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Trouble With Open Source?
George Russell writes "Stephen J Marshall, writing in the BCS online magazine, provides a cogent argument detailing the ills of Open Source Software for the software industry - namely, the lack of conceptual integrity, professionalism, and innovation together with the issue of ownership of OSS developed under the current Intellectual Property laws. Do these issues concern you?"
Nope.
everything seems to be working just fine, so I'll have to answer in the negatory@@@
SPELLING ERROR DETECTED: DISENGAGING SENSE OF HUMOUR
I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.
* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.
* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!). Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".
* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition). Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?
* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides, especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)
With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only does Windows XP come with a large library of user pictures that are displayed on the login screen, such as a guitar and a flower, i
...I know for sure that the whole BCS system is flawed. Everyone would be much happier if we just went to an 8 or 16 team playoff.
The scary thing is, I thought you were serious until that DRM part.
This is a magazine that is aimed middle managers.
So this article lacks conceptual integrity,
Is this just someones blog piece, or a regular column writer?
professionalism,
Does this piece matter at all?
and innovation. I have readed this somewhere...
My city: Barcelona.
The proper way to handle critique is to not respond anything, ignore the rubbish and improve on the real issues, then silently let the results speak for themselves.
Hey, are you the former campaign advisor for the Democratic Party, by any chance?
My biggest gripe is that some of the relly good programs have names like this.
(Try selling that one to a manager just on your force of argument without using the acronym DCL instead of the full name!)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Internet Explorer for example would've been forked long ago if it was open source.
Some would say it's pretty forked up right now...
I don't see a lot of innovation in Java software... but I only have a single CPU with 1GB of RAM. Maybe my next upgrade will finally let me run Java!