Hi,
this is the translation of the answer to a reader of PCWorld italy, April
1999, who was basically asking them why don't they speak about Linux in
their magazine.
In the next issue of PCWorld Italy you'll find a review of the major
distributions of Linux and the analisys of the market situation of this
operative system. Our magazine usually deals only with applications and o.s
for desktop systems, so in the near future Linux will have the same coverage
of WinNT, that is only the reporting of the most significant news. (?? They
speak about NT VERY OFTEN)
Both are very far from being effective for home systems, where the
compatibility with all the available hardware and the availability of
applications in the shops are more important than the cost of the o.s.
itself and than its stability. (?)
The recent availability of applications which are free for personal use,
such as Corel Wordperfect or StarOffice demonstrates that something's
moving, but the way to go is still long and difficult. The weak point about
linux is that it lacks of a graphical interface compatible, even partially,
with the thousands of base M$'s Win32 APIs, that could make it easier to
port applications from Windows without adding costs.
It's true that without the support of M$ it's difficult to rewrite from
scratch such APIs, but neither building from zero a multiprocessor UNIX was
a simple task, and they've done it.
The insistence on using different graphic shells that are hard to
configure, based on that old wreck (!) that is the old standard interface of
UNIX, the X/Window, now old-fashioned and forgotten (!!), is only useful in
making them waste precious time, leaving to MicroSoft the control of the
desktop PC's, today and tomorrow.
Ok, back to me. What strikes me most in this letter is that they seem
not to care about the free applications... it seems that WP8 and StarOffice
are the only ones available, and for gentle concession of some God; you see,
there's no other solution alternetive to the tons of windows software...
maybe this is because they fear a world ruled by free software, also because
who would pay for their ads?
In addition, that silly thing about APIs... I mean, if Linux wants to be
an alternative to Win, why should they program such apis for free? And are
we actually in need of them? I don't know, but it seems to me that 90% of
the problems of stability of Win come from the chaos in its 'thousands of
base APIs'...
One further word: why should Linus and his pals program such free APIs
to allow the big software houses to make money on them?
I won't speak of the 'old wreck': I don't think those guys have ever
seen KDE or GNOME at work... Or they're too blind to have registered the
fact.
If someone will like to reply them, the address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] ;
please report that yours is a translation. Me, I'll wait until the promised
next month article; if it continues on the same way, I'm prepared to write
the 'Divine Linux Comedy' about it, even if I'd have some reports to them
even now...
What makes me sad is that in my humble translation maybe that 'What a
childish toy this Linux is' general attitude of this piece has been lost...
sorry, about this, I've never studied at Oxford...
By the way: happy easter! I'll be in holiday (France, wait for me!) for
the next two weeks... alas! I won't be ablo to read your (eventual)
replies... :(
Greetings, however!
mano :)
----------------------------------
Germano Rizzo - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.xoom.com/germano
webmaster of
http://members.xoom.com/ACSpinea
Linux Registered User N� 114445
Official Linux KDE Doc. Translator
PLUTO member - www.pluto.linux.it
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