Re: GPL'ing Solaris won't save SUN

Richard.L.Hamilton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Richard L. Hamilton) wrote 
> 
> No one OS can be, or ever will be, perfect for all situations (however
> much shrinkwrap application vendors [who mostly _aren't_ into Open Source])
> might like that.  And if any one thing took over everywhere, it would get
> weaker over time simply due to lack of competition.  Nor do separate Linux
> distros entirely answer the need for competition - AFAIK, none of 'em do
> what enterprise customers want, namely pay decent attention to backwards
> compatibility, and be driven by customer needs rather than what attracts
> the interest of the programmers.

"One size fits all" is usually a much poorer fit than something made
for the
specific size.

For a good portion of my work, I feel much more productive using UNIX
or
similar environment (e.g. Solaris, Linux, QNX, etc.). For my kids,
their main
interest is plopping a game CD-ROM into the drive and playing away -
don't
think my 3 year old will grasp the concept of logging in - he wants
the
computer to come on when he pushes the power switch. Hence their
computer runs *cough* Windows.

I'm also disapointed with many of the Linux fanboys who have no idea
of Open
Source OS's besides Linux. For example, if I was going to be setting
up a
flexible firewall (Soekris makes a nice box for this application), my
first
preference for an OS would be OpenBSD, not Linux. Simple reason being
is that
Theo is much more of an anal retentive type than Linus - and as one
co-worker
stated "Never trust a programmer who isn't anal-retentive."

I also think that Linux is being torn between two directions - one is
the hobbyist and experimental crowd that like trying out new ideas
(e.g. ReiserFS)
 - the other is the "serious business OS" crowd that wants stability
over
just about evrything else.

I also dislike the "One program to rule them all" approach for
applications -
think Internet Exploder, M$-Weird, etc. The latter is particularly
annoying
as word processors haven't changed much is basic design over the last
10
years - still stuck in the glorified typewriter style of thinking (I
miss
Island Write). And now that Mozilla seems to be picking up market
share, the
trolls of Redmond are starting to make noises about an updated IE - no
competition means stagnant products.

-Erik