OpenSource Train Wrecks, No. 1

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Here's a two-fer. The first one I found in a Maemo entry of all things, which linked to a video showing just how bad the OpenMoko UI is on basic usability tasks. You have to see this video to believe it. The video was posted in response to the Free Software Foundation's bullshit posting "5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G". I won't even comment on how the FSF's title is a wonderfully entertaining grammatical train wreck in its own right, and only helps to contribute to the uniquely lame posture of the FSF. And, of course, the FSF screed linked to the FreeRunner. You know, if you're going to call out somebody like Apple and then have the stones to offer an alternative, you better make damn sure it's at least the equal to the iPhone, or else the world is going to point and laugh at your painfully lame alternative.

The second example of an OpenSource train wreck comes courtesy of the fine folks at Linux Hater's. In this example Epileptic Gaming installed Yellow Dog onto a Playstation 3 to answer the question of "whether or not it makes sense to install Linux on your Playstation 3." Short answer: hell no. But I'll let you play the video and enjoy the fun.



This isn't FUD, folks, This is plain old fashion ugly truth. Whether it's on the desktop or on some device, Linux has serious shortcomings that other operating systems have already solved and solved well. As long as more time and effort are put into the ideology of open source, especially the GNU side of it than the technology, then the technology will suffer and fall further and further behind.

Comments

  1. liamNovember 07, 2008

    Alot of the problems with a Linux based platform are not with the kernel, but the hardware access. Given that I have no idea why Sony encouraged the YDL distro but then didn't allow full use of the entire hardware. The last time I checked in on the development of mythtv for the PS3 the devs were reporting that they weren't allowed access complete access to the graphics card thus all you get is a frame buffer. The ppc core is adequate for management purposes but falls flat as a primary execution engine. So that leaves you with the SPUs, IIRC, which are not fun to program for and are not a substitute for a graphics card.
    So these really aren't issues that any distro can easily overcome.
    Also, please stop the kernel hating: blame either the DE people or the hardware people. It's really easy if you have the market share to force hardware makers to build their equipment around your OS(drivers, I should really say, but also true regarding ACPI), or you control both the hardware and software stack.
    As for Apple, they make beautiful products, but they cost too much IMO.
    Nokia has done a really nice job with the N800, especially given the limited hardware relative to the iphone, and the diablo release of maemo made it even zippier IMHO.
    Sorry for the Joyceian post, but I came across your site, read several of your posts and had to respond to this one.

    ReplyDelete

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