de Icaza: Rest of World Will Force US Into Linux 886
Eugenia writes "OSNews had an interesting discussion with Miguel de Icaza about all things Linux and Novell. Miguel talked about the general patent problem and how this will become the one single stumbling block of widespread adoption of Linux in USA, while he asserts that Longhorn uses some 'new' technologies already found on Gnome and elsewhere. Miguel believes that poor countries will be the first that will adopt widely Linux, and as long the EU won't adopt a similar system to US for patents, Europe will follow soon after, leaving no option to USA but to eventually adopt Linux as well in the long run (despite potential patent problems). Another strategy Miguel discussed was about moving as many F/OSS applications as possible to Windows in order to familiarize the casual users with open source. Among many other interesting tidbits he also mentions that Quark is now using Mono on Mac OS X." Of course, the EU not adopting software patents seems to be less and less likely.
Re:it's up to everyone else, not us... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Havn't I heard this before? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but unlike the Metric system, Linux offers actual benefits.
Linux benefits: Free, open, stable, secure, easily modifiable. Saves billions of dollars and reduces dependence on single vendor.
Metric benefits: Measures everything relative to a single lump of iridium kept in Paris and on the incorrect original French calculation of the size of the earth. Good if you really like the number 10... except for time... and angles.
See, the metric system's benefits, while of course they are great, aren't really as compelling, commercially.
(Let the metric system advocacy commence!)
Re:EU software patents. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uh huh... (Score:1, Informative)
Gut reaction (Score:4, Informative)
First, I will admit that I didn't RTFA yet, so let's get that out of the way. Mod me down if you don't like it.
That said, I would say that the US is unlikely to adapt a standard just because the rest of the world has. Witness:
The European Union is not "Europe" (Score:3, Informative)
The "European Union" is not yet "Europe": about half of the European countries, and more than half of European territory are not even part of the EU.
Re:EU software patents. (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, most of the people in the Parliament directly responsible for this directive were pro-software patents (as the whole purpose was to legalise software patents, and not "clarification" and "harmonisation" like the Commission claims). Let's hope indeed the next Parliament will be ready to show its teeth if we can't get the Council to reconsider.
PS: Here's the whole codecision procedure [caliu.info] in pseudo-java. I wonder whether this means that the "underlying principles and processes" of it should be patentable as well...
Re:The European Union is not "Europe" (Score:5, Informative)
The EU is now 450 million people, just two weeks ago it was 380 million. In 3 years it will be 480 million when Romania and Bulgaria join. Then it will be just Switzerland, Norway, the Balkans. I suspect Russia will never join and it be a good few years before Belarus and Ukraine join.
In 50 years the EU is going to be a unified superpower and the EU and Europe will be synonymous. Hopefully they won't forget the reason for it existing in the first place.
Re:Worrying reliance on OSS (Score:3, Informative)
But someone who uses Firefox, Thunderbird/fox/whatever, OO.o, Gimp, etc on Windows will have a MUCH lower barrier to switching away from Windows when the time comes. Suddenly that Windows upgrade may just turn into a Linux install with all their daily apps pre-configured.
Ah, not the largest market anymore. (Score:3, Informative)
There will be a couple of years of turbulence as the economies are integrated but unless the US swallows Canada and Mexico it's going to be playing second fiddle in the mid future.
who says? (Score:3, Informative)
I think there is just a few faulty assumptions here, as well as some mis-applied logic. For example, "MS is evil" is a subjective opinion, and not really fact. If it wasn't for MS and windows, I don't think computers would be quite as widespread as they are now. "The US will follow the rest of the world", while at times they should be doing what the rest of the world is doing, the US will do what it wants, for better or worse (proof: metric system, Iraq)
Re:Do not underestimate the EU (Score:3, Informative)
European Union GDP $: 11.50 trillion Per Capita $: 25,300 Pop: 454,900,000
United States GDP $: 10.40 trillion Per Capita $: 37,600 Pop: 290,343,000
Re:The European Union is not "Europe" (Score:3, Informative)
Europe has been plagued by war for thousands of years, each more bloody than the last, the First World War, largely played out on the battlefields of Europe killed millions, on an industrial scale, 9 million soldiers and 7 million civillians are the estimates. The Second World War was even worse.
Wikipedia has a good article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_
Re:The European Union is not "Europe" (Score:3, Informative)
It's all going very quickly at the moment. Too quickly, it feels like a railroad and people don't like being railroaded. The UK won't withdraw, but the constitution will be rejected if we get a vote. The Eurocrats will have to wait.
Give it 10 years, the ink hasn't even dried on the Euro notes yet.
Oh, and it'd be the bloody Balkans again.
Re:Gut reaction (Score:2, Informative)
OK.
>2. American football evolved because people got tired of the numerous injuries caused by rugby and the colleges changed the game to be less dangerous to players.
Wimps.
>3. We adopted the 8.5" x 11" letter format long before the A4 paper format was standardized. Mind you, today's printers and word processing programs can handle the A4 format with no problems.
Most of the time on Windows the printer settings keep reverting back to Letter no matter how much you try and change the default to A4 (in a badly admin'd Windows shop). I never understood why when you install Windows and tell it you are in the UK it still defaults to Letter format and Eastern Standard Time.
>4. NTSC color was adopted due to the need to be backward-compatible with black and white TV sets in the 1950's. The Europeans never considered black and white compatibility with older sets when PAL and SECAM color was developed in the 1960's.
PAL is fully B/W compatible and AFAIK SECAM is too. PAL is very similar to NTSC but with an enhancement so you don't need a "tint" control. That and the increased resolution. Shame about the lower frame rate though...
Also, NTSC happened first over a decade before PAL was available in the UK.
SECAM? No comment other than I don't know why they did it.
Re:The money's moving (Score:5, Informative)
I think you have the direction of dependency reversed. The Economist, among other sources, regularly bemoans the fact that the world is far too dependent on being able to export to the US, the "consumer of last resort". If the US were to abruptly cut its imports by enough to eliminate its trade deficit, there would be some pain; but the economies of countries like China and Korea would suffer far more.
At the present time, the US economy is just about ten times the size of the Chinese economy. Assuming that China can outgrow the US by five percentage points per year (say 8% growth to 3%), it will take 48 years for China to "catch up". And the Chinese government is already trying to scale back their current growth rate, realizing that it is not sustainable. China may be the next big market, but it will be a long time before that market is comparable in size to the US.
Unfortunately, we may all get a chance in a few years to see what happens when the US has to make big cuts in its spending habits. The US consumer "engine" appears to be driven by debt, both public and private, and the situation will have to change.
Re:Do not underestimate the EU (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Evolution Win32 (Slightly OT) (Score:1, Informative)
As a parent poster above stated, it would require the porting of all of GNOME (well, all the GNOME libs) before you could even begin porting Evolution itself, and that will not be a trivial task as it is very unix-centric.
Good luck to anyone porting it, cuz it sure won't be me.