Did I say that closed source necessarily has strict QA process? Also commercial and closed source aren't the same thing. There are plenty of commercial OSS softwares.
It depends. FOSS software often lacks QA, unit testing, code static/dynamic analysis and regression testing. Compared to a FOSS software with a similar QA process - I would say yes, more eyeballs make it better. Compared to a commercial software with a strict QA process - no.
FOSS works where it can be monetized by services, hardware lockdown, or donations. Some people call it as "The Blessed Trinity". And if the software doesn't fall in the blessed trinity category then sorry, a complex FOSS software will likely fail and won't be usable except for its developers. Unpaid/volunteer (F)OSS developers are generally itch scratchers and do only the parts of programming which are fun and exciting or they need need it personally. But this is 10-20% of the actual effort and 80-90% of the actual result. And the last 10-20% of polishing require 80-90% of the effort which are boring and unpleasant jobs such as documentation, bug fixing, QA, regression testing, following user interface design guidelines, etc... I could list them for hours. Such jobs often require financial motivation and deep knowledge/talent in particular areas. This problem is known as "The Last Mile Problem" which is well illustrated in JZW's CADT model and Artem Tashkinov's Major Linux Problems
on the Desktop.
I know about Mint, I used it most of the time, and like any other fork it inherits many upstream bugs and problems from Ubuntu, GTK3/Gnome, Debian, Systemd, etc although it has its own nice collection of software.
I'm typing this comment on Win7. Actually I've never used any Apple device or OS. But I've tried numerous Linux distros (as a desktop OS) and all of them were unpolished and buggy messes. Most sane people don't care if a Linux distro (especially a stripped down one) shows slightly better performance when it's usability is definitely nowhere near Mac OS's usability. Also I'm neither happy about the recent MSFT's and Apple's moves.
Sir, where did I write that I'm an Apple fan? Actually I've never used any Apple device or OS. But I've tried numerous Linux distros (as a desktop OS) and all of them were unpolished and buggy messes. Most sane people don't care if a Linux distro (especially a stripped down one) shows slightly better performance when it's usability is definitely nowhere near Mac OS's usability.
Hmm, interesting... In 2013 a Windows kernel developer expressed his opinion about NTFS source code.
Oh god, the NTFS code is a purple opium-fueled Victorian horror novel that uses global recursive locks and SEH for flow control. Let's write ReFs instead. (And hey, let's start by copying and pasting the NTFS source code and removing half the features! Then let's add checksums, because checksums are cool, right, and now with checksums we're just as good as ZFS? Right? And who needs quotas anyway?)
"fixed something"
"fixed indention" on a commit that actually fixes a bug.
At least they fix things which are mostly not fixed in the mainline kernel.
The only thing they do is backport patches from upstream and maintain their proprietary drivers.
Sometimes they fix things in stupid ways because they don't understand the code and upstream didn't do it yet.
Don't worry, even core Linux developers don't understand what they are doing which has many unpleasant effects. Examples? The broken IO since 3.x (see bug 12309). revoke() is still not there which means that file descriptors and network sockets cannot be forcibly closed and without unmounting them it leads to stale mount points, which can then cause oopses and even kernel panics (bug 14505), the fix requires rewriting the half of the kernel, but who is gonna do that? In many BSD's this feature is implemented. Broken thread priority. There's also no concept of backward compatibility. And so on... This is what happens when there's no interest towards consumers. And Google is in process of switching to its homegrown Zircon.
Unfortunately and mildly saying, Linux is a second class citizen on the desktop (initially Torvalds wanted to be so but it failed), more than 97% of the investments are going to servers, embedded and HPC (high performance computing). Nobody cares. Except maybe Google who has enough resources to create an alternative desktop OS.
Considering how poor QA and regression testing Linux kernel gets even x.y.z is meaningless unless we are talking about the kernels maintained by Red Hat and Google.
I know, it's mostly Apache and it's a permissive OSS license. My point is that does the tiny kernel's license permissive really matter when even Linux kernel's GPLv2 doesn't protect you from DRM, closed drivers/libraries and locked bootloaders?
So why do you care only about the kernel? Android user-space which is the _most_ of the code isn't GPL. Also how does GPLv2 prevent lockdown and the use of proprietary drivers?
I'll be probably down-voted by GNU/Linux advocates but it's mostly due to the fact that GNU/Linux isn't suitable as a gaming OS. As an OS it lacks several mechanisms that are necessary especially for complicated interactive/heavy software such as AAA games. For example, Linux threads were poorly implemented as a hack on fork() and as a result thread priority sucks https://www.gamingonlinux.com/... as IRL some threads are more critical like sound threads. Also the notorious bug 12309 where symptoms are sill present or bug 14505 where file descriptors and network sockets cannot be forcibly closed and without unmounting them first it leads to stale mount points, and in certain cases to oopses and crashes. Not even talking about unstable API/ABIs. Windows Mac OS and strangely many BSDs are mostly free from such Linux diseases. Even Google is planning to replace it with Fuchsia/Zircon in future.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's like to ask why not remove some obscure code from software project when even senior developers don't know how the entire code is working.
Top 50 products with security vulnerabilities and Linux kernel alone has the most bugs.
Did I say that closed source necessarily has strict QA process? Also commercial and closed source aren't the same thing. There are plenty of commercial OSS softwares.
It depends. FOSS software often lacks QA, unit testing, code static/dynamic analysis and regression testing. Compared to a FOSS software with a similar QA process - I would say yes, more eyeballs make it better. Compared to a commercial software with a strict QA process - no.
or to people who think that they're exceptional?
FOSS works where it can be monetized by services, hardware lockdown, or donations. Some people call it as "The Blessed Trinity". And if the software doesn't fall in the blessed trinity category then sorry, a complex FOSS software will likely fail and won't be usable except for its developers. Unpaid/volunteer (F)OSS developers are generally itch scratchers and do only the parts of programming which are fun and exciting or they need need it personally. But this is 10-20% of the actual effort and 80-90% of the actual result. And the last 10-20% of polishing require 80-90% of the effort which are boring and unpleasant jobs such as documentation, bug fixing, QA, regression testing, following user interface design guidelines, etc... I could list them for hours. Such jobs often require financial motivation and deep knowledge/talent in particular areas. This problem is known as "The Last Mile Problem" which is well illustrated in JZW's CADT model and Artem Tashkinov's Major Linux Problems on the Desktop.
Probably because modern technologies and medicine almost eliminated the natural selection. Even high intelligence isn't that essential for most of us.
I know about Mint, I used it most of the time, and like any other fork it inherits many upstream bugs and problems from Ubuntu, GTK3/Gnome, Debian, Systemd, etc although it has its own nice collection of software.
I'm typing this comment on Win7. Actually I've never used any Apple device or OS. But I've tried numerous Linux distros (as a desktop OS) and all of them were unpolished and buggy messes. Most sane people don't care if a Linux distro (especially a stripped down one) shows slightly better performance when it's usability is definitely nowhere near Mac OS's usability. Also I'm neither happy about the recent MSFT's and Apple's moves.
Sir, where did I write that I'm an Apple fan? Actually I've never used any Apple device or OS. But I've tried numerous Linux distros (as a desktop OS) and all of them were unpolished and buggy messes. Most sane people don't care if a Linux distro (especially a stripped down one) shows slightly better performance when it's usability is definitely nowhere near Mac OS's usability.
except a bunch of Linux aficionados.
Is battery life the most important thing especially when the difference is not dramatic and it severely lacks many basic features?
that we would know about it?
Canonical doesn't have resources even to properly QA Ubuntu alone and make it 100% stable and working.
The full article.
At least they fix things which are mostly not fixed in the mainline kernel.
Don't worry, even core Linux developers don't understand what they are doing which has many unpleasant effects. Examples? The broken IO since 3.x (see bug 12309). revoke() is still not there which means that file descriptors and network sockets cannot be forcibly closed and without unmounting them it leads to stale mount points, which can then cause oopses and even kernel panics (bug 14505), the fix requires rewriting the half of the kernel, but who is gonna do that? In many BSD's this feature is implemented. Broken thread priority. There's also no concept of backward compatibility. And so on... This is what happens when there's no interest towards consumers. And Google is in process of switching to its homegrown Zircon.
Unfortunately and mildly saying, Linux is a second class citizen on the desktop (initially Torvalds wanted to be so but it failed), more than 97% of the investments are going to servers, embedded and HPC (high performance computing). Nobody cares. Except maybe Google who has enough resources to create an alternative desktop OS.
Considering how poor QA and regression testing Linux kernel gets even x.y.z is meaningless unless we are talking about the kernels maintained by Red Hat and Google.
I know, it's mostly Apache and it's a permissive OSS license. My point is that does the tiny kernel's license permissive really matter when even Linux kernel's GPLv2 doesn't protect you from DRM, closed drivers/libraries and locked bootloaders?
So why do you care only about the kernel? Android user-space which is the _most_ of the code isn't GPL. Also how does GPLv2 prevent lockdown and the use of proprietary drivers?
I miss the old Microsoft (around 2009 - 2011, Windows 7 times).
I'll be probably down-voted by GNU/Linux advocates but it's mostly due to the fact that GNU/Linux isn't suitable as a gaming OS. As an OS it lacks several mechanisms that are necessary especially for complicated interactive/heavy software such as AAA games. For example, Linux threads were poorly implemented as a hack on fork() and as a result thread priority sucks https://www.gamingonlinux.com/... as IRL some threads are more critical like sound threads. Also the notorious bug 12309 where symptoms are sill present or bug 14505 where file descriptors and network sockets cannot be forcibly closed and without unmounting them first it leads to stale mount points, and in certain cases to oopses and crashes. Not even talking about unstable API/ABIs. Windows Mac OS and strangely many BSDs are mostly free from such Linux diseases. Even Google is planning to replace it with Fuchsia/Zircon in future.
Mac OS is partially open source. The open source parts are mostly low level stuff, the rest 85+% of GUI / high level parts are closed source.
Is this site spying to me?
What about privacy?