 Welcome back everybody to let's get serious. Yes, that's right. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a name finally it took us a while But a name happened and just like everything in my life. We let it happen organically and we like organic My name is Jack Wallen and I'm here with Sopton party. Yeah, and today we were going to talk about we're gonna continue talking about Linux Like we talked about in the pilot episode because we still had a lot to talk about and we came up with something that We think everybody out there will want to discuss the topic today You just introduced your name of the show and that's when my network even down. So you said it's called Let's get serious dot dot dot What what does that mean? Well, I think to me and I believe you feel the same way that it means that we're going to have serious Discussions about topics and they're gonna be talking topics that we feel passionate about and I think they're going to be serious and adult Conversations that need to happen on these topics, right? Right, and when you say that topics is it all going to be about Linux or it will touch technology Or it will go to a science like Alan Musk is doing a lot of things or it will just restrict to Linux. Well, I think What's interesting about this is that Swapman and I are both writers both fiction writers. Well, we're both fiction writers and tech journalists So trying to limit it the limit the two of us to just technology is kind of challenging So I think that we're going this is going to cover a myriad topics will cover Cover science fiction and cover fiction in general will cover possibly movies and television. Maybe music maybe politics The world is our oyster and we are going to Not eat it because I'm a vegan so I don't eat oysters, but you know what I mean Yeah Yeah So and today as you said we are going to talk about The state of union of Linux. Yes, what we want to talk about today and and this something kind of hit me the other day we had talked about Linux as a platform and I think that there's a lot to be Mind in that topic and I was I was well quite frankly Well, I was getting finished with my exercising and I was in the shower cleaning up and a lot of ideas always come to me in the shower I don't know why they also come to me a lot while I'm exercising. I think they're science behind that But there is the idea the idea of Linux as a platform versus Linux as a collection of apps. I think That and you've mentioned this last week. I Think that is one of the ideas holding Linux desktop back and We kind of touched on it and I think that there's a lot more to say about that and let me let me enter Let me just I'll just dive into what this idea that I came up with Mm-hmm. I was thinking about Linux as a platform and I know that last week I mentioned system 76 and their pop OS and what they're trying to do there And I think that they they could very easily Do something? Similar to what Mac has do what Apple has done with the Mac They have everything in house. They have their hardware They have their software in house and they they develop and build and design their software around their hardware So that they know that when they ship a laptop a desktop a server everything works That the end user doesn't have to then log in to their new piece of hardware And then all of a sudden have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get things working I mean just think about it You get a laptop from from a company and whether it's got pre-installed Linux or not Then you have to go through the hoops of of installing the codex for multimedia because of a licensing issue or There are You have to install Java for the get the full effective Libre office There's all these sorts of things you have to do Now system 76 is in a position where they could take care of all of that Ship you your laptop you log in everything works But now now the problem with that is and we all know now I'm a big fan of system system 76. I use their hardware. I have reviewed their hardware I have interacted with the company. I think they're doing a great thing But they're small They're not only small But if you look at their price Their price point it's a little high Now some a lot of their some of their hardware is worth it like I have a leopard extreme desktop and it's worth it It was worth every penny I paid for it but The average user doesn't want to pay a thousand dollars for a laptop unless they're getting a Mac, right? Now imagine this We all know that the great Google proved That platform Kind of doesn't matter anymore You can get a Chromebook and you can Log in to your Chromebook and you can do just about anything you need to do the average user Now we're talking average user. We're not talking about a gamer We're not talking necessarily about a developer talking about the average user who does what what do you think the average user does? Right, I mean My wife is a full-time croon. She used to be Mac OS user Then I moved her to Ubuntu and then I moved her to Chrome OS and this is funny that when she was on Mac OS I was her support She'll file tickets, you know that this is not working that was not working Of course on Ubuntu It went higher a bit because you know She would not be able to use Sometimes the docs that were sent to her from the friends of fully and of course some of the pictures and all those shoes Of course Netflix was not back there, but ever since I moved her to Chromebook I mean we don't talk at all for the support Because you know everything works the way it should work, and you're right, you know most people Live in a browser. I mean if you look at us other than you know As you mentioned last time that you know the first draft mostly you do it on a Google Drive You know Google Docs and then you know when we share with external then we use it My only difference is that I do a lot of film production work And that's where I need a system that can handle that kind of workload other than that I mean if you look at my own work, it's all in a browser, right? it's but the only difference is that When I look at my toolbox, you know mostly that is the that's Philip screwdriver That is the most used one, but then are two which had different bits that I need You know at least once a month or at least twice a month, and if I don't have that one I will not get the word like for example, I RC car I have to open it every now and then and I need that screwdriver, right? So I do know that in my toolkit when I need it it is there So similarly sometime when I look at a platform, but most people are happy with the Philips, you know Had a school screwdriver, right, right? They're fine. Yeah. Yeah, my wife's the same way She was she was using a Mac and it was actually it was the same progression She used a Mac than she used a Ubuntu and now she uses Chromebook And the only thing I ever have to do is if something goes wrong with my printer I have to reshare the printer out to her so she can she can use it, but now Here's here's where it gets interesting for me So what Google has done is they've proved that you can just use that Chrome OS and they can then They can then ship that Chrome OS on inexpensive hardware So you can buy a deed I bought my wife a decent Chromebook I've actually a really nice Chromebook for five hundred dollars. That was a really nice You can get an average one for two three hundred dollars. Okay. Yeah, I got a flip one It was even cheaper and it has it can turn into a tablet right right now I have a Chromebook pixel, which was pretty expensive, but it's really quite nice now We all know well some of those of us that write about technology knows that Google Uses Linux on the desktop in-house they have this they used to use What was it called goo? I think and then they recently migrated I think they they went from a Ubuntu based distribution to a Debian base distribution and So they have this in-house operating system that they use on a lot of their desktops Not all of them, but a lot of them and they won't let that they won't let anybody see that I can't get that Distribution you can't get that distribution. It's it's in-house and that's that's it Now imagine this Imagine if Google decided to they finally said okay, what we're going to do is we're going to take our in-house operating system our in-house Linux based operating system And we're going to install it on inexpensive hardware and we're going to sell it so What would happen is we would know that everything in that desktop operating system would work exactly as we needed it and It would be shipped on inexpensive hardware So you you could go to to Google Play Store and you could you could go to their laptop section And you could pick either a Chromebook with Chrome OS or you could we could call them Linux books or lin books Whatever you want to call them or you could buy that so you would know that you're getting either a Chromebook with complete and utter simplicity where you're going to get a Linux based Chromebook that has a bit more power and a bit more flexibility and Because Google isn't take Google. This is all in-house and Google has has control of everything They would know that when they ship these out Those Linux machines would work exactly as the Chrome OS machines would work. The only difference is is it would have Multitasking true multitasking and you could install Libre Office and GIMP and whatever you need it on it And and they would set it up so that it would be it would be user-proof So that you would never have to use the command line, which you don't anyway, but they would effectively create a Linux platform a Google Linux platform that's guaranteed to work and They could integrate it seamlessly with with Google Drive So there wouldn't you would not what they would of course then have to create a native Google Drive client, but they could integrate it seamlessly with Google Drive so that you wouldn't have to worry about that and You would have all the power of Linux. So you would effectively have a more standard desktop operating system controlled by Google powered by Linux and You would get it all in the realm of two three maybe four or five hundred dollars Right and what is the target audience of this platform? I think I think the target audience would be standard users who are looking for a Little bit more than what Chrome OS offers because there are there are some users there. There are some people out there that they Willingly buy a Chromebook thinking that's it's going to be exactly what they need and then very quickly They realize they're a little bit limited by the Chrome. Yes, or Developers because if I remember I remember I was at a Linux con and as JVN in our very good friend as JVN was there and We were at a keynote and for some reason his dictaphone didn't work So I record on my zoom and I was I said oh you can have my copy. So I said oh I record everything in wave Raw he said oh Chromebook cannot handle it. So can you so I compress it and then give it to that's why I I mean I have a Chromebook, but I bring my Mac every beer So that I have able You had two points here and that's where you know I see the big differences one is that when people buy Chromebook They very well know what they are getting there. They know very well that you know, this is a browser So their expectations are all you know already, you know at that I mean I won't say that they have lowered their expectation But I think that they are very clear about what they should expect from this device They know that you know it will not run a lot of Windows application because just a browser It's just chrome. You know you cannot run Windows application in the chrome the problem When you go beyond that and that is what I was thinking about when Microsoft is working on an arm version of Windows or you know the the the net platform It will not run a lot of traditional Windows applications No The big problem is that the moment you think about desktop platform whether it's Mac No, the Mac people already know very well that they it will not run Windows application They know very well. I mean that's what the thing is the messaging the marketing from the very beginning is clear That it's a train. It does not fly. It's a plane. It doesn't you know Go in the water. So they were so the problem with the Linux whenever you we try to push it Is what happens is and that's what most of the time people get disappointed in Linux desktop is that Like even with the with the pop OS or you know, whatever efforts that system 76 is putting in that And most of the times it is promoted as a general purpose platform and the general purpose platform is a huge thing The read like for example once again, I will repeat Right now. I'm recording my video through the T3 app. We just connected to my computer from my GH5 as Camera and the app is not on Linux, right? Okay, I just got this new camera which was announced last month and The raw format that it shoots in is not supported on Linux GIMP cannot open it digicam cannot open it dark table can even windows cannot open it, okay? So the thing is that if you promote your platform as a general purpose platform and then I will try to Run general purpose virtual outs on it and if it will not work, I will get disappointed, right? So so my big question is that when you see that some people want just a bit more than Linux Oh, sorry more than Chrome or Chrome OS, whatever it offers My thing is that you know from the current limitation of Chrome OS to everything else. It's too much Right, so I think Google will fall into the trap of trying to cater to everybody and then it will be a failed platform Right, that's my opinion because then people say, you know what? Oh, don't get Chromebook because it can but you know what? Get this next book, you know, because you can do a lot more. They'll buy a Linux book Hey, I cannot run Microsoft Office. I can run photoshop I have spent $1,600 on this laptop and I cannot like when I look at pixel Actually, I as much as I'm fan of Google pixel I did not buy pixel because for $1,600 I can get a MacBook, right which will run everything that I need. I Don't need touch a screen, you know, honestly speaking. Sure for that interface. I don't do much So so what do you think about that? You know that if they do offer something won't they be kind of, you know Increasing or raising people's expectation and then of course that platform will not be able to meet people's expectation Well, I think the first thing that Google would have to do is well first and foremost We have this we have this kind of disconnect between I think manufacturers and developers designers and users As to what is the average user And you ask different people and you're going to get a different answer Right and The truth of the matter is if you look at the global Uh global numbers the average user is really turning into a mobile user now Because the android mobile platform is one of the most widely used platforms in the world And um, I think that you have to figure out what it is that people use their devices for And you know, and there was this big fear that the desktop computer was dead Well, the desktop computer is never going to die No, because there's too much that too many sectors in the world and business and home that depend upon the desktop computer And by desktop, I mean desktop or laptop. I mean just the standard configuration Actually, it's not just the people who depend on it. You know, when you talk about the death of desktop What is going to replace it? Okay. I see at mobile Tablets have kind of died off because I've had sales are down. I mean, I have an app tablet I don't have to buy it every year. So once I do actually I do upgrade every time a new tablet comes out Uh, but tablet and mobile phone and then since I'm heavily into as a science fiction writer I'm into vr. You know, I have three vr platforms at home Right, uh, the only reason I did not get the full fledged ocular strip because it runs on windows and somehow I am not comfortable with windows. So I have samsung gear. I have you know, google daydream and I have sony playstation vr Right So so if you look at it, it's mobile. It's going to be augmented reality is going to be virtual reality So people say, you know what? We don't need desktop. Okay. I agree But how are you going to develop content for that platform? Right, right? Yeah, you need you need a platform the more Uh, uh, you're not going to develop, you know, uh an app for android or ios on an iphone You're not going to go to actually what is going to happen is that While the pc sales would decline in the consumer space it is going to become a niche and uh, uh, uh, uh, I feel that Uh, just the way in old days, you know, you used to have a specific platform like appliances So it will become a desktop will become a very expensive platform Yeah, yeah, because then since the the the The economy of sales has gone down. No people are not buying desktop for millions of millions of dollars So, you know, they they won't be able to offer rams and gpus for cheap And at the same time people when they are developing like for example Just look at this system that i'm using right now to edit my 4k I had to buy a graphic card with just 700 dollars. You know, so the whole system Would cost me $10,000 if I want to be able to edit 4k. I'm not even talking about editing You know, we are content right so desktop will become very expensive and desktop will become niche now That's where I feel so first of all desktop will not die But that's where I feel that there is a huge opportunity for Linux because now you have a very specific use case the creators Right the makers who are using their desktop to create these kind of works, you know, we are content or you know AR content augmented reality by that. I mean now what So now what is happening is that when you sell a desktop you're not worried about Uh, somebody wanting to use a microsoft office or photoshop, you know that, okay This guy is by he's a filmmaker. He's buying the desktop to edit his films in VR Now your market is small Your divide hardware is expensive and with Linux you get the flexibility at kernel level to optimize things You know, you can you can optimize audio To I mean like in right now in Linux jack and everything is there, but it's mess, okay Most of the time Linux is used, you know, if you look at Pixar, they open source their 3d rendering software They were using red hat enterprise Linux on system 76 system when they did the demo They all use you know for rendering everything they use but and and most of that they have they have moved to Linux But that's in the higher end film editing, you know, not because they need access to kernel label So they write their own application. They're their own platforms So I think that's actually going to create a huge opportunity for Linux people To to target those users and you know, and then you know macOS or windows will not have any just like Your uh, uh, supercomputers Linux sorry macOS and windows has no market Same will happen in that space right because Linux will be able to offer Everything right every tuning that you need at the kernel label right and but but at the same time I think what's important that has to happen is that We have we have all of these. Let me if you look at the the linux app stores that you know the the gnomes software Or synaptic or whatever there are thousands upon thousands of pieces of software in there and The problem is with those with many of those titles is that number one some of them don't work Or some are interrupted for a second. Can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah Yeah, so so right now what I mentioned was I was talking about very very, you know, specific use cases Now what you're talking about a general purpose computing, right? So, yeah, let's let's let's let so that was one use case Which was you know very specific use case So now let's talk so and that's where we think that Linux has huge potential to succeed They can own the market. Oh, sure the second Yeah, the second part of the market the second part of the market is the consumer market Let's yeah, let's talk about you How they can make some difference there, right? Well, you know, there's there's this huge There's a huge disconnect between the enterprise market and the user market the enterprise market. Yeah wouldn't succeed At all these days without Linux they the enterprise market depends upon linux And yeah, because linux the thing about it is is that linux powers so much now Facebook uh ebay google Twitter, I don't think you should say it You should not name what is powered by linux. You will you will have to find which is not powered by linux. Exactly exactly And and the and the thing is is that It's it's it's almost this the strange dichotomy here You have all these enterprises that absolutely depend upon linux, but they aren't Allowing that to trickle down to the users outside of the experience like facebook and twitter and all that and So and I and I realize that I understand like facebook has They have a market and that's their market and their market is social media And everything they do is geared towards that And then you have like pixar you have pixar who does they they have They have server farm. They're rendering farms that are a bunch of linux machines huge clusters of linux machines And then when you get the problem is when you get down to the end user It's hard. It's hard to define what end users are doing You know and and I think that that is a big part of the problem is and I think that part of it is Is that manufacturers don't even know what users are doing and I think I think it's very simple to distill to distill everything down To a small selection of tasks that end users do they do social media They do online banking They shop and if you keep listing them off most of the things that end users do are done within a browser And if that's the case then platform does not matter The only thing that matters is that every browser functions as the user expects and even that's a problem Like for example, my wife is a Cosmetologist and here in Louisville, Kentucky when she goes to renew her license the the hair and lice the licensing board Their website cannot be used on any browser, but internet explorer It can't be used on edge. It can't be used on chrome. It can't be used on firefox It can't be used on safari. It can't be used on any mobile platform It can only be used on internet explorer Oh my goodness, that's just lazy coding That's just a group that hasn't hired a coder or a group of coders that can redesign their websites old You go to it and it looks like it was designed on an old, you know spark box or something But I don't know what what else supports ie because I think if your machine supports ie So I think there are only two things running on your machine. One is ie second is a lot of viruses Right, right anything that runs on runs can run ie is not even supported anymore Right, I know and but but you have but the thing is is there are that's not isolated There are other instances where there are websites that that don't function the same on different browsers And I think that it's I think that at this point in time It's become a necessity that all browsers function exactly as the users expect them to Because yes, I mean we we've and the Linux community has experienced this since The mid 90s fragmentation You know, we how many dist distributions aren't there? There are thousands of distributions There are I mean think about it like like my fate my desktop os of choice is elementary os An elementary os out of the box Uses the mirador browser I don't know. I mean look at It's like gnome has their own browser. Katie plasma has their own brow. Why? I mean you cannot even settle down on one Uh browser I know and and all of these cannot even render 80 percent of the stuff that is on the internet Right, you know and and even even firefox prior to firefox quantum Firefox had all sorts of problems. It was incredibly loaded I was just on chrome all the time. I could not use firefox at all. Yeah Well, I used I used chrome for years and I only recently switched to firefox quantum because It had some features that I liked Over chrome, but even still there are things I need to do I need to go back like there's a cms that I use that doesn't function completely perfectly on On firefox. So there's fragmentation within the browsers I think until until all that fragmentation ends there's always going to be this problem And I I just talking about firefox I remember as jvn wrote a story recently where he Ran some benchmarking test on firefox edge and chrome All right, and he found and he found that the firefox was the slowest Among the three uh that you know the browsers and you would expect that firefox would be faster, but it was not so yeah Well, and then you look at it and that's that's the other thing you look at other benchmark even the benchmark tests that are used Are aren't unified So you know and and it's it's become You can look at you can look at microsoft office the files that microsoft office generates And then you open them up in in libra office and they're not the same And I understand there's issue with with fonts and font renderings, but That fonts and font renderings aside I should be able to and and i'm speaking in as a user because I understand some of the difficulties But as a user I should be able to open up A file that was someone created in microsoft office I should be able to open up on my office suite of choice and there should be no problems Right, but unfortunately there is and that's because and I I think it's common knowledge that microsoft has always been really bad about following standards They never needed to they dominated the market right exactly. They were setting standards. So And and I actually at one point of time they At one point of time they actually use these standards to maintain their dominance It's only now when things have changed Where you know, and especially in the enterprise space and the mobile space when I say enterprise I don't mean enterprise like you know where you still have PCs mobile and you know Market microsoft is no more dominant player So they have to now follow other player and they're actually to be honest with you They are doing a very nice job. Actually a lot of people give microsoft bad name But it is always there are three tiers of management in any company the top tier the middle labor managers and then the developers Developers are always pro open source, you know, because they would like to see the code. They want to fix the problems That's it Middle labor people are the problem things sometimes because they have to deliver the reserves And they have to get their you know bonuses the top tier is like when it was Steve balmer, you know, then you know They have their own mindset like I remember at tesla also but alan musk was there. He was he was totally against linux He was a mac and windows person But after he exposed himself then, you know, he became kind of you know linux guy So so they're three tiers. So I was tracking microsoft open source. They had been doing open source for a very long time I met sam ramji who was uh, you know, c of cloud foundry now He's at google he they had an internal project in microsoft where they were doing a lot of open source work and sharing it So I just want to, you know, be fair to them that they are doing a lot of open source Just like, you know, if you look at united states, you know, okay, our government sucks, you know, the president I don't know what but that doesn't mean every american is like that You know, so please if you're not living in america if you're looking in germany abroad Please don't think of us, you know, so just to make it clear from microsoft's point of view. So but They still you know, even if their developers are pro open source, there are still some divisions within microsoft That may still use, you know Interoperability or those things in the consumer space in the enterprise space. They don't have any state. They have to play nice You know, but they're still, you know playing that game And uh, it could be a deliberate game or it could be just, you know, it's you know, since they have been doing it for so long I mean microsoft was in like 76, you know or 77. So it's like, you know, they're totally, you know, Old companies, so they still have those traits there But Let's think about it from positive point of view. Okay, what should linux do? We know the problems. We know the challenges and and the linux is almost 27 years old now, you know, uh, suzie was created in 1992 redhead was created in 1993, you know And kd and gnome communities has been there for all that long and what we have been doing is that We are we seem to be not Learning anything. We keep doing the same mistake and thinking that for some reason We will get different results by doing the same thing over and over again so So let's let's think about let's break it down in few points that, you know Desktop person needs and what linux should do to actually change the situation by doing something different Not by doing the same thing by creating a new app store by creating, you know Something new again, which was done two three years ago. What's your opinion about that? Well, I think that And this this may sound a little crazy But it's almost like linux needs to come come to this conclusion where there's a governing body Over linux and that governing body, you know, and and we do have this the linux standards bay It's linux lsb linux standards base and I think that I think that at one time linux standards base was really important Because linux was facing an uphill battle from every angle And I think it's but I think we've reached a point now where we have all of these different distributions that are all very good But the problem is is They're they're not unified And i'm not talking about that they all have to use the same package manager They have to you know, they all have to use the same desktop I'm saying that there needs to be a set of standards That all linux developers need to follow and that and that could go all the way to What's the default browser that you ship with? And and that and and everybody knows in the linux community that it doesn't matter what default is shipped that you can install whatever you want But for the sake of the end user there needs to be a little bit more conformity to a standard and I I think that um That that standard we could have standards for a lightweight version Then we can have a standard for the desktop version and a standard for the server version And I think that it needs to you know Sort of limit The possibility we'll never limit the full possibility and capability of linux But limit the possible the the possibilities For the end user say for example um Just just today I was dealing with this I I installed um an a desktop operating system and Noticed and this was a rolling release distribution And immediately I noticed there there were four different versions of this rolling release distribution There was ganome kde lx fc and I can't remember the other one If you can't remember that that explains very well Right that Now here's where the confusion gets okay, so I installed the um the lx fc version And the ganome version The ganome version shipped with libra office the lx fc did not The ganome version without with libra office had version had the the the the still version the 5.4 version This is a rolling release distribution that's supposed to have the most updated software Everything on the desktop. It's supposed to be the most updated version, but libra office was out of date and It gets worse now. I preface this by saying it was a really good distribution, but it gets worse On the ganome version it had ganome software and then it had I can't even I don't know how to pronounce it pamac pa m a c the the pac-man Uh gooey interface, so you had two software App stores on one distribution. Now if I went into PAMAC pac-man interface I could install Either I could install either libra office still or libra office fresh Then if I go to ganome software, there was only one version of libra office in there So if a new user were to open the to install this desktop and then and then go oh, I'm good It doesn't have libra office. I need to install libra office and they go to open install it and there's two different versions Which do I use? And then if you open up the ganome version And you say oh, this is a rolling release. It should have the newest version. Oh wait This is version five. It's out of date And and it's rolling it's rolling release. Yeah, it's supposed to have the newest releases and it didn't so there's there's There is a lack of unity in linux Now I should I should preface this by saying linux has been I I've used linux since the late 90s And and so I have I have experienced all the problems And all the battles, you know, I remember the vi versus emacs wars And and I think that those days of those kind of wars need to be done with And we need to come to some sort of conclusion that I mean and let's take this to an extreme We need to come to some sort of conclusion that for new users The ganome desktop is the desktop of choice So let's let's promote the ganome desktop Or maybe it's not maybe it's kde Who knows but there needs to I think there needs to be this decision made That there's these standards and if your distribution wants to follow these standards This is what you'd need to do that doesn't mean you have to have a distribution with the um Apped or or or yum. It just means that your distribution on the surface on the the user end user facing surface needs to do this right Actually, uh, it's interesting because a few weeks ago I created a youtube video where I said that Because I go to all these conferences, you know commercial conferences and every one thing that I see that is common across board is that they have a foundation and the job of the foundation is not as much about Okay, sorry. I think I should better freeze the job of the foundation is basically to bring all the stakeholders together For number one is so that they work together Then you guys can open source whether it's just topics on what you have to take care of certain C's One is communicate with each other. Yeah, second is collaborate with each other Third is contribute to each other's project. Yeah, and the last one is compromise Yeah The biggest problem that I've seen, you know, the reason why today we have elementary OS Or we had unity was that two communities failed to make compromises. Yeah No, I want that so I'll take the code. I'll fork it. I'll take 10 users with me But 10 users will pay my bills. I don't really care about all the rest of the users and I'm fine That's why no offenses to either elementary or as a pop out. But that is what is happening. Everybody Get their 10,000 users who paid their bills And then they don't care about the rest of the you know, that's why that's when you mentioned, you know, they are thousands of Linux distribution This is the reason because we fail to compromise So so I was taking down some points, you know, and I think you have hit the nail That's exactly what we need, you know standard. I will simplify it in a way that We need a foundation Desktop Linux foundation, please leave the Linux foundation alone. They are a trade body. Please don't touch them We need a desktop Linux found, you know, desktop Linux foundation And the core job is number one to to become an umbrella organization where all these communities whether it's known Whether it's a kd community, whether it's, you know, XFC community or whatever communities are there they come together and Okay, I'll give you an example of open stack. Okay. I cover open stack I'll be going to Vancouver The open stack, you know, they have different distribution red hat has their own distribution Susie has their own merantis has their own canonical has their own distribution. They all offer their own solutions Open stack is open source, but they take the open stack core without Forking it and then they do some add-ons to cater to their own users But the base is same. They are contributing the same code base. So that is why it's growing Right So similarly what we need is to bring all these people together and tell them very clearly that okay, of course We have the kernel is the same. Let's share as many components as we can. Okay. Okay. Noam has gtk gtk carried Does with their own What is that? I'm just Qt Qt or whatever they call it and others may they actually others actually use mix and Of different components whether you're going to accept c or marty or whatever They all usually there's some of known components or some So what we do is okay. We keep these technology, you know stacks together We have seen with lab stack, you know, you can build the whole stack, you know, you don't have to you know Compete with you you can so so so first of all Find common goals, you know that okay, these are the things. Okay So you have the kernel A Linux kernel bit, which is totally stable Then we have you know your own desktop environment Which offers an interface for users and people's and applications to use the platform But then you have a lot of other things also like for example, you have to handle audio You have to handle video. You have to handle graphic cards. You have to handle, you know networking So these are the things that do not actually Interfered with the user experience. Why to do that? Like open stack does not have 10 different networking stacks, you know, they have just one You add value on top of that. So come let's let's work on one flat Networking stack one flat, you know audio visual stack, you know one flat, you know the server Right, please end the fight about valiant and all those nonsense there Now on top of that you offer your own interface, you know, because you believe in okay The the the unit norm shell is the kind of infrared interface. You like fine Katie people like plasma fine Do that no problem. So first of all anything that goes below that Work together on it. No more force, you know, no more. They all use the same Now once you have the shell on top of that, you say that you know what? LibreOffice or whatever once again, please use one right one LibreOffice across the board One app manager or one app store. I really hate The way forget about desktops Distribution desktop environments have their own app managers You know Katie has discovered your discover and No, just come out with software and every distribution has their own app manager. Why right, please Just just one flat app manager. I by flat. I don't mean flat pack I just mean one flat app manager for everything that you're doing and then on top of that Please settle down with one What's the harm just settle down with worm app Distribution and development platform. It could be a flat pack. It could be app image whatever, you know, that's why compromise, you know You are not In a michel critical environment that you are not shooting missiles in the On the word that you think that oh your solution is better than their solutions. Why I cannot make a compromise Please make compromise right and then On top of that when you do all of that Then please please please become rolling release Yeah, okay use use once you start using flat pack then you don't have to have maintainers What I hate even more is that for the same application for librae office Open suze will have a maintainer for version x and then version y and then where you're z right fedora will have one maintainer Art Linux will have one maintainer open to so you are wasting resources of 10 people doing the same thing Right, right. Just imagine if those 10 people are working on one app How amazing that will be exactly and then you as you explained that you know on the same distribution Different desktop environments have different version of the apps because you know that four different app maintainers And one is active one is not that active one has some problem at home So they didn't do it So you are wasting the sources and you are creating a very bad experience for users If you do all of that then what will happen is that Desktop linux will become a unified platform one platform So there will be just three platforms macOS linux and windows right and then you won't yes And this this this board could make this really easy. It doesn't have to be hard What they would do is you release a poll And you release this poll wide globally What is your um, you know A not a multiple choice, but you know pick one. What is your uh office suite of choice? What is your desktop of choice? What is your email client of choice? What is your audio player of choice? What is your video player of choice and you just go down the list and then you send it out and then you get the results Okay, and the but how do you know that how first of all that Uh, what kind of like, okay, I don't want to kind of you know, uh, uh bus killer but Let's say a lot of people they use desktop linux for really serious work like you and me, you know We use our machines for a lot of serious work And then there may be a lot of users No offenses to anybody whatsoever They they do well boot with linux and you know, they come on to linux world just to play for a while And you know, they go back and do that. They don't A platform is not, you know Do or die situation right but most of people like you and me we are actually not on those forums or polls right But so how do you make sure that the feedback you're getting is of the quality or the actual users that matter, right? Well, here's the thing all all I'm saying is this would be used for When they get the numbers back this this governing organization would say okay Libre office got the most votes for office suite of choice. That's going to be our default Let's say gnome got the most votes for desktop of choice. That's going to be the desktop that we promote And you just go down the line and it's just what I'm saying is it takes away the guesswork and and and the The chew the kind of choosing favorites and all that All it does is it it paints a picture by numbers of what People want the most for their defaults And then after that once those once those numbers are crunched. They they decide on their defaults They say this is the lec the linux desktop standards to go by You know and maybe gnome software is this or maybe synaptic winds up being the package manager of choice It doesn't what all I'm saying is is that this would give them a skeleton of what to use to say, okay From this we're going to build the standards by which that we can all develop a desktop distribution regardless of the underlying platform regardless of whether it's debian based or red hat based or or Free bsd based or whatever your base is it doesn't matter as long as on the desktop it adheres to these standards Then we could say this these desktops are then certified Okay for the average user to use without problem uh, I have uh, I have even a crazy idea and the idea is that uh I know there will always be people. There are always people who do not like gnome, you know, or who don't like plasma so I would actually what I would say is that uh When you when you talk about okay the unified linux platform, let's say that there's one layer which is flexible Only one layer that is the desktop environment sure You okay, you you come to our platform. We have a unified platform. You can download, you know Linux from here and there are four options Yeah, you can have no you can have plasma. You can have xfc. You can have mate. You can have Doesn't matter. Okay, you have these four options. But what happens is irrespective of whichever version you offer. Oh, sorry get besides the The the the user interface that you get everything is same. Yeah, right You get the same app manager. You get the same version of application. You get the same stack of networking So because I do know there will always be tribalism between this desktop community So they will never agree. But what I'm saying is that okay, let's do that But why to waste your source on anything which is above and below that right because it really doesn't really matter Katie is a networking manager or gnomes All I am doing is accessing my damn router so I can get connected simple Right and I think that's a great idea I think that's a great idea and it would it would offer the users the variety that they're expected But even among that variety there would be standards that those that each desktop would follow so that if a user downloads and installs the gnomes version They're getting the same experience with the exception of user interface Doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah, so they know that the the Libre office is going to be the same They know that it's going to have the same default Audio player it's going to have the same default Image editor it's going to you know It's it's not it's not that hard. It really isn't actually Actually, the funny thing is that it actually reminds me of android If you look at if you buy from the samsung or motorola or lg or sony Okay, you do get their own customized, you know, whatever the slap on it But you buy everything from google app store the audio the camera the everything works the same Everything above and below. Okay. There is a ui difference But that is the decision you have consciously made because you like you like xfc Over katie or you know, right? No, and and and the linux app stores are no different than google play store The difference is is they just all have different kind of different interfaces So why not just unify it make it easy so that anybody on any linux distribution would know exactly what they're doing And there wouldn't be this hurdle barrier to entry Or any sort of learning curve would be stripped away Yes, and it will actually the benefit will go beyond users What will happen is when you have just three platforms macOS linux and windows then what will happen is And and then you have the whole networking stack. You have the whole graphical stick You have the whole audio stack is standardized Then Okay, I don't know what people think or not think but then it will be much easier for adobe to target linux as one platform right They don't have to deal with fedora and open suzai Like for example, uh, when it comes to video editing I use, you know, I prefer mac or windows But for the for the for the gtx 1070 ti driver that I have I need kuda drivers If I don't use the kuda driver first of all, I cannot apply any effect, you know You know, because when I shoot in 4k, the image will not even move forward And when I render it it will take once I disabled kuda for our video It was telling me 18 hours to render that video without kuda When I enabled the kuda, it was two hours. Okay, so I so people don't understand these things But it does matter. So what will happen is it will be easier for companies like apple Oh, sorry. Uh, yeah, even apple can bring i music or whatever there That was just, you know a slip of the tongue. I didn't mean apple I meant for adobe or or any other company It will be easier because then they know that they are targeting as one platform Right the even bigger thing that is going to happen is with the with the with the as we are talking in the beginning Filmmaker and all those things then suddenly they will have access to a platform Right where since it's open source, they can just hop onto the kernel milling list Maybe once they get beaten by linus if they are really senior maintainer But they can actually optimize their applications For the machine right that is not possible with anywhere else Right because you don't have access to the kernel level code and windows is not going to Implement your changes every now and then here you can do it So that will affect the users because suddenly you have You know, you have the same experience that macOS and windows users get, you know, very smooth very buttery smooth experience Uh app developers, they're happy because you know, they have to write app once And they know everybody is using the same version across the platform It will be very easy for for the linux communities because now you have more happy users Not gruntly users who are like complaining about it You have a very healthy Hardware ecosystem because companies can add support for linux like my drone or my my my camera doesn't Offer any support for linux desktop hardware vendors will be happy Commercial app developers will be happy. Yeah. I mean this this avoids one of the biggest problems that has kept so many different App developers from porting their apps to linux is one of the reasons why there's never been a photoshop for linux because if if If they were if they were Tasked to port photoshop to linux then all of a sudden they'd be like, okay Uh, are we porting it to weyland? Are we porting it to x.org? Are we porting it to gtk? Are we porting reporting it to cutie? Or what are we doing? There's there's way too much You limit that scope and then all of a sudden adobe can go. Oh, okay We can port photoshop to linux now. Right, right and one more thing is that When you mentioned earlier, you know the return on investment are not that high, you know to to to handle all the mess of supporting all these, you know, different Qt and you know gtk, whatever it is, right One more thing that will happen is that Uh, the user base will grow beyond what we have right now Because you see the moment you mentioned adobe photoshop 10 very loud and vocal linux users say we don't want any adobe crap on our systems Okay, you don't want it. Don't use it. You know, but you know another reason why a lot of companies don't support desktop linux is there is so much Hossility and toxic environment that the moment you mentioned, I mean you are coming Hey, you know what? We want to bring this application and then 20 people will say we don't want your crap Please, you know, don't pollute our linux word. It's pure pristine. So so because you know, they are But then you start supporting a lot of you know, more people will come and join the the community More tolerant people and then it's fine. Right. It's okay. Yeah Stop being selfish with this wonderful open source platform and allow allow new users in Right, it should be a platform the goal of linux desktop should be a platform You know, it's goal is to the the primary goal of any platform is to be able to run like a car You know, you are a car you're building a car so that people can you don't get to decide that? Oh, you know what? We will let only people with this surname run or the people who are not member of nra or people who are not Voting for xyz if you're doing that, we will actually right now. That's what any desktop is That oh, we only support free and open source. Okay. We understand that the goal primary goal actually to be honest with you I mean, I'm a huge supporter of open source, but I'm also realistic, right The the point that discussion I was having with the kd community last week when I was talking to lydia And I was like it doesn't matter that you know, you you talk about free software open source But if only 10 people out of 1,000 people use it What is the point of that platform if nobody is using it? It's useless right so the goal is that more and more people use it so that they not only get benefit from it But they also kind of the the whole point of a safer word is More well educated people around you right like where I am living, you know If they're like poor people who cannot even get you know next day's meal The only way is some kind of violence to get some money to steal some money You know to hurt somebody to get that money right right that's how it works So so even if you have two rich people in the neighborhood everybody else is poor What's the point right same is with the open source, you know if there are only two people Using in opens one of the word. What is the point because everybody else is compromised? It could be the absolute most perfect platform on the planet If a hundred people are using it doesn't matter. It will be yeah I mean the thing is we have all the recipes that will make Linux successful I mean beyond success. The only thing is How to bring the Linux community under the same roof and tell them The the once see that matters the most Is compromise. Yeah So somebody out there. I don't know who it's going to be somebody needs to start this Linux desktop Uh standards group somebody does and and it needs to be a genuine movement And people need to like you said people need to learn how to compromise Otherwise nothing will get done Nothing we will just keep doing what we have been doing for the last 27 years And we will still anybody that's used Linux when you use it enough you you the Always in the back of your mind you think why is this not more popular? I I mean, I don't want to say that but I mean I I do use macOS for my work because I need it But I feel uh an anger within somewhere deep down because I do know That I I I should be running Linux because everything is doable Yeah, it's just because our community is not willing to do those things I am forced to use macOS. So, uh, please all the community members and all the haters out there When I use mac don't don't don't come back and tell me that you are using mac You should go back and ask those community that they failed me right Right, they failed me. That's why I'm using it Yeah, if they they did not screw it up or if they just listen to what we are saying Everybody will be using Linux everybody and when I say everybody I mean facebook like everybody. Yeah You know and I I I'm open about this I I eventually had to adopt using macOS for one task And that was video editing and I used the same case here. I tried I used open shot Since since its early versions and I I tried so hard to make it work And it worked okay for very very very basic video editing and it's it was great to use it was very easy to use But then when they moved to the new version things started breaking And then things just stopped working And I recall early days when I was using kdn live and open shot Only thing I was doing was I was recording just my record my desktop to record a screen You know screencast and even then it will crash. Yeah, and just imagine our previous video where we uh, I kind of you know Mark your footage with mine It's not possible at all. No right now. We are recording audio on four different tracks. Yeah I have to sync all we are recording video on three different tracks We have to sync everything, you know, it is not possible. So you need it But it can be done on linux. Yes, it can. Listen to what jack is saying. Just listen to what we are saying. It can be done Yeah, yeah, you know if you you come to some sort of standards then then maybe just maybe One of the powerhouse tools like final cut pro or or adobe premiere could get ported to linux And then all of a sudden you can do everything you need to do on linux and not have to Not have to settle for tools that only work halfway I I'm saying it's not about maybe to be honest. It will come. It will. Yeah, it will and and again I'm saying I use I use mac for one well for two things now because I Discovered that my new editor for my books. She doesn't use track changes. She uses comments So I'll open I tried opening one of her One of her edited copy manuscripts and it had hundreds and hundreds of comments and Lieber office came to a crash I read the story that he wrote also and it was it was frustrating and and I even reached out to the Lieber office community And their answer was to up the up the cash memory in Lieber office. Well, that didn't work It worked partially And and and it was still you know when I opened that same document in adobe and apple pages It scrolled smoothly and I could just work and blah blah blah when I went to Lieber office I would scroll and wait Scroll and wait And when you're working with a full length novel That's scroll and wait scroll and wait doesn't fly Because I have to be able to work with a modic and move efficiency Now everything else I do I do on linux right But there is a risk The risk is that Your two of your major workloads have moved to mac. Yeah You are a professional writer. You don't have the luxury to waste time You know In getting and you know, you can so the thing is two of your workloads have moved to mac os And then there is a possibility that some other workload you will realize. Oh, you know what? It works better on mac than on linux that will move to i have seen a lot of friends initially who I Converted to linux They have gone back to their original platform because there was that one thing And then two things and then three things and suddenly they were like, you know what? This is a better workflow. Just stick here. Why to just switch between that? So I mean there is a big risk, you know that you know that people as they Move their workload into some kind of street Though I know a lot of people they they can do everything in linux as they want but you know GRR martin also writes a novel and then some other crappy writer also writes a novel So you cannot compare that, you know, just because you are doing something differently Doesn't mean that that it could be right for you, right? But that doesn't mean that is a right for everything right, right? So one more thing is that you know never tell that, you know, oh, I use photoshop. Oh, sorry Gimp, and I'm happy. Yeah, you can be happy. It's fine. Right. We all are happy. You married someone else I married someone else, you know, so it's okay. You drink coke. I drink juice. It's fine Right with that drink beer, but I don't drink actually and I don't drink coke either I haven't had caffeine in six months And lately it's been really hard to wake up I cannot drink coke. It upsets my stomach and I just I I'm happy with the with beer and after living in europe I kind of Sometimes I start drinking in the during the lunch hours So so let's let's just reach out to you audience. What do you think? What what could become of a of a linux desktop standard? Could it work? Are we off? Are we off our rockers here or or are we on to something that maybe the linux community needs to seriously think about Maybe yeah that yeah, I mean I think the whole point of this video or this discussion that this show that we have started it Though it the name is let's get serious. We actually we are not that serious But the things that we are concerned about those are some really serious concerns And we need to fix them. So when we say let's get serious We are not like sitting with our grumpy faces there and we we have both Being part of I mean we are still you know part of the I wouldn't even say they're still part of you know because Um, I the kd commit on google plus I started that so I have been a very active linux user So I am as passionate And I can get as angry as you can be as a linux user and I have been doing linux for much longer And I think we have converted a lot many users to linux Then some of you guys may have so please don't you don't get offended and don't come back with any nasty comment Last time also jack said that we will ignore them or we'll remove them because it's about The way we think about as if you are sitting in my couch and having a discussion So just think about what kind of words and what kind of language you would use if you are actually sitting next to me on a couch And talking to us. So just be civil be nice. Let's have a very serious discussion about linux this time and What are we going to talk next time? Gosh, I don't know. Maybe we need to take a break from linux. I don't know. Yes Yeah, or maybe we don't we'll see how it goes. Um, we have so many things to talk about. Uh, we we could talk about um science fiction we can talk about the state of you know the the state of Of modern science fiction movies or or books or we could talk about anything Talk about video editing. We could talk about technology and cameras and all sorts of things audio What do you guys want to hear about audience? What would you like us to talk about? Yes, share your thoughts in the comments below and we'll see you next time. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for spending time with us and supporting Linux and us. Thank you so much