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25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux?
E IS mC(Square) writes "Microsoft is planning to celebrate 25 years of DOS. An article at ReallyLinux discusses what lessons Linux can learn from the history of DOS. The article begins with 'What can the Linux world learn from Microsoft's past 25 years of unique experiences and domination?', and ends with 'Only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?'" From the article: "First, we must admit openly once and for all that the 'best solution' is not always the 'most used solution.' There are few who would be foolish enough to argue that back in 1981 PC-DOS was the best solution. There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show."
Maybe when MS entered the market and people fell for the advertising.
But today? Isn't it common sense by now that MS does not belong on a server?
Dang, you almost got it right.
... one of the FOSS fucks has to beat me to the punch with some of the 'M$ is evil!!!11' or 'Linux is perfectly poised to fill this gaping vacuum created by potential greed' bullshit.
... all I care about is working in the most appropriate environment given what I need to do - and that's all my corporate sponsors care about also - and all the super-zealots striking fear into the evil BillG from their parent's basements are fucking things up for me.
... nigga please.
...
I use Linux at home, I use it at work, and it would probably have a much better time permeating my workplace if I wasn't afraid to be associated with the insane clown posse, aka those dumb ass 'software has to be FREE' or 'Micro$oft is evil!!' motherfuckers.
Every time I walk into a meeting ready to propose a way to be even more effective doing development for applications running in production on AIX machines, wanting to propose Linux on Intel as the development platform
Holy fucking mother of God. Guess what - I work for an insurance company and we make a boatload of money. They honestly could give a damn about the $100 per seat (corporate licensing agreements) for Windows, nor could I
Here's the real score:
Linux is free.
Windows 2000 is free too, because all you leet haxors pirate it.
Linux runs OO as an office suite and Evolution 2.0 via Ximian to connect to corporate email. Come to think of it, OWA works pretty good on Firefox also. In all reality, OO and Evolution are pretty cool as a proof of concept but still
Windows has Outlook, in fact it has the entire Office suite. Free, too, cause admit it or not, all you fuckers are pirating Office too.
Linux as installed out of the box doesn't play Everquest I or II, HalfLife I or II or CounterStrike. I have heard that it may or may not play Doom III or UT2004, dunno how well that works. Installing Windows emulators to get this shit to work doesn't count.
Windows - plays everything except maybe TuxRacer.
Linux - great for developing and testing shell scripts for my AIX boxes.
Windows - not.
Linux - WSAD 5.1.2, works nice.
Windows - me too.
Linux zealots : for fucks sake, shut the hell up.
Windows zealots : MSCE army with organized education plans.
Lets get real : assume that everybody else pirated Windows just like you so it is free too. Want to compete, want to be taken seriously - drop the 'software wants to be FREE' shit and focus on the actual parts that are better : stability, licensing and registration hassles (because that re-registration in XP is a serious hassle), whatever.
My company could care less about the actual dollar figure of a given copy of the OS, but if you calmly point out that Linux can be installed on a new machine without bothersome licensing restrictions or documenting and tracking that each and every machine has a legitimate license - that's a double whammy win for both parties. A hundred dollars is NOTHING compared to the corporate costs associated with actually tracking the license of the OS from installation to retirement.
Saying something (software) is 'free' in the corporate world is like saying a woman 'has a nice personality.'
Saying something (software) can be installed on corporate hardware without being burdened by licensing restrictions is like saying a woman 'is bi-curious and wants to have you participate in the experience.'
Guess which one is more appealing.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Writing for DOS was frustrating because the tools were primitive and the OS facilities almost non-existent. And it introduced some astonishingly silly conventions (backslash for path-separator, anyone?).
But writing for Linux is little better: a mind-numbing tangle of mutually-exclusive unresolvable cross-dependencies, unrealistic user expectations, and technical dead-ends (eg peripheral manufacturer restrictions on divulging interface details). To overcome these you have to write in ever higher-level languages, thus adding yet more layers of dependency, and filling up memory with vast swathes of libraries and drivers just in order to be able to set a bit here and there, or use one routine which does something a certain way.
Allowing anyone to do anything will eventually lead to no-one being able to do anything. Proprietary ring-fencing is being replaced by personality cults ("you don't want to use that smelly libfooutils, my libfoo2utils is way better").
DOS, and all the demons it spawned, was achieved by managerial direction: a single company pushing hard one way, even if it was the wrong way. Until Linux acquires something of the same unity of purpose, it cannot and will not offer a threat, no matter how technically superior or free it is, because it will remain a morass of competing city-states, a midden of warring fiefdoms. Linus may have been the godhead who showed us the One True Way, but we're still waiting for the Ghengis Khan to knock us into a team.