
Microsoft’s developer problem - shawndumas
http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer-problem
======
petercooper
I'm a Linux and OS X user all the way, but I don't agree with assertions like:

 _The even bigger problem, I think, will be the lack of dogfooding: most
developers of the kind of apps Windows 8 needs don’t use Windows._ .. or..
_many of those consumer-product developers, now entrenched in the Apple
ecosystem, to care so much about Windows development that they want to use
Windows to develop for it._

It's easy to think that when entrenched in the progressive, UNIX-oriented
crowd, as most of us on HN are, but take a little dive into the Windows world
and the scope of even just indie developers working on Windows is mindboggling
and totally eclipses the open source, Mac and Unix crowds, in my estimate
(though this is truly just an estimate).

------
orangethirty
Microsoft is not on its last legs. It doesn't have a "developer problem".
There are a lot of microsof-related jobs out there, more so than most web
trendy technologies. It is a solid company with solid footing.

Yes, Bing did not beat Google. Yes, their phones have always been second-tier
(until this latest batch which is pretty nice). Yes, there are a lot of things
that they have failed at.

But the one thing they have that others dont is the user base. Everyone and
their mothers has windows (unless you are or are related to a computer geek
(like my dad who runs ubuntu)). This is the power of Microsoft, if it can
translae all of that userbase from Windows 7/8 to the tablet/phone market,
then the game is mostly over for Apple and Android.

Microsoft can do that with a top-notch product, and each new iteration they
put out is times better than the last. They also can provide to most
enterprises what Apple or Google/Android cannot: a seamless integration of all
of their Windows-powered devices (which means that they can still keep their
XP/.Net boxes running and integrate them with some API).

They are aiming for one OS to run on everything. Smart move. Takes time, but
will ultimately will give them the edge. They have proven to be a dependable
enterprise supplier, and giving enterprises more options to compete will just
make them stronger.

Will developers write code for it? They already are. You just don't read about
it due to the marketing snowball that Apple and Android are enjoying.

If you think about it, iOS and Android have only existed for less than ten
yers. Windows has been here since Pangea. You think they survived this long by
chance?

Edit: Please fix your webpage. It does not load properly without JS.

~~~
jpxxx
I thoroughly agree with all you wrote, save for the mother problem: iOS is the
first platform where I've ever seen my mother seem in control and empowered by
her computing experience. After five years those interaction models and
expectations are seared in to a large number of people and it is going to take
an absolutely incredible product to make her move to another platform.

I do not see Windows-ish or Microsoft-esque software to be an asset in the
mobile field for the great bulk of consumers. It is not a desirable
experience, just a now-familiar one.

~~~
orangethirty
_...iOS is the first platform where I've ever seen my mother seem in control
and empowered by her computing experience._

Absolutely. I experienced that with my father and wife. Ubuntu and iOS
empowered them to not be afraid to try something new with the computer/device.
When people are not afraid of "breaking windows" a wonderful thing happens:
they use the device as a tool of empowerment rather than a tool to get some
task done.

 _After five years those interaction models and expectations are seared in to
a large number of people and it is going to take an absolutely incredible
product to make her move to another platform._

That is why I said that Microsoft keeps iterating better products. I'm sure
hey are about to hit it big. What will make people like your mother or my wife
change back to Windows is the integration with the other Microsoft products.
The majority of professions (my wife is a teacher) are tied down to MS. Giving
them a phone that will integrate with that will just make the others look like
Linux looks o someone who has always worked with Windows: foreign.

 _I do not see Windows-ish or Microsoft-esque software to be an asset in the
mobile field for the great bulk of consumers. It is not a desirable
experience, just a now-familiar one._

The bulk of consumers would pick something familiar over something new (or
even better). They know Microsoft through Windows. They will pick Windows if
given a trendy and functional phone that will inegrate wih their life (and not
the other way around).

~~~
DeepDuh
How is the Windows 8 UX in any way familiar to the bulk of today's Windows
users? I would argue that it will be more foreign to them than OSX.

~~~
orangethirty
But it still be Windows. People will just sit down and learn it. Unlike my
experience installing Ubuntu, where people feel foreign to the UI because it
is not windows. Even though it is easier to use (My experiences cover
Ubuntu/gnome).

------
statictype
In reality, if the platform looks like it could be successful, developers will
suck it up and write software for it.

I'm sure many developers find Objective-C/Cocoa/Xcode to be a terrible
development environment, but they do it anyway, because that's where the
action is.

I don't think many people have the type of religious aversion to Windows or
non-Apple platforms that Marco is alluding to.

(Also, are there really any high-profile iOS apps remaining that aren't
already available on Android because the developer refuses to write software
for Android? Instapaper and Flipboard were the biggest I could think of and
it's not true for those 2 anymore)

~~~
fpgeek
I also think Marco seriously underestimates how many great developers still
use Windows. Much as I dislike it personally, there are lots of reasons to:
deep Windows experience, huge ecosystem of tools/companies/etc, games,
targeting a Windows-heavy vertical, and so on.

Plenty of these people want to do more for mobile devices, too. Microsoft is
in a position to give them an easy way to do that (especially given the shared
base of Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8). Will it work? We'll see,
but if it fails it won't be because Microsoft failed to interest great
developers If it fails, it will probably be because Microsoft failed to
interest consumers.

~~~
CaptainDecisive
There's a very large Windows developer community. And some of those developers
have thought about " _working individually, in smaller companies, or in
startups, building consumer-facing apps or services_ ", and then thought about
having to learn a new language, and thought about having to learn a new
development environment, and thought about having people seeing you with one
of _those_ phones (1), and decided that it wasn't worth the effort or pain.

So some of those developers are just the sort of people who might make the
leap into the Windows 8 ecosystem. Microsoft has always looked after
developers so I agree with fpgeek that it will be more about PR and marketing
and image than the ability to attract developers. Indeed PR and marketing and
reality distortion was what enabled Apple to become the dominant player in the
smartphone market.

(1) See the religious wars article that happened to be on the front page
concurrently with this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150951>

------
programminggeek
This article is spot on, but it is easy to read it incorrectly. MSFT has a
problem that the best/most popular consumer apps are being developed for the
web or iOS, then Android, then far down the road they MIGHT make it to WP7 and
someday maybe, eventually they show up on Windows proper.

For the last 2 decades MSFT's whole company strategy is to get developers to
make apps for Windows Desktop. Name the last big "Windows App" that made you
buy a copy of Windows? The web killed that and iOS and Android made it worse.

Now Microsoft needs devs to make Windows 8 apps and they are hoping that the
inherently huge Windows Desktop ecosystem will make it so cheap to port to
mobile that developers will build tablet and mobile apps from their Windows 8
codebase.

The only problem is if you have a native app you are talking about 3 or 4
codebases to deal with - iOS, Android, Windows (and its variants), and the
web. As it stands now most devs will stop after doing iOS, Android, and web.
Who knows if Windows App Store is going to sell enough software for it to be
worthwhile to add a 4th codebase.

The opportunity in this is for shops who are willing to port popular Apps to
Windows. At this point the only apps that are worthwhile to build Windows
first are games.

~~~
jmcqk6
Windows 7 sold 600 million copies. There's your motivation to create Windows 8
apps.

Edit: plus, if you're already on a .NET codebase, you can target all of those
platforms with minimal fuss (and more).

~~~
marshray
And every single one of those apps that developers have made for Windows 7 are
not "Metro" and not eligible for the Microsoft App Store or to run on mobile
devices. Only a few of them are even dotnet. The rest will require a near
complete rewrite.

~~~
kkowalczyk
What he meant was: if Windows 8 sells like Windows 7, and it will, there will
be a mind boggling number of users to target. Windows 8 market will quickly be
bigger than Mac OS X market because Windows 8 will ship on every new PC being
sold.

And since there are no apps, there are lots of opportunities just writing the
same kind of apps that people have written in the past, except for Metro.
It'll be a new gold rush and you can trust me, developers will rush for that
new gold.

~~~
mattmanser
Well, I don't think anyone's expecting it to sell like Windows 7. They're
expecting it to 'flop' like Vista. i.e. sell quite a lot but have a large user
base sit on Windows 7 waiting for Windows 9 as people sat on XP after Vista.

------
trimbo
He vastly underestimates the dedication of .NET programmers and enterprise IT
to Windows. Visual Studio / C# / .NET is still the best development
environment I've ever used. Devs who love it will stick by it through thick
and thin (see: WPF, Silverlight).

Windows 8 may not be successful in the consumer space, but I imagine it has a
serious shot at doing very very well in the workplace.

~~~
huggyface
_Devs who love it will stick by it through thick and thin (see: WPF,
Silverlight)._

As someone who spends a good amount of my professional life in the Microsoft
stack, let me say that there is a bit of a negative correlation going on --
the ones who have embraced Microsoft's failed initiatives (their failure
predictable) have generally been, from my observations, mediocre developers.
There are some core Microsoft technologies that are excellent, but there are
various fire and motion initiatives that have been simply a waste of time.

~~~
randomfool
Completely agree- Microsoft has solid line of business developers but their
development community is sorely lacking people with rich UX skills.

Comparing the Silverlight community to the Flash community, the Silverlight
community is much more concerned about architecture (MVVM, Dependency
Injection, IOC, etc), while the Flash community seems to have much more of a
focus on 'how to accomplish a visual effect. It's not quite that clear cut,
but these are the general trends.

The other significant item is the cost to change development operating
systems- Microsoft platforms have been stagnant for too long, HTML is fairly
agnostic as a development platform so iOS has been pulling many people there.
(Not to mention that a fair number of newer web technologies treat Windows as
a second-tier platform).

Some of the larger costs for supporting development on multiple OSes, for a
small company:

\- Basic systems maintenance (OS licenses, user logins across machines,
support, parallels?)

\- Consistent development environment- sharing source control between systems,
porting build/test scripts, etc

\- Related tools- if you're doing a lot of UI work, may also need Photoshop or
Illustrator on your new OS.

------
cfn
It is hard to believe that the majority of web developers are on the Mac since
there are so many more ASP.NET jobs posts than Django or ROR jobs - at least
here in the UK.

Having said that the main reason I chose Microsoft as the platform for my
products was their commitment to backwards compatibility and the It Just Works
policy. As an example, I have an Itanium server running Windows and my
applications developed on x86 just work there, maybe not optimally but they
do. I believe the same was true of Alpha machines. Windows 8 partly does away
with this since the ARM version does not support Win32 applications.

Assuming that ARM is the winner in the tablet arena, any tablet application
will have to be built from scratch which poses an interesting dilemma: Which
platform should I choose for tablet development? The iPad, Android or Windows?
At this moment Windows is the worst choice because it is not ready, there are
no devices in the market and, what could be the reason to wait for it, my
applications will not "Just Work".

Microsoft does not have a developer's problem but the times ahead are pretty
rocky for anyone with a large investment in the platform.

~~~
tptacek
Just for whatever it's worth: the majority of ASP.NET job listings are
probably for line-of-business apps at non-technology companies.

Now, it's worth knowing that line-of-business dev jobs probably constitute a
gigantic chunk, maybe the majority, of all programming jobs in the industry.
So it's not nothing that those jobs are dominated by ASP.NET and J2EE.

But to Marco's point, line-of-business developers don't have a great track
record of marketing applications directly to consumers. "Enterprise software"
has picked up its connotations for a reason.

~~~
marshray
This is absolutely right. Techies often forget that for most of the history of
computing approximately 90% of all software development has been making TPS
reports, business logic, and data entry screens for database backends.

However, a lot of those folks who do J2EE and Dotnet during the day will have
fun tinkering at night. So I predict there will be no shortage of amateurish
and clunky apps for Metro platforms.

------
Tiktaalik
_...most developers of the kind of apps Windows 8 needs don’t use Windows._

The exception to this would be games developers, and I do think games are an
important part of a mobile app store ecosystem.

Looking outside of mobile games, the majority of games are developed using
Windows and Visual Studio. With Xbox Live Microsoft already has an established
online gaming service.

Microsoft has some advantages that they haven't made use of in this niche.

~~~
glhaynes
Do we know yet whether OpenGL ES is going to be supported on Windows Phone 8
or only DirectX?

~~~
marshray
There's no information that it will be. Considering that native code isn't
allowed it's unlikely that any form of OpenGL will be allowed either.

Unless Microsoft sees how many app developers they've lost with this policy
and has a change of heart.

~~~
contextfree
Native code is supported on WP8 (it wasn't supported on WP7 because they were
afraid it would make it harder to port to the NT kernel).

~~~
marshray
OK so there's compilation to native code, but no Win32.

This article [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-nt-coming-
to-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-nt-coming-to-phones-
with-windows-phone-8/) says explicitly "OpenGL ES, the 3D API used by iOS,
won't be included, and so 3D applications will have to be rewritten to use
Direct3D."

~~~
contextfree
I think there might actually be a subset of Win32 available (the same subset
exposed to Windows 8 Metro style apps, or a further subset of that subset),
they've not made any of this clear yet though.

You are right that the lack of OGLES support will probably continue to be off-
putting to many mobile developers.

~~~
marshray
I'm sympathetic that they don't have all their decisions made yet, but as a
developer it's a bit off-putting that they're asking everyone to develop for
this platform for which there will be all these new limitations and
restrictions but they won't say what they are. It's really difficult to answer
basic questions like "do apps for Metro/WP8/WinRT/Windows RT have to be
managed code?" Typically the information is provided like "Use Visual Studio
2012 to code in C++, C#, or VB ..."

------
nhebb
I can't really take this article seriously. There are millions of Windows
developers, and you can't make broad, sweeping statements like he does about a
group that large. If there's money to be made, developers will target the
platform.

------
cageface
_As the dominant consumer platform shifted from the web to apps over the last
four years_

Did I just miss this memo or something? Yes native apps have been enjoying a
strong growth curve, but they have yet to overtake web usage in any statistic
I've seen. If anything the app fad seems to be losing steam.

~~~
jarjoura
...and Where is this statistic you are alluding to? Facebook is the #1 example
of a company who gave HTML5 100% of the company's focus and realized it was
seriously misguided and is now redoubling efforts to write serious native apps
for each platform.

~~~
bad_user
Comments such as these are seriously out of touch with reality.

For me it is actually rather interesting that they went with HTML first,
considering that they had the resources to skip on the HTML version
completely. And I'm sure that they did this, not because HTML was the fad of
the moment, but because HTML has inherent advantages ... like, when Windows
Phone 8 gets released, Facebook will be available for it from day 1, just as
it is available on any phone that has a web browser.

And of course they had to go native. Developing web apps for mobile phones is
extremely painful. For instance the last time I developed something for an
iPhone, upload buttons in the browser were disabled. So basically in the name
of user experience or whatever the hell reasons Apple is conjuring these days,
they deliberately broke the user experience for web apps by not allowing
uploads of photos. And considering this is the number 1 use-case for active
users of Facebook, they were forced to go native anyway.

The alternative road, which both Facebook and Google took, was to wrap that
HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser restrictions
(like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least because the web
view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than the browser. For
Facebook at least it's amazing how they accomplished the feat of making the
native app more sluggish than loading facebook.com in the browser (which is
perfect btw, except that you can't share photos with it and it also doesn't
have any mechanism for giving you notifications in real time, but I don't miss
that because that's what email is for).

~~~
OpieCunningham
_when Windows Phone 8 gets released, Facebook will be available for it from
day 1, just as it is available on any phone that has a web browser._

Not really. Some amount of development effort will be required to ensure
compatibility with any given platform browser. Certainly cross-browser
compatibility has gotten better in the nearly 20 years of WWW existence, but
it is not perfect. And additionally, you'll have to consider various platform
issues such as the upload field on <iOS6 you mention. Alternatively, if
Facebook were to work on a native Windows Phone 8 app, they'd potentially have
it available from day 1. They have the resources and they'd likely have
abundant support from Microsoft.

 _wrap that HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser
restrictions (like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least
because the web view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than
the browser._

And at most because every other top-tier app which went native instead of HTML
provided a vastly improved user experience. Facebook and Google web view apps
look and behave antiquated in comparison. Not exactly putting your best foot
forward. Google has moved faster, where the G+ app is now native on iOS,
providing (perhaps) an improved user experience (at least a valiant effort at
one, anyway).

I can't speak for everyone, but exactly how long are we supposed to wait for
HTML to become a write-once environment that enables as-good-as native apps?
We've had nearly 20 years to address those two issues on the desktop and still
both issues exist. I just don't see that ever happening. And users will
notice.

------
ShirtlessRod
Can someone explain this part to me:

"And during that decade, almost every such developer I knew switched to the
Mac if they weren't already there, partly because it was better for developing
web apps."

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone make this claim, which seems
dubious at best. How in the world is the Mac better for developing web apps?

~~~
_pius
Easy, it's a POSIX-compliant OS and the vast majority of the web is deployed
on servers with a similar environment. This is doubly true of the consumer-
oriented web apps that Marco's talking about.

~~~
WayneDB
There are just as many, if not more job listings for ASP.Net than *nix related
web development environments.

~~~
_pius
That's definitely not true for jobs doing consumer-oriented web development,
as Marco was talking about.

Even if it _were_ true, though, it doesn't contradict my point. Most of the
web does not run on ASP.Net ... that's a fact.

------
nn2
Reminds me of that old quote "social media had popularized non-fact based
reality"

Macro is a mac developer, his friends are mac developers and he somehow
determines Microsoft development is dead because he doesn't do it. And we are
supposed to believe him in that.

Next step: profit?

------
wslh
Marco didn't hit the target here: beyond the risk to be an attractive platform
from the point of view of the developer the speed of development in Visual
Studio /.NET is superior than Eclipsr/XCode. Beyond average developers will
feel comfortable with their platform of choice but below average developers
can go to market very fast

~~~
seltzered_
I've been transitioning from Visual Studio/.NET/WPF/Resharper to Xcode/Vim
this past month. While I feel like the microsoft programming environment is
way more productive, at the end of the day an I care less about the
development environment, and more about whether what I'm making will have an
impact and make money.

I'm expecting many developers that long for a better dev. environment to buy
3rd party IDE's like IntelliJ IDEA & AppCode. They also cost less than what
you'd spend on Visual Studio Professional (yes, i know i'm ignoring bizspark
here).

Along with this, I'm just not excited about microsoft's pitch with surface as
a laptop replacement. I want a tablet that replaces books and paper. Those
aspects still require hardware design that feels good in "vertical" mode.

~~~
wslh
Your comment relates to the risk of developing for a platform without an
interesting market. That is true and time will say how much market can
Microsoft win in the mobile space.

If Microsoft increases their market share significantly, then "everyone" could
go to market very fast with Visual Studio. In my opinion they will achieve
significant success in less than 2 years.

------
kefs
article is pure fud.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>

and why is OP trying to make up a word where one already exists?

[http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer-
problem#...](http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer-problem#fn:2)

<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oughts>

------
MatthewPhillips
Marco's projecting here. He's overestimating point #1. Developers have their
preferences, but a total dedication to one company with which you have no
(real) relationship is a huge mental blunder most of us do not share with him.
The best app on the iPad (Paper) was created by former Microsofters. Marco is
projecting.

------
WiseWeasel
Personally, as an owner of several Macs, an iPad 3 and an iPhone, (which I
mention to indicate that I'm not predisposed to be biased in Microsoft's
favor) after watching the product announcement footage for the Microsoft
Surface, the Pro version does seem solid and appealing. The ARM version
appeared flaky, maybe a year away from being ready, but the Surface Pro looked
like something I might consider purchasing.

The product's portability, interesting design with a kickstand (brilliant!),
that clever keyboard case, and the supposedly high-res stylus built-in make
this a beast of a convergence device, and I think they may have pulled it off.
I have a hard time believing that the non-Pro ARM Surface will be shipping
anytime soon, however.

From a development perspective, I'm probably going to rely on the web browser
to target this platform for the foreseeable future, though the resources at my
disposal have largely made this choice for me. That said, I certainly wouldn't
discount the possibility of developers getting a Surface for themselves, and
eventually supporting the platform with their apps. They're a pretty sexy
piece of kit.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
The stated ship dates are actually the other way around: Surface ARM will ship
at Win8 launch (which has yet to be set), Pro ~ thee months later.

~~~
WiseWeasel
I wonder if they're just cynically assuming non-Pro customers have a higher
tolerance for buggy behavior. It definitely seemed half-baked to me.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Microsoft hasn't shown either beyond very controlled demos, so it's hard to
say what the state of either is. Windows has been running on Intel a _bit_
longer than Tegra (even if you only count x64), so I wouldn't be surprised if
the ARM kernel and drivers aren't totally ready yet.

------
jarjoura
Sorry, but Marco is mostly right. Microsoft's #1 problem right now is getting
good consumer front-end developers to even install Windows, let alone write
apps for their platforms.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Both of you are mostly wrong until the actual statistical number is out.

------
michaelpinto
The natural Microsoft developer community isn't someone looking to make the
next killer app for the public, instead most of that community are inhouse
corporate groups who make internal apps. Microsoft does a very good at
supporting this community with tools and other goodies.

So the type of apps you're going to see for this platform aren't going to be
ones sold in app stores, but internal mission critical apps. This community is
also very much about supporting legacy and in no rush for the latest and
greatest. And while this ecosystem may not be sexy it's very profitable and
it's a focus that both Apple and Google are weak at.

Also Microsoft already has the sales relationships with these large companies
so they will place orders. To me this is more about Microsoft going after the
turf of companies like Dell and HP than anybody else. I have to wonder if
we'll see Microsoft branded PCs and servers in the near future. In my mind
this is in the same league as Oracle buying Sun.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
You won't see Microsoft branded PCs unless Steve Ballmer found out that Dell
and HP were ready to back stab MS. Ever.

If they came out with Microsoft branded PCs and made a hit on Dell/HP sales,
Dell/HP will fight back and ship Ubuntu. 25% hit on sale would be ...
devastating.

You want to know why MS branded PCs won't ever happen? Because Steve Ballmer
said so with the above paragraph as an example of the business trade-off.

Tablet, on the other hand, is a different segment.

~~~
michaelpinto
If Larry Ellison can stab HP in the back why can't Ballmer? And not for
nothing HP was even talking about killing their PC devision not too long ago
and Dell seems to be grasping at other straws. Also if HP and Dell went to
Ubuntu I don't see them doing well with corporations that have an investment
in Windows.

My gut tells me that this is the first act of a play, and my bet is that we'll
see some more back stabbing before it's over. Although my bet is that Dell and
HP will be running away from the PC -- or at the very least someone will have
to go in that game of musical chairs.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Larry did not have mutual business/sales relationship with HP. That is the
biggest flaw with your argument.

Second, Ballmer said it himself that it will not go down like that for PC
business. Why do you think they have x86 and ARM?

I will take your bet when it comes to MS launching its own PC. MS will
definitely not do that. I have the insider info up on my sleeve albeit a few
years old but still recent.

Like I said, tablet or other devices, other than laptop and workstation, will
be a different ball games altogther.

Everybody has too much to lose when it comes to workstation and PC.

------
alextingle
Just a blank screen for me.

------
mathattack
IMHO, Microsoft could be seeing a similar problem as IBM 10-15 years ago. They
couldn't hire and keep the Great Ones any more. First it meant getting out of
the OS business. Then it meant buying software firms rather than developing
software. They realized that they were an Enterprise Sales and Services
organization.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
The big difference here is that Microsoft owns a large segment of consumer OS,
something that IBM did not (was stolen by Microsoft) in the past.

While I've heard or read prediction/assumption/guesses/perspective of MS
smells like IBM 10-15 years ago (and they are legit, I'm not saying it has no
merit), that difference alone is a huge (and fundamental) one.

Speaking of "great ones", there are plenty of great ones that work at MS, just
like there are plenty that work for Google. It's just that the "great ones"
solve different problems in different domain: most people only heard about
smart people working at Google solving problems at scale, while the .NET team
(Visual Studio, Compiler, IL, Libraries, etc) are not necessary "trendy" any
more.

Judging MS engineers as "average" engineers are simply naive or too cocky
without proper education at best.

------
cpnks
Everyone in the startup crowd's on MacOS? Dog droppings. I know plenty on
Ubuntu.

