Breaking this Site, Jacob Nielsen’s Opinions on Platforms

(By Liam McDermott not Megan McDermott)

I’m blaming Plesk! It’s like the Windows of control panels, not allowing you to do anything for yourself. So when I needed to move meganjack.com over to meganmcdermott.com (and our server manages domains like they’re users) all I did was rename some directories, it worked. Unfortunately Plesk associates databases with domains, so when I deleted the old directory Plesk also deleted the databases associated with meganjack.com.

Doesn’t make sense, I know: you had to be there.

If anything, I think that Apple will make leaps and bounds in the coming years due to the iPod being so popular

(Quoted from Adam K. in Megan’s post on the broken site and patform indepdendence).

There’s a saying that’s applicable here: ‘Takes one to know one.’

I am a Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) fan-boy, as a result I can smell fan-boyisms from 2 miles away (am like a fan-boy bloodhound). That comment reeks of fan-boyism! The iPod does little to nothing for the Mac range, as it works perfectly well under Windows and GNU+Linux. Providing no incentive for users to switch.

Hopefully, if anything, cross platform problems will go away because Microsoft, Apple, and the Gnome/KDE guys will finally sit down and agree on common layers.

Unfortunately, the more success Apple gets, the more proprietary lockins Steve Jobs wants to introduce.

The only thing holding-up for the Apple OS is that it’s based on BSD. Which I believe adheres to the POSIX standard, and its browser is based upon KDEs KHTML layout engine. Anyway, Apple isn’t so relevant to the talk about standards because Steve can’t be arsed–more on this later).

As for Microsoft and standards, they hate and despise open standards almost as much as they hate and despise FLOSS (according to Ballmer users of ‘Linux’ owe Microsoft money for: ‘intellectual property’). The company is not only trying to scam the ISO (who’re an internationally renowned and respected standards agency), but gave the EC the run-around for almost 3 years over releasing information on some of their protocols (so competitors could integrate their products). Pretty scary when you consider this commission represents 27 whole countries, that’s how much power Microsoft has (and that 3 years was after they were convicted and went through a subsequent appeal).

On the subject of Microsoft not sitting down with GNOME/KDE people: Microsoft have leaked memos stating how scared of Free software they are. I’ve pasted some quotes in below (OSS means Open Source Software in MS speak by the way, FUD means Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt–one of MS’ favourite tactics):

OSS is long-term credible … FUD tactics can not be used to combat it.

OSS poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to Microsoft, particularly in server space. Additionally, the intrinsic parallelism and free idea exchange in OSS has benefits that are not replicable with our current licensing model and therefore present a long term developer mindshare threat.

Microsoft will (and has been) using a lack of interoperability in order to stop FLOSS working with it’s products. It wants exactly the opposite of open standards and has deliberately put itself on a collision course with GNU+Linux and Free software in general. On Microsofts own terms, the result of that collision will be the complete destruction of one or the other entity.

Steve Ballmer:

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches

No-one (in the community) really had a problem with Microsoft until they started attacking FLOSS, unfortunately it seems most FLOSS developers now view Microsoft as a bug. When Free software developers find bugs, they squash them.

Linus Torvalds:

Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

I think we can safely discount any possibility of those three parties co-operating together!

The comment by Jacob Nielson that:

cross platform issues will ‘go away’ because Apple usage will decline.

Is he talking about software or hardware here? If he’s talking about the PPC platform then the argument’s moot as Mac have switched to Intel.

If he’s talking about software platform, then he really is talking rubbish! The desktop is a two horse race: Linux Vs. Windows. Mac could be involved, but ultimately Steve Jobs can’t be arsed. Apple are a creator of chic, well designed, upmarket consumer goods: by design they are not meant for the or the enterprise, or the masses.

If Mr Nielson thinks the entire developing world is going to be using Windows, then his research has not covered the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. In 2007 OLPC aims to deploy 5 million laptops to children across the developing world. This is the largest deployment of computers ever, an increase of 10% to worldwide laptop sales for the year, with a final (not by 2007) aim of getting computers to 50% of the worlds population. The software platform is Linux. This is also a scheme Bill Gates mocked, now Microsoft want to commandeer the project.

Then consider the report commissioned by the EC recently which concludes:

‘Our findings show that, in almost all the cases, a transition toward open source reports of savings on the long term costs of ownership of the software products.’

See the international governments moving to GNU+Linux. View this recent report that Governments are reaching a ‘tipping point’ with Open Source. Clearly international goverments are interested in the more open and distributed development model of Open Source Vs. proprietary, trusting all their work to a single US-based company. If you were a decision maker in a government (outside the US), would you want to entrust your systems to a company that gets ‘assistance’ from the US National Security Agency?

I believe Mr Nielsons claims to be naive at best, does he even know GNU+Linux exists?

Posted in General, Software Post a comment

Comments RSS