All too often people concentrate on what Linux isn't .... they look for anything lacking and make a huge big deal about it, and in doing so miss the simple fact that Linux - this little community project - can so so much.
Full story »All too often people concentrate on what Linux isn't .... they look for anything lacking and make a huge big deal about it, and in doing so miss the simple fact that Linux - this little community project - can so so much.
Full story »
grovulent
15 years 13 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago
Linux growth isn't looking
Linux growth isn't looking so inexorable at the moment.. it has stalled just above 2 percent of market share since october of last year.
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?date=2008-10-31
It needs to change its model to encourage developers to design for the platform. Google and Palm both have the right idea.
Mr. Psychopath
15 years 13 weeks 23 hours 50 min ago
Well...
While I like the attitude of the article, and how Linux has come a long way, there are still some fundamental problems that aren't ironed out fully in Linux, and I don't know if they'll ever be.
-The constant fracturing from endless amounts of distributions.
-Poor commercial support on newer kernels.
-Different distros with vastly different goals.
-Different versions of libraries in every version, which makes it difficult to distribute an app that will work across all distros.
Regardless of how great Linux is, these are glaring problems that really need to be addressed, especially the last one.
Sometimes, the criticisms of Linux are actually pretty logical, and necessary.
delvalle26
15 years 13 weeks 20 hours 51 min ago
Those fundamental problems aren't problems honestly...
As someone who has been using the same distribution since 2004 (that would be Ubuntu.) I don't see the problem of there being many distributions... The software is written upstream so to speak, and then packaged for the distro by maintainers (downstream). What difference does it make that someone repackages software for their favorite distro?
Poor commercial support for newer kernels...? What does that mean... enterprise uptake? Business are usually slow to adopt bleeding edge software. If you mean proprietary driver support, that's a whole other can of worms. In that case, they can open up the driver, or just be a step behind.
Different distros with different goals... Considering some distros run as servers, desktops, routers, firewalls, or security crackers, or rescue disks, not to mention different architectures and platforms all together. Viewing this as a problem makes no sense to me.
Different versions of different libraries. Multiple versions can be installed concurrently, as some software is built on a different version. If you mean distributing one binary that will work across all distros (one per architecture anyway), it may be worth while to just statically link the binary, even though it would result in a larger file size. This issue doesn't come up (or at least shouldn't) when the software source is available, and packaged for the distro by maintainers.
The criticisms you put forth make more sense when compared to how Windows and OS X do things. If you want Linux to work the same way these issues need to be ironed out.
From a Free and Open Source Software perspective, these issues don't exist. I don't think Linux in general should strive to copy those aspects. It is flexible enough so it could meet your criteria... Or even just fork the Linux kernel and put a stable ABI for the drivers.
To end my rant:
I think the software landscape is changing, there is less and less reason for proprietary only software to be favored by limiting variety and choice when it comes to platforms and architectures. I look forward to ARM and MIPS throwing a monkey wrench in the compatibility and inertia that is Windows and x86. Here Linux and the FOSS ecosystem will shine, as 99% of the software (if not more) can already run on it; natively.
Mr. Psychopath
15 years 13 weeks 14 hours 45 min ago
Heh.
Try saying that with a straight face when you build KDE /trunk on the current release of gNewSense. Without a lot of hacking,patching, and plotting, it's one demonstration on how the plethora of distros and lack of standardization from a library/binary point of view in which community-based components (Cmake) don't work on a source-compatibility level.