Why GNU/Linux isn't ready.

In a previous blog entry, I talked about the current state of the computer market, which was more of stating the obvious but for me serves as a start before discussing GNU and ReactOS.

Now onto GNU. So what's the deal with it? GNU started out as a UNIX clone, GNU is Not UNIX. A lot of the userland tools were devloped by the GNU project, but they weren't capable of developing a working kernel. Enter Linux, this kernel became the official kernel for the GNU system, and this kernel was developed to duplicate UNIX behavoir. The combo of GNU and Linux became known as GNU/Linux, a viable UNIX alternative for the desktop and server market, but UNIX was never designed to be user-friendly or for desktop use, and GNU/Linux suffers from the same problem. A great server OS, outstanding availability and robustness, but user hostile, unfriendly and dramatically short on software.

That didn't stop a lot of companies of trying to make UNIX and/or GNU based OSes for desktop use, though the major focus was servers and supercomputers. Community led development focused more on the desktop side, and various windowing environments were developed, most popular of them are KDE, GNOME and Xfce.

There is nothing wrong with GNU/Linux, everything technologically speaking is near perfect. The problem is support and ease of use. That would of been solved 10 years ago if the Free Software/Open Source community cooperated together and tackled the task as professionals! The problem is, they are poorly coordinated, there is too much internal compettion, and there is a lot of lost effort! You'd be stunned by the number of redundant projects that aim for the same goal and fall just short of it. There is no coherence, no consistency and no cooperation between them! It gets so bad, that even on the same desktop environment you'll find inconsistencies from one distro to another! This is my own real life experience! Then add to that the dozen or so different desktop environments, the four dozen or so different apps that try to achieve the same goal using a different approach, the incompatible binary packages and their package managers and you'll start to see why they aren't successful in the desktop world! TOO MUCH WASTED EFFORT ON REDUNDANT REDUNDANCY! What they should do is obvious, get around a round table, get your priorities straight and work to achieve maximum interoperability and consistency!

Of highest priority to me, is having a single unified package manager between all GNU/Linux distro. There should be a single unified standard that governs everything, so every program no matter how large or small should be capable of running on any distro.

Another, though a lot might not agree with me on, is develop a unified consistent desktop environment. I believe in choice, I'm not saying to abolish all other desktop environment, but there is a need for a consistent feel to the OS.