Open standards win. It takes flipping forever sometimes. But they do.
Did XMPP win? Did RSS win? Did Linux win? These open standards have been around for decades and are still not widely adopted. At what point are they considered a failure?
Is ActivityPub winning? At best it has stalled after gaining a few defectors like myself from those who are unwilling to tolerate bullshit. But at this point I think it’s abundantly clear that there is no amount of abuse that the majority of users won’t tolerate on proprietary platforms.
When open standards win, it’s usually because the platform was built on them, like email or podcasts.
Again, I’m happy to concede that XMPP looks doomed today, like RSS did a couple decades ago.
Did RSS win?
RSS certainly hasn’t won, yet. But RSS is doing fine, behind the scenes. Most of the RSS the average person interacts with doesn’t look, to them, like RSS. There’s a lot of RSS still in wide use, today. Competing solutions are currently enshitifying (Google Search, Reddit, Facebook, Xitter), while RSS is still free and still just works.
That’s not an automatic win for RSS, until you consider that RSS has already outlived WebCrawler, Digg, MySpace and GeoCities, among others.
I’m calling it early in favor of RSS.
We’ve agreed that I am prone to do so, though.
Did Linux win?
Yes. Linux won. The vast majority of computation today runs on Linux.
Windows used to hold a serious percentage of web hosting. My best guess is it was around half. The current percentage is unknown, but generous estimates put it at 3%, at most. For some context, the Azure cloud (Microsoft’s web hosting that Office 365 runs on) is known to mostly run on Linux.
But to address the other part of your question:
Is Windows desktop going away?
Something mostly proprietary that costs money and is called Windows with be with us for a long time.
But the Windows kernel is counting it’s final days now, while most people haven’t noticed.
The Windows kernel is cool, but it’s a pure cost center and no longer offers anything that Linux doesn’t.
Game developers noticed, this year. I personally, held onto Windows desktop for decades, solely for gaming. I suspect the shift this year will turn out to be a key moment in the spin down of the Windows kernel.
A desktop OS has a ton of moving pieces. We’re currently seeing the natural trend for those pieces to take advantage of existing open solutions.
I predict that we will see more and more of that, until the switching cost reaches the current low cost of switching web browsers.
Except it doesn’t “just work” because most platforms have abandoned it.
The vast majority of computation today runs on Linux.
Arguably not where it matters.
the Windows kernel is counting it’s final days
it’s a pure cost center and no longer offers anything that Linux doesn’t.
You’re delusional. Show me evidence that “the Windows kernel” is going away. Linux is still a giant pain in the ass to use unless you have lots of experience with command line.
Game developers noticed, this year.
Some of them? Sure. Big ones? Can’t even be bothered to tick a box in the Steam client to make them available. Actively adding features that break Linux compatibility and openly acknowledging that, at best, they don’t care.
until the switching cost reaches the current low cost of switching web browsers.
My dude have you not seen marketshare for Chrome and Safari?
Did XMPP win? Did RSS win? Did Linux win? These open standards have been around for decades and are still not widely adopted. At what point are they considered a failure?
Is ActivityPub winning? At best it has stalled after gaining a few defectors like myself from those who are unwilling to tolerate bullshit. But at this point I think it’s abundantly clear that there is no amount of abuse that the majority of users won’t tolerate on proprietary platforms.
When open standards win, it’s usually because the platform was built on them, like email or podcasts.
That remains to be seen. I’ll gladly accept XMPP as a point in the “against” column, as it has a long way to go, if it succeeds.
Google succeeded handily at their last round of embrace, extend, extinguish, against XMPP, by dropping support from Google Chat.
It’s worth noting that the question isn’t really whether XMPP replaces WhatsApp, it’s whether it can unseat SMS.
SMS is seriously entrenched. I don’t know it’s state of openess. My understanding is it’s mostly run/owned by a few large proprietary players.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS
Again, I’m happy to concede that XMPP looks doomed today, like RSS did a couple decades ago.
RSS certainly hasn’t won, yet. But RSS is doing fine, behind the scenes. Most of the RSS the average person interacts with doesn’t look, to them, like RSS. There’s a lot of RSS still in wide use, today. Competing solutions are currently enshitifying (Google Search, Reddit, Facebook, Xitter), while RSS is still free and still just works.
That’s not an automatic win for RSS, until you consider that RSS has already outlived WebCrawler, Digg, MySpace and GeoCities, among others.
I’m calling it early in favor of RSS.
We’ve agreed that I am prone to do so, though.
Yes. Linux won. The vast majority of computation today runs on Linux.
Windows used to hold a serious percentage of web hosting. My best guess is it was around half. The current percentage is unknown, but generous estimates put it at 3%, at most. For some context, the Azure cloud (Microsoft’s web hosting that Office 365 runs on) is known to mostly run on Linux.
But to address the other part of your question:
Something mostly proprietary that costs money and is called Windows with be with us for a long time.
But the Windows kernel is counting it’s final days now, while most people haven’t noticed.
The Windows kernel is cool, but it’s a pure cost center and no longer offers anything that Linux doesn’t.
Game developers noticed, this year. I personally, held onto Windows desktop for decades, solely for gaming. I suspect the shift this year will turn out to be a key moment in the spin down of the Windows kernel.
A desktop OS has a ton of moving pieces. We’re currently seeing the natural trend for those pieces to take advantage of existing open solutions.
I predict that we will see more and more of that, until the switching cost reaches the current low cost of switching web browsers.
Except it doesn’t “just work” because most platforms have abandoned it.
Arguably not where it matters.
You’re delusional. Show me evidence that “the Windows kernel” is going away. Linux is still a giant pain in the ass to use unless you have lots of experience with command line.
Some of them? Sure. Big ones? Can’t even be bothered to tick a box in the Steam client to make them available. Actively adding features that break Linux compatibility and openly acknowledging that, at best, they don’t care.
My dude have you not seen marketshare for Chrome and Safari?
We have established that. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
That’s what my other examples are evidence for. I’m extrapolating a trend I’ve seen many times before. I could easily be wrong.
I’m not stressing over it though, because I’m happy being a delusional old person.
Yes. And it supports my point. Here’s the source code to Chrome: https://github.com/chromium/chromium
Here’s the license: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/main/LICENSE
And here’s the source code to Safari: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit
There’s an advertising campaign by the current big players that everyone may as well accept their bullshit, because everyone else does.
I’m telling you, from experience, that putting up with that (current) bullshit is temporary.
They’ll innovative new bullshit, of course. That’s how the pattern goes.
That’s the perception I’m trying to counter with the web technology examples I gave above.
I was there building the web, on proprietary products, and I believed that, myself.
I’m delighted to report that I was wrong.
It took decades, but the far less visible corner of the web running on open technologies is now the only portion we currently still have.
With a big delightful exception for Shockwave Flash, and the folks valiantly keeping it alive to preserve it’s part in gaming history.