Dr. Sacco:
Thanks for your reasoned responses to my rantings!
Joseph E. Sacco, Ph.D. wrote:
As to your rhetorical question of how could FC2 be releases with so
many show stopping issues...
The simple answers are: (1) it's open source [what do you want for nothing???] (2) it has to run on N platforms, where N >> 1 (3) statistically, the percentage of problems within a 1400+ package release is rather small. (4) How many testers do you need to exhaustively test 1400+ packages?
I am chastened. You are right, of course, and I was just letting off a little bit of steam. Further, with Open Source software, if I am not part of the solution, then I am part of the problem (as you say, "What do you want for nothing?").
However, some of the issues I encountered with Fedora Core 2 were showstoppers that became evident within two to three minutes of booting after installation. No sound? Compulsory upgrades that completely hose the system minutes later? Come on, Red Hat! In answer to your fourth rhetorical question above, the developers only needed a single tester to become aware of these issues.
As were my parents so often with me, I was more hurt than angry. Or, at least, very surprised. The Open Source movement has high ideals and goals, and Fedora Core is their shining example of How It Should Be Done. The fight has been won that Linux is superior as a server or on the back end. Now the Open Source bunch are trying to argue that GNU/Linux is superior on the desktop, too. Except that, by my own selfish standards, Fedora Core 2 was not anywhere near ready (this is not to say that no GNU/Linux distro is near ready -- Mandrake was much closer to usable out-of-the=box for me, and is what I run now on my PC).
By contrast, I would focus your attention on the bug fixing, release patterns of companies like Microsoft, IBM, HP, or SUN. These giants have many more full time resources to resolve issues that occur within a much smaller problem space.
Again, you are right. These companies suck even more, at least from the needs of the end user (who are not generally their direct customers -- corporate IT departments are their direct customers and public shareholders are their masters). Even my beloved Apple is guilty of these bad behaviors (though Apple's niche in the marketplace is large incentive to improve their product in a more timely fashion than the others).
What to do??? Depends upon your needs and your expectations. If your Linux box is used to run a few desktop applications, there is nothing that needs changing. It works well enough.
Yes, but is "well enough" going to promote the Open Software movement's agenda? Microsoft Windows 98 worked "well enough."
(And thank you for playing along with my delusions that my opinions might matter to anyone. ;-) )
Best wishes, Clint (Grumble... no sound... grumble... crash... mumble... no icons....)
-- Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal DOT net> _______________________________________________ yellowdog-general mailing list [email protected] http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try '<keywords> site:terrasoftsolutions.com'
