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The Truth About Linux and Windows
petrus4 writes "Groklaw has an update on the Laura DiDio saga. Apparently, her complaints about "Linux extremists" notwithstanding, cooler heads than the usual suspects are asking questions about her research. A very interesting read, and one which will hopefully encourage corporate readers to regard the Yankee Group's findings with the requisite metric ton of salt in the future."
Niether is Microsoft Windows. Ask almost anyone who uses Windows. It's a hassle.
The issues you mention are installation. Few people could do a full windows install, including all vendor supplied device drivers.
The actual truth is BOTH systems are far beyond the capabilities of average, unsophisticated users, or anything other than casual day-to-day usage of common applications.
3. Windows will not be killed. Not going to happen. We will have competition indefinitely.
If you call 90% Microsoft market share with exclusionary back-room deals at all major computer manufacturers so that virtually no PCs ship with competitors products... then yet, looks like it's gonna be that way for some time. I just wouldn't call it "competition". "Monopoly" might be a much better word.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Ah, the joys of the broad-stroked brush. Let's take this apart, shall we?
Which aspect of gaming: the server or the client? If you're talking about the client then, sadly, yes, Windows holds the edge here, since the graphics and sound drivers are more mature and better supported. However, for a server -- especially a public one -- you'd be a complete fool to put anything less secure than a Linux box on the net. Even better to put up one of the BSD variants.
The strokes don't get broader than this. But basically, all Windows is good for here is running Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). Everything else is better off running on Linux: Intranet Web servers, email servers, file servers, backup servers, Oracle, and corporate firewall.
There is nothing magic about streaming media, especially when it's done from a bunch of audio files stored on disk. Windows' proprietary DirectX brings nothing to the table here. So that means selecting for a robust, secure server platform, which makes the choice fairly obvious...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Face it, the ability to change operating system code is a benefit for .0001% of people and of absolutely no use to the other 99.9999% of people
That's just not true. I may never edit the source of a project or fork it. But I still benefit from the fact that others more knowledgeable than me can. Because of the forking and bugfixing that exists in the open source world I have:
Firefox instead of Netscape or IE
BMP instead of XMMS
Xorg instead of Xfree
Bug fixes that come faster than in the proprietary world
And I'm sure there's more that I'm just unaware of since I'm not a coder. A recent small example is that the latest Gnome didn't come with a menu editor. People complained and eventually a user (a non Gnome developer) made one. Now we're happy. Wouldn't have been so easy if they didn't have the code. See this article about how someone had to reverse engineer OSX just to get a desktop switcher. Which will probably become broken with the latest OSX release.
It's a matter of admiration. Programmers/Open Source supporters admire people like James Gosling or Linus Torvalds. MBAs admire people like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates (and probably have neutral opinions of Gosling/Torvalds) because they have "achieved" things that MBAs strive for. And therefore progammers admire/respect programming/design/Open Source etc. MBAs admire Microsoft, Apple etc. Thus, programmers/Open Source supporters give more regard to technical facts and Open Source personalities. MBAs give more regard to "research" funded or supported by companies like Microsoft or Apple (Apple supporters wait, don't stone me to death yet. I'm not necessarily saying that Apple does such things. I'm just saying that if it did, then MBAs would swallow it.)
So, in other words, for mission critical systems, don't use software that none of your personel know how to support.
So, in other words, don't try to learn something on the job that is critical to your ability to do that job.
So, in other words, hire people that know what they are doing.
So, in other words, buy hardware that is supported by the software you intend to run.
So, in other words, don't buy software from a company that does not intend to support your use of their software.
So, in other words, plan what you are doing before you do it.
Here's some insult to your injury...
.h files she doesn't even understand!
From the linked article:
When SCO first made its claims that IBM had misappropriated some of its code and handed it over to the Linux community, SCO showed samples to several analysts to prove its copyrights were being infringed. DiDio, a former journalist and not a programmer, was one of them. She reported that SCO's claims seemed justified. She told me: "It appeared to be a direct cut and paste right down to the developers' notes." A couple of months ago, the judge in the case wrote that he had seen "an astonishing lack of evidence" backing up SCO's claims. On the phone, I asked DiDio's reaction to the judge's statement. She said: "I can't reconcile it. I want to see what's presented in court."
So... what you have is a woman who is not a programmer, making conclusive statements after looking at
There's a point, like the boiling point... let us call this point the Enderle point... at which you have simply lost all professional credibility. You are seen as nothing more than a suck up, a Nathaniel Branden of IT (Little Ayn Rand hatred slipped out there, sorry).
Can we now write DiDio off as a shill? Like that woman who did fake newscasts for Bush, or Robert Novak?
I personally, welcome shills like DiDio. Every day respectable journalists let a woman like her survive, they put another nail in their coffin and the net and social-based expertise groups become authoritative sources for real news pulling from many sources to draw complete conclusions. So, I say, good on her. Make a few bucks at the Microsoft trough. Sell credibility you never had in the first place. Kill the industry rags. More opportunity for other people to emerge as experts when the people you used to listen to are revealed as phonies.