Warning: the following text is long. Request: ease don't reply without reading till the end. There may be mistakes or things that you may want to argue with, but the whole picture is the important thing, and not the (example:) exact number of Linux/Windows users.
I agree with Shlomo, but also with one of its responders (was it Omer?). There is a severe friendliness problem with Linux, but it is not RECOGNIZED correctly. "Friendliness" is rhymed with "marketting", so everybody went to marketting experts, and asked them what whould be done. And those experts, "Nebechs", who have never heard about kernel drivers, answered automatically: "Don't you have a desktop environment management? Bad!". So now we have too many KDE/GNOME/etc., and no problem has been resolved. Then they said: "Your graphics looks ugly! And you need better icons!". So now the graphics of Linux is better than Windows, but no problem has been resolved. Then they said: "Your best word processor is a text editor 20-years old ????? VERY BAD!". So now we have SEVERAL word processors, but no problem has been resolved. And I can continue and pass a mistake after mistake, but I think the point was understood. IF the real experts (i.e. technical experts) were asked, I believe their answers would be different (well, Linus had the same answers, but only because everybody told him: "Listen to the marketting experts, they know what they say!"). Now let's go to the real problem that makes Linux non-friendly (well, it's actually friendly, but a little selective with who its friends are...): Shlomo mentioned FlyVideo 2000 problems, and USB printer support. In addition, almost any Linux installation faces hardware devices that are not supported, or devices that are not detected. Linux users are forced to use very specific and expensive devices (e.g. modems) because many of the devices are not supported by Linux. Some people are not so dummy, and can google for solutions/workarounds. But how can you google in the middle of an installation, when you reach a problem, you don't have a second (working) PC, and you don't want to lose all the installation? (i.e. to cancel it just to google in your second partition and then reboot again and start the installation from the beginning). Some users receive DOC attachments, and can't view them. Or can import them to one of the Linux word processors, but don't see them correctly (usually they even don't know that the document was not viewed correctly, because they don't have a clue about how it was seen by its original author). Some users can't use their Linux mailer/scheduler, because it doesn't inter-operate perfectly with the organizations Exchange server (unless they pay money and purchase the commercial add-on of Evolution). Linux should not be blamed for these problems. For example, the hardware compatibility problems are caused just because there are 100 Windows users per any Linux user (or 50 per 1. The exact number is not important). Now imagine you are a hardware vendor. During the R&D, you reach the testing phase. The chance that your new hardware will work in the first time you put it into a computer with Windows, is 0%. So you find the problem, fix it, and try again. After 10 or 20 itterrations, everything works correctly. Sometimes you also need to supply a device driver, so you develop a Windows driver. Usually, that loop of itterrations, or that device drivers, are not done with Linux. Because there are so many Windows users and so little Linux users, and that doesn't pay. It's like the bank site that was discussed here recently. Who is to blame? The vendor should not be blamed, because it is not economical for him to develop everything for Linux too. The Linux developers should not be blamed, because the better support of Windows is not thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, but an automatic result of its wide distribution. Only those "marketting experts" that claimed that better icons will solve the problem, should be blamed. They should not express any opinion without knowing kernel internals etc. So what can be done now? Focus ALL the efforts to improve the compatibility issues: * kernel, device drivers, etc. I think that the most important events for the friendliness of Linux in the recent years, were the launch of Linux 2.2, and the launch of Linux 2.4. And hardware is not the only compatibility issue related to the kernel: I think that the fact that NTFS is still only read-supported and not write-supported is severe. And there are many other examples. * Better filters, from and *TO* Windows applications (for example, PERFECT filters for WORD, Excel, PPT, etc.). And support for MS protocols and formats (e.g. better emulation of Outlook in mail apps, so an organizational Exchange server can be used better by Linux users). * Migration from the current ASCII "CONF" format to binary format or database-based format. There are zillion GUI's for Apache (just as an example), and none is good, because it's impossible to develop a GOOD GUI for an ASCII-based configuration file. I guess that everybody is going to laugh at the "REGISTRY" and other MS stuff, but handling ASCII CONF files, with VI/emacs, when you are a dummy, is impossible. (I know that many people don't agree with this point, but I don't want to start a new argument, although I have a lot of experience and knowledge in this field; The last line remains the same: COMPATIBILITY). Zillions of development hours were wasted on wrong issues, such as KDE/GNOME (although we all enjoy them); Now is the time to start working on the real problems, before it's too late! -- Eli Marmor [EMAIL PROTECTED] CTO, Founder Netmask (El-Mar) Internet Technologies Ltd. __________________________________________________________ Tel.: +972-9-766-1020 8 Yad-Harutzim St. Fax.: +972-9-766-1314 P.O.B. 7004 Mobile: +972-50-23-7338 Kfar-Saba 44641, Israel ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
