Hi, I have huge ambitious ideas that I am giving to all linux distributions:
-UNIFY/MERGE ALL DISTRO COMPANIES/ORGANIZATIONS WHILE ALSO MERGING WITH LINUX ORGANIZATION TO WORK WITH EACH OTHER(REMOTELY IF NECESSARY) TOWARDS A SINGLE LINUX DISTRIBUTION/OS WITH ALL THE FEATURES OF EVERY DISTRIBUTION WHILE FORSAKING THE CURRENT ONES
-MAKE DEALS WITH SOFTWARES AND COMPUTER/NOTEBOOKS COMPANIES IN ORDER FOR LINUX TO COME INSTALLED AS YOU BUY A NEW COMPUTER/NOTEBOOK AND TO SUPPORT MORE SOFTWARES
-IMPROVE MARKETING BY FOR EXAMPLE SPONSORING CONTENT CREATORS AND FINANCING ADS THROUGHOUT THE INTERNET, THE LINUX ORGANIZATION IS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MAIN CULPRITS HERE FOR THE LOW FAME OF LINUX, THEY ALLEDLGY SPEND ONLY 3% OF ALL THEIR PROFITS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LINUX KERNEL WHILE SPENDING ALL THE REAMAINING MONEY ON A BUNCH OF USELESS THINGS WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MARKETING AT ALL(I BELIEVE SOMEONE/SOME COMPANY RELATED TO LINUX SHOULD ACTUALLY SUE THEM AND REPORT THEM TO POLICE FOR NOT SPENDING THEIR MONEY PROPERLY ON WHAT THEY CLAIM AND THEY SHOULD. TO ME IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE SOME SORT OF CORRUPTION SCHEME TO DIVERT THE MONEY TO THEMSELVES PERSONALLY IN THE END, LIKE EQUALITY AND RACIALLY PROFILLING ''PROJECTS/ACTIVISM'' THAT HAVING NOTHING TO DO AT ALL WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINUX)
-CREATE A PRO AND FREE VERSION AND CHARGE ON A MONTHLY BASIS FOR THE PRO(SINCE EMPLOYEES ARE PAID MONTHLY WAGES, THE SOFTWARE IS CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOPED AND CONSIDERING IT CAN PAY OFF MORE THAN A LIFETIME LICENSE)
-STILL ACCEPT DONATIONS
THE BENEFITS WILL BE:
-MORE DEVELOPERS WORKING IN A SINGLE DISTRIBUTION ALLOWING FOR A BETTER DISTRIBUTION WITH FASTER IMPROVEMENTS AND BUG FIXES -TIGHTER CONTROL OVER THE SOFTWARE
-FASTER OVERALL DEVELOPMENT OF THE OS
-HIGHER PROFITS WHICH CAN IN THE END BE USED TO BOOST THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OS AND PAY ITS EMPLYEES/DEVS BETTER.
SOME MAIN FEATURES A OS SHOULD HAVE NATIVELY:
DRIVER UPDATER AND SOFTWARES UPDATER/backports repo
CLOUD BACKUP
GREAT USER INTERFACE
NOTIFICATIONS
NOTIFICATION PANEL
COMPLETE CUSTOMIZATIONS> SUCH AS> cursor size / font size/ font type/ windows icons size/ taskbar location/ taskbar size
OVERCLOCK TOOLS
ANTIVIRUS
SETTINGS
DESKTOP
DESKTOP FOLDERS
FILE MANAGER
TASKBAR
TASK MANAGER
STARTMENU
COMPLETE CLIPBOARD MANAGER
PASSWORD MANAGER
NOTES
MEDIA VIEWER AND PLAYER
RESOURCE MONITOR
APPS MANAGER/VIEWER
NATIVE FEEDBACK APP(FOR BUG REPORT AND FEATURES REQUEST)
Merging all Linux development into a single entity will only result in another corporation like Google Microsoft, Apple, etc. You mention your dissatisfaction with the existing Linux Foundation as being a corrupt organisation unfit for purpose, so what is your suggestion to prevent your new monolithic all-linux entity becoming as bad as the LF, or Microsoft, et al?
Also, suggesting turning the consumer desktop into a subscription? Are you a Microsoft plant?
@Felipex Feedback on your feedback.
Reading paragraphs all in BLOCK CAPITALS (shouting) is hard on the eyers and I quickly gave up.
Also merging distro's just removes choice and competition so, no not a good idea IMO. One-size-fits-all never works.
The beauty of linux is freedom: If you don't like how one distro does things, there are other options. People don't like that debian uses systemd? There is devuan. People don't like that Ubuntu uses the gnome desktop instead of kde? There is kubuntu. People don't mind the risk of things breaking and they just want to try out new versions of software? There is arch.
I could give more examples, but I think this makes it clear enough what my point is: diversity, being something that can accomodate all needs instead of focusing on one single option.
Having all the features in that single desktop environment and distro is not a solution, either. KDE Plasma has a lot of customization options... but that is not a good thing to everyone, as I have seen people say they don't like that desktop environment because the options feel to "overwhelming" and they prefer something a bit more minimalist, like gnome. But then there are people who consider gnome too minimalist and prefer having more customization options. And then there are people with old/low-end computers that can't run neither of those and just need something lighter, like xfce.
Having one single option would mean getting rid of what linux is famous for: freedom. Because you would have to do things only like the "dominant and only" option likes it.
The best marketing strategy isn't seeing ads about it nor watching someone who got paid to showcase the product in the most positive way possible. The best marketing strategy is making a product that people will talk about and genuinely recommend. I have never seen ads about google chrome until very recently and it's the most used web browser in the world, and most of the ones that are behind it take the same chromium base. Being the pre-installed and default choice wouldn't be the case here, as windows never had chrome pre-installed, but internet explorer, the web browser that had to be discontinued and replaced with edge because nearly no one used it.
Also, doing sponsorships isn't cheap, and I don't think Zorin is in a big enough position to be able to spend big amounts of money on that. Canonical maybe could, but I still don't think it would affect the linux marketshare much more than what people recommending on their own (such as youtubers, blogs about linux, etc.) are achieving.
Can you send a link to prove those claims?
Either ways, I haven't been using linux for too long, but I did notice big performance improvements from the kernel 5.15 that zorin 16 uses to the 6.2 that zorin 17 initially used, and there were also speed improvements when it upgraded to the 6.5 kernel, so something is clearly happening there. So unless you send something to prove those claims, I don't think I'll be believing it.
Subscription-based software have been a big complaint in many areas for some time. I really don't think anyone who wants to be a "better alternative to" should do that (not even Windows does it, you can't be a better alternative to something if you do things the users don't like that not even the product you are comparing yourself with does...)
The way it is on Zorin right now is: you pay for 16 Pro, you have 16 pro forever, but you need to pay again if you want 17 Pro. I have seen some people not be a big fan of this, but that's a reasonable and far better option than a monthly-subscription, since you ACTUALLY OWN what you paid for.
The ZorinGroup, from my understanding, is two people. Sure, they would still need money to pay rent, food and other basic spendings for a living, while also developing the OS, but they could have given up on ZorinOS years ago if it wasn't a viable option. But they didn't. And they never said (at least from what I know from the last two years) that they are struggling financially. In the bottom of the main page of the OS, you can see that they've been going since 2008. If 16 years that have worked fine even with a 1% linux marketshare, now that the linux marketshare has been rising so fast in the last 2 years and this distro is one of the most recommended and well polished for those coming from windows, I'd assume they are doing fine.
...don't most distros already have that? Aren't drivers updated alongside other software?
Nothing stops you from going to settings on any gnome-based desktop (gnome, xfce, cinnamon...) and adding your google drive account from there, or downloading the (unofficial) onedrive client.
As I said before, that is subjective. Some say gnome has a great user interface, some say it's too "touch-friendly" for something that is mostly not used on a touchscreen and doesn't feel as good on desktop. Some say KDE Plasma is amazing, while there are people who despise it. Some love XFCE because of how customizable, lightweight and easy to get used to it is, while there are people who say it feels "outdated". All distros have a great user interface in their own way, they just focus on different appealings, which is a nice thing, because if you don't like one, you may like another.
Take windows as an example: That is an example of an unified and single user interface. There are people who really like how windows 11 looks, but there are people who hate it. If you want to continue using windows (at least from 2025, when w10 goes EOL), your only option is w11's interface. You don't like it? Well, you would have to go for an entirely different OS if you want something different, which may or may not meet your needs. On Linux? If you don't like the interface of one distro, you can go to another one, and other than the interface, there is usually not that many changes from one distro to another.
...what distro did you use that didn't have those...?
Only the gnome desktop is the one that doesn't meet all those examples out-of-the-box (but can with extensions, which most distros who ship with gnome already include).
Those can harm the hardware if not used carefully, so including it out-of-the-box for every user is NOT a good idea. I'm not against the idea of them existing, I'm just saying that installing them manually is way easier than being careful enough to not break your computer with it, and having those included like any other feature will make many unknowing people think "oh! this will make my computer faster" and end with an unusable computer in the process.
You want to install them yourself and use them? Sure, do so at your own risk and with the correct precautions (maybe applying extra thermal paste, modifying the fan curve, change the cooling method of your computer for a more effective one...), but overclocking NEVER should be offered so easily accessible to the average computer user who doesn't know much about computers.
Again, what distro did you use that didn't have those?
To some, that's useful.
To most of arch users and some non-arch users as well: "bloatware".
Useless and bloatware. Do you really want a native feedback app when that essentially needs internet connection to do its only purpose? Why not do that with the web browser? I do agree that having a way to report bugs and request features is nice, but why have it taking space in your computer when there would be no difference between that and just doing it on the web browser?
All OP's other nonsense aside, I am pretty sure this is true. Here are a couple of articles from the latter half of last year talking about the Linux Foundation's funding of linux development.
While it's true that The Linux Foundaiton continues to grow substantially -- now bringing in over a quarter of a Billion dollars per year (seriously) -- the total amount spent on the Linux kernel dropped roughly $400,000 in 2023. (Not surprising as The Lunduke Journalpreviously pointed out that lowering the total support of Linux appeared to be the goal.)
The percentage of The Linux Foundation revenue spent on Linux dropped in 2023.
And the total amount spent dropped as well.
All while funding of non-Linux projects (such as AI and Blockchain) continued to dominate.
This is actually a great use case for artificial intelligence: summaries! With my answers marked as "A:"
Uniform/merge all distribution companies/organizations and Linux organization to create a single Linux distribution/OS.
A: I strongly disagree with this. I'm not arguing against the advantages of having a unified management; companies like RedHat and Canonical are both excellent examples of this even when we factor in the downsides of doing so. What I am arguing is that this misses the point of what free and open source software is all about. The minute we have investors to please there will be a shift in interests and needs that need to be fulfilled. Yet, this philosophy doesn't stop different organizations from collaborating with each other if they so wish to.
Make deals with software and computer/notebook companies to install Linux on new computers/notebooks.
A: You can already purchase a computer with Linux pre-installed. There are other companies that sell laptops with explicit support for Linux in mind, like System76 and Tuxedo Computers. The more competition, the better.
Improve marketing by sponsoring content creators and financed ads.
A: I'm not inherently against marketing. But if we're talking about invasive software like Google Ads and similar, which unfortunately is basically how things work nowadays, only contributes to a much broader problem that I'm 100% against.
Create a Pro and Free version with a monthly fee for the Pro.
A: This, again, misses the point of free and open source software. It's one thing to provide services around software like hosting, support or computing, but the software itself must remain free.
Accept donations.
A: This is already happening.
Benefits include more developers, tighter control over the software, and faster overall development.
A: Tighter control over software and faster development cycles are not necessarily a good thing. They are not a bad thing, either, but it can be double edged sword. I prefer to have stable releases that don't change very often and that have been thoroughly tested. Going back to the whole point of free and open source software, tighter control over it has the very real potential of undermining this principle.
Main features include driver update/software update/backup repo, desktop backup, great user interface, notifications, customization panel, overclock tools, antivirus settings, desktop and taskbar settings, taskbar, file manager, taskbar, startmenu, complete clipboard manager, password manager, notes, media viewer and player, resource monitor, apps manager/viewer, and a native feedback app.
A: Yeah, sure, all the things. That would be nice. Maybe we could give each user their own unicorn, too. That would put Microsoft and Apple out of business within a month.
This is wishful thinking. The reason being: all of those already exist but the problem is with expectation management. People coming from Windows thinking they can have an exact, identical copy of it are going to be disappointed. Workflow changes will need to happen, there is no way around it.
PS: @Ultrabenosaurus I recently discovered about Lunduke and I really enjoy what he says. I don't always agree but he has such a refreshing perspective on very interesting and often overlooked topics.
