I read his blog, and I couldn't help but hear rant.. rant.. rant.. My apologies to its author, my patience is a little short today. Anyway:
I think the argument that software should be limited to a single platform/operating system is ridiculous and hurts the ultimate goal of end-user choice.
The ability to run software originally designed for Linux on Windows, will not keep users from switching OS. Users don't tend to question their OS, until they purchase a program or peripheral and its minimum requirements force them to upgrade.
When its time for an upgrade, they are faced with paying Microsoft (or Apple) the upgrade price (and maybe even upgrading their computer hardware in the process) or downloading Linux. So they ask themselves the following questions (or should):
1. Does Linux allow me to continue using the programs that I like?
If they like Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, or OpenOffice then the answer will be yes. I think the more programs that execute on both platforms, the better Linux answers this fundamental question.
2. Is Linux hard to install?
This is becoming more of a non-issue. RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, and even Debian are easier to install. When you look at Windows getting more complicated, you can see that soon Linux and Windows will meet somewhere in the middle in the ease-of-installation category.
3. Will it use the hardware I have or plan to buy?
This is where Windows kicks Linux's ass. As long as all the latest and greatest toys work in Windows and not Linux, the users will not migrate to Linux - Period. This means that the target of the desktop developer's frustration should be directed toward the kernel developers instead... I know they do a fantastic job of advancing the capabilities of Linux, and I hate to direct anything towards them. But if it's not the applications fault, then it must be [fill in the blank].
Microsoft did a great job making and marketing a driver development kit to the hardware manufacturers. We need to do the same thing. If there are drivers for Windows and OS X, then there should be a Linux driver too. Ideologies aside, if we make it easier for the hardware manufacture to make a single driver for Linux then there is one less excuse for them to not support Linux.
The point: Hardware Support and not applications being portable is the Achilles heel for Linux. So leave the application developers alone.
On a personal note: Now that I have slightly more free time, I plan to do my part to resolve this problem by doing some coding;).
I hate speaking politics (it always turns badly) but...
I would like to point out that the electorial college system was developed to compensate for the poor transportation and poor communications during the founding of our country.
Now that we have excellent communications and transportation, we should definitely rethink the electorial college system.
Bad things the electorial college does include:
1. Enable a person to be elected president even though he didn't win the majority of the votes.
2. Allow super-electorial states to have more political say despite voter turnout in those states.
3. Super-Electorial states tend to get disproportionally more pork-barrel money than any other state. (This has the effect of attracting more population to the super-electorial state to take advantage of the increased federal jobs, thus ensuring that the state will maintain its super-electorial status).
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud. It is harder to fake the large amounts of votes to make a difference in a national total, but Florida demonstrated that the potential to manipulate a vote of a super-electorial state is much easier and can have the same effect.
5. Super-Electorial states tend to get preferential treatment from federal services. I remember a town that was alongside the Mississippi river that had to move in order to receive the reconstruction money from Federal Flood Insurance when the Mississippi River overflowed (I can see the reason, because they were in a flood plain). However, Californians are allowed to rebuild their homes next to cliffs and the federal disaster relief fund keeps bailing them out after repeated mudslides.
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I read his blog, and I couldn't help but hear rant.. rant.. rant.. My apologies to its author, my patience is a little short today. Anyway:
I think the argument that software should be limited to a single platform/operating system is ridiculous and hurts the ultimate goal of end-user choice.
The ability to run software originally designed for Linux on Windows, will not keep users from switching OS. Users don't tend to question their OS, until they purchase a program or peripheral and its minimum requirements force them to upgrade.
When its time for an upgrade, they are faced with paying Microsoft (or Apple) the upgrade price (and maybe even upgrading their computer hardware in the process) or downloading Linux. So they ask themselves the following questions (or should):
1. Does Linux allow me to continue using the programs that I like?
If they like Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, or OpenOffice then the answer will be yes. I think the more programs that execute on both platforms, the better Linux answers this fundamental question.
2. Is Linux hard to install?
This is becoming more of a non-issue. RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, and even Debian are easier to install. When you look at Windows getting more complicated, you can see that soon Linux and Windows will meet somewhere in the middle in the ease-of-installation category.
3. Will it use the hardware I have or plan to buy?
This is where Windows kicks Linux's ass. As long as all the latest and greatest toys work in Windows and not Linux, the users will not migrate to Linux - Period. This means that the target of the desktop developer's frustration should be directed toward the kernel developers instead... I know they do a fantastic job of advancing the capabilities of Linux, and I hate to direct anything towards them. But if it's not the applications fault, then it must be [fill in the blank].
Microsoft did a great job making and marketing a driver development kit to the hardware manufacturers. We need to do the same thing. If there are drivers for Windows and OS X, then there should be a Linux driver too. Ideologies aside, if we make it easier for the hardware manufacture to make a single driver for Linux then there is one less excuse for them to not support Linux.
The point: Hardware Support and not applications being portable is the Achilles heel for Linux. So leave the application developers alone.
On a personal note: Now that I have slightly more free time, I plan to do my part to resolve this problem by doing some coding ;).
Best Regards,
Bill
Man I loved Forth!! I still have that blue book from the 80's "Starting Forth". But like all the things I did in the 80's, I think to myself "WTF?"
I'm surprised no one mentioned Scheme or Haskell.
-Bill
Wow. I wonder what I was using to debug my Java programs in JGrasp????
I hate speaking politics (it always turns badly) but...
I would like to point out that the electorial college system was developed to compensate for the poor transportation and poor communications during the founding of our country.
Now that we have excellent communications and transportation, we should definitely rethink the electorial college system.
Bad things the electorial college does include:
1. Enable a person to be elected president even though he didn't win the majority of the votes.
2. Allow super-electorial states to have more political say despite voter turnout in those states.
3. Super-Electorial states tend to get disproportionally more pork-barrel money than any other state. (This has the effect of attracting more population to the super-electorial state to take advantage of the increased federal jobs, thus ensuring that the state will maintain its super-electorial status).
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud. It is harder to fake the large amounts of votes to make a difference in a national total, but Florida demonstrated that the potential to manipulate a vote of a super-electorial state is much easier and can have the same effect.
5. Super-Electorial states tend to get preferential treatment from federal services. I remember a town that was alongside the Mississippi river that had to move in order to receive the reconstruction money from Federal Flood Insurance when the Mississippi River overflowed (I can see the reason, because they were in a flood plain). However, Californians are allowed to rebuild their homes next to cliffs and the federal disaster relief fund keeps bailing them out after repeated mudslides.