Re: Billy has nothing to worry about.
On Sat, 2 Jan 1999 19:40:39 -0600, "John Foster" <advance@airmail.net>
wrote:
>The main point I wish to make is this: if you compare the relative ages of
>the two operating systems to the stages of development, you will find that
>Linux is more than three times as evolved for is age compared to all of the
>Microsoft systems. When Microsoft was the same age as Linux is now they were
>just leaving DOS 2.0 with Windows still a dream in Bill Gates mind. I have
>watched Linux evolve since about 1992. That was when I first heard of it. I
>may be off on some of the dates but this is based on MY personal experience.
That's an unfair comparison. Computers in general are more evolved
these days, so it stands to reason that any new operating system will
appear to get further in a shorter amount of time. Perhaps one should
compare Windows NT to big-box Unices? NT is much younger, and yet
it's got a lot of nifty features that took Unix years and years to
develop. Why, Unix didn't even have CD-ROM support until it was
nearly two decades old!
>If you consider that Linux has increased its User and it Developer base from
>a loosely knit bunch of hackers (numbering in the hundreds) in the early
>nineties to well over 2.5 Million, in the past 10 years, you should also
>conclude that 20 plus year old Microsoft must indeed be concerned about this
>baby OS.
Linux probably has around 15 million users by now. The esimate from
last year was 5-10 million and it's increasing at over 200% per annum,
so we're definitely in eight figures by now.
>The only thing that Linux will have to do to give Microsoft a REAL headache
>is for ALL of the distros, developers, independent programmers, and
>commercial supporters of the Linux system, get together and establish a
>common directory tree that is somewhat more efficient/streamlined than
>currently used, and to establish common hardware and API interfaces for the
>Kernel system. Sadly enough, that type of cohesion is usually driven by
>profit, not by altruism. If however a common installation system can be
>derived, then folks such as yourself may come back for a second look at
>Linux.
There are already standards for filesystem layout that have been
ratified, but it's taking a while for some of the distributions to
take notice of this fact. Debian, as always, is doing a sterling job
at following the standards. Red Hat are dragging their feet somewhat,
which is a shame since they're the biggest distribution. My greatest
fear for Linux is that Red Hat becomes the de facto standard, simply
because it's the one that gets advertised the most (sounds familiar).
Rob Wilderspin
--
"But I need it to crash once every few days -
reboots are the only chance I get to sleep..."
----------------------= (send replies to rob@)
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