Elvin, I agree with a lot you say. What is probably needed today is a Corporate
Structure which is in-step with the OpenSource movement. In the corporate world you
are always confronted with many Conflicts of Interests: what is good for the
Corporation may not be good for the Customer, and vice versa; e.g. a company making
lamps will try to make the burn out more quickly to increase sales, while the
customers want them to last forever to safe money. I will make an attempt to
implement a corporate structure which reduces some of the inherent and most damaging
Conflicts of Interests, and I'll keep you informed about it.
Paul
Alf wrote:
> I wanted to comment on Lawrence's mail at first.. but I think I have more
> to say if I comment on both.
>
> Displacing Microsoft has never been on our aggenda... This world is big
> enough for the both of us (and of coz big enuf for a lot of other OSes
> too) The same way as there are many cars/TVs/movies.
>
> I agree with Lawrence's claim that Linux is still under development, that
> was the whole point of it isn't it ? I mean, just because a product is
> complete, it doesn't mean development must ever stop ! To excel beyond
> one's self !
>
> I went thru a period of self-evaluation on my views on the current "OS
> War" At times I feel, Linux is being pushed too hard. The normal end user
> is not ready yet for Linux. Yes, Gnome/KDE makes the interface so much
> easier to use. And with linuxconf/YaST, configuring linux has never been
> easier.
>
> But I feel the key to it all is not to modify/enhance the software, but to
> modify/enhance the user. My first experience with Linux was in the days of
> Slackware and Ydgrssil (Typo!) and configuration was by hand. Tough, but
> it was always enriching and I learnt a lot from it. And this is what I
> want to spread to others, the learning and appreciation of a good
> Operating System.
>
> By adding layers (linuxconf) and layers (gnome) and layers (who knows?) we
> will just end up like Microsoft Windows. Sooner or later, they will have
> this option "Hide Technical Messages <Y/M/N>" in the kernel configuration.
>
> Some of you may say... nah, this will not happen. But realise now that
> there is "holy crusade" is over... there is tresure involved now ! And
> with tresure, comes greed and the devil himself. (Somehow, I feel this
> happened to Bill Gates with MS-DOS - Working OS, Add Graphics, Add
> Control Panel, Add Explorer, Tadah!)
>
> Linux may be "free", no one can buy over it. But seriously, without
> Calderra, RedHat, SuSE, there would be little Linux (For the common people
> at least) And these are the companies that can be bought over !
>
> I'm a avid Linux Advocate. Have been and always will be.
> But we cannot afford to push it too far and kill ourselves in the
> process. There has been soo much hype about linux, and seriously the hype
> has casued disappointment in some users.
>
> There has always been wide claims and anti-myths about how Linux has i's
> own graphics editor (GIMP), word processing (WP8, StarOffice), ICQ/IRC
> Chat software, etc... But then, no one said these are the only few
> software in the market. And given a choice of MS+Photoshop an Linux+Gimp,
> I chose Photoshop, and so would many professionals.
>
> The market is expanding, with SGI coming in to the linux frenzy. Maybe
> Adobe, and even Microsoft may join in. But notice that these are the
> companies that will NOT be open sourced, and with huge bulky codes, it
> will just give more problems to linux users. And they dun have much of a
> choice.. it would be back to M$ or stay with "adapted" software.
>
> It's an open market, with freedom of choice as many would say. The
> linux-server market is safe, as it does not suffer from the market/demands
> of the end-user. (Put it bluntly, it's still Geekdom) But the end-user
> would soon have to put up with the endless stacks of controls, layers and
> simplfications.
>
> (Tongue in cheek)
> "Our sacred space has been invaded. We must protect our holy grail"
>
> ahahahaa...
>
> The future is grim and looks uphill. but hell, so was 1.2.6. *grin*
>
> *cheeros*
>
> Elvin
>
> Sidenote: This mail may be long, but trust me. I got more to say.. someday
> I'll write something up and put it on my personel web page...
>
> Disclaimer: The above are my personel view points. I'm open to discussion
> and "education", but not too opened to flames (if any should go directly
> to ME)
> -
> On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Harish Pillay 9v1hp wrote:
> > > I began to evaluate Linux out of curiosity. So far I had evaluated
> > > Debian, Caldera, RedHat, Slackware, SuSE, and Mandrake.
> > > All these distros have their good and bad points. I hope someday there
> > > will be an acceptable standard set for Linux. Unless
> > > this is done there will be some confusion for users as these programs
> > > differ from one another and are still under development. One good point
> > > ,however, is that people will be discouraged to write virii or trojan
> > > programs for them. Still thinking of replacing Microsoft Windows with
> > > Linux? Perish the thought ... it will take sometime before one can hope
> > > to achieve this. At the moment Linux is no threat to Microsoft Windows
> > > at all. It is just another "computer toy" for programmers to play with.
> > > These are my personal opinions, of course. Meantime have fun with Linux!
> >
> > Thanks for your comments. It is indeed useful for someone to state the
> > preceding and draw their own conclusions. Displacing Microsoft is not the
> > intent of Linux. We use computers to achieve some task. It is rather
> > secondary what the operating system is. It is the applications that count.
> >
> > In the case of Microsoft, they cover the two aspects - OS and apps. Their
> > applications are, in general, well built, but sadly, that cannot be said of
> > their operating systems. It has to be granted to MS that what they are
> > trying to do is to keep backward compatibility as much as possible (though
> > it is questionable) and in that process, they have not been able to build
> > an operating system that is robust.
> >
> > Back in the days when there was the MS OS/2, there was something called the
> > Chernobyl Box in the system. The Chernobyl Box was the DOS box. It was
> > called Chernobyl Box because when DOS was being fired, the OS/2 box went
> > from ring 3 based stability to ring 0 based instability. In the Intel 286
> > world where OS/2 got it's start, running a realmode DOS application was
> > achieved not by a virtual 86 on-chip emulation, but by fooling the system
> > to think that it was a DOS-only machine.
> >
> > OS/2 went on from that to being a solid operating system when it began running
> > on 386 and better machines only to be later killed off by IBM's mismanagement.
> > For the record, I think OS/2 is far superior to Windows. It had threads,
> > monitors etc etc way before any desktop OS.
> >
> > Windows got it's start from running on a 8088 (win1.0), and then with two
> > versions - Windows 286 and Windows 386 - the latter tried to capitalize on the
> > advantages of the 386 platform. Windows 386 evolved into Windows 3.0 to 3.1
> > to 95 to 98. In parallel to this MS, with Dave Cutler of Digital/VMS lineage,
> > did try to build a new OS (released as Win NT 3.5). It promised all the good
> > things of VMS and would incorporate newer techniques and technologies.
> >
> > However the product management of nt and 9x have not been stirling in terms of
> > making the product robust and crash proof. It is not acceptable that an
> > application can take down an OS. When MS, at the DOJ trial, said that removing
> > the IE stuff from the 9x series could make the OS unstable was an "admission"
> > of the poor system design.
> >
> > Therein lies the Archilee's heel of MS' operating systems. MS OS product
> > management allows for incorporation of application specific functionality
> > within the OS. In Linux, that would amount to Netscape specific features
> > in the kernel. Does that make sense?
> >
> > The evolution of the software industry in the last 30 or so years has taken
> > on a path that suited it's goals at that current time. In today's world where
> > you can have commoditized CPUs that can do just about anything, we have to
> > reevaluate the software industry to see if the model it has had continues to
> > make sense.
> >
> > Linux is the most obvious challenger to the status quo. If you feel that the
> > status quo should remain, you are free to follow that. No one is compelling
> > you to adopt Linux. If one day Microsoft does operating systems correctly,
> > we will see zero or low incidences of crashes and then one of the side effects
> > of Linux would have been achieved.
> >
> > I have gone on and on. I will stop here.
> >
> > Later,
> > --
> > Harish Pillay, 9v1hp [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Singapore *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish
> > -
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> >
>
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