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Cutting Through the Windows 7 Hype
I don’t understand it. When it comes to Windows, everything either sucks or is the best thing in the world according to the press. There seems to be no intermediate point, despite the fact that that is where most Windows releases would fit. Recently, I have been getting very tired of anything with the words “Windows 7,” “killer,” and “linux,” no matter what order those appear in.
I am using the beta now in a virtual machine and, to be honest, there is not a lot of changes. Sure, Microsoft messed with the taskbar some (I don’t like it, but I’ll leave that to you to judge), made some networking improvements, fixed the messed-up UAC, and added a few more desktop effects (some useful, such as moving windows to the side of the screen to make them cover half the screen, and some annoying, like strange colors floating all around your taskbar in place of standard, subtle effects), but the truth is that only one feature from Windows 7 is likely to have a major effect (and of course PR): performance.
Performance in really important, but it is really just a bug fix. It’s pathetic that Vista had the poor performance that it did. Now they fixed it. Now we can move on.
The fundamental daily annoyances of using Windows have simply not changed. Here is what is still true:
- It still blue screens. (Yep, I can confirm that – I returned to the VM while it was booting up from a hard shutdown to see the end of a blue screen followed by a reboot).
- It still treats you like a baby and nags you about turning on automatic updates.
- It still is susceptible to malware.
- It still lacks any form of multiple desktops.
Windows 7 will probably be a good release as far as I am concerned, if only for the performance improvement. It just won’t be the ground breaking, new, and amazing release that some people say it will be. What do you think?
How The Linux World Can Achieve The Apple Hype Without Succumbing To Secrecy
Love it or hate it, Apple has managed to build a loyal following, hype up every product launch and update, and pull far more press coverage than most companies would dream of. Unfortunately, all of this comes at a price that many, particularly the Linux community, are not willing to pay: secrecy. Secrecy means hiding your products until the release day. Secrecy means taking no input from the outside if you can help it. Secrecy is everything that free, libre, open-source software stands against in one word.
Is there no hope, then, to achieve the same hype Apple gets within the world of free software? No, it is possible. The hype Apple receives does not, in my opinion, inherently derive from the secrecy. In fact, most of Apple’s hype comes from the event and Jobs’ ability to excite the audience. Now, you might be saying that there are lots of Linux events out there already. Does a presenter like Jobs come up on stage and discuss only the most amazing bling features of Linux at any of these events? I didn’t think so.
What can the Linux world do, then? I believe that an annual conference of the most interesting people from the free software community doing the most interesting things from an end-user and bling perspective should be put together. Each speaker could be selected by an online voting process. Chosen speakers should then be given some coaching by experts on what to present and how best to present it. I don’t want anyone up there talking about how their project works with X.Org or how the project’s code is designed.
During the event, each speaker would be given a slot to:
- Demonstrate the cool features of their project
- Briefly describe the near future of their project
- And present their plan for the long term future and direction of their project
Additionally, some influential people in the community might be invited to give their overall vision of the future of Linux and open-source software.
This event would give press a place to focus their attention, provide users with a place to learn about and see the coolest projects in the open-source world, and generally build the hype that Apple enjoys around Linux and open-source software, all without sacrificing a bit of openness.