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more on This guy is on to something!
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 19:16:52 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () attbi com> Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 18:03:29 -0600 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: <[IP]> This guy is on to something! Hi Dave, The attached article about Linux is mildly interesting, but hardly a sign that computer science is returning. Although the Linux movement is interesting (and has produced cheap software) it fails the test of exciting on several accounts. (1) Linux is hardly anything new from a technology perspective. It's basically Unix, which anyone can tell you is older than the majority of slashdot readers. It's also taken Linux programmers, most working in their spare time, quite a long time to approach the performance of Windows. For that matter, the Unix (mach) kernel in Mac OS X was way behind Windows in terms of multimedia performance when it was introduced--something the average user in fact does notice and want. Apple has been hard at work to address this. and that leads me to (2) When a business needs to do something in a quality way RIGHT NOW, they often turn to proprietary software to do so. Microsoft makes a lot of money from proprietary software (crap or not) because of this. The majority of people don't care. If Linux ever becomes super easy to use (and plays every single game out there), then perhaps its free price tag will work. But who's going to deliver a rich, user experience to the average (non-savvy) computer user for free? Nobody I know. (3) Shouldn't one aspect of "computer science" include reusable objects and code that would make something like Linux possible in months rather than many years? I realize that PC driver support is a nightmare, but why did so many things (like SMP) take so many years to get right. Spare time work on this project doesn't seem like a good enough excuse when full-time orgs like NASA contributed so much. BTW, is Unix so perfect that we can't invent a new OS that contains everything we can dream of that we want today? I will use (4) to actually agree a little with the article. I would like to see an operating system that is more transparent than Windows and the open source Unix clones appear to be it. However, my concerns are: (a) will open source lead to greater security or less security; (b) will business ever be able to rely upon these clones for highly-available, mission-critical, multi-processor systems; and (c) will they ever be able to be maintained by the average user. I realize that Windows is far from maintainable, but a whole generation is growing up on Windows and it's hard to throw away what they've already learned. Just my 2 cents. Sincerely, Tom Fairlie Principal, The Axebow Group tfairlie () axebow com ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on This guy is on to something! Dave Farber (Nov 07)