Xoke.org

… but I'm going to have to comment on the latest piece by Bwyan.  No I'm not going to spell his name right so google can find it.  But the 'comic book' guy.  You know who I mean.

He did a talk at the LinuxFest North West entitled 'Linux Sucks".  Just to try to enrage people to turning up by using that title.  He basically says there are some issues with Linux and here is how to fix (some of) them.

I watched it (it's on his website if you want to look) and have some thoughts on what he said.  I tried to make notes on everything he said, although I skipped the Q&A at the end.  Onwards!

• Projector Issues.  First up, the projector doesn't work right and he needs help from someone else.  He goes on about how he tested it but then says "hey it was working at home".  That is NOT testing it.  Even if you bring your own projector (which I doubt – someone in the audience said it was giving issues to everyone) you STILL test when you set up at the new place.  You try to get in the room 15 minutes early or so and set up in readyness.  Maybe that's just me, but if he codes the same way I don't want any of his stuff because he'll just tell you it works on his home machine!
• OO Issues.  He asks if anyone has had an issue and fixed it with Open Office.  Only two people say they have, so he says everyone else must therefor think Linux and OO suck.  That is a non-sequitor.  I haven't fixed anything in OO, but then again I so rarely use it.  When I do it's just to open a Microsoft Office doc my mother has sent me.  So I don't have any issues with it so I don't NEED to fix it.  I have no itch, so I don't scratch it.  He did not ask how many people in the room even use OO, and of that how many have a problem with it and of those ask how many fixed a problem.  So you can't use the statistics for anything.  I think this is specious reasoning.
• Kernal Issues.  Kernel updates bork NVidia drivers.  Yes we know.  They won't release the source, just a binary that has to have some weird compile for each new kernel version.  Some woman in the crowd complained about every month when a new kernel comes out it messes her up at work for a couple of days.  Why the hell are you downloading and installing software without testing it at work then?  Get a test environment set up and test the damn software, just like everyone should do for Microsoft.  It's a business, and things do break sometimes.  You have the one piece of hardware this update doesn't work on, or similar, and it breaks your stuff.  Test it first!  Yes I would love not having the NVidia issues.  But this is also NVidia's problem and not purely a linux issue.
• XOrg Issues.  He calls it old and clunky.  Then admits they know it is and are fixing it.  Why is this an issue then?  Because they haven't fixed it yet?
• Kernel and Xorg update issues.  Then don't update!  Of course you won't have any security fixes either, but you don't have to update the second an update happens.  Why do people always bitch about the new stuff breaking things.  Then don't update and don't get the new stuff and keep something that works.  Windows users haven't all updated to vista just because it's out, and many have paid to downgrade just to keep the old one that works.  Then keep the old one.  It doesn't cost either way in linux.  If you are going to always update then yes there will be issues.  Whenever you get the latest and greatest there will be.  Give it some time for the bugs to be ironed out and then upgrade.
• Hardware issues.  Can't drop support of hardware apparently.  Actually I'm not aware of anything that has been dropped.  I know my NVidia driver is old and NVidia themselves have stopped support of it so the linux drivers are just repackages of older ones basically, but I've never heard of something that was dropped and suddenly didn't work for people.  Windows does do this though all the time.  Mrs Xoke has a scanner that she has never used.  She had a machine with Win 2000 or something on it that got spyware infected.  She ended up getting a new computer (long story there) with XP and now the scanner doesn't have XP drivers.  I tried it out under Linux thinking I could get it working easily however the power has gone dead on it.  Either the power supply or a wire somewhere.  I've not heard of anyone complaing how a scanner worked in Ubuntu 8.10 but was dropped in 9.04.  Yes sometimes things get broken (see above) but they get fixed again.  It was never broken on purpose because they dropped support.
• Package Issues.  Yes there are too many types of packages out there.  Yes it is a hassle for developers making each one.  I would love to have a single type of package management out there, but of course I would want it to be deb files.  Try and get everyone to agree on what type of package though and I don't think you will.
• Audio Issues.  He goes on about how we a good audio editor.  He doesn't mention Ardour here (although he does a lot later on in the Q&A).  But in the Linux way of if you have an itch then scratch it why on earth didn't he make an audio editor or improve an existing one instead of making a comic book reader!  One word though – Bounties.  See after this all for my final thoughts for more info here.
• Video Issues.  Yes we need a good video editor.  He doesn't give any solutions.  I do.  Bounties! (See below again).
• "The current open source development model has failed to deliver these advanced and neccersary tools".  I believe that is a direct quote from him.  He follows this up with "This is just simply true".  Well glad you explained that one.  Yes there are some gaps.  Considering how much has been done shows the open source development model does work.  It could be improved, as everything could.  That is what the bounties is for (See below).
• What you can do on Linux is less then mid-90s Windows and Macs. Err… do I even have to argue against that one?  Mid 90s, so Windows 95?  I can plug a USB device in and it gets detected which Windows 95 didn't do (that was Win 98 SE I believe).
• "We need to fund these apps".  Yes I agree.  That is what the bounties are for.  It doesn't have to be commercial software!
• "We need photoshop".  Why?  You say that there are all these people that will only run photoshop, but they are going to jump onto the linux bandwagon if there was a linux version?  Rubbish.  Yes there must be some Linux geeks out there that also use photoshop, but I don't believe that all these companies that are running Windows and Photoshop are just itching to move over to linux but can't because of photoshop.  If they are that ingrained that they have to use photoshop I imagine they will only use windows either becaue they don't want to learn / try something else.  Also given that you are blowing a grand or whatever the current cost for the top of the line photoshop is, the extra cost of a windows license isn't that much more!  Yes I would like to see photoshop on linux, just because it gives more credibility to Linux as the big Adobe company is doing stuff there.  But I don't believe we will gain widespread adoption overnight just because photoshop gets ported!
• Funding issues.  Various things mentioned here, none of which I disagree with (yes they are funding methods – can't argue with that).  But I want to add the bounties on there.  And please stop saying "Developers need to eat".  So does everyone.  Bounties is one way of offering this and a very good one I believe.

Now a lot of these issues can be fixed by bounties.  I have mentioned bounties before.  If you don't know, go read up on them.  But they will fix a lot of these issues.  The others I have tried to redress myself.  The upshot is, I understand what Bwyan is trying to do, but I completely disagree.  I think he is very self-centered here, thinking he is the only person that knows how to fix these problems.  Get over yourself and accept other people have cool ideas.  Yes, say that you don't like this or that, or this could be improved.  Admit if you aren't sure how to do something.  I would respect you for that.  Coming across like you are the only person that knows how to fix it makes me think you're just an arrogant prick just out for the publicity.  It reminds me of David Icke all over again (just google if you don'y know).