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Subject:Re: Viva le Same! Linux From:cpwinter -at- rahul -dot- net To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 30 Sep 2002 10:06:59 -0700
On 29 Sep 2002, at 12:04, Andrew Plato wrote (in part):
>
>
> Don't get me wrong, open-source products are all good technologies and they
> do offer a compelling alternative. But when you cut through the hype and
> promise and nonsense, you realize that its all about the same.
>
> Andrew Plato
>
It seems to me that you contradict yourself here. If the technologies
are "all about the same", how can open-source products offer a
compelling alternative when they have an inferior API and their limited
market share makes third-party application developers write for the
Windows market, where the big money is?
My position on the Linux vs. Windows matter is this: I have used
Windows and Microsoft Office for a long time. Currently I use Windows
NT4 on a laptop, and it is almost completely solid. The occasional crash
is due to IE4 meeting a Web site it doesn't like. (I also use Norton
Internet Security, so I have been virus-proof so far.) Based on my
experience with NT, I plan to buy a copy of Windows 2000 when I can
afford it. I will not buy Windows XP.
I have tried Linux variants. I bought a copy of SuSE 8 and installed it
on the laptop. It gave me a "wonderful" assortment of troubles, and I
retired it to wait for version 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 -- whatever seems stable enough
to upgrade to. I've had some success with RedHat 7.1, but that was a
limited version that came with a book. In general I feel that Linux
distributions install easily enough, have good GUIs and enough
applications, but should be used only on desktop systems with a full
complement of peripherals.
Ultimately I expect to be using Linux as my primary O/S. The reasons
are:
* It costs less that Windows.
* Its licensing agreement is less restrictive.
* It doesn't try to bind you wrt choice of Web browser, multimedia
software, or any application.
* Its development model makes for better responsiveness. I feel that
Microsoft products are pretty good, and will probably continue to use
them for several more years. But it took them a _long_ time to get that
way, and there are still annoying defects in them. Open-source products
are likely to improve much faster.
* I don't look on Microsoft as a good corporate citizen. Yes, this is an
ideological reason, and will probably be derided. But note that it is not a
major part of my evaluation of the products.
Chris
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