Ryan Gordon Is Fed Up, FatELF Is Likely Dead

[misiu_mp]

The sad news is Linux _has_ a default installer, and it's called auto-config.

1. Its not part of most standard (l)user-oriented installations.
2. Isnt it for compiling and installing from source? This whole discussion is about commercial, binary-only, third-party software.
Can auto-config be used to just install binaries?
3. Even if it can - it is quite complex. Especially compared to a simple startup script.
4. Having said that, it is capable of installing 'the linux way' - into the /usr tree just like a package manager would.

[yotambien]

I'm still trying to figure out why I need all this 'consumer oriented closed source software'. The only closed-source software I have on my non-embedded Linux boxes are a couple of drivers and some Windows software that runs in Wine, which I don't really use anymore because I found open source methods of doing the same things.

[...]

One of the worst things about Windows is that all this 'consumer oriented closed source software' requires you to download it from random web sites, trust that it's not spyware, run some random install program which may well not even work, and then installs yet another 'update' service so that it can phone home every time you boot up in order to see whether there's a new version, thereby ensuring that once you've installed a dozen of these programs there are so many 'updaters' that your system takes fifteen minutes to log in. Personally I would much rather never see a commercial game on Linux than have to put up with that nonsense.

What is random about going to the website of the product you are interested in and download the software from there? And what spyware are you talking about? Of course I trust both the website and the product. You know, after all, I'm going to put it in my machine. "Random websites", "spyware", "random install program which may not work"...you are talking about warez downloads, right? Because there's nothing of all that in, say, going here, click on the relevant product and be done with it. It definitely is no different to, say, going here or here and do the same. If you never had to download and install software outside of what your package manager offered, fine. It doesn't mean that we all use what you use and only what you use.

As for what all that 'consumer oriented software' may be, I bet some people could be interested in having the possibility to install things like FL Studio, Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio or Photoshop. Or perhaps Dreamweaver, Illustrator, CorelDraw, QuarkXpress or InDesign. Or even MS Office(*), Acrobat Professional, Quicken, Sage or QuickBooks. Without forgetting about the whole stack of scientific and technical software like MATLAB, Mathematica, AutoCad, Accelrys Materials Studio, Aspentech HYSYS or all the software that comes with every single scientific instrument, which happens to be for Windows _100%_ of the times. This without counting games (by the hundreds), which would appear to be a source of certain interest among linux users given what we read in this very same forum.

So yes, there is a need for commercial software. If linux can not prove to be a viable platform for it you may as well forget about gaining a sizeable portion of the market share. In abstract terms, I couldn't care less about market share percentages; in practical ones, I know there are positive side effects involved with an increasing presence of linux in the desktop, like hardware companies taking the platform seriously and releasing drivers, increased efforts to improve compatibility, increased competition in the OS and software market, what have you.

FatELF doesn't solve this problem? Okay, I can't really say. Is the situation fine as it is and are package managers the ultimate solution? Definitely not.


(*) Yes, I hear the laughs; a) surely also Ballmer laughs at the $400 the Mac Business Edition costs; b) no, OO is not a serious viable alternative as of now.

[energyman]

you want to do commercial linux apps?
fine, talk to the package manglers of the distris you want to bless with your app. They will do the work for you, if you give them what is needed. Problem solved. I am sure most won't even mind you hosting the resulting rpm/deb/whatever if that makes you happy.

[misiu_mp]

without forgetting about the whole stack of scientific and technical software like MATLAB, Mathematica, AutoCad, Accelrys Materials Studio, Aspentech HYSYS or all the software that comes with every single scientific instrument, which happens to be for Windows _100%_ of the times.

Dont be so fast. I dont know about the others, but both matlab and mathematica are available for linux and solaris.

Also I would like to see someone prove or explain how OO.org is not good enough concretely. Especially if you remove the ms office compatibility constraint.

[yotambien]

Dont be so fast. I dont know about the others, but both matlab and mathematica are available for linux and solaris.

You are absolutely right. My mistake. It's been years since I use Maxima and Octave so I am a bit disconnected with those packages. The point doesn't change, though, there are plenty of commercial packages that don't exist in linux. If you want this platform to abandon the marginal position it now has you want to make sure that one way or the other they are ported.

Also I would like to see someone prove or explain how OO.org is not good enough concretely. Especially if you remove the ms office compatibility constraint.

I can't prove anything. If it works for you, fine. I know it doesn't work for me. You can't remove the MS compatibility out of the equation; like it or not MS Office is the de facto standard for document production, presentation and spreadsheet work. I can't imagine many scenarios where you don't have to take into account compatibility issues with other users, including full share editing support. If the conversion from one format to the other ends up mangling the format it's going to be a waste of time. As an isolated data point (although a fat one at that), I worked as a user here, where you can imagine they have a rather big network of computers of all flavours depending on the intended use. I had the chance to read an internal document detailing a study they conducted on the viability of migrating to OO from MS Office. This wasn't a poll or some other unprofessional thing, they deployed the application to a group of power users and asked for feed-back. The conclusion was that the minimal cost savings (institutions like this can obtain Office at quite a reduced price, especially given the big numbers of licenses they adquire) didn't offset the problems arisen during the tests. I clearly remember them saying that OO Writer, despite being perceived as the most mature application of the suite, still had many glitches that wouldn't justify its adoption. Make what you want of it; I know that when I send an important document for collaborative editing I want it perfectly formatted, and OO doesn't give me that. Any minimally complex Excel spreadsheet fails to open correctly with OO, and if you compare the performance of both applications you'll find Excel to be much quicker. I used to open ppt presentations with OO until I got fed up with the low success and installed the (free of charge) PowerPoint Viewer and run it under wine, which works fine. YMMV.

[stevenaaus]

The sad news is Linux _has_ a default installer, and it's called auto-config.

Isnt it for compiling and installing from source? This whole discussion is about commercial, binary-only, third-party software.
Can auto-config be used to just install binaries?

You're right, Auto-config is for source only (really). But, still, it's how linux software is distributed.
I was just being cynical... binary only software is a nightmare.

My points are
1. Linux is a free OS, and trying to use anything beside (god-awful) auto-config is like banging your head against the wall.
[Like trying to make money from the web really ;>]
2. Icculus has lots of other things to do which we love him for. He's not an uber hacker like Linus who can produce Git in his spare time.

[movieman]

What is random about going to the website of the product you are interested in and download the software from there?

Ask all the people who've got 'Your PC is infected, go to www.malware.com to download 'Super-Duper Windows Disinfector' to fix it' popups and given their credit card number to crooks.

And what spyware are you talking about? Of course I trust both the website and the product. You know, after all, I'm going to put it in my machine.

Why do you trust it?

I mean that as a serious question: you download software from www.foobar.com, and it could do anything to your system when you install it. Why do you trust it?

Certainly it's unlikely that a big name like Adobe is going to deliberately install malware on your system, but games in particular include all kinds of crap that screw up your PC by installing drivers and other nonsense for 'copy protection' and Flash and IE plugins are some of the biggest vectors for infection on Windows.

"Random websites", "spyware", "random install program which may not work"...you are talking about warez downloads, right?

No, I'm talking about Joe Average reading about some random software on the web and deciding to install it.

As for installers, I've had two or three programs which couldn't manage to install on the PC which has a SCSI DVD drive because they do some 'copy protection' crap to try to verify the CD which doesn't work on SCSI, and even Microsoft can't manage to install a .Net service pack on one of my PCs. I've never had that problem with software from a package manager.

As for what all that 'consumer oriented software' may be, I bet some people could be interested in having the possibility to install things like FL Studio, Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio or Photoshop. Or perhaps Dreamweaver, Illustrator, CorelDraw, QuarkXpress or InDesign. Or even MS Office(*), Acrobat Professional, Quicken, Sage or QuickBooks.

Sure, the 2% of the population who actually must use that software. The majority of people don't buy Adobe Premiere and only use Office if it comes free with their PC.

And, again, if any of those companies had a clue they'd create their own repository rather than expect people to download random tar files.

So yes, there is a need for commercial software. If linux can not prove to be a viable platform for it you may as well forget about gaining a sizeable portion of the market share.

For the 2% of people who 'must have' some random Windows software, yes; for the rest, it's irrelevant.

And 'Fat ELF' does nothing to help.

[some-guy]

You're right, Auto-config is for source only (really). But, still, it's how linux software is distributed.
I was just being cynical... binary only software is a nightmare.

What about CMake, or SCons?

[yogi_berra]

And not a single thing about FatELF fixes that "convoluted process". Seriously.

I don't recall ever saying that it did address it, but it is a _start_ at something beyond the status quo that helps deployment which makes commercial development for the platform more attractive.

And it's not like making games on Windows is any less of a "convoluted process"- it's just different. VisualC++ doesn't magically make the problems all go away on Windows either. Anyone that tells you this is selling something or sadly misinformed.

You mean I can't just click a button in visual studio and have Modern Warfare 2 pop out, damn there go those ideas of financial security...

@ movieman - I don't know about you but I would love a decent consumer level image editor, Pixel's development process is painstakingly slow, Gimp doesn't have the features, Cinepaint hasn't had a release in years, Krita also does not have the features, F-Spot and Picasa are not image editors, and LightZone is slower than molasses in January somewhere North of Oslo.

Just because the vast majority of consumer level commercial software is crap-ware doesn't mean that some of it isn't worth using.

[energyman]

yes, you have to start somewhere. Commercial vendors have to start to trust packagers and give them the information needed to create packages. That solves as much as all problems.