Problem is, what is stupid stuff and what is sane stuff? Is kde stupid and gnome not? xemacs is an attempt to bring emacs back to it's senses? I think your being far to rigid in software being right and wrong. I have no doubt that there is plenty of room for discussion in what makes an operating system kernel, and there could be more then just linux and BSD. The writing is on the wall though for other developers to see what sort of rage / religous war is waged on those who fork. Good or bad the social costs are very high to attempt a fork. I guess on the good side this forces compatibility.
I found Raymond's respose to the question of forking Linux by Gabriel to be more then just a little disengenuous. Has he actually talked to someone who has tried to fork open source code? I think if he had, he would find that the development community comes down on these things like a ton of bricks. What do you think would happen if there were a credible threat of a linux fork from an organized group of developers? I can tell you I would not want to be on the receiving end what would get dished out by the rest of the development community against them. Thorvolds a dictator? maybe not, but there are plenty of people around that are willing to enforce compatibility.
I have a great and not so original idea, use the software that works the best for you. I only use software that works for *me*, I couldn't give a rats ass who makes it, if it proprietary, community source, etc. In the end i'm using the maker of the software, if they don't deleiver I won't use it. I'm the bad guy, the enemy, companies/open source software developers can't make me use anything, I use want I want to and throw away the rest. Eric (Just a view from the demand side of things to show anther side of things. Microsoft is successful because people buy their stuff, if nobody bought their stuff, they would disapear almost over night).
Why would I want a Unix with a 1984 look and feel(mac)? Honestly, I never could figure out why macintosh users were so amazed at the macintosh look and feel, to me it was never anything special even after I used if for some time. In the end I much prefer the ability to configure my own look and feel from modern WM's to anything apple has produced. Trust me, there is a major difference in philosophy from Unix users and macintosh users. Unix users are not going to flock to Mac OS X because of the look and feel.
Does 'not being tied to a single monopolist' also apply to Linux? What if Linux "wins", and that is all we have? We need the right to fork, and we need to fork/fragment linux. Yes you read correctly, we need to remove the culture that is out right hostile to linux fragmentation, to enusre long term consumer choice. At the very least we need more support of BSD as a good second choice.
I was using Solaris x86 up until a couple of months ago. I still think it is the best overall UNIX for sparc or X86 IMHO. Sadly I think that Sun is slowly getting out of the x86 market, there is less and less hardware support as time goes by. When you try to install Solaris on a new system, you are unlikely to have hardware support for it. Linux though is very likely to support your system. I guess I can see their position, they would have to pump massive amounts of money into driver support, in order to compete with Linux. They proabably can't affortd to do this as long term they can't compete with a free OS. In the end I think *we* suffer for not having the choice of a well supported Solaris operating system for our x86 systems.
It's great we are getting some great new tools, Delphi will be a great addition. Still, a JIT for Blackdown's 1.2 JVM is only a start. What we really need to complete java for linux, is a much faster JVM then blackdown's current implementation. I have my fingers crossed that IBM's JVM will be released soon.
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Problem is, what is stupid stuff and what is sane stuff? Is kde stupid and gnome not? xemacs is an attempt to bring emacs back to it's senses? I think your being far to rigid in software being right and wrong. I have no doubt that there is plenty of room for discussion in what makes an operating system kernel, and there could be more then just linux and BSD. The writing is on the wall though for other developers to see what sort of rage / religous war is waged on those who fork. Good or bad the social costs are very high to attempt a fork. I guess on the good side this forces compatibility.
I found Raymond's respose to the question of forking Linux by Gabriel to be more then just a little disengenuous. Has he actually talked to someone who has tried to fork open source code? I think if he had, he would find that the development community comes down on these things like a ton of bricks. What do you think would happen if there were a credible threat of a linux fork from an organized group of developers? I can tell you I would not want to be on the receiving end what would get dished out by the rest of the development community against them. Thorvolds a dictator? maybe not, but there are plenty of people around that are willing to enforce compatibility.
I have a great and not so original idea, use the software that works the best for you. I only use software that works for *me*, I couldn't give a rats ass who makes it, if it proprietary, community source, etc. In the end i'm using the maker of the software, if they don't deleiver I won't use it. I'm the bad guy, the enemy, companies/open source software developers can't make me use anything, I use want I want to and throw away the rest. Eric (Just a view from the demand side of things to show anther side of things. Microsoft is successful because people buy their stuff, if nobody bought their stuff, they would disapear almost over night).
Why would I want a Unix with a 1984 look and feel(mac)? Honestly, I never could figure out why macintosh users were so amazed at the macintosh look and feel, to me it was never anything special even after I used if for some time. In the end I much prefer the ability to configure my own look and feel from modern WM's to anything apple has produced. Trust me, there is a major difference in philosophy from Unix users and macintosh users. Unix users are not going to flock to Mac OS X because of the look and feel.
Does 'not being tied to a single monopolist' also apply to Linux? What if Linux "wins", and that is all we have? We need the right to fork, and we need to fork/fragment linux. Yes you read correctly, we need to remove the culture that is out right hostile to linux fragmentation, to enusre long term consumer choice. At the very least we need more support of BSD as a good second choice.
I was using Solaris x86 up until a couple of months ago. I still think it is the best overall UNIX for sparc or X86 IMHO. Sadly I think that Sun is slowly getting out of the x86 market, there is less and less hardware support as time goes by. When you try to install Solaris on a new system, you are unlikely to have hardware support for it. Linux though is very likely to support your system. I guess I can see their position, they would have to pump massive amounts of money into driver support, in order to compete with Linux. They proabably can't affortd to do this as long term they can't compete with a free OS. In the end I think *we* suffer for not having the choice of a well supported Solaris operating system for our x86 systems.
It's great we are getting some great new tools, Delphi will be a great addition. Still, a JIT for Blackdown's 1.2 JVM is only a start. What we really need to complete java for linux, is a much faster JVM then blackdown's current implementation. I have my fingers crossed that IBM's JVM will be released soon.