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Caldera to Open Part of UNIX Source
Andy Tai writes: "According to this Caldera press release, Caldera is beginning to release the components of the original Unix source code under the GPL or other licenses (such as Caldera's Open Access license). While some of these Unix utilities (grep and awk) may not be very useful, since GNU equivalents have been available for many years, the original Unix tools going GPL has a big symbolic meaning--the original Unix is gradually becoming Free Software! Unix was the giant RMS aimed to replace. Now GNU is gradually taking the place of the original Unix."
Because this clone, "linux", is costing us way too much.
If you put Linux next to some other operating systems out there for a cost comparison, the conclusions are devastating for Linux.
Linux costs not only more because of the frequent updates which require new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet connection.
Another factor in Linux cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose loses water, when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I can go on and on and on, but the message is clear. In this world, there is no place for Linux. It's not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc. The best place it should ever reach is the toy store, and even that would be flattering.
I hope they can release a compiler!
I really think one should ban IBM as a bussinesspartner for ethical reasons.
goat!