Re: MJR on Linux/OSS

[Christopher Hicks <chicks () chicks net>]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, Devdas Bhagat wrote:
> http://www.ranum.com/editorials/divide-conquer/
> Summary: Diversity in interfaces is bad. Microsoft's consistent interface
> is good.

Your summarization skills leave a lot to be desired.  A better summary 
would be that UNIX/FOSS folks are self-defeating because of the numerous 
petty squabbles we engage in.

> Which consistent interface would suit everyone?

There are a variety of interfaces to consider here.  The USER interface is 
pretty consistant.  Folks don't seem to have much trouble working with 
Macs, Windows, KDE, or Gnome.  All of them work similarly 90% of the time 
from the user's perspective.  Except for cut-and-paste I could work on a 
Windows client as easily as a Linux one.  (And there are patches to fix 
that if I cared to install them.)

The more significant interface in terms of Marcus' article is the 
programmer/developer interface.  This includes the tool chain, libraries, 
and deployment.  Here we end up with "great diversity" which is mostly 
pointless.  The LSB folks have done an admirable job of reducing these 
petty differences.  Hopefully this effort will continue to gain momentum. 
Even if it does you still have the various BSD's and commercial UNIXen 
that won't conform for the forseeable future.  This apparent in-fighting, 
even if its passive and quiet, discourages developers from aiming their 
software at the FOSS world.

> As opposed to users saying "I know this interface, and I don't want to 
> learn anything new", which interface would be acceptable?
> KDE? GNOME? WindowMaker? Windows? MacOS? The command line?

As I said above, that stuff is hardly what matters and is totally beside 
the point that Marcus' article was making.

> Oh yes, you can run any distro with no big real difference between
> them. The major lines: Debian, Redhat, Gentoo. The rest are clones, or
> similar enough to transition easily between.

The differences between these distros from a sysadmin or developer 
perspective are pretty significant actually.  A user's ability to switch 
isn't the concern, but whether a developer or sysadmin could switch 
painlessly.  That's far from the case.  The idea behind .deb and .rpm are 
pretty similar.  It's like VHS vs. Betamax.  But in the FOSS world we'll 
keep both until the end of time.  As a developer that's a real pain 
because I know how to build rpm's and I don't really care to learn to make 
.debs.  Keeping track of all these distro-to-distro nuances is a full time 
job at many development shops and detracts from real development.

> The trouble with a single dominant monoculture is that it does increase 
> the damage caused by a single hole. See blaster, and the long thread 
> which was spawned by *that* on this list.

The solution to these problems isn't a monoculture.  The solution to these 
problems is to stop arguing over petty sh*t and make the common pieces 
standardized and interchangeable so that innovation can focus on making 
new things.

> I guess this is one of those things on which I disagree with Marcus.

You really seem to be disagreeing with something that he wasn't trying to 
convey.

> Hopefully, this leads to another good discussion on what would work
> best for what requirements (as opposed to the /. threads).

Hopefully this will encourage a few folks to put down their partisan flags 
and work together, but since this list isn't a list of developers for the 
most part it probably won't have much effect.

> Oh, and Marcus: DLL hell ;)

Mercifully UNIX/FOSS folks have mostly figured out that versioned libs are 
a path out of DLL hell, but that's not enough to overcome our other issues 
to bring in the big boys of software.  Oracle and Sybase are certainly 
feathers in the cap and help legitimize things, but they're not the 
software that most businesses care about.  (These guys run on almost 
everything anyway, so yet another port for them isn't a major surprise.) 
Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, Microsoft, and games are what are going to make 
a difference.  When those folks start shipping Linux versions in parity 
(time and featurewise) with their Windows releases then there will be 
something to write home about.

--
</chris>

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
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