Subj : Re: Open Source Leaving Microsoft Sitting on the Fence? To : comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux From : =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lin=F8nut?= Date : Fri Jul 23 2004 08:00 am Error BR-549: MS DRM 1.0 rejects the following post from Peter Lu: > To be fair, both M$'s business and Open source have advantages and > disadvantages. Because M$ has sole control over Windoze, it is > on average more stable, if at the expense of innovation. I'm > surprised by how so many binary distributions of Win32 applications > run across platforms. What do you mean, "across platforms"? It's all Windows. Anything coded to the subset of the Win32 API that is supported on Win95 through Win 2003 ought to run. MS has you snookered into thinking Windows is more than one platform. > M$ makes sure that the external view of its > platform is one of stability and consistency, whether this is true > internally or not. Linux stuff tends to be constantly changing, > which is probably the view internal to organizations. I used to > have some problems with .dll compatibilities but that's nothing > compared to the madness of Linux .so and package dependencies. Use gentoo or debian, my friend. Or SuSE. Or Mandrake. > M$ installation/uninstallaion used to be a fiasco, but it has > straightened out over the years. Linux installation remains highly > iffy; one can't even decide whether source or binary distributions > make more sense. That's because both make sense. > I suppose canned distributions of Linux, such as Lindows, may fare > better in terms of stability and support, because features are lot > more limited. Most of what you said is a red herring. Sorry. -- Free as in freedom Power as in empowerment .