Subj : Re: Open Source Leaving Microsoft Sitting on the Fence? To : comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux From : swift Date : Fri Jul 23 2004 10:51 pm In article , Steve Schefter wrote: >That's not quite the point that Peter seemed to be making. He wasn't >complaining that you could choose A versus B versus C to to fulfill >requirement Z. Instead, he was complaining that A version 2 was >incompatible with A version 1. And that A.redhat is quite different >from A.suse. > >I quite agree with Peter's points. Fragmentation was a big detriment >to PC Unix. Having to have a different release of your product for >each brand of Unix made it less attractive to port a product to Unix >at all. > >In terms of fragmentation, Linux doesn't seem to have faired much >better so far. But now you have to add to that the fact that there >is, IMHO, not enough attempt to maintain consistency within any one >fragment. > > Steve Thank you very much for standing up for fairness. Only when one sees and is willing to admit to the competence of competitors can one improve one's own "religion," instead of being blind-sided. Several years ago, I wouldn't have touched M$ OSes, being a Unix afficionado. When I first used Win9x, I cursed it quite a bit. There were tons of bugs and incompatibilities. Oftentimes, system problems required complete re-installations. But, over time, M$ got its act together as far as support and maintenance, and its products are relatively stable. No doubt having a paying customer base whipped it into shape. I believe the M$ organization has far more testing and support people than developers. Being able to control the "external view" gives M$ lots of advantages. For instance, one can't easily find experimental or incompatible code out there. The Win32 platform doesn't extend much, but it's exceedingly stable and well-documented. M$ has done a good job of enforcing compatibility of its partners, through the various certification programs. A lot of the stability comes from the slow evolution of its products. For instance, the Windows desktop hasn't changed in years, but it's rather dependable. I'm still trying to get a non-buggy Gnome/Nautilus for Redhat9 right now, being unable to build one easily. Note that I'm not praising M$ blindly. Certainly, as a monopoly, it has used its leverage to do nasty things. And some of these things have backfired in some ways. One reason why spyware intrudes so easily on WinXX platforms is that M$ left the floodgates open so that Windows users can be easily accosted as additional customers. It felt it had the right to install software without users' knowledge, for both advertising and system maintenance. Naturally, M$ detractors would use these hooks to embarass it. The various WinXX platform distinctions confuse me, but the distinctions and inconsistencies in Linux is far greater. Linux basically lacks industry/organization strategy. It is fragmented in such a way that each of the distributions are fighting for fiefdoms. There is no central place where one can just pick up all the compatible applications and libraries. The user needs to know way too much to have a fully functioning system. Only computer hackers can keep a Linux system running and supported. Part of the issue is that in order to have a well-supported system, there will be money-losing operations that need to be funded by money-making operations. For example, documentation and testing are typically money-losing because their efforts are not immediately obvious. With a large M$, the cross-funding can happen, whereas in the Linux fiefdoms, most of the effort is in packaging products for the next sale. The fiefdoms need to create (unnecessary) distinctions between themselves for marketing reasons. Linux would be a much more formidable force if it were truly organized and consistent. But as it is exceedingly difficult to have people cooperate rather than do their own thing, Linux remains in the realm of experimentation and playthings. I like to play just as much as the next hacker, but there are many times when I want something working right out of the box (or easily supported/maintained), and I have yet to see this happen on Linux. And certainly, the general population could care less about .dll or .so compatibilities. -- Keep it brief: http://www2.paypc.com/mailrules/ .