Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 11:40:44 +0200 From: Lars Engels <lars.engels@0x20.net> To: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@mail.turbofuzz.com> Cc: Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com>, hackers@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market Message-ID: <20140401094044.GX44074@e-new.0x20.net> In-Reply-To: <A70900DF-4BAA-427F-8731-01211FFD1887@mail.turbofuzz.com> References: <CAF6rxgkeBozvfV-L0%2BrFZ6fWRn0=Gi3BNq1kPL=-HTq0TD6MkQ@mail.gmail.com> <A70900DF-4BAA-427F-8731-01211FFD1887@mail.turbofuzz.com>
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--yKmnPmKxJBqIz68t Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 12:11:19PM +0500, Jordan Hubbard wrote: >=20 > On Apr 1, 2014, at 10:46 AM, Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> wrote: >=20 > > That is why on this date I propose that we cease competing on the > > desktop market. FreeBSD should declare 2014 to be "year of the Linux > > desktop" and start to rip out the pieces of the OS not needed for > > server or embedded use. > >=20 > > Some of you may point to PCBSD and say that we have a chance, but I > > must ask you: how does one flavor stand up to the thousands in the > > Linux world? >=20 > The fact that this posting comes out on April 1st makes me wonder if > it=E2=80=99s just an elaborate April Fool=E2=80=99s joke, but then the no= tion of *BSD > (or Linux, for that matter) on the Desktop is just another > long-running April fool=E2=80=99s joke, so I=E2=80=99m willing to postula= te that two > April Fools jokes would simply cancel each other out and make this > posting a serious one again. :-) >=20 > I=E2=80=99ll choose to be serious and say what I=E2=80=99m about to say i= n spite of > the fact that I work for the primary sponsor of PC-BSD and actually > like the fact that it has created some interesting technologies like > PBIs, the Jail Warden, Life-preserver and a ZFS boot environment menu. >=20 > There is no such thing as a desktop market for *BSD or Linux. There > never has been and there never will be. Why do you think we chose > =E2=80=9Cthe power to serve=E2=80=9D as FreeBSD=E2=80=99s first marketing= slogan? It makes a > fine server OS and it=E2=80=99s easy to defend its role in the server roo= m. > It=E2=80=99s also becoming easier to defend its role as an embedded OS, w= hich > is another excellent niche to pursue and I am happy to see all the > recent developments there. >=20 > A desktop? Unless you consider Mac OS X to be =E2=80=9CBSD on the deskto= p=E2=80=9D > (and while they share some common technologies, it=E2=80=99s increasingly= a > stretch to say that), it=E2=80=99s just never going to happen for (at lea= st) > the following reasons: >=20 > 1. Power. As you point out, being truly power efficient is a complete > top-to-bottom engineering effort and it takes a lot more than just > trying to idle the processor whenever possible to achieve that. You > need to optimize all of the hot-spot routines in the system for power > efficiency (which actually involves a fair amount of micro > architecture knowledge), you need a kernel scheduler that is power > management aware, you need a process management system that runs as > few things as possible and knows how to schedule things during package > wake-up intervals, you need timers to be coalesced at the level where > applications consume them, the list just goes on and on. It=E2=80=99s a = lot > of engineering work, and to drive that work you also need a lot of > telemetry data and people with big sticks running around hitting > people who write power-inefficient code. FreeBSD has neither. >=20 > 2. Multimedia. A real end-user=E2=80=99s desktop is basically one big UI= for > watching things, listening to things, and running apps. A decent > audio / video subsystem is just one part of the picture, and one that > has always been really weak - entire engineering teams can spend years > working on codecs, performance optimizations, low and guaranteed > latency support for audio I/O, etc. What=E2=80=99s worse, the bar is only > being raised. You want to be part of the next wave of folks who can > author and edit content for the new 4K video standard? Not on FreeBSD > or Linux, you=E2=80=99re not. >=20 > 3. Applications. A desktop without real and useful applications is > not a desktop, it=E2=80=99s just an empty display surface. Sure, there a= re > users out there who are happy with just a mail client, a web browser > and maybe a calendaring app, but those users are also arguably even > better candidates for Chrome or other simplified environments where > all of that simply happens in a fancy web browser and you get things > like =E2=80=9Csoftware updates=E2=80=9D and cloud integration essentially= for free > since it=E2=80=99s all just one cohesive picture there. The ability to s= olve > those user=E2=80=99s needs very simply makes them ripe targets for the web > application delivery platforms. >=20 > For the other folks who want to do fancier stuff like mix audio, edit > videos or even just play mainstream 3D games that were actually > published sometime in the last year, they=E2=80=99ll use a real desktop O= S and > won't even bother looking at one of the free ones because guess what, > the free ones just can=E2=80=99t do those things, or do them badly enough= that > their users feel like they=E2=80=99re perpetually living in a kind of > self-selected ghetto. Metaphorically speaking, sleeping on the floor > in a sleeping bag in your one-room apartment is fine when you=E2=80=99re > young, but as you get older, you want to be more comfortable and have > a real bed in a real house! >=20 > Those are just three reasons. There are lots more, not least of which > among them is the fact that it=E2=80=99s damn hard even just to *create* > significant applications with the weak-ass APIs that *BSD and Linux > provide. You have to stitch together some Frankenstein collection of > libraries out of ports (or linux packages) and then hope the whole > pile of multi-=E2=80=9Cvendor" bits will sort of work together, which of > course they rarely do because they were written by several hundred > different people with no mandate to interoperate. >=20 > April fool=E2=80=99s joke? Yes, the desktop has always been one in the O= SS > space. It=E2=80=99s a lousy OSS problem to try and solve because all the > hardest parts are things nobody wants to do for free, and there=E2=80=99s= no > money to be made just providing the OS (even Ubuntu, the current > leader, seems to have =E2=80=9Cpledge drives=E2=80=9D every other week). >=20 > - Jordan I'm a happy FreeBSD desktop user since 4.7. There are some edges, but I really like that I can can create a desktop the way _I_ want it and my mail client even allows me to break lines at 80 chars. Eat that, Apple Mail! ;-) --yKmnPmKxJBqIz68t Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (FreeBSD) iKYEARECAGYFAlM6iZxfFIAAAAAALgAoaXNzdWVyLWZwckBub3RhdGlvbnMub3Bl bnBncC5maWZ0aGhvcnNlbWFuLm5ldDE3RkMwOEUxNUUwOUJEMjE0ODlFMjA1MDI5 Q0U3NURBQzBGNzY5RjgACgkQKc512sD3afhPMQCdFCh7dzFdsZkqmKiWPl4uAh/Q r60AoL+0TOUnX5i+jRw0fFdggmsgaTog =s2T1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --yKmnPmKxJBqIz68t--
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