The question I'm most worried about is not whether there will be enough apps, that there will be enough competation between telcos, I'm worried about how this will affect Free software
The telcos hate free software. It cuts into their profit margins
Apple doesn't even all Free software in their app store for iPhone. What if this were to happen to GNU/Linux netbooks?
And if this is the general direction GNU/Linux is going (towards netbooks and smaller, embedded devices, controlled by telcos and hardware vendors) I think that we need to start protecting ourselves. We may just end up with another Windows.
Sure, the kernel must stay Free, but what good does that do us if it has a proprietary GUI with a proprietary App store selling proprietary apps encumbered by proprietary DRM? Are we really any more free?
The worst part is that this IS what the telcos WILL try to do. They are cunning and ruthless and refuse to give users any glimpse of freedoms that they may have. The main problem with cellphone companies today is that they still believe they are Ma Bell (charging outrageous prices for SMS 1 2, probable prcie fixing between companies, exclusive carrier deals, cdma vs. gsm, etc) and, like Ma Bell, are doing everything they can to control users.
Sure, GNU/Linux will always be 'free,' but if the people who have their hand in bringing Linux to $telco_subscriber decide that they want to control their users they WILL. even if they have to develop their own libraries for UI, networking, etc. If these telcos start to limit Free software for the benefits of their shitty little app store profits, there will be little we can do as $telco_subscriber will see this as a nice little benefit.
There will be no way telcos would be happy with the user having the ability to install tarballs of the same applications they may SELL in their appstores. And that sucks. If it comes between peddling 'barely free' linux, just to get it into the hands of regular users, we really have to question "what is important: The distributions,' manufacturers' and telcos' profit margins, or the freedoms of the user. Is getting Linux into the hands of users more important than getting Free software into the hands of users?"
Plus, with more people running GNU/Linux saying "Hey, I run Linux" will become far less cool :(

This was on /. a week or two ago... Hence I am wondering WHY THE TFA IS EVEN HERE? e-e

Hold on, I'll go get you your x86 assembler.

That's what metapackages do: They pull in an entire working DE, whether you want all the applications or not.

apt-get install kde installs a BUNCH of crap as well.

Which is why no one should ever install those metapackages in the first place. Tomboy isn't getting included in the default install, only in the GNOME metapackage.

First off, I don't use evolution, I only cited it as an example.

Second, this is not about "ape-ing" anyone. It's about getting the job done and creating great applications that rival Microsoft and other desktops. What tool someone uses should be a nonissue, in the long run. There is little issue with the Mono runtime, it's been around since (believe it or not) before the Novell Microsoft agreements, it has had no legal trouble in the four years of its development, and there is little reason that it should. This simply comes down to the issue of what a developer wants to develop from, and nothing more.

What if Microsoft had created C++? Would you be shunning GNotes?

If it wasn't the Gnotes developer that had started this little war, I may be more open to consideration of the issue, but there is a HUGE COI in that, imo. Comes across to me that he is just trying to get back at the Tomboy team because they made it into the dependancies and not him. And instead of one-upping the application with new features, etc, he decides to simply attack the framework which the application is based on.

And, for the record, I don't use any mono applications; I just have the ability to look at things objectively and not judge things on the company that may or may not be related to a piece of software's development language. Modding the OP +4 insightful just goes to show how narrow minded /. commenters really are.

(/. mangled my last paragraph)
http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/?p=124 irrational?
http://np237.livejournal.com/24065.html zealots?
http://robertmh.wordpress.com/?p=12 hm, this whole argument was blown out of proportion by the GNOTES DEVELOPER. Sounds more like a whiny developer pissed that his package wasn't included rather than a real issue.
"These are *APPLICATIONS* and forcing me to install them is, to my mind, antithetical to the open source ideal." No one is forcing you to install anything. Every reasonably competant debian user knows NOT TO INSTALL THE METAPACKAGES! Anyone else should run Ubuntu.
"Evolution serves no useful purpose in today's world" huh? Right, so the only thing that is going to ever get GNU/Linux accepted as a replacement for MS Windows in corporate settings is useless?
"It's just like Wine and DOSEmu: a gateway to viruses that originated on Microsoft platforms." ...what? It's not a fucking interpreter or an emulator, it's a compiler for Christ's sake! Read your fucking code before you compile it if you're that scared of the "M$ BOOGY MONSTER."
Altogether, this whole argument just goes to show that users, even GNU/Linux users can be grossly uneducated on topics, hearing Microsoft, and jumping on the attack. We should mysteriously drop F-Spot and GnomeDo and Evolution and see how these morons react.

Almost as loud as the people opposed to "MS technology," developed before Microsoft had anything to do with Novell or any other GNU/Linux.

I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next guy, but only when it's necessary. If anyone on /. actually kept up with the Debian blogosphere and Planet Debian, they'd see that there are two sides to every issue, and those sides aren't always political.

http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/?p=124 http://np237.livejournal.com/24065.html http://robertmh.wordpress.com/?p=12 "These are *APPLICATIONS* and forcing me to install them is, to my mind, antithetical to the open source ideal." "Evolution serves no useful purpose in today's world" Altogether, this whole argument just goes to show that users, even GNU/Linux users can be grossly uneducated on topics, hearing Microsoft, and jumping on the attack. We should mysteriously drop F-Spot and GnomeDo and Evolution and see how these morons react.

I'm a member of the Phoenix Arizona GNU/Linux user group.

Back in November a few days before elections, one of the group's members Jim March (if you google the name + Diebold, sequioa etc, you see that he is the real deal) sent a request to the group looking for volunteers to help monitor processes in the voting systems which were not being adequately tracked, such as "monitoring the 22 "regional receiving stations" where ballots come in from the field for modem uploads to the central tabulator" and "Those able to pull only a shorter shift can visit a polling place as it closes and photograph the end-of-day vote tallies as they come out of the precinct voting machines...before those votes can be hacked either in-route via memory card manipulation or at the central tabulator's MS-SQL database"

What went on on the list after this was a disturbing expose of the Maricopa County and Pima County arizona electronic voting systems. While these are not of the "download, vote scan and upload" variety, the similarites, and how "secure" voting systems may soon be implemented, raise many questions about the validity and security of using, among other things, unprotected access and ms-sql databases (with a protected front-end, mind you, but they are easily subverted by using Access or direct SQL commands on the databases, with NO PASSWORDS in some cases)

Basically, if you can't trust the physical machines, how on earth will you be able to trust online voting? Sure, it isn't the "download, vote, scan and upload" type of voting that March writes about, it is scary to think how easily such "secure" systems can be completely 0wned. How hard would it be to manipulate the online votes, either en route or once they are counted and in one of the mentioned voting systems?

Voting systems such as was described in the OP are a thing of the past. They will soon be replaced with such lovely proprietary and "secure" technologies I've described above. Hell, who knows, we GNU/Linux guys may not even get a say in the online voting if such systems are purely M$ powered technologies.

The real question is: Do you trust someone else with your vote? Are any voting measurements safe to hacking/changing (Paper or not)?

Sources:

http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/thread/20081103.154522.6e6e3b28.en.html#20081103.154522.6e6e3b28

http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/thread/20090416.172946.c1278c8a.en.html#20090416.172946.c1278c8a

The walls in Apple's garden are too high, they can't hear you on the other side of them.

You run X.org? wowzers. :B