This Week's "Linux on the Desktop" Debate

(image courtesy Sarah Caulfield)

The subject of whether there's any future (or present, for that matter) in the notion of "Linux on the desktop" as something that "regular end-users" might want to take up has been discussed in a variety of places this past week. I put my two cents in over on my other blog (and this is "GNOME-related", so I don't want any whining).

The situation, as I see it, is that, even if Linux isn't "dead on the desktop", if it were, it would scarcely make a ripple on the awareness of most users of personal computers.

The reasons why things got to this point, and why we can expect the same in the mobile space—more Android and webOS and the like on phones and tablets and such, but scarcely any user-visible "community developed-and-maintained" open source—in the foreseeable future are really pretty basic as I see it.

Most of this is not appreciably different to things I've said at "GNOME Mobile" meetings and on the gnome-marketing list. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you always got.

Bob's "Eye Candy" Presentation

Last Saturday afternoon, I gave Bob Murphy's presentation on "Eye Candy for Linux-based Mobile Devices". The talk was well-attended and, apparently, well-received, and I thank everyone who came.

I've posted a PDF of the slides as well as the (11.4MB, be forewarned) video I presented on my web server, so feel free to pull them down if you want copies. I'll post a PDF of Bob's paper as soon as the Linux Symposium opens later next week: I think they have the right of first publication here...

On that note, now that I'm back from Istanbul, I'm heading right out again this coming Sunday on a two continent, three city two-week tour. I'll be at OSCON from Sunday morning through Tuesday, then up in Ottawa for the Linux Symposium (Bob will be presenting there) from the 23rd through the 26th, at which point I'm off to Amsterdam for a week for LiMo Foundation meetings. If you're going to be in any of those places any of those times, let me know. I've already made a reservation for dinner at my favorite restaurant in Ottawa, Sweetgrass...

Also, it seems that editing postings, at least on Blogger, moves them up again in the syndication on Planet; sorry for the inconvenience, I'll try to get it right the first time in the future...