Re: os discuss

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

>>>....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,...
>I think this is really only an aside note.  If we look at this event (Linux
>growth) through the eyes of "It's the applications stupid" then the
>reason for Linux growth is apparent (IMHO): re-centralization and the web
>(internet). Since those movements are facilitated by Apache, then you have
>Linux running underneath (almost by default). ...
Interesting comment, and once again, we see an inconsistency in reportage.
It is a "well known fact" that there are "no applications" for Linux, which
I have felt shows how far behind the curve the press actually is.

> ...If those trends cool off I suspect Linux will too.  
This basic point is correct... Linux will probably heat up (or cool down)
with the server market, and probably as the ASP market goes. This may be 
the core of Linux strengths, as exploited by high volume users. 

>One reason (again IMHO) that Linux looks SO much better than WinNT/9x is
>that the desktop/workgroup market has shrivelled in the past few years,
>evidenced my flat if not declining PC sales.
Not sure this is related. PC sales have only been slowing or flat for
some vendors, and only over the last 2-3 quarters. Also, the market share
Linux has is expressed in percentage points, which normalize out the growth
in the number of PCs. Something else that makes Linux growth look better is
that it's on more platforms than Win9x. You may say that this is not an
important factor, but I hasten to point out that when it comes to these
kinds of increments, every little bit helps. There are a lot of boxes out
there where Win9x is simply not an option.

>>>Deadlines ARE important.
>>Please substantiate this claim.
>Some type of leadership is important. 
I agree, but deadlines don't hack it, and they are a goal that would best
be set by engineering considerations. As such they have value, but they are
still not the gospel that the press (and by extension, the populace) makes
them out to be.

>>The Press tends to treat Linux as if there is a "Linux Corporation", with
>>industrial-type schedules....
>I think this extends beyond the press and release dates.  People (joe
>user off the street) tend to think this way, simply because they are
>accustomed....
Quite so, this is a cultural condition, the press being the leader in 
making it so. This is something that we will evolve away from or suffer
with in the future.

>This release-date issue is really just a small facet of all that the
>open-source model changes.
True enough, but it is the facet we are focusing on, and on of the 
reasons I get annoyed with this sort of reportage. It simplifies the
issue at hand in ways that distort the story itself, so it becomes a
generator of disinformation.

>... Open Source has done a good job of promoting itself as a successful 
>development model,  but done little to address the fact that it also
>represents a different distribution model as well. 
This is an excellent point, and a hard nut to crack as well. The problem
here is that vendors are going to be timid about shipping a driver whose
lifetime is comparatively short, that needs something of an evolved
framework (perhaps with unknown state) on the host machine to allow for
successful installation. RPM scripting helps here, but does not solve the
problem completely.

One of the traits of Win9x is that you can take a printer driver that was 
written in 1994 for Win95 and run it on at least some of the most recent 
Win9x OS'es. I wonder (and it's a good test) if this can be done with
Linux. I'm posing this since device makers have to deal with inventory
that may stay around for as long as 18 months after manufacture, and the
customers have to live with these things for years after. Drivers on disk
may actually be worse than useless in this case.

I think one solution may be something we're seeing in the last year or so,
and that's updating programs and demons. Boot up, connect to the net, and
the thing phones home and gets the updates it needs. Just got a new gizmo
hooked up? It gets detected as new, and the driver comes down the line and
is installed. OK, maybe we prompt for CD installation first, and its one
more thing for netadmin types to disable or redirect if they want local
control. But this is clearly better than the driver on the CD, regardless
of the OS.

                                                         Regards,
                                                         ---> RGB <---