----- Original Message ----- From: "mike ledoux" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 12:41 PM Subject: Re: Interesting Article
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 11:44:10AM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote: > > > > Don't know if anyone read the article linked off of /. last night > > about "How to make Software Projects fail", but it's quite > > interesting. Here's a choice quote: > > > > http://www.softwaremarketsolution.com/ > > I hadn't seen this before, but this guy 'Joel' lost all credibility > when he "promised to commit ritual suicide via web cam if we discover > any category one bugs in the product". If he's stupid enough to believe > that his company has eliminated every bug in a content management system > product, he's stupid enough that I probably shouldn't care about > anything else he has to say. His comments on bloatware that you quote > are particularly inane, as they completely ignore the other negative > effects of bloatware to focus on how cheap disk space has become. > He didn't say "every" bug, he said "every category one bug." And I'm sure he's defining what "category one" is! :) It's a marketing ploy, pure and simple. I'm surprised you fell for it. > That said, he does make at least one interesting point about Microsoft's > success, that I think might be particularly discussion-worthy in relation > to open-source and free software: > > "Microsoft always figured that it's better to let the hardware catch > up with the software rather than spending time writing code for old > computers owned by people who aren't buying much software any more." > > I'm not saying that he's right, just that it might be worth discussing, > particularly in light of the hardware demands of recent Linux > distributions. Actually, I agree with most of what he said in the article except the bloatware thing. But he's focused on the wrong part of the problem. The SIZE of the bloatware is no longer the problem, what with cheap memory and hard drive space. The REAL problem is speed. People don't buy new computers any more to get more RAM or bigger hard drives. They get them to make their systems and programs boot and load FASTER. Having a 200 MB program is not a problem any more, as long as the first window is up and useable inside of 2 seconds. As far as the hardware demands of recent Linux systems, the reason they are so big is because there are: a) Driver Modules for EVERY piece of hardware under the sun. I am playing with the 2.4.14 kernel. I did my menuconfig, and burned my kernel. Took like 5 minutes to compile, and another 5 minutes for the modules. Well, I didn't get everything I wanted in there, so I used the default .config file from /usr/src/linux (mandrake 8.1 system.) The dang thing took almost an hour to build the modules!! When I looked at the .config file more closely, there were modules for EVERY disk controller, sound chip, ethernet chip, video chip, and peripheral device there is (well, almost.) b) Scores of different programs that do the same thing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you've got Gnome, KDE, Sawmill, Sawfish, WindowMaker, IceWM, and FVWM(2) for desktops and Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla, and Galeon for browsers (I know I've forgotten all the text browsers and probably a half a dozen others, but my point has been made, I think) you're going to have a darn big distribution. And I think that the whole VMM issue with the lower 2.4.x kernels has contributed to the perception that Linux is becoming bloated and slow. I disagree. If you take the above into consideration, and build a streamlined kernel that has only what you need (and SOME of what you MIGHT need) and strip away all the programs you don't use, you can have a small fast operating system that puts MS to shame. Still. Sure KDE2 sucks on my P166. But I don't USE KDE2 on my P166. I use WindowMaker. The right tool for the job. And it works great. And so does KDE2 on my dual PIII/1000! Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
