Modify Colors
Posts in 2009 June
Illustrating the blessing and the curse of open-source software, some contriversy has arisen over Intel’s Moblin (their Linux for netbooks) replacing NetworkManager with a custom program called ConnMan.
NetworkManager is tool for configuring network connections, from ethernet to 3G. NetworkManager is used in almost every modern Linux distribution, pretty much regardless of the desktop environment. Due to complaints about NetworkManager’s architecture, extensibility, customization options, and lack of WiMax support, the Moblin project decided they needed something completley new: ConnMan.
ConnMan lacks many of the features of NetworkManager, but offers complete separation of the front-end and back-end, WiMax support, and more customization/extensibility.
The Blessing
Open-source software allows anyone to have the choice of rewriting a piece of something that they don’t think is done the right way or that just isn’t right for them. This means that when one project starts sliding in quality, another project can create an alternative program to do the same, or a similar, thing, often utilizing some of the existing code. This often prevents applications from being abandoned and becoming obsolete.
The Curse
This same attribute of open-source software is also a curse, though. A lot of time is spent rewriting code that, in some cases, may be perfectly good code. This time could be better spent working on something new. Worse, when you get two conflicting applications, as is the case here, it fragments the Linux desktop. Right now, every major desktop Linux distribution is using NetworkManager. This means that when one distribution improves the tool, everyone benefits. If, however, a few of these distributions switched to ConnMan, suddenly only the ConnMan distros would benefit from other ConnMan distros and the same for NetworkManager distros.
This is simply an attribute of open-source. Sometimes it is incredibly beneficial, such as when a project is abandoned, but it also encourages people to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Many many major organizations have open-source or open-content projects. These projects produce vast quantities of freely available code or content that can be freely modified and redistributed, yet these same projects protect their trademarks like vultures.
I recognize the importance of trademarks, even in open-source projects. Especially for larger organizations like Canonical, protecting the Ubuntu brand is essential, but it doesn’t have to be protected from everything. Unfortunately, our legal system here in the US encourages bulk trademark infringement notices by requiring trademark holders to “protect: their trademarks by enforcing them.
I actually think Canonical handles this issue fairly well, but I would certainly be in favor of a more relaxed view of trademark infringement in our legal system. Just because something is using a word I have a trademark on doesn’t mean it is confusing anyone, whihch is the real purpose of the trademark system, at least in theory.
Ubuntu's Papercuts: Usability in Little Things
Ubuntu’s One Hundred Papercuts project seems to be progressing smoothly. On schedule, the first ten papercuts have been fixed.
Each of these bug fixes, though, is not just a bug fix. In many cases, significant attention was put into what wording to use or how large to make an object. For exmaple, when people’s unfamiliarity with the term “archive” was brought up, rather than just sticking in another unfamiliar term, real attention was put into finding the right phrasing for something most geeks find obvious but most normal people do not. That was probably the first time anyone in the Ubuntu project considered how to phrase something as small as this.
The big stuff needs attention, too, but it looks like the One Hundred Papercuts project might just bring the first real attention to the tiny details.
Remember before netbooks arrived when everyone thought MIDs would take over the world? MIDs are mobile Internet devices. They are supposed to be small computers you can carry around in your pocket, but they never really took off. Ubuntu MID edition might be able to bring them back, though.
Thanks to the iPhone, the primary value of most smartphones comes from their applications. Regardless of the controversy Apple’s app store created, it certainly changed the game for mobile devices.
Since then, we have leared about plans to make it possible to run Android applications on Ubuntu. This could give some new life to MIDs. Imagine if on your MID, in addition to doing whatever normal things you would do on a MID, you could run applications, preferably from diffferent sources. For example, this would allow you to tkae advantage of the applicatinos created for different phone systems, without having multiple devices.
Earlier I wrote about Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala planning to offer a greater and more diverse set of wallpapers. Now that a little more time has passed, here are some of the most promising wallpapers for Ubuntu 9.10:
Category: Default Wallpapers
Title: Silhouette
Author: michote
This is a very attractive wallpaper, largely due to the contrast between the foreground and the background. Hopefully, this would be distributed in two versions, one without some of the distracting background options.
Category: Default Wallpapers
Title: Tranquil Aspiration
Author: See-ming Lee
Though this might be more appropriate n the abstract section, it looks very cool. It provides a refreshing change from some of the previous abstract wallpaper Ubuntu has used, while still not being overly distracting.
Category: Abstract Wallpapers
Title: Unspecified
Author: ogalbraith
This is obviously not an entirely finished wallpaper; it is an interesting concept. It looks more default-ish than most of the wallpapers on the abstract page, but those are just the details. The art itself is quite promising.
A recent post on WorksWithU warns the new branding-ubuntu package team that, while making minor tweaks to the back of solitare cards is a fnie idea, excessive branding of everything could be a problem.
Without any question, taking credit fo the work of OpenOffice or the GIMP is a bad idea, but using this new ability to integrate other applications more effectively with Ubuntu is a great idea.
Through this new feaure, I hope that, in a few years, Ubuntu can be perfectly integrated between applications, without climing them, of course.
Software Installation on Linux: Flawed, Not Broken
Tony Mobily published an article in Free Software Magazine discussing software installation, specifically end-user software installation, on Linux, which he calls broken. I agree that the system is flawed, but it is not broken. The most important thing is that we not reinvent everything around the fragmented models that OS X and Windows use.
What about Windows and OS X?
Though many would disagree with this statement, I believe that Windows current has one of the worst software installation experiences. Every application developer creates his/her own installer, often based from one of the commercial installation tools. This means that, though some unofficial standards have developed, every installation is different. In addition, Windows software installations usually waste clicks. How often are the instructions for installing software on Windows “press next, press next, press next, press next, press install, press finish?” Then, when a new version comes out, you have to go through each application’s own updating process, leading to tons of software popping up different boxes asking if it can update itself. On top of this, very little can be done to verify software’s authenticity and applications can and do put files anywhere they like. This is not the right model to follow.
Mac OS X is the common target that Linux users point to as the “right” way to install software. Apple certainly had the right idea. You drag what looks like a single file into your applications folder to install, and you drag that file to the trash to uninstall it. That, in theory, is an excellent system, however there are a few problems. First, there is, as on Windows, little ability to verify a program’s authenticity and, for lack of a better word, working-ness. Second, while installation is easy, uninstallation is not always clean. Even on OS X, programs sometimes scatter files around the disk. This has lead to the creation of third-party commercial programs to fully uninstall OS X applications. Third, this system still doesn’t provide any unified way of updating applications. Finally, many software makers do not use the drag-and-drop installation, instead opting for a more Windows-like installation wizard. This system is much better, but is still not the right thing to imitate.
What about Linux?
Despite the many flaws, Linux actually has one of the best software installation methods, in theory. Applications can be installed via a single, standard interface listing the program’s name and a short description. Just check a box and software can be easily installed or uninstalled from a verified source, providing some level of assurance that the application will work. Most importantly, software is updated through one interface that integrates all software updates.
If the software you are looking for is not available through this interface (meaning that it is not in the repositories), you can either add the software’s repositories, allowing it to be updated along with all the other software, or you can directly install a package (for example, a .deb on Ubuntu or Debian), leaving you to update the software yourself.
All that said, though, there are a lot of flaws, such as those discussed in the FSM article referenced above:
“Users need to have root access in order to install a piece of software; no per-user installation is allowed”
The first part of that is a symptom, the second is a problem. It would be nice to be able to install applications just for one user, but this is not a problem that most people will experience, since most PCs are used by only one or two people.
“It’s very tricky to install several versions of the same piece of software. Just think of the poor graphic designer who needs to install several versions of Opera and Firefox;”
Agreed. That’s a clear flaw. (Though, to be fair, most people will not notice that either.)
“A piece of software is bound to a specific distribution, and — what’s worse — to a specific version of that distribution too. It’s not trivial to install Openoffice 3.1 on Ubuntu 8.10. You can argue that you can install the bunch of .deb packages from OpenOffice’s web site. Tell that to your grandmother or your average inexperienced computer user.”
OK, OpenOffice is notably more difficult to install than most applications thanks to it’s numerous packages, but I get the point: with a new version of many distributions coming out every 6 months, application have to be compatible from release to release. When you install from your distribution’s repositories, this is handled for you, but a better solution has to be found, since this is probably the biggest issue for developers.
As a result of this, some, mostly larger, companies are now distributing their Linux software as an installation script that handles installation on many different distros and versions. While, convenient for them, this is the wrong approach (and should be appropriately discouraged), since it leads to the Windows problem of different installers for everything and scattered files.
“The software needs to be downloaded from the official repositories. Well, it doesn’t need to, but an average user wants to stay well away from unofficial repositories for technical reasons;”
This is the biggest issue for most users. Adding repositories is unintuitive, and packages aren’t always clearly marked in terms of what distribution they are for (see above), causing confusion to new users. For this, a better way of managing installed pacakges and of adding repositories is needed.
Finally, we just need education. Half the problem here is that Linux has such a different approach than OS X and Windows, so perhaps we should make a greater effort to inform new users of this change, so they don’t get confused.
The solution
Do we need a completely new solution? Possibly, but probably not. The current system is pretty good with two exceptions:
- Applications have to be compatible across distributions and versions and use one package format (even if that format is just a wrapper for the appropriate .deb or .rpm)
- Installation of applications that are not in the repositories has to be much smoother.
I think that everyone can agree that a serious effort to improve software installation on Linux would make a huge difference in day-to-day Linux usage, particularly for newbies. I am optimistic that we might get some real attention to this issue, allowing it to be resolved in a way that doesn’t imitate any other OS, but rather does it better than any other OS.
Clutter, a library that is designed to make it easier for applicatio developers to integrate OpenGL into thier applications, is approaching their 1.0 release.
It’s important that a library like this hit a stable release, since most developers will not want to write code that depends of rapidly-changing software, so I am glad to see 1.0 coming up soon. Clutter is also a particularly important library, since it makes it much easier to create amazing visual effects within applications, potentially imporving the quality of applications significantly.
I hope that Clutter’s development continues rapidly, since a library like this might be just what is needed to create awesome applications for the Linux desktop.
You Don't Win By Being The Same
You don’t win by being the same; you win by being better – often many times better. Particularly when the competitor is well established, you have to be far better to win, so even if users are more comfortable with a desktop that looks just like Windows, Linux still has to keep innovating.
If Linux is going to get anywhere as far as the average guy is concerned, it can’t be a little stabler, a little securer, and a little easier. It has to be ten times better in every way. Constantly changing pieces of the desktop is not the way to get people comfortable with something, but it is the way to get ahead. Yes, we need distributions that stick to the tried and true, of which many exist, but we also need distributions on the bleeding edge discovering a new desktop that will be 10 times better than anything else in a few years.
Given the choice between changing too fast and not changing, changing too fast is clearly the better option, since it sets up the next move, instead of leaving you behind.
It may not be Linux-related, but this is just not right. You may have heard of Jamie Thomas’s trial a while ago. She is being accused of infringing on the copyrights of 24 songs, by sharing them with a P2P service. I have no idea if this is guilty or not, but the fine is simply too much : $80,000 for every song.
Most songs are legally avaliable for $0.99, making the fine (obviously) more than 80,000 times the cost of the song. While I understand the logic of making fines slightly higher the real damage to the copyright-holder, 80,000+ times higher is a little extreme. And $80,000 isn’t the total fine, it’s the fine for each song. $80,000 times 24 songs is about $1.92 million.
I don’t care how good (or bad) the songs she downloaded were, they were not worth $1.92 million. Luckily, it seems doubtful that the RIAA would really collect, since it would be such bad press for them, but this ruling is worrying.