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Comment by aquayellow | Hacker News Reader

>The thesis is that things like Linux belong to a category of >human endeavours that are opposite in nature to most of what >regular consumers are exposed to nowadays

But this is true for any open source project, why just Linux ? That said, I feel Linux too can't escape the "economy of bullshit" - commercial companies have interest and contribute to different parts of the Linux kernel for a reason. Heck even MS works on the hyper-v code base, not for the betterment of Linux but for the good of their own product. The "enterprise focus" of LKML activity is proof enough.

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> But this is true for any open source project

Not in my opinion. In my opinion, Gnome, KDE, Ubuntu and many others are self-destructing in an effort to imitate Apple's design without understanding it, and generating a good amount of bullshit in the process.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that companies==bullshit. There's nothing wrong with smart employees of big companies contributing to the kernel. In many cases it's mutually beneficial so it's the rational thing to do. On the other hand, it seems to be very hard to create a big corporation without letting bullshit fester. Linux is not controlled by the sort of people that thrive on bullshit. But could it fall under their control in the future? Sure.

> Gnome, KDE, Ubuntu and many others are self-destructing in an effort to imitate Apple's design without understanding it

I'd go so far to say that the desktop App Store is a BAD idea.

1. It was meant to make mobile more free, and now makes desktops less free.

It was born out of things like Brew on the old, old cellular market. Mobile content used to be as free as a concentration camp, and in order to appease them, Apple said "we'll do your content management for you". That was a huge deal step forward, but it obviously wasn't enough or people wouldn't jailbreak their phones.

2. It is not sustainable over the long haul.

Centralized app management is not a long-sustainable model for the desktop, or anything for that matter. You cannot continue to micromanage that much software without things eventually deteriorating. Apps require maintenance or removed as hardware and the OS changes.

3. The user experience sucks.

It puts all the installed apps in its own area (LaunchPad) in addition to the AppStore app where you see what you bought, and both in addition to the previously widely known Applications directory/folder. That's just stupid. Why do people want to emulate that mess?

3. But it survives for now because it is profitable.

I've bought more apps in OS X using the App Store than I would have in a store or via some other online delivery mechanism or Amazon, etc.

But, none of all of that would have been as terrible, if it hadn't spread to Ubuntu. Seeing similar there was a huge WTF moment.

Which are all Linux distros, of course.

If we are talking about the Linux kernel, specifically, then of course it's not consumer bullshit, because the Linux kernel is a technical product in a B2B market. You might as well say that Intel CPUs or Samsung flash chips or Nikon steppers are not consumer bullshit.

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