I've never liked the Mac UI, and OSX has done nothing to fix the things I don't like, and in fact actually added a few more (like the dock).
I also disagree with some of the assumptions many point to in order to "prove" that the Mac UI is better. Chief among them is the idea that there is any such thing as an intuitive interface. There isn't, Even the nipple is learned (your local maternity ward has a breast feeding expert, feel free to ask them if you don't want to take my word for it).
What I disagree with you about is getting Linux into schools. People keep on using what they are familiar with.
A lot of people keep saying this, but it's just not true. My generation "learned computers" on the Commodore PET, and then the Apple II series. That was all the schools had. 20 years later Commodore is dead and gone, Apple is a niche player, and none of us had any problem making the transition to Windows.
Similarly, my (very non-technical) wife had no problem making the transition to Linux when I decided a few years ago that I no longer had time to deal with Windows issues, even though she's just younger enough than me that she basically wasn't exposed to non-MS environments as a kid. My best friends (also non-technical, and younger) wife is similarly having no difficulty making the transition now.
There are plenty of great reasons to be using Linux in schools, and I personally advocate it, but this just isn't one of them. Operating systems just don't take over the world as a result of being used in schools. History has already proven this.
- Be an advocate for your team. Determine what they need and try to get it for them, and more importantly shield them from other managers.
IMO, this is the single distinguishing factor in the the good managers I've had. Even in a seriously messed up company, and good manager can make all the difference in employee morale, and happy employees are productive employees.
What's more, regular people (read: non-MBA types) tend to want to be loyal, but that has to go both ways. If your subordinates feel that you're on their side most of them will be willing to go to the ends of the earth for you.
I've had seemingly great jobs where it took effort to put in my minimum time just so I could get out of there, and I've had crappy jobs where I happily put in 60 or 70 hour weeks. The manager makes all the difference.
They had to do something eventually. Everyone (yeas, I mean every one) I've known who owned a Hyundai has had serious problems with them, even in the first year or two. Granted, it's been a few years. I'll have to keep an eye out, I guess.
I was a kid in the 80's, and nobody I knew owned an Apple. The only Apples I ever saw were at school, and the only thing I ever remember doing on them was word processing.
If you wanted computer games in the 80s, you had to have a Commodore, though I do remember playing some decent games on the hand-me-down 8086s we all seemed to have in high school (except for the one lucky bastard who had an Amiga). Mostly text, but there was one pirate game I can't seem to remember the name of.
Well, it would allow you to ditch the anti-virus. Yeah, I know that's not really much of a selling point in and of itself, but think about what it implies:
Even though you don't use them, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are still on your system, and they still represent a non-zero level of vulnerability simply by existing. Additionally, Firefox is still vulnerable to some kinds of spyware and such when it's running on Windows (don't know about Thunderbird).
I've been a Linux user for over 5 years now, and finally made the switch for good about 2.5 years ago, and I couldn't be happier. These days I have to be paid to deal with Windows. A lot of that is that the more I learn about *nix, the more I realize the way MS decided to do things is stupid and wrong, but that's obviously very subjective.
I think the thing I miss the least is the regular reinstalls. Windows just seems to gum itself up after a while, and needs to start over on a clean slate every 6-12 months or so. Obviously, I haven't had the same experience with Linux.
Ironicly, I actually had the switch kinda forced on me. When Suse switched from Lilo to Grub, my very nice SGI USB keyboard was suddenly unsupported (in Grub, it worked just fine everywhere else, even in the BIOS). This meant that I couldn't make selections in the boot menu, which made it a serious PITA to dual-boot. I considered my options, and told my wife she was now a linux user. Her only question, literally, was "how do I log in?" (suprised the hell out of me. She is, shall we say, non-technical, and had no prior Linux experience).
Anyway, since all the apps you use are either available or easily replaced on Linux, you really have no reason not to switch, other than, perhaps, some fear of the unknown. You have no reason to be afraid, though. There are lots of people out there who are willing to help you through it.
My recommendation is to buy yourself a copy of Suse Pro. it's about $90, so you're not going to save yourself much over XP Home, but it comes with excellent printed manuals, just about every app you could want, and their setup/admin tool, Yast, simply rocks.
Then you've never had a need to stray far from the default configuration. That's fine, I'm not putting it down or anything, but Windows does make some things nearly impossible for no good reason other than perhaps that not that many people want to do them. With Linux (or any other *nix, really), these things may not be simple, but they're not especially hard either.
That said, if you honestly think Windows has something over Linux in this regard, you really need to try Suse. Yast is so much more usable and capable than the Windows Control Panel, and it's integrated nicely into KDE's Control Center so you have a true one-stop-shop for all your configuration needs.
That basically means... idiot proof Linux distros that offer all the same software and functionality as the normal Windows workstation plus the same kind of easy intuitive integration into Windows networks as you have got with OS.X.
Have you actually tried Suse? I can't speak for the other majors, but Suse already offers everything you describe.
Secondly it would be important to ensure it has a sigificant representation in the student workstation pools of educational institutions from primary school upward.
Yeah, because that worked so well for Apple!
Seriously, this is really a non-starter. Good PR, but that's about it. Apple already learned this the hard way.
Kids don't make $1000 buying decisions, adults do, and they tend to get what they use at work. That's why when I was a kid every school had Apples, and every business and home (except teachers) had PCs.
Which is why Microsoft donates computers and software to schools all over the place, they get to look like philanthropists while securing their market share.
I challenge you to walk down the street and find 10 people, at random, that think "philanthropist" is a word that could be used to describe Microsoft. Seriously, MS has a huge image problem, and has for years. They need to be doing that stuff.
Linux has an image problem, too, but it's not the sort of problem that can be effectively addressed through philanthropy. I mean, if that was the case, we'd already be there, right? Which brings up the potential PR issues with "donating" something that's already free...
I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing these things, I'm just saying they aren't the big deals people like to make them out to be. The bottom line is: get it on the business desktop, and the rest will follow. IBM and Microsoft proved this already.
House and Senate show similar trends, but not as pronounced. Actually, the worst possible scenario is for one party (either party) to control both, which supports my own pet hypothesis that a gridlocked legislature benefits everyone;)
Various people have been taking a close look at the historical data over the last year or so, and there were a few stories on slashdot about it maybe 6 months ago. I used to have a great link that laid everything out quite clearly, but I lost it during my recent move. The data is all publically available.
Anyway, from memory, looking at the averages over the last century or so (or as far back as information was available), here's how it plays out:
GDP average annual growth was over 5% under Dems, about 1.6% under GOP.
Dow-Jones average annual growth was about 12.5% under Dems, and about 8% under GOP.
S&P500 average annual growth was about 13.5% under Dems, 8% under GOP.
Jobs: the worst Democrat was better than the best Republican, and not by a small amount IIRC.
Spending: Republicans spend more, even if we ignore defense spending (which is indeed lower under Democrats).
Taxes on average were lower under Republicans, but only by about 0.5%
Average individual income over the last century was slightly higher under GOP, but if we only look at the years since Reagan took office the Dems claim this one as well.
Anyway, a quick googling didn't turn up the page I was looking for (at least not in the top results), but I did find this interesting discussion which IMO does a good job of putting it all into perspective, and especially with regards to the fatal flaws in supply-side economics.
If you haven't noticed, Windows XP SP2 is rather good.
I hadn't noticed that, actually. My wifes XPSP2 system requires a lot more of my time to keep it clean, updated, and running smoothly than my Suse 9.1 system does.
It may[1] be better than previous versions of Windows, but it's still a long ways away from "rather good."
[1] Personally, I like Win2k better, but I'm hardly a Windows security expert, so for the purposes of this discussion I'll concede the point.
Or, if you don't like wasting time, just go with the straight microsoft ticket. Install all the software, run windows update once (ok probably twice as you need to install some things sepperatetly) and you are on your way.
Dream on! I have never gotten away with only running windows update once, or even twice, on a new Windows install, let alone a single reboot. And then you need to do it again for MS Office, since it has a seperate update service.
With a new install of Suse I run YOU once and EVERYTHING is updated, with no need to install some things seperately, and I only have to reboot if there's a kernel patch, which is quite rare (only 2 or 3 on Suse 9.1 since it was released 8 or 9 months ago).
You can go from a blank hard drive to a system capable of doing whatever you need it to in 1 to 3 hours depending on what all you purchase.
Or with Suse I could go from blank drive to an equivalently usable system in under an hour, regardless of what packages I choose to install.
I see a lot of people here blaming Microsoft for the fact that lots of other vendors produce software for thier OS and making comparisons to a linux distro based on that. My point is that it is only a fair comparison if you compare the entire microsoft "distro" to the linux one of your choosing.
That's because you have to install a bunch of third party stuff in order to have the functionality that's available to me in that same Suse install I've described above. In fact, it would probably add about 15 minutes for me to remove all the packages for which there isn't an equivalent in your MS only "distro".
Until recently I was supporting some machines that we would do just about anything to avoid rebooting, mostly because the hard drives were old and sometimes we had to smack them around a little to get them to spin up. Once they spun up, they were fine though.
Of course, we didn't have to worry about patches, as they were running NT4 and not hooked up to a network (well, a video distribution network, but that's hardly the same). For those who care, product details can be found here. The easiest description is a $100k Tivo.
Maybe--and this is a big maybe--if you needed a CPU that needed high visualization components. But then I guess you'd go with SGI.
And why wouldn't IBM be going after SGIs market? I think your points hold in the consumer space, but in a specialized market like that I think it becomes a lot easier to gain a foothold simply based on technical merit.
Heck, better yet, and in what seems to be more inline with IBM's current direction, why wouldn't they try to get SGI to switch to Cell?
IBM likes the PPC chip that Apple uses, and yet it still hasn't a) taken over the world, or even b) been put into use by IBM themselves. Why doesn't IBM use Apple workstations across the enterprise? After all, they make the CPU, and for awhile even made the hard drives.
Are you sure that isn't one of their long-term goals? IBM is a big company, and it hasn't been that long since they've decided to change how they do things. Just because you can't see any evidence that they're making that switch doesn't mean they aren't working on it. I mean, they aren't even out of the Wintel PC business yet, and won't be, at least in name, for another 5 years. Given how much MS loves it when their resellers start offering competitive products, that seems like a very important first step in any such plan.
When you walk into an IBM facility, what brand of computers are sitting on the desks? I honestly don't know, but I would hope they eat their own dogfood. I very much doubt you'd see a Dell on every desk.
If Apple has trouble getting developers to code for their CPU, I just don't see who would develop for a VAIO (or ThinkPad) Cell workstation or laptop
Porting Linux takes care of a large portion of that. Yeah, I know Linux is pretty much in the same boat as Apple, but it's a real easy way to significantly boost their development community, and provides a huge amount of instant functionality.
That's actually as I would expect, but IMO not really that relevant. As any of us who've spent time in the real world can probably agree, having more people involved in a project is not necessarily a good thing.
Anyway, having only a few people with that level of kernel expertise is just fine, as long as they are able to spend their time on development and not QA. The comparison probably gets a lot more interesting at that level. How big is MS' Windows QA department? If we compare the numbers of people submitting bug reports, then how do things look? What about the quality of the bug reports? (I don't have any answers here, I just think these are more important questions when looking at reasonably mature projects.)
That said, I think McGrath is making an apples to oranges comparison. "Windows", due to MS' integration philosophy, is really an umbrella term which covers a lot of stuff, and the actual Windows kernel is a relatively small part of that. Linux, on the other hand, follows the Unix philosophy, and so there's much more seperation of components. CMD is part of Windows, bash is not part of the Linux kernel.
How many of those Windows developers are actually working on the Windows kernel? Or, more interestingly, if we look at what it takes to make a Linux distribution that's functionally equivalent, what does that look like? I mean, when you start adding in stuff like the shell, graphical environment, basic text editing, system/admin tools, installer, browser, multimedia apps, and all the rest, then what do the dev numbers look like?
The big problem I have with that quote is this:
There are more skilled developers writing for the Microsoft platform than for open source.
What the hell does that mean? Does it mean there are more developers in the world targeting the Windows platform, and how is that at all relevant to the number of developers working on just the Linux kernel? Is he implying that Windows devs have a higher skill level than Linux devs?
The statement seems intentionally vague to me, and I suspect it's because if he made a real comparison his point wouldn't hold up.
Slashdot Mirror
And if your wondering what my distro is, it's SuSE, because she wears short skirts and big black leather boots...
Indeed! Not just for wierd Germans anymore...
Wrenching this thread back OT, though, wasn't Connectiva a UL partner? I wonder if they use Yast in their regular distro as well?
Sadly, sticking to your convictions of what's right and wrong, and maintaining one's integrity isn't very prevalent in the Administration.
Now, that's not fair! They're great at sticking to their convictions of what's right and wrong as long as it involves someone else's bedroom!
I'm still confused. How many elephants standing on each others backs would that be?
Depends on how you do it. If you're lazy (like me) and are using Cedega on KDE, then yeah, there's going to be a speed hit.
But, some people like to create a special runlevel, with X but no WM/DE, for gaming. That's much faster.
Similarly, though Windows only, SolidWorks is easily the most intuitive 3D CAD UI I've ever used.
Vim uses arrows, delete key, etc.
If they don't work for you, the fault is with your terminal, not vim. Or, you're not using vim.
I disagree.
I've never liked the Mac UI, and OSX has done nothing to fix the things I don't like, and in fact actually added a few more (like the dock).
I also disagree with some of the assumptions many point to in order to "prove" that the Mac UI is better. Chief among them is the idea that there is any such thing as an intuitive interface. There isn't, Even the nipple is learned (your local maternity ward has a breast feeding expert, feel free to ask them if you don't want to take my word for it).
Networking chips, also. And I've seen their name on other stuff too.
I'd guess they have a finger in at least every pie Intel does.
Wrong. It was available for, but not included in, WinNT and Win2k. It is included in WinXP, but doesn't really work right.
What I disagree with you about is getting Linux into schools. People keep on using what they are familiar with.
A lot of people keep saying this, but it's just not true. My generation "learned computers" on the Commodore PET, and then the Apple II series. That was all the schools had. 20 years later Commodore is dead and gone, Apple is a niche player, and none of us had any problem making the transition to Windows.
Similarly, my (very non-technical) wife had no problem making the transition to Linux when I decided a few years ago that I no longer had time to deal with Windows issues, even though she's just younger enough than me that she basically wasn't exposed to non-MS environments as a kid. My best friends (also non-technical, and younger) wife is similarly having no difficulty making the transition now.
There are plenty of great reasons to be using Linux in schools, and I personally advocate it, but this just isn't one of them. Operating systems just don't take over the world as a result of being used in schools. History has already proven this.
I would add to this:
- Be an advocate for your team. Determine what they need and try to get it for them, and more importantly shield them from other managers.
IMO, this is the single distinguishing factor in the the good managers I've had. Even in a seriously messed up company, and good manager can make all the difference in employee morale, and happy employees are productive employees.
What's more, regular people (read: non-MBA types) tend to want to be loyal, but that has to go both ways. If your subordinates feel that you're on their side most of them will be willing to go to the ends of the earth for you.
I've had seemingly great jobs where it took effort to put in my minimum time just so I could get out of there, and I've had crappy jobs where I happily put in 60 or 70 hour weeks. The manager makes all the difference.
They had to do something eventually. Everyone (yeas, I mean every one) I've known who owned a Hyundai has had serious problems with them, even in the first year or two. Granted, it's been a few years. I'll have to keep an eye out, I guess.
I was a kid in the 80's, and nobody I knew owned an Apple. The only Apples I ever saw were at school, and the only thing I ever remember doing on them was word processing.
If you wanted computer games in the 80s, you had to have a Commodore, though I do remember playing some decent games on the hand-me-down 8086s we all seemed to have in high school (except for the one lucky bastard who had an Amiga). Mostly text, but there was one pirate game I can't seem to remember the name of.
How about processes loaded at startup? Yeah, I know about msconfig. I'm also old enough to remember when it actually worked.
You'll come back. They always do...
Well, it would allow you to ditch the anti-virus. Yeah, I know that's not really much of a selling point in and of itself, but think about what it implies:
Even though you don't use them, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are still on your system, and they still represent a non-zero level of vulnerability simply by existing. Additionally, Firefox is still vulnerable to some kinds of spyware and such when it's running on Windows (don't know about Thunderbird).
I've been a Linux user for over 5 years now, and finally made the switch for good about 2.5 years ago, and I couldn't be happier. These days I have to be paid to deal with Windows. A lot of that is that the more I learn about *nix, the more I realize the way MS decided to do things is stupid and wrong, but that's obviously very subjective.
I think the thing I miss the least is the regular reinstalls. Windows just seems to gum itself up after a while, and needs to start over on a clean slate every 6-12 months or so. Obviously, I haven't had the same experience with Linux.
Ironicly, I actually had the switch kinda forced on me. When Suse switched from Lilo to Grub, my very nice SGI USB keyboard was suddenly unsupported (in Grub, it worked just fine everywhere else, even in the BIOS). This meant that I couldn't make selections in the boot menu, which made it a serious PITA to dual-boot. I considered my options, and told my wife she was now a linux user. Her only question, literally, was "how do I log in?" (suprised the hell out of me. She is, shall we say, non-technical, and had no prior Linux experience).
Anyway, since all the apps you use are either available or easily replaced on Linux, you really have no reason not to switch, other than, perhaps, some fear of the unknown. You have no reason to be afraid, though. There are lots of people out there who are willing to help you through it.
My recommendation is to buy yourself a copy of Suse Pro. it's about $90, so you're not going to save yourself much over XP Home, but it comes with excellent printed manuals, just about every app you could want, and their setup/admin tool, Yast, simply rocks.
Then you've never had a need to stray far from the default configuration. That's fine, I'm not putting it down or anything, but Windows does make some things nearly impossible for no good reason other than perhaps that not that many people want to do them. With Linux (or any other *nix, really), these things may not be simple, but they're not especially hard either.
That said, if you honestly think Windows has something over Linux in this regard, you really need to try Suse. Yast is so much more usable and capable than the Windows Control Panel, and it's integrated nicely into KDE's Control Center so you have a true one-stop-shop for all your configuration needs.
If creating user accounts is optional, it's default root.
That basically means ... idiot proof Linux distros that offer all the same software and functionality as the normal Windows workstation plus the same kind of easy intuitive integration into Windows networks as you have got with OS.X.
Have you actually tried Suse? I can't speak for the other majors, but Suse already offers everything you describe.
Secondly it would be important to ensure it has a sigificant representation in the student workstation pools of educational institutions from primary school upward.
Yeah, because that worked so well for Apple!
Seriously, this is really a non-starter. Good PR, but that's about it. Apple already learned this the hard way.
Kids don't make $1000 buying decisions, adults do, and they tend to get what they use at work. That's why when I was a kid every school had Apples, and every business and home (except teachers) had PCs.
Which is why Microsoft donates computers and software to schools all over the place, they get to look like philanthropists while securing their market share.
I challenge you to walk down the street and find 10 people, at random, that think "philanthropist" is a word that could be used to describe Microsoft. Seriously, MS has a huge image problem, and has for years. They need to be doing that stuff.
Linux has an image problem, too, but it's not the sort of problem that can be effectively addressed through philanthropy. I mean, if that was the case, we'd already be there, right? Which brings up the potential PR issues with "donating" something that's already free...
I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing these things, I'm just saying they aren't the big deals people like to make them out to be. The bottom line is: get it on the business desktop, and the rest will follow. IBM and Microsoft proved this already.
Yes, even games.
President.
;)
House and Senate show similar trends, but not as pronounced. Actually, the worst possible scenario is for one party (either party) to control both, which supports my own pet hypothesis that a gridlocked legislature benefits everyone
Various people have been taking a close look at the historical data over the last year or so, and there were a few stories on slashdot about it maybe 6 months ago. I used to have a great link that laid everything out quite clearly, but I lost it during my recent move. The data is all publically available.
Anyway, from memory, looking at the averages over the last century or so (or as far back as information was available), here's how it plays out:
GDP average annual growth was over 5% under Dems, about 1.6% under GOP.
Dow-Jones average annual growth was about 12.5% under Dems, and about 8% under GOP.
S&P500 average annual growth was about 13.5% under Dems, 8% under GOP.
Jobs: the worst Democrat was better than the best Republican, and not by a small amount IIRC.
Spending: Republicans spend more, even if we ignore defense spending (which is indeed lower under Democrats).
Taxes on average were lower under Republicans, but only by about 0.5%
Average individual income over the last century was slightly higher under GOP, but if we only look at the years since Reagan took office the Dems claim this one as well.
Anyway, a quick googling didn't turn up the page I was looking for (at least not in the top results), but I did find this interesting discussion which IMO does a good job of putting it all into perspective, and especially with regards to the fatal flaws in supply-side economics.
If you haven't noticed, Windows XP SP2 is rather good.
I hadn't noticed that, actually. My wifes XPSP2 system requires a lot more of my time to keep it clean, updated, and running smoothly than my Suse 9.1 system does.
It may[1] be better than previous versions of Windows, but it's still a long ways away from "rather good."
[1] Personally, I like Win2k better, but I'm hardly a Windows security expert, so for the purposes of this discussion I'll concede the point.
Or, if you don't like wasting time, just go with the straight microsoft ticket. Install all the software, run windows update once (ok probably twice as you need to install some things sepperatetly) and you are on your way.
Dream on! I have never gotten away with only running windows update once, or even twice, on a new Windows install, let alone a single reboot. And then you need to do it again for MS Office, since it has a seperate update service.
With a new install of Suse I run YOU once and EVERYTHING is updated, with no need to install some things seperately, and I only have to reboot if there's a kernel patch, which is quite rare (only 2 or 3 on Suse 9.1 since it was released 8 or 9 months ago).
You can go from a blank hard drive to a system capable of doing whatever you need it to in 1 to 3 hours depending on what all you purchase.
Or with Suse I could go from blank drive to an equivalently usable system in under an hour, regardless of what packages I choose to install.
I see a lot of people here blaming Microsoft for the fact that lots of other vendors produce software for thier OS and making comparisons to a linux distro based on that. My point is that it is only a fair comparison if you compare the entire microsoft "distro" to the linux one of your choosing.
That's because you have to install a bunch of third party stuff in order to have the functionality that's available to me in that same Suse install I've described above. In fact, it would probably add about 15 minutes for me to remove all the packages for which there isn't an equivalent in your MS only "distro".
Until recently I was supporting some machines that we would do just about anything to avoid rebooting, mostly because the hard drives were old and sometimes we had to smack them around a little to get them to spin up. Once they spun up, they were fine though.
Of course, we didn't have to worry about patches, as they were running NT4 and not hooked up to a network (well, a video distribution network, but that's hardly the same). For those who care, product details can be found here. The easiest description is a $100k Tivo.
Maybe--and this is a big maybe--if you needed a CPU that needed high visualization components. But then I guess you'd go with SGI.
And why wouldn't IBM be going after SGIs market? I think your points hold in the consumer space, but in a specialized market like that I think it becomes a lot easier to gain a foothold simply based on technical merit.
Heck, better yet, and in what seems to be more inline with IBM's current direction, why wouldn't they try to get SGI to switch to Cell?
IBM likes the PPC chip that Apple uses, and yet it still hasn't a) taken over the world, or even b) been put into use by IBM themselves. Why doesn't IBM use Apple workstations across the enterprise? After all, they make the CPU, and for awhile even made the hard drives.
Are you sure that isn't one of their long-term goals? IBM is a big company, and it hasn't been that long since they've decided to change how they do things. Just because you can't see any evidence that they're making that switch doesn't mean they aren't working on it. I mean, they aren't even out of the Wintel PC business yet, and won't be, at least in name, for another 5 years. Given how much MS loves it when their resellers start offering competitive products, that seems like a very important first step in any such plan.
When you walk into an IBM facility, what brand of computers are sitting on the desks? I honestly don't know, but I would hope they eat their own dogfood. I very much doubt you'd see a Dell on every desk.
If Apple has trouble getting developers to code for their CPU, I just don't see who would develop for a VAIO (or ThinkPad) Cell workstation or laptop
Porting Linux takes care of a large portion of that. Yeah, I know Linux is pretty much in the same boat as Apple, but it's a real easy way to significantly boost their development community, and provides a huge amount of instant functionality.
That's actually as I would expect, but IMO not really that relevant. As any of us who've spent time in the real world can probably agree, having more people involved in a project is not necessarily a good thing.
Anyway, having only a few people with that level of kernel expertise is just fine, as long as they are able to spend their time on development and not QA. The comparison probably gets a lot more interesting at that level. How big is MS' Windows QA department? If we compare the numbers of people submitting bug reports, then how do things look? What about the quality of the bug reports? (I don't have any answers here, I just think these are more important questions when looking at reasonably mature projects.)
That said, I think McGrath is making an apples to oranges comparison. "Windows", due to MS' integration philosophy, is really an umbrella term which covers a lot of stuff, and the actual Windows kernel is a relatively small part of that. Linux, on the other hand, follows the Unix philosophy, and so there's much more seperation of components. CMD is part of Windows, bash is not part of the Linux kernel.
How many of those Windows developers are actually working on the Windows kernel? Or, more interestingly, if we look at what it takes to make a Linux distribution that's functionally equivalent, what does that look like? I mean, when you start adding in stuff like the shell, graphical environment, basic text editing, system/admin tools, installer, browser, multimedia apps, and all the rest, then what do the dev numbers look like?
The big problem I have with that quote is this:
There are more skilled developers writing for the Microsoft platform than for open source.
What the hell does that mean? Does it mean there are more developers in the world targeting the Windows platform, and how is that at all relevant to the number of developers working on just the Linux kernel? Is he implying that Windows devs have a higher skill level than Linux devs?
The statement seems intentionally vague to me, and I suspect it's because if he made a real comparison his point wouldn't hold up.