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OSS Unix: Dividing & Conquering Itself

Posted by Hemos on from the avoiding-the-monoculture dept.

(Score.5, Interestin writes "Security guru Marcus Ranum has some interesting thoughts about how a continuing lack of consistency among Unix systems (and particularly Linux) is hurting Linux (and remaining commercial Unix vendors like Sun) and helping Microsoft. Admittedly this has been said before, but no-one else quite manages to phrase things the way Marcus can."

9 of 591 comments (clear)

  1. All I can say... by tabkey12 · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.olene.net/linux.html

    --
    Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
  2. Microsoft's consistent... by Nuclear+Elephant · · Score: 2, Funny

    While the UNIX vendors beat eachother up over what amounted to nitpicking details, another vendor offered the same consistent kind of software experience across a broad spectrum of hardware, including laptops. I am referring, of course, to Microsoft/Intel.

    Yup you could always count on that blue screen of death no matter what hardware you ran on - at least it gave you a warm fuzzy feeling inside!

  3. The article is dated... by mmThe1 · · Score: 4, Funny


    "Salt Lake City Airport, Dec 4, 2005" (look at the bottom of the page)

    hm, slashdot editors -- for once you've repeated news from future!

  4. Re:This is why I like BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Which 3 BSD's are those? I'll assume you're talking about DragonFly BSD, ZoneBSD and GoBSD.

  5. Re:Marcus experience isn't representative by eliasen · · Score: 2, Funny
    I stopped reading when Marcus claimed to be a "Windows System Administrator since Windows 1.0". Anyone who didn't have the sense to bail out--immediately--from a company that bet its lunch on Windows 1.0 can't be trusted.

    "Hmmm... this new Windows 1.0 is not a complete abomination before the Lord. Let us hire a system administrator to manage it. Of course, he shall have to have no independent thought nor sense of shame."

    --
    Make your computer ten thousand times larger--try Frink
  6. Re:This is why I like BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    There used to be a reason people allocated their blocks to certain offsets. Now everyone expects a silly linker to do everything for them.

    Some of us don't feel like "learning" their system for the 1000th time when installing a new system and just want it to work.

  7. Only partially correct by couch_warrior · · Score: 3, Funny

    You missed an important point in your rant.
    It isn't just that Linux/free BSD adherents are squabbling children. NO, NO, NO. They are squabbling adherents of a religious cult. In particular, the cult of UNIX. These people are cut from the same cloth as the old mainframe system operators. They believe that it is MORALLY WRONG for a computr system to be easy to use. Why write a GUI that lets a user choose from a scrollable list of options, when you can make them use a command line interface where they have to memorize the syntax of 25 option flags. If you make it easy to use, the commercial value of memorizing command options evaporates, and they might have to get REAL jobs. And if helpful souls corrupt your favorite open source package by creating GUI tools to configure and run it - rewrite the applicaiton to break all the GUI tools! The only reason for having a GUI on Linux at all is to seduce Windows users into trying Linux, knowing full well that to get anywhere they will HAVE to learn the CLI -bwahahahahahaha! I have been a faithful Linux devotee for 8 years, and with about every second release, my window manager changes, requiring me to relearn all the configuration settings, or the multimedia viewer I had been using gets dropped, and I have to reinstall it by hand from tarballs, or the CD burner software disappears and I have to find an alternate.
    I will never stop loving or using Linux, BUT, for heavens sake guys, GET RID OF THE CLI, and STOP REINVENTING THE WHEEL!
    Repeat after me - "Ease of use is all that matters", "Ease of use is all that matters", "Ease of use is all that matters","Ease of use is all that matters", ...

    --
    "Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
  8. Re:Biggest gripe by iamacat · · Score: 2, Funny

    And if you need X, and only one company makes a program that does X, then you don't have much choice. But if X won't work on 1/2 of the distros out there, then that one company may just decide that Linux is too much trouble, and just make X for Windows.

    Ah, the evil X consortium, only making X/Windows and not X/Linux!

  9. Re:We're winning, let's change tactics by nx2059 · · Score: 2, Funny
    'll stay exactly where I am-- a Microsoft customer.
    Slight correction. To Microsoft, end-users are not customers, they are consumers. Linux end-users tend to be participants, wherever they can.
    The irony here is that you are insulting him.
    --
    Stewie Griffin: You. Fetch me my copy of the Wall Street Journal. You two, fight to the death!