off topic, yet on

Evan Leibovitch evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org
Wed May 6 16:35:05 UTC 2009


Peter wrote:
> Thanks all, I get the idea. I will d/l using windows. The i.d. section includes
> the question 'what is your primary platform: windows/windows/windows/other'. I
> was honest about that and chose other, apparently that's where the
> cross-platform friendliness stops. I wonder how they intend to let users of
> other platforms beta test their newest product ? (o, wait, they only like paying
> beta testers, don't need the freebie ones ...)
>   

I guess they assume that all the defections between Windows and
Apple/Linux are one-way. :-)

Honestly.... if you're already using Linux or MacOS, how could Win7 --
by all accounts a tidied-up version of Vista -- make you want to go back?

Win7 is just the latest milestone on the Linux treadmill ... they could
have simply enhanced XP but that wouldn't have driven much upgrade
sales. And unless Win7 is cheaper than Vista, it'll be a good bit more
expensive than XP was.

As the cloud is becoming more important, the browser is increasingly
seen as an application platform and the OS becomes less relevant, I
think people are pushing back on the neverending cycle of Windows upgrades.

And I think it's also important to note that the increasing irrelevancy
of the desktop OS also has implications for Linux. By the time the Linux
desktop becomes fully ready for mainstream acceptance, the desktop OS
may not matter. I predict that the most popular Linux client OS will be
Android, which will eventually out deploy all conventional distributions
combined. It's only a matter of time before we start seeing
Android-based netbooks and then watch out...

Also consider the future of the GPL, given that GPLd applications
running in the cloud don't need to release source. I have a funny
feeling that the GPL3 may also become irrelevant after a very brief
lifespan, as the FSF increasingly starts pushing the Affero GPL as its
license of choice. I suspect that the GPL3 (without the Affero clauses
about cloud use) may eventually be deprecated by the FSF just as the
LGPL is now.

In other words, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Affero GPL mutates
into *the* (FSF-definitive and recommended) GPL4 far sooner than people
expect.

- Evan

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