Comment by throwaways885 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaways885 | Hacker News Reader

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And people wonder why Linux isn't popular outside of industry and hobbyists... Like, sure, maintainers can tell all their users to sod off, but don't be surprised when very few people are left around using your software, and especially don't get confused when companies refuse to invest in Linux ports.

All the successful projects Linux users like to talk about nowadays (gaming now a practical thing, new kernel features, Wine getting really good) were all bankrolled by massive billion dollar corps like Valve and Google, because the community itself has no discipline to see things through.

At least GNU of the old days was organised enough to know not to break people's workflows - just look at how stable coreutils have been - but GUI software for regular people somehow doesn't deserve to get the same treatment.

> And people wonder why Linux isn't popular outside of industry and hobbyists

"Linux"? We're discussing a category that includes Gmail UI changes. Is Gmail not popular?

Wine was actually pretty damned good even before Valve got involved. I remember playing Half-Life with Wine in the early aughties.

I think that's fair, but they have done a good job of bringing much of the industry on board, rather than just being an esoteric hobbyist project.

I didn't mean to imply that Valve's contributions have not been significant in improving the situation with Wine, only that unlike the other examples Wine was already good before the involvement of a wealthy company.

Wine was a great technical achievement, but I remember it taking me hours crawling through WineDB and reading config guides to get most games working. Even for someone in the know, it was very impractical compared to clicking "Play" in Steam. That user experience makes all the difference.

> because the community itself has no discipline to see things through

Maybe discipline is a problem, but time, money and access to information is too.

What does it even mean? Communities build what they need for their usecase and in this regard it's highly successful. It might not be your usecase but then, you can decide to create your own community and build it or look somewhere else. But it's not because something do not work for you that it's not successful.

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