Linux-Advocacy Digest #898, Volume #25 Sat, 1 Apr 00 03:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Linux vs Windows development man-hours? (Robert Morelli)
Re: 64 Bit Claims: Debunking the Nonsense (Clyde Coffey)
Re: Windows 2000 has "issues" (Bob Lyday)
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Re: Windows 2000 has "issues" (Shell)
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Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:58:23 -0500
From: Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux vs Windows development man-hours?
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
> Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Does anyone have a comparison of the amount of development time that is
> > currently going into developing Windows versus Linux? I'd prefer not to
> get
> > responses that point out the obvious, that it's hard to make a direct
> > comparison. I know that but I still consider the question interesting,
> > because the bottom line here is which OS will evolve and add new features
> more
> > quickly.
>
> One can probably calculate the man hours of Win2000 based on Microsofts
> statistics. The problem is that nobody is tracking their time in Linux. It
> might take a month to develop a driver, but we don't know if they're working
> 40 hours a day or 10 hours a week.
> > 2. Compare all components that ship with Windows to Linux counterparts.
> > Since Windows ships with a GUI, we have to include Linux desktop
> > environments, as well as XFree86. Since Windows doesn't ship with a
> > decent editor, we shouldn't count Emacs, even though it ships with
> > every major Linux distro.
>
> Your stated goal is to determine how many man hours are going into Linux
> versus Windows. Not "How many man hours are going into Windows-like
> features in Linux". As such, one would have to count all the work being
> done for Linux, not just the work done that is similar to work done on
> Windows.
No. The goal is the "bottom line" which is which system will evolve faster.
The only way to estimate that is the estimate how many man-hours are going into
corresponding features. If 5 times as many man-hours go into features X,Y,Z, ...,
under Linux, it will probably evolve 5 times as fast. I'm not referring
specifically to features that emulate Windows. X is not a Windows-like feature of
Linux,
but it is part of the GUI which corresponds to the Windows desktop.
> The real problem here is that many of the things "for linux" are also
> developed for *BSD's, Hurd, etc... Very had to pinpoint.
Again, think of the bottom line. I'm trying to measure how fast Linux will evolve
compared to Windows. I don't care if something is used also for another purpose.
> > 3. Collapse redundant development. Since both KDE and GNOME have the
> > same purpose, they shouldn't be added to each other. On the other hand,
> > there is some sharing between the teams and there is an advantage to
> having
> > two systems rather than just one, so that should count for a little.
>
> No. This falls back to one of my complaints that has been discussed before.
> Redundant development slows down the evolution of Linux. You should count
> redundant development, because it's still man hours that are being spent to
> "get there".
No. Again, think of the bottom line. I don't care per say how much total time
is spent. I care how fast the Linux code base evolves. If two people spend 50 hours
doing the same thing, only 50 hours of work is added to Linux even though 100
hours of human time were spent.
> > 4. Count time commitment. A volunteer who spends 10 hours a week on
> Linux
> > can't be counted with the same weight as a Microsoft programmer who works
> 60
> > hours per week. There are also differences in the commercial environment,
> > where programmers sometimes work under extreme pressure and sometimes have
> > inflexible deadlines.
>
> We're talking man-hours here. Not people specifically. Any unit of
> measurement is meaningless if it isn't comparable to a similar work unit on
> both systems.
I included this point so that people wouldn't just add up the number of contributors
on both sides. It's harder to determine man-hours than numbers of people, so if
anyone has insight about that it's more valuable.
> > 5. Count competence and devotion. This one is of course the hardest to
> > quantify. The popular press generally comes down on the side of Microsoft
> > on this one. Whatever the reason, the programmers that brought us MS-DOS
> > and who took 15 years to copy the Mac GUI interface, are often called
> > "whizzes." Gates himself is often mistaken for a genius, though his odd
> > behavior and apparent lack of imagination and moral compass are more
> likely due
> > to a subtle mental deficit like a mild case of autism. Linux developers
> on the
> > other hand are disparagingly called "hobbyists" and "hackers." I
> personally
> > know at least one Linux developer whom I would, not lightly, label an
> > intellectual genius. But he's just one of many and I don't have any sense
> of
> > the community as a whole.
>
> Microsoft has some of the brightest people in the world working for them.
> Take a trip through research.microsoft.com for an example.
It's only been in the past couple of years that Microsoft has tried to establish
pure research labs. For them, it's an afterthought and a publicity stunt, like
the philanthropy that also only began recently. Companies like IBM and ATT have
always had a strong focus on fundamental research. This difference is very
significant in terms of production. IBM and ATT were both once monopolistic like
Microsoft is now. But at least IBM has contributed countless innovations in everything
from CPU design to database technology. Microsoft is a monopolist, but it hasn't
redeemed itself with innovations. Whatever people they may have hired for a showcase
research lab in the last couple of years aren't a factor in the development of Windows.
> Remember that MS-Dos had several overriding factors. It had to be backwards
> compatible, And it had to run in a 1MB architecture.
>
> Even so, MS Windows 1.0 was released in 1985, a mere year after MacOS.
> Windows 95 was 11 years after MacOS, not 15. And you must realize that
> Microsoft had legal contracts with Apple that prevented them from doing many
> things for quite some time (for instance, Windows 3.x didn't have a trashcan
> because of contracts MS had signed with Apple 5 years earlier).
>
> You cannot look at the effect and say "They must suck" because you don't
> know the factors which led to the situation. Given the strangleholds on
> them, the developers of Windows 95 *WERE* geniuses to be able to make it
> work as well as it did.
The entire Mac operating system and hardware platform were developed in a few years
in the early 80's by Apple. At the time Apple was in a precarious condition
financially. When the Mac came out, Microsoft immediately announced that it would
release a similar product within a few years. They probably really thought that with
more money and programmers they could do it. Even at that time, MS had a great
deal of influence; the PC was already the standard for business. If you recall,
at that time MS already forced Apple to abandon its own implementation of BASIC
and strong armed them into agreeing to allow MS to use Mac look and feel concepts
in Windows. But Microsoft had money, they had warm bodies sitting in front of
keyboards, but they didn't have the talent. Windows 1.0 was a ludicrously inept
effort,
whatever far fetched excuses you concoct. It couldn't even overlap windows, not
because
they were bullied by a much smaller Apple, but because their bit blitting algorithms
were
too inefficient. Windows 1.0 wasn't Microsoft's only fiasco at the time. They tried
to write a spreadsheet, but it was too slow to compete with 1-2-3. They tried to
write
a database called Omega, but after spending 20 million dollars, they gave up.
Microsoft
tried to downplay the project, because nobody can explain why Omega failed, apart
from
programmer incompetence. They tried to compete with NetWare. But, NetWare was so
much more efficient that it could access a network drive faster than DOS could access
a local drive. They couldn't write decent compilers for their own OS, so Borland
stepped in to fill the gap. ...
For another comparison, consider the Amiga. The original Amiga team had only 4
members.
The first commercial Amiga release was in 1985, after only a couple of years of
development
with a very tenuous financial situation. All the way back in the mid 1980's the Amiga
had preemptive multitasking, multimedia features like digital multitrack sound, and
high
color depth. It was a graphical system that shipped with a mouse and could display
windows
at different resolutions on the same screen (which Windows still can't do). It could
also
load and unload drivers without a reboot (which Windows still can't do).
Similarly, the OS/2 Workplace Shell, which is still better than the Windows desktop,
was developed by a small team in about a year.
At the time Win95 was introduced, Microsoft spent more than 500 million
dollars on just the marketing for the product release. The company had billions of
dollars and hundreds of programmers working on the task, which was simply to implement
what had long since become standard operating system features.
You think the MS programmers *WERE* geniuses? Sad to say, I pity you. I am a
researcher
in pure math and I know some of the most brilliant researchers in the world in that
field.
It's hard to convey to someone who doesn't know, the kind of depth and creative power
the best human minds are capable of. If you think that a team of software
mercenaries,
hacking an imitataion of the Mac 15, or 11 years late, are geniuses, there is
something
missing from your experience of life.
> > The level of the average MS programmer is probably a matter of widely
> differing
> > opinion. The company has grown too rapidly to maintain a consistent level
> of
> > competence.
>
> How fast they grow has nothing to do with "maintaining a consistent level of
> competance". Microsoft has one of the lowest turnover rates in the
> industry. They recruit and keep people, that's where you competance comes
> from.
How fast they grow determines their demand for warm bodies. When you grow too
fast, you end up having to pluck people out of the subway to fill that demand. I
think that was a serious problem for them in the 80's. I venture to speculate
that that had as much as anything to do with why the Amiga's four cash strapped, but
creative, develpers could do in a couple of years what took hundreds of Microsoft
drones a decade.
A company like Microsoft has lots of cash, so they can entice some good people with
that. But in general, the most creative people aren't going to want to be herded,
and they aren't going to want to sacrifice their legacy for a salary. They'll tend to
move out on their own. Many of the people on the NT team are now wealthy from stock
options. That's enough for some kinds of people, but not all of the most creative.
There is a big sacrifice in devoting your career to something like NT. NT is a
commercial
success, but it lacks the kind of philosophical implications of something like Linux,
and as a creative and technological effort, it's an embarrassment. The people who've
contributed to the development of Linux gain more in their historical legacy. Those
people
took part in something that is changing the software paradigm, and their work will
have
a more fascinating place in the history of the world. That's the sort of thing that
drives a different kind of person.
> > It's likely that many of the people they took on board in the 80's
> > were pretty mediocre, while the more recent hires are more mixed. Not
> only is
> > the natural ability of the developers relevant, but also "The Cathedral
> and
> > the Bazarre" idea. When it began the NT project, Microsoft tried to hire
> a
> > lot of the leading OS researchers. Obviously, whatever talent they did
> hire
> > has not been able to flourish in that highly corporate environment, as
> the
> > evolution of Windows NT/2000 shows no evidence of creative daring.
>
> "Creative daring"? What's that supposed to mean?
You'd know if it had any. Like most Microsoft projects, Windows has been developed
with
the most conservative possible agenda.
> > The most
> > creative people tend not to like to be herded, berated, and whipped into
> > compromise by marketeers, as seems to be the life of the typical
> Microserf.
>
> Dave Cutler and crew answered only to Bill Gates. They were virtualy a
> completely unique entity for many of the years of NT's development and were
> not part of the "Microsoft culture".
Fine. You can argue whatever you want about the conditions he worked under. But
you still have to explain why after more than 10 years of development, with
incredible financial resources, the Windows NT line is still just copying
established paradigms, and hasn't attained the same level of reliability as other
server operating systems. Cutler leaves behind an embarrassing legacy. The
question is why.
> > Also, the freshest ideas will always come from the younger generation.
> That's
> > something that Linux taps into very well, while in a corporation like
> > Microsoft, conservatism and seniority rule. There's obviously too many
> > considerations here for any kind of a definitive judgement, but I'd be
> curious
> > what people have to say about this one.
>
> You have no idea what Microsoft is like internally. Try reading something
> like Microserfs.
Actually, I used the term "Microserfs" here informally. Microserfs was a work
of fiction. What I do put some stock in is something like "Dynamics of Software
Development," published by Microsoft press and written by the head coach of the
Visual
C++ team. It describes pretty well aspects of the Microsoft culture. These people
are so into the "culture" that they don't even realize how they come off. You may
be surprised to know that he admits in this book that under pressure, their coders
sometimes seclude themselves, frantically writing complicated code that nobody else
can unravel. There end up being long tracts of kludgy code that nobody can tamper
with
because nobody understands them. It's obvious that nobody with a genuine love of
software would write like that except under duress. That sort of thing doesn't happen
for
instance with the Linux or openBSD kernel. From another viewpoint, I have read
direct
quotes from Microsoft administrators that actually tout Microsoft's ability to squelch
programmers' inclination toward producing "elegant" designs. It is apparently a point
of
pride that they can keep their people focused on market share rather than intrinsic
notions
of software value. In a recent interview, de Icaza described his work on Gnumeric as
"art." That's a totally different mentality.
>
> I find it interesting that in one breath you talk about Microsofts lack of
> "consistent level of competance" and then in the next you talk about how
> "the freshest ideas come from the younger generation". You criticize MS in
> one side by saying they don't have enough hard experience, then criticize
> them by saying they rely too much on seniority (which is hard experience)
> and not new people.
>
> Make up your mind.
I don't follow your point here. Where did I say they don't have enough hard
experience?
------------------------------
From: Clyde Coffey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: 64 Bit Claims: Debunking the Nonsense
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2000 01:01:02 -0600
On Sat, 01 Apr 2000 04:54:00 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher
Browne) wrote:
>As for MIPS, anyone that is capable of typing in www.mips.com should
>be quickly able to locate <http://www.mips.com/products/index.html>
>which describes the various families of MIPS CPUs, that notably
>include:
That's a description of current MIPS designs. It has little to do with
the older chips.
>a) The "4K" series. This includes the CPUs used in the original NT
>effort,
This "4K" stuff is new. It was not available when NT was developed. NT
was developed on R4000 based machines. And I don't know why a company
would name two completely unrelated things "something-4000" and
"4K-something". Anyway the R4000 was 64-bit. It was the very first
64-bit microprocessor. The ISA was called MIPS-IV.
>And the chips used in various video game
>systems such as Nintendo 64,
N64 also uses a MIPS-IV chip. "64", you know.
>Sony PlayStation, and such. And in many
>WinCE systems. As well as in the Digital UNIX product line post-VAX
>and pre-Alpha.
And workstations from several other vendors. MIPS R2000 & R3000
(MIPS-II ISA) were just about the only RISC chips generally available
that really performed well. Motorolla's and AMD's offerings weren't
all that great, and intel's i860 excelled only at trancendental number
crunching, and was very hard to program for.
>b) The "5K" series. These are 64 bit chips, which I *think* have only
>been widely deployed in the SGI UNIX lineup. Ditto for the "10K"
>series which they no longer are marketing, and the "20K" series.
SGI owned MIPS for several years, and greatly limited the availability
of MIPS chips to competitors.
>I don't *think* that NT was ever ported to other than the "MIPS32" aka
>"4K" series.
It was never ported to MIPS32. It was only MIPS-IV and would probably
run on MIPS64 or MIPS-V.
Of course, I can't speak for internal engineering
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:07:33 -0800
From: Bob Lyday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 has "issues"
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Possibly users wanting more IP addresses should buy Windows2000 enterprise
> server. :)
>
> >http://www.crn.com/dailies/digest/breakingnews.asp?ArticleID=15279
> >
> >It seems Windows 2000 has an "issue" with IP addresses that only allows it
> >to handle up to 51 of them. Remember how Windows 3.0 had an "issue" with
> >icons that only allowed it to put 26 in a folder? Remember how we
> >speculated that the programming wizzes at MS used the letters of the
> >alphabet to index the icons? You don't think they're using the weeks of
> >the year to index IP addresses, do you? Who knows? Maybe something
> >traumatic happened in that 52nd week, which would explain everything.
>
> >May I ask that we try to be compassionate? Yes, Microsoft is in denial.
> >And yes, they may lash out at those who threaten their defensive facade.
> >But try to imagine how much hurt and insecurity they feel. On the outside,
> >Windows 2000 pretends to be mighty and stable and scalable, but inside
> >it feels as infantile and unstable as NT. Remember, there is usually a stage
> >of denial that precedes the healing process.
>
> Can we say "shrinkwarp?"
I have known a number of people who tried Win2K. Aside from the
ravers, here are the reports:
1. Blue-screened 3X a day for 3 weeks with nothing else running
other than its obese self.
2. BSOD'ed every morning with nothing else on for 3 weeks. he
would go to sleep and wake up to discover that it committed
suicide.
3. Whole machine locked up once an hour.
4. As soon as he installed it and tried to put his password into
his ISP, it crashed.
5. A lot of people have reported crashes on install, some
repeated. One guy still hasn't figured out how to get it on 3
months later.
6. Apparently, once you put it on, it refuses to leave your
computer somehow. Good luck getting rid of it.
7. Crashed or locked up any time more than 4-5 programs were
running. Nothing worked, impossible to administer.
8.. Locks up all the time.
9. Slow as hell with a 500 MHZ 256 MB. Huh? Wuhthehell? Well,
what is enough, then? My God!
10. All took it off within 3 weeks, some within 2 days. Most
vowed to never put it on again. All report that it is *buggy*
and *slow as hell* and *it sucks*.
As you can see from these actual reports, this is obviously the
greatest OS ever made. You are wondering what all the orgasmic
media reports are all about, well read above. Obviously, OS/2,
*nix, Be, etc. can't hold a candle to this killer OS. Gotta go
now, gotta run off and get my copy!
--
Bob
"640K ought to be enough for anybody", Bill Gates, displaying
his visionary mind (date unknown).
Remove ".diespammersdie" to reply.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: 01 Apr 2000 07:21:57 GMT
>I gotta ask: Is this necessarily a bad thing?
Some of us have to deal with it. If you've got three users in the house, one
of which regularly shorts out the drool-proof keyboards, a second which
regularly complains about such items as the inability to stuff a 1.5M file on a
floppy, and a third who likes Linux, are you going to subscribe to two ISPs, or
just get the point-and-drool one for the idiots, and let the Linux-user waste
2G of his disc and 100USD of his money to keep Win9x around?
--
Marada Coeurfuege Shra'drakaii
members.xoom.com/marada Colony name not needed in address.
DC2.Dw Gm L280c W+ T90k Sks,wl Cma-,wbk Bsu#/fl A+++ Fr++ Nu M/ O H++ $+ Fo++
R++ Ac+ J-- S-- U? I++ V+ Q++[thoughtspeech] Tc++
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 has "issues"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Shell)
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2000 08:03:02 GMT
Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>One "issue" that Windows 2000 has just unrepressed, is a killer defect
>that "poses a potentially devastating threat to ISPs, point-of-sale (POS)
>systems and small- to midsize businesses." See,
>http://www.crn.com/dailies/digest/breakingnews.asp?ArticleID=15279
>From the article:
"The defect prohibits administrators from adding more than 51 IP addresses
to a Windows 2000 Server configured as a domain controller (DC). "
That statement right there points to this being a rather rare situation.
I don't understand why this would be devastating at all.
>You know, I got an electronic rolodex once for $14.95 that could only
>store 50 names and addresses, and the next year they came out with one that
>could do 100. So, if you thought it was a cool idea to migrate from Solaris
>to Windows 2000 and you're business depends on this, don't panic. They'll
>probably have the 100 IP version out next year.
Did you read the article?
>May I ask that we try to be compassionate? Yes, Microsoft is in denial.
>And yes, they may lash out at those who threaten their defensive facade.
>But try to imagine how much hurt and insecurity they feel. On the outside,
>Windows 2000 pretends to be mighty and stable and scalable, but inside
>it feels as infantile and unstable as NT. Remember, there is usually a stage
>of denial that precedes the healing process.
It appears you did not read the article, or at least have no understanding
of the issue.
I'm curious. Why do you comment on an issue you have no understanding of?
I mean, I can see why the journalists do that, like Imran Anwar the author
of this article... they are ignorant and do not know better, and like to
overblow things to get people to tune in.
--
Steve Sheldon email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
BSCS/MCSE url: http://www.sheldon.visi.com
BEEF! - Cause the west wasn't won on salad.
------------------------------
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