Re: os discuss (http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/7263.html)

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

cjgidman@mindless.com wrote:

>....you can't ignore the invisible hand of the
>market place.
I don't believe anyone is ignoring the marketplace at all.
Quite the contrary. Linux is the only OS making headway in
the broad OS marketplace, the one OS with the strongest
compounded growth projection over the next couple of years
(at least), and the one OS which supports more hardware
platforms than any other. This didn't happen with any
high-powered marketeering or monopoly power, but out of
grass root free choice, and if that ain't the market,
what is?

>Deadlines ARE important.  
Please substantiate this claim. 

>And, as time goes by, software DOES become obsolete.
Yes, quite so. However, the RATE at which software becomes
"obsolete" is far slower than the producers of proprietary
software would have us think. This is similar to the auto-
makers, who want us to get a new car every three years or
so, even though the service life of most cars is almost 2 
decades, given even a swipe at proper care.

>The Open Source model works because there is a David
>and Goliath competition going on.
This is true, but your thinking of Microsoft as the David
seems somewhat at odds with some of the other statements
in what you've written. Can you explain?

You see, Microsoft is David, since they do not marshal the 
resources or the effort required to create a really reliable 
OS. The number and mean skill level of the people who are 
working on the Linux system simply have them beat, and the
Linux team simply cares more. The Linux Goliath does scale 
quite well, however.

>In a more level playing field, where smaller companies are 
>competing for smaller pieces of the market,...
Ah, is this the kind of environment that might exist without
monopoly power, such as what Microsoft was convicted of wielding?
I'd like to see a world like this, where everyone used the same 
standards and competed on merit instead of hype, FUD, and 
misdirection....

>it's not as clear that this laid-back approach to deadlines
>would work.
What "laid back" approach are you referring to? No one made any
commitment to a release date for the Linux kernel; no one had
to. Software "engineering" is still largely craft, and it is very
very hard to place deadlines on the successful outcome of proto-
typical craft, in any industry. The people who are at or near the
top of the Linux kernel effort (and other Free Software projects)
know better than to commit to a needless deadline.

I am always amused at people who believe that completely new products
can be developed from thin air and work flawlessly by a date certain.
I disabuse people (including my own clients) of this notion whenever 
it rears its head. Oh, I do provide some goals, along with disclaimers
and confidence limits, and I do that in writing so that later, I can
cite them, and I can show my clients that they were informed of the 
conditions, some of which were violated by the clients themselves.

There was a lot of press hype when Microsoft was late with Windows 2000,
and that is unfair as well. Actually, Microsoft was being unfair to it-
self and it's investors (not to mentions its customers and employees)
by promising Win2K years before it could ever be fielded. This is a 
characteristic defect of companies that fear the marketplace, and will
promise anything to keep an audience. Mature workers understand that 
quality delivery takes time, and the notion that a product is ready 
ONLY when the product developers say so is a vital part of maintaining
the integrity of a product and it's place in the market.

                                                             Regards,
                                                           ---> RGB <---