[ale] Riddle me this

[JD]

Netflix and 86-Linux support isn't a technical issue.
It is a cost-of-support, business decision, and perhaps contractual issue.

Linux on the desktop has never taken off with the numbers desired to have a
thriving business profit center for Adobe.  It is hard to justify spending
thousands of hours creating, distributing and supporting a platform where there
doesn't appear to be a future payback.  iOS/Apple's decision to end Flash
support was the initial nail in the coffin. The fact that Android is Linux is
the other, though a business case could be made to sell support for the 200M
Android devices.  I think internally, Adobe management wants Flash to die.

Then there are the contracts around commercial media offerings.  There are a few
Linux-based devices that support Netflix, but these have DRM built-into the
chip.  Look at the "WD-TV Live HD Plus" as a start. I suspect Roku does too.

Heck, Netflix servers are all Linux-based, so I'm fairly positive that the
Netflix engineers WANT to support Linux desktops, but again, it is a business
decision.

I can't blame any business for believing that the Linux market is small.  We are
a noisy group, but not in the normal ways.  We don't advertise like Apple or
Microsoft. 90% of the world has never seen or heard "Linux" before.  Until that
changes, support for Linux will really be limited to niche users, fed-up
businesses and servers.

I've been thinking of an easy way to let people know how many Linux users and
machines running Linux there are in the world .... perhaps the ALE group can be
the starting point?  I'll make another post about this idea soon to let all of
ALE see it better - not buried in another thread.  Basically, it is an
email-footer with a count of machines/devices running Linux.  It needs to be
simple, short, to the point.  I've had this footer for about 5 yrs myself:

-- 
Sent from Linux on a desktop, laptop, server or nokia tablet.

but I think we can do better - I need to add Android and counts; provide more
useful data and make it search-able without making it more than 72 characters.
Get it on Facebook, twitter, photos, AND emails.
Long footers suck. Sorry to those who feel your long footers are needed. Anyone
who knows you, should know the rules of contact already and doesn't need a
reminder with every email.  Just an opinion.

I like terrorPUP's footer. Short, to the point. No repeat of information.

I see a few others have responded too. Need to read those later.


On 07/15/2013 09:11 AM, Jay Lozier wrote:
> Good question. How different is Android from a vanilla Linux distro? I know
> Android use a Google JVM (Dalvik?). Are most apps written in Java/Scala? If they
> are, I would think porting would be relatively straightforward (I may be showing
> my ignorance).
> 
> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 08:44:12 -0400, Chuck Payne <terrorpup at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Riddle me this, why is that apps for android, which we all know is
>> Linux can play netflix, rebox, and other video feed, but Linux can't?
>> I am shocked with the number android apps that are there out there,
>> that no one has though of create an app like crossover for android to
>> Linux. It should be easy enough.
>>
>> With Flash dead for Linux, a lot of site that use it are now only a
>> later version, thus making Linux hard to view them, but these same
>> site have apps that work on android.
>>
>> Am I wrong to think, most apps for android, are nothing but web apps
>> any that that just have a nice interface that points to a url?
>>
>> Yes, I understand that android is written for Arm Processors, but you
>> think it would be easy to re-compile them for Linux.
>>
>> Just something I been wondering about as I have to create a windows
>> virt for my son to use club penguin and cartoon network, when cartoon
>> network app on android does the same thing on web, but only makes it
>> easier to spoon feed the masses.
>>
>> -- 
>> Terror PUP a.k.a
>> Chuck "PUP" Payne
>>
>> (678) 636-9678