Re: OS Holy Wars.

[Nigel Orr <nigel@xxxxxxx>]

At 00:58 17/10/00 +0100, you wrote:
>I never will understand what people are prepared to put up with in
Linux,
>just to thumb their nose at Bill Gates and Co!

Most people don't have the problems you did.  I certainly don't use it for
any moral or ethical reason, just because it works a lot better than the
alternative.

>Basically, I find the whole picture to be unconvincing: with Linux, you
are
>at the mercy of someone's hobby. There is no leverage or pressure
whatsoever
>you can apply to push for support to be implemented.

Absolutely incorrect.  Redhat is one of the biggest providers of support,
and there are a huge number of other consultants and organisations
providing support- it's where the business exists for open source software.

>I can NOT fix bugs myself. The fact that some other guys >can< do
this
>doesn't mean diddly-squit to me, if he chooses not to.... in effect, I
am
> >still< at the mercy of the vendor/author.

You will always be able to find someone to fix a problem.  Typically,
important issues are fixed within hours or days, issues with individual
packages are usually fixed when someone points out the problem.  With MS,
you are solely reliant on one source for fixes- if the fault is in the OS,
no-one but MS can fix it, as no-one is allowed to see the source, unless
you have an extremely talented x86 assembler programmer available who is
prepared to wade through all the machine code...

Typically, the 'someone' is the original package author or maintainer, as
most take a good deal of pride in their work, but if they don't fix it, and
none of the informal support channels can help, it would be unusual that
you couldn't find a commercial programmer to fix it.  Even the fact that
the source is available seems to encourage folk to keep it tidy- on the 2
occasions when I've modified the source (to change the way something is
done), it's been very well laid out, and would have been easy for anyone
with a smattering of programming experience to modify.

>Don't get me wrong, I would dearly like to have a viable alternative to
>Microsoft, but in my experience, neither BeOS, Solaris or Linux are
able to
>provide the facilities I need.

And that's fine, no-one is forcing you to change- just that some folk (not
you) seem to get very emotional when anyone suggests they could do
something an easier or better way- which is especially odd in a field such
as home automation- I thought easier and better were supposed to be the
Holy Grail!  So for you, at present, Windows is the way to go.  That's
fine.

Nigel


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