I hadn't used Linux in 1994, my first experiences with it were ~1998 but I remember that getting it to install and work correctly with my hardware as well as getting X to work was no mean feat.
So I imagine that would have been quite a large hurdle for somebody with a casual interest in learning to program to jump through in 1994, I also remember paying somewhere in the region of $100 for my Linux distribution then (SUSE I think).
Even at the point you had installed it , you would be compiling binaries with GCC that would have targetted Linux/glibc etc so you wouldn't have been able to share many of your creations with the rest of world apart from a slim minority of Linux users.
I'm not sure what the best compromise between having a "trusted" source of software is and being able to install what you want.
Most people seem quite happy with the app store lock-in, in fact most people I know who own android devices are not even aware of it's sideloading feature, they just get stuff from android market.
Of course if Apple become over restrictive then they do risk damaging their own ecosystem to the benefit of competing platforms.
Unfortunately there does seem to be more popular support that I had previously expected for the Internet to develop something closer to this model. I recently watched a documentary on cyber-bullying in which groups of parents were calling for an authority from government to be able to control the content of social networking websites as well as remove any anonymity from the Internet.
I hadn't used Linux in 1994, my first experiences with it were ~1998 but I remember that getting it to install and work correctly with my hardware as well as getting X to work was no mean feat.
X was no worry - our machine only had 4 MB of RAM, so I was practically forced to use pseudo-terminals. The learning curve for Linux distributions was not that steep. Slackware, especially in those days, was orders of magnitude less complex than current distributions. I picked up a cheap bargain UNIX book, which was enough to get started.
Even at the point you had installed it , you would be compiling binaries with GCC that would have targetted Linux/glibc etc so you wouldn't have been able to share many of your creations
Well, sharing my creations with the world wasn't very much possible anyway, since we had no internet connection. Besides that, for me the magic was in creating a program.
Besides that, your comment is factually incorrect, since a DOS port of gcc was fairly quickly available (DJGPP). In fact, IIRC Id Software's Quake was later compiled with it.
I'm not sure what the best compromise between having a "trusted" source of software is and being able to install what you want.
Me neither. I see how it is beneficial for some family members and friends to have a controlled software ecosystem. Also, App stores improved usability a lot.
On the other hand, if kids only get their hands on devices that are controlled completely by corporations, how will the next generation of hackers learn?
I imagine virtual machines, both cloud and local will become a commodity at that point so whilst they may not be taking their iPad apart or replacing the software it could potentially provide a dumb terminal to an infrastructure of disposable Linux instances all loaded with state of the art FOSS.
I can see them doing things like building mashups of their social data and possibly using the next generation of arduino like devices to create real world interfaces.
They will still "hack" just their building blocks will be different. Hell in the 70s you probably weren't a real hacker if you weren't a whizz with a soldering iron, how many of the RoR type hackers today practice that?
So I imagine that would have been quite a large hurdle for somebody with a casual interest in learning to program to jump through in 1994, I also remember paying somewhere in the region of $100 for my Linux distribution then (SUSE I think).
Even at the point you had installed it , you would be compiling binaries with GCC that would have targetted Linux/glibc etc so you wouldn't have been able to share many of your creations with the rest of world apart from a slim minority of Linux users.
I'm not sure what the best compromise between having a "trusted" source of software is and being able to install what you want.
Most people seem quite happy with the app store lock-in, in fact most people I know who own android devices are not even aware of it's sideloading feature, they just get stuff from android market.
Of course if Apple become over restrictive then they do risk damaging their own ecosystem to the benefit of competing platforms.
Unfortunately there does seem to be more popular support that I had previously expected for the Internet to develop something closer to this model. I recently watched a documentary on cyber-bullying in which groups of parents were calling for an authority from government to be able to control the content of social networking websites as well as remove any anonymity from the Internet.