What's going to happen when the Lindows folks find out about XPde?  Check out the screenshots.

Microsoft is going to be unhappy.  That whole look-n-feel precedent they set is really coming back to bite them on the, err, desktop.

5:55:47 PM   

Linux Video Frustration and Open Source Bashing. Coming from someone who was doing X programming quite a while ago (and who helped to build Netscape), jwz's rant is not to be taken lightly. [Jeremy Zawodny's blog]

Jamie's entire rant is worth reading.  Realize that he's a hacker supreme, and is capable of overcoming any of the difficulties he complains about in the rant.  Then think about how frustrating it must be for anyone who's not a hacker, but is instead simply trying to use the computer to get stuff done.

I've been playing around with video on Linux recently, and my experience echoes Jamie's.  The blame, I think, is shared between app developers, distro maintainers, and codec designers. 

There are patent-related problems that are difficult for app developers and distro maintainers to overcome (Ziph.org is working on that).  The app developers have an "it works on my box" attitude which prevents them from sharing their users' installation pains.  And the distro maintainers aren't focused enough on the desktop experience -- they need to concentrate on the tasks that matter to end-users, making sure everything works out of the box.

5:46:25 PM