Interesting Links for 31-08-2012

[andrewducker]

• What Killed the Linux Desktop
  (tags: linux software operatingsystems )
• Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes. Huzzah for censorship!
  (tags: apple censorship usa military )
• Antarctic may host hundreds of billions of tons of methane.
  (tags: antarctic methane globalwarming )
• Why Johnny can’t stream: How video copyright went

Comments

[steer]

Ooops -- *blush* you are correct. I picked up the wrong thing from the article. I think we've been barking up the wrong tree quite loudly with this discussion. :-)

Hmm... it's a very tricky one. The changes in sound architecture were a real pain... a real gigantic pain... for about two years I reckon from OSS->ALSA and about one until pulseaudio was good. But that was quite some time ago now.

He's right -- it's a big problem or has been in the past and probably will be again. At the moment you can pretty much rely I think on openGL graphics and pulseaudio sound (95% or more of userbase). As an application developer that's OK I think.

Likely Ubuntu will move from x.org to wayland -- and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not sure if that will affect devs.

The issues he gets at in his article "working audio, PDF viewers, working video drivers, codecs for watching movies" well... the audio was a nightmare and it was as he points out a library stability issue. No idea what he's getting at with PDF viewers. Acrobat is crap but it's crap on windows too and it's not the default on most linux. Video drivers and movie codecs are legal issues not stability issues. (They work but you need to click on the "I really want to do this" button.)

[andrewducker]

I'm equally as guilty. I posted something, only half-remembered it the next day, and rather than going back to first principles decided to pick holes in what you were saying. Not a _great_ argument technique!

[steer]

I did read the whole article but sort of speed read the step from "kernel programmers" to library/userspace stuff so I thought he was advocating the idea that a stable kernel API would fix things... his other points are not so bad.