were already supporting Linux apps, and WINE was increasingly becoming important in terms of Linux’s desktop relevancy. Indeed, Linux was becoming far more relevant for Workstation usage in the professional realm while BeOS had very limited hardware compatibility in comparison (and its not like Linux was free of problems in that arena back then, but BeOS’s was many times worse).

Secondly, I don’t think its acknowledged enough that without the backing of VERY rich businesses like Google that are working on Fuchsia, creating legacy free or at least low on legacy OS’s for Desktop Operating Systems much less sustaining them for decades of usage is a huge undertaking without that many developers, so those making Linux and BSD derivatives, while not in itself should be described as “easy” to do, at least have a larger community and a longer history of technological traditions that they can benefit from.

So my point is, if ANY of you feel that strongly about Native Apps for Haiku OS, which I think the low amount of users makes sense given its current limitations, instead of complaining about it-& trust me, almost no one is making money off it outside TuneTracker, while Linux for all its problems definitely has its share of proprietary apps FOR PROFESSIONALS-how about putting effort into learning to program for it and or starting a foundation dedicated to help solving that problem if you feel THAT strongly about it? And don’t expect it to be cheap either, R&D and compensating developers costs money.

So I just see people who aren’t even part of that developer community making unrealistic demands for a VERY niche project while not contributing much in the first place, thus the complainers just comes across as naive, entitled and selfish.

ETA: While there is currently debate out there about if ANY Linux Desktop distro is ready for prime time after how some things went down on YouTube recently, Linux still ended up edging out SGI and Sun in terms of UNIX workstations for making CGI and other Special Effects in film, and there is a small handful of Linux distros made specifically for multimedia creators and music enthusiasts, like Ubuntu Studio and Audiophile Linux.

Now that Canonical Ltd sold its soul

Ubuntu Wants To Collect Data About Your System-Starting From 18.04 LTS.

I put less blame on Microsoft’s influence, and more on the fact that it is now a publicly traded company, there’s little or no reason to believe they’ll back out of it now now that it is investors and future buyer that they answer to.

I’m also sure that someone out there somewhere will claim all these new batches of criticism against Canonical and Ubuntu Linux is just “FUD”, because no one remembers what FUD really means anymore & the context and history that it came about, and belief in the Social Geek Fallacies because a few too many Open Source and Free Software advocates think Criticism is Oppression.

Right now I just hope that the people working on NON-official Ubuntu derivative distros do the right thing and protect their users. I am, personally, very disappointed in this because I was looking forward to an official release of Lubuntu Next LXQT version that was not Alpha or Beta, but I guess I will have to look into other Linux distributions that use that Desktop Environment after all.

GNOME Desktop and Elementary OS

Short rant for now-

If you like using either of them, that’s okay, not my business, not my problem. But I am increasingly annoyed by stans for both who 1, don’t understand the needs of newbies vary from person to person, 2, professionals actually used to use Macs before their hardware and software platform went downhill.

But thirdly, Mac OS X used to be a high functioning OS before Steve Jobs died that some of these development projects and their fandom do not seem to get. As a former Apple and current Windows user (hopefully not for too long!), I am insulted by how some of these proponents for Elementary’s DE and a lesser extent GNOME think complainers about the anemic functionality should just STFU because “it’s not for them”, well I AM a member of that target market and ain’t impressed at all by how right clicking has been prohibited completely (not even Apple went that far, I used to use a separate mouse for that) or how we all need barely functional apps, as though professionals and creative types never even used the Mac or even enjoyed iLife back before it sucked and then started paying up for professional closed source software.

If you like eOS or GNOME, by all means talk about it and promote it, but please stop acting as though you speak for all newbies looking for alternatives to the big closed source guys, many of us are in fact impressed by the more feature rich apps available from the KDE and QT community than the GTK and GNOME project have available, and many find the limits of Linux Distributions like Elementary OS as more of a hindrance than a help, and it has nothing to do with experience or lack of with command lines.

Tensions Rise Between Emacs and systemd — Sudo Satirical

Just one week after its formal declaration of independence, the Republic of systemd has already met opposition from rival nation Emacs over territorial disputes. “Yeah about independenced. It turns out there’s already an Emacs keybinding for that”, said Ed Best, a spokesman for President-for-life Saint Ignutius. “Control x Meta d Meta i. You then supply…

via Tensions Rise Between Emacs and systemd — Sudo Satirical