Subj : Re: Old computer
To   : boraxman
From : TALIADON
Date : Tue Jun 28 2022 13:19:50

 bo> People don't see the compelling reason, which is software freedom and
 bo> moving to a different model of software creation, distribution and
 bo> ownership.  People tend to compare objects from what is printed on the
 bo> box, and mis the meta-analysis, the relationship between you and the
 bo> software, and the implications of making this or that choice.

The majority of programmers are like doctors: doing something good or interesting for humanity is a great thing, but it's the benefits, house, car, and foreign holidays they're ultimately after. Personally, I love the idea behind the GNU movement, but nothing motivates innovation quite like cold hard cash.

I don't ever see Linux becoming a truly mainstream desktop, because there isn't enough money to attract the necessary talent and there are simply too many cooks trying to bake the same piece of pie. Without standardisation, software development on Linux will always be problematic for commercial developers - DPI support is one of many issues that M$ and Apple solved through standardisation.

In fact, M$ stole the entire PC market in the early 90s when they decided to assimilate an established hardware standard into their WDM driver model: instead of building to the IBM PC standard, third-party manufacturers would now build to their own specifications and standardise via the WDM model - without a Windows driver, you couldn't use the hardware. This is when the IBM PC truly became the M$ PC, and Linux devs have been reverse engineering WDM drivers ever since.

I'd love to see the Linux desktop become a standardised environment where both users and developers can thrive, but Apple already did this 20 years ago and called it Mac OS X. When looking for a truly viable Unix desktop, Mac OS X is where most commercial/corporate developers will go.

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