Sriram J wrote: > Can some one tell me what is the positioning of linux as an operating > system. > who are target audience/consumers of linux supposed to be. > > is it for the general users who want an alternative for windows or the few > fakirs[1] who put ideology above all and are not willing to compromise at > any cost.
In the long run, an OS based on ideology is better than one based on the market. The market is more often than not skewed against customers. If you call Windows as a hallmark for market drive development, look at how its latest developments have been. "Market" forces ensured that Vista was rewritten to satisfy MPAA/RIAA rather than the customers, causing developments like SDP etc. in effect causing problems like [1] [1] http://davisfreeberg.com/2008/01/03/bad-copp-no-netflix/ So beware before jumping to conclusions that market driven development is necessarily better for customers. There are many many examples for this: In another case, market driven development caused Microsoft to stop selling the perfectly usable Windows XP by this month end. It was only when Vista boomeranged that they had to change their course [2] [2] http://www.news.com/Microsoft-extends-Windows-XPs-stay/2100-1016_3-6210524.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news On the other hand, despite the "problem" in usability, there are scores of instances when idealogy or technology based developments ensured that FOSS distros gave more predictable and reliable support for users. Debian's lifecycle policy[3] ensures that even after Etch was released in 2007, Sarge(the old stable released in 2005) would keep getting security releases till 2008. Of course, before jumping and comparing with Windows XP, remember that XP is just an OS, while Debian is an entire computing ecosystem. [3] http://www.debian.org/security/faq#lifespan Ubuntu has an LTS version [4] which has a support cycle of five years! [4] http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released Not counting Redhat whose commercial support cycle is upto 7 years! [5] [5] http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ Yes, new hardware is always going to be a sore point for Linux, but think of all the people who are using abandoned closed source distros with no option to upgrade to a version which is maintained and keeps them safe from known issues. IMHO, the inconvenience of sticking to a smaller subset of known working hardware is better than the inconvenience of sticking with an option where your needs often do not match the dynamics of the market. - Sandip _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Next Event: http://freed.in - February 22/23, 2008 Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
