The Cost of Operating Systems

Things have changed a lot in the past nine years. Nine years ago, the iPhone was released. This was the first smartphone that got a lot of consumer attention, and it has changed everything. A year later, Android was officially released. In 2013, MacOS became entirely free for all users, although you must purchase an Apple computer that comes with the OS installed to begin with. Finally, last year, Microsoft released Windows 10 as a free upgrade from Windows 7 or higher (for a limited time), with the promise of free updates forever. Linux, of course, has always been free to install, and most Unix variants are never likely to be free. There are, of course, various other Operating Systems (OS), including BSD, Windows Phone (now merged with Windows), Blackberry OS, Chrome OS, and others, but Linux, Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android make up the majority of what most people encounter.

So how do all of these affect the average person? Well, because the vast majority of people will only ever use the OS installed on their system when they purchase it, it means that the OS is largely free. Obviously they are not all actually free, but the consumer doesn't see what part of the cost of an Apple computer goes to the OS division and what part goes to the hardware division. They don't see what the manufacturer paid Microsoft in order to preload it with Windows. They don't see any of that, so it doesn't really matter. People only see how much it costs to upgrade, and what works or doesn't work. They really don't see the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), or even really know what that means. So what does it mean?

Well, the purpose of the OS is to run your computer. Ideally it should start up as quickly as possible, start your programs easily, connect your peripherals effectively, and generally stay out of your way. The less you even think of it, the better. Every time you notice your OS because it is slowing you down, that increases your TCO. Every time you need to fix something with how the OS is working, that increases the TCO. Every time you need to replace hardware because it is no longer compatible, that increases your TCO. So what OS gives the lowest TCO?

It depends, of course, on what you are using it for. For the average home user, there is going to be a higher TCO if you have to install or reinstall your OS. For some businesses, that may lower it or not be relevant, because everything is installed from a single consistent image that is copied to each computer. If you need to upgrade your computer more frequently because your OS needs more resources, that is going to increase your TCO. On the other hand, if you can virtualise everything to a central server and have thin clients connecting in, that can reduce TCO as well. Of course, if your software won't run on a given OS, than trying to work around that is going to hit the TCO as well.

In most cases, once the system is set up and configured, if done properly, the ongoing TCO should be small, and limited to user training, update glitches, and hardware updates. The trick is to minimise the cost when you must upgrade, and limit the amount of user training that is necessary. As for update glitches, those should be caught before the update is general, by testing updates in advance of them occurring for the end users.

So what will your cost be for a system? It depends on what you use it for, but don't forget the costs down the line, from when you get it to when you replace it.

The Open Source Community

Do you know what the community of open source is? It's a term that really doesn't mean anything in particular. Is it a term that you have ever heard before? It probably should not be a term you have heard. However, it is a term that people should understand.

OK, now that sound like total nonsense, doesn't it? What on earth am I talking about? Well, the community of open source is a useful concept, even if it doesn't really refer to anything in particular.

Open source software is software that has two characteristics. First, the source code is available for the end user to look at, review, and change. Second, there is a process for users to submit changes back to the main branch of software. There are other common traits, but these two are common to all open source software. There are other open source implementations, such as hardware, research, and so on, but software is what gets the most attention because of the closed nature of compiled code, and the ease of sharing the source code.

The nature of open source naturally gives rise to communities. This can be suppressed, and does occasionally happen when the project is managed by a company and developed for profit, but it is tremendously valuable. The community is a loose grouping of developers, users, and designers, many of which fit into all of those roles.

So why is this beneficial? This is helpful for several reasons. First, developers do not find bugs. Users find bugs, and try to communicate then to the developers. When the user is also the developer, then they can figure out the bug more easily. Second, there are more developers potentially available to fix the problems. Third, it speeds up the development cycle by encouraging the developers to work on a specific issue until it is finished. They also need to finish it so that the remainder of the project can move forward. Fourth, more developers seeing the code means best practices are more likely to be followed. Fifth, that number also means that problems are more likely to be seen.

There are also, however, issues with some projects. Because it is owned by the community, some projects do not have full time developers, and the project may not move forward as quickly as it might. Second, open source communities have trouble attracting designers to keep the design cohesive. This can also easily in too many options and settings that cannot be easily found. Third, there can be a lack of somebody responsible for the whole project.

There is also another interesting aspect of open source software. Changes that are only being used privately, such as locally used software do not need to be available to the community. Software that is only used internally at the office can be modified without any issues. Of course, if you do, there is the risk of becoming incompatible, but it is easy and allowed. Software that is sold or used in products used by external users (clients and customers) often requires that the changes and full code of the open source software be made available, though not always.

So why would developers contribute to an open source project? Well, it improves their skills by practising and being exposed to other code. It gives them tools that they can improve if something goes wrong. Also, it's good to belong to a community. Anyone is welcome, and everyone can participate. Act! Belong! Contribute!

Online Video and Television

A traditional television is something that has existed for years, and we have used it in the same way for a long time. There have been minor changes at various times, such as the ability to pre-record shows using VCRs or PVRs, the shift from analogue sources to digital sources, HD and 3D content, but in large measure, nothing has really changed since television was developed and distributed. The content is produced and paid for in the same ways, by flat advertisements being displayed throughout the content to help pay for it.

But with the advent of the Internet, everything is changing. It's changing the way we look for content, and it's changing the way we consume content. We expect to have content on our devices, with us wherever we go, or accessible on our TVs as well. We use services like Netflix and Youtube, but the market is only just starting to reflect that. We are starting to get content designed specifically for the new media, streamed online, supported by interactive advertisements, although they still have a ways to go.

There are really two issues with the content. Are we getting what we want? Are they being able to make money to support their content?

I think we are starting to get what we want. We have Youtube exclusive channels, that are designed for Youtube. They take advantage of the ability to embed links in the video. They can tell where we are watching from, so they can localize the links, although they are not doing this much, yet. They give us a forum to voice our opinions through comment feeds.

Are they properly monetizing it, though? I don't think so. I have my channels that I watch on Youtube, and I don't mind sitting through some ads to pay for the content. I understand that they need to be paid for somehow. I don't really think it's a good use of my time, however, to watch ads for companies that are unable to provide services to me. I live in Canada, and I am regularly getting ads for Sprint, for example, which is a mobile phone company available only in the USA. I will never use Sprint, simply because I cannot, so why are they paying for me to watch their ads?

I think we are getting close to the day when there will be shows produced either exclusively online, for example through Youtube, or simultaneously online and on TV. The Internet is going to change the way things are done. It already has changed it, in fact. There already are Internet exclusive shows. Revision3, for example, exclusively distributes their shows online. It looks like that is where the world is headed. So what will we do with our TVs? Well, that's going to be the easiest way to play 4KHD content, which will probably stream from online before anything else.

Life Should Be Open

Life is an interesting challenge. So much of what we honour and desire is for freedom. We want understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom. We want utopia, but how far are we really willing to go in order to get it? That is an important question. But that is what we, as a whole, really seem to want.

Individuals, on the other hand, are different. They want power, and money, and they want to be right. Of course, these goals in many ways oppose the goals described in the previous paragraph. Power and money for individuals, while not incompatible with understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom, does not work towards it above all else. People wanting to be right, on the other hand, tends to be directly in opposition to those ideals.

Power and money are the main results of patents, for example. In theory, patents were designed to protect innovators by giving them a chance to monetize their inventions before everyone started using the technique, but in the modern landscape, many claim that it actually prevents others from building on past success. In other words, it stifles improvement, and represses knowledge and understanding. I'm not going to argue either side of this today, although I will likely cover it in a future blog post.

Life should be based on principles of openness, however. There are benefits to closed systems, primarily economical, but as a whole, that isn't what we want. This is particularly so in the world of science. Research, comparison, learning, and so on is always going to be improved the most by co-operation. That is the key tenet of an open society. Co-operation. Working together so that we can build on our earlier mistakes, and our earlier successes.

That is a big problem with the world today. All scientific endeavours require co-operation, but there is no system in place to ensure co-operation happens, or even to make it possible. Instead, people want to use it as a means to make even more money, and so scientists are forced to work in their own little bubbles, slowed down in their effort to make our lives better. Life would be better in an Open society.

I use Linux

As the title says, I am a Linux user.

This is an interesting statement, because I use Windows a lot. I use Windows more than I use Linux. I have purchased several licences to install and use Windows over the years, and I have Linux and Windows installed in a dual-boot setup on my computer. I am very familiar with Windows, and I have been using Windows since Windows 3.1. I used MS-DOS before that. So I have been using Microsoft products for a long time. It is not out of a lack of familiarity. Nor is it that I don't have them available to me. It is not a matter of being too cheap for it.

I simply choose to use Linux. I have used Linux on and off since about 2004, and used it consistently since about 2009, usually side by side with Windows.

I will certainly admit that Windows has improved over the years. Windows ME was a disaster, and so was Vista. However, XP and Windows 7 each had significant strengths. However, Linux has greater strengths. There are those who would say that Windows is better, simply because it makes more money than Linux, and has more widespread support, but that is really a nonsense argument, and is more a result of monopolistic practices.

Linux is naturally a better product. This is because Linux developers are free to choose their own direction. They are not required to develop in a particular way. It can be designed however you want, giving to the rise of free choice, choice for both users and developers. Also, because the only requirement is functionality, there are no corporate policies delaying things. There is flexibility to move quickly, and implement the tools that users want.

That is why, for example, the KDE interface is superior in functionality to Aero, the Windows desktop environment of Windows 7. An example of this is Aero Snap versus KDE hotspots. Both are effectively the same concept, you move a window, it tiles in particular ways. With KDE, it's fully customizable, so you can turn on and off hotspots, whereas Aero is just the way Microsoft designed. Hotspots also give you an extra five hotspots, giving you five extra choices. By default, 7 of the 8 hotspots are enabled, giving you maximize, tile top left, left half of the screen, tile bottom left, tile bottom right, right half of the screen, or tile top right. Aero has 3 of these, either left half, right half, or maximized.

This is the functional difference. In Linux and the related environment, developers are free to follow functionality to its conclusion, while in Windows, the decisions are made at the top, with no alternative available. In Linux, whatever you want, it's probably available. So I use Linux.

The Power of Apple

You know, it's funny how things change so much at times. There was a time when the power of Apple was in providing an alternative. They have never been first to market, but so what, they have something different to offer! Or at least, they did, and they made a good deal of fuss about how different it was. Then something happened.

First, it was the mobile music player market. It was a minor market, hardly anyone was there, just a few mp3 players and CD players, which had their places, but they weren't tremendously popular. Then Apple jumped in to provide an alternative, and everything went crazy. Suddenly they became the dominant player, because it hadn't been developed. The iPod was revolutionary, not because it was the first, but because it penetrated.

Next was the smartphone market. It was a nominal market, split primarily between Blackberry and Palm Pilot at the time, with some interest from Nokia and Windows Mobile. But it was still a tiny, developing market until Apple came along with the iPhone. They didn't dominate it the way they dominated the mobile music player market, but they were the ones who really put the market on the map. Now they have competition from Android, while Blackberry struggles to stay in the marketplace.

Finally, there is the tablet market. Until Apple's iPad and the various Android tablets, there were a couple of tablets on the market, but the market never stuck until Apple released the iPad. Now they have dominated the market, although Android is competing with them, the iPad is the dominant player. So in all of their new ventures in the past decade, they have not been in the position of alternative.

Why is it that they never succeeded in laptops and desktops as they did in mobile, portable devices? Why have they not managed to dominate the market? They have the power to do it, when it comes to those devices, whether they are the biggest player or not. They aren't just a minor alternative, yet they let their laptops slide.

The reason, in the end, is simple. They failed to appeal to businesses at the beginning, and so businesses ignored them. Developers found a different place to take their apps, and we are still struggling to recover from that. Apps are stuck in Windows, and only just starting to expand beyond that. As the software world expands, the dominance of Windows on traditional computers will subside, and alternatives will begin to be considered.

A Need For Openness

Life is an interesting challenge. So much of what we honour and desire is for freedom. We want understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom. We want utopia, but how far are we really willing to go in order to get it? That is an important question. But that is what we, as a whole, really seem to want.

Individuals, on the other hand, are different. They want power, and money, and they want to be right. Of course, these goals in many ways oppose the goals described in the previous paragraph. Power and money for individuals, while not incompatible with understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom, does not work towards it above all else. People wanting to be right, on the other hand, tends to be directly in opposition to those ideals.

Power and money are the main results of patents, for example. In theory, patents were designed to protect innovators by giving them a chance to monetize their inventions before everyone started using the technique, but in the modern landscape, many claim that it actually prevents others from building on past success. In other words, it stifles improvement, and represses knowledge and understanding. I'm not going to argue either side of this today, although I will likely cover it in a future blog post.

Life should be based on principles of openness, however. There are benefits to closed systems, primarily economical, but as a whole, that isn't what we want. This is particularly so in the world of science. Research, comparison, learning, and so on is always going to be improved the most by co-operation. That is the key tenet of an open society. Co-operation. Working together so that we can build on our earlier mistakes, and our earlier successes.

That is a big problem with the world today. All scientific endeavours require co-operation, but there is no system in place to ensure co-operation happens, or even to make it possible. Instead, people want to use it as a means to make even more money, and so scientists are forced to work in their own little bubbles, slowed down in their effort to make our lives better. Life would be better in an Open society.