
"The news of Con Kolivas, a Linux kernel developer, quitting that role, along with
an interview in which he explains why, could and should make loud noises around the Free Software community which is often touting GNU/Linux as the best operating system one could use, and not just because of freedom you have with it. In the interview he says certain things which should cause tectonic shifts in the mindset that we have all been having. Why didn't we realize these things before? As you can see, the article intrigued me quite a bit, and got me thinking about a better way forward for the Free Software OS. I'll go through some of the basic points that he makes and lay out
one possible solution and its implications. However, take this article as just a discussion starter."
My take: I have been advocating splitting the Linux kernel up (desktop, server, embedded)
for years now.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I think everybody has the right to speak about OS development, but there have to be filters. Here at OSNews, a novice user could meet a kernel developer, and the comments of the first could be annoying for the second. But with a well organized communication chain, novice users should be able to talk to experienced ones, who could pass relevant issues to application/desktop developers, who could pass relevant issues to kernel developers. An organized communication hierarchy would be good for overall development, but needs effort and coordination.
And about hard disk speed, it's clearly an issue, but it affects other OSes too: Windows and MacOS run on the same hardware than GNU/Linux, so you can't blame the hard disk for Linux performance when comparing it against them. The performance of GNU/Linux operating systems has to be improved. Determining the best way to do so, involving a kernel fork or other means, has to be left to the experts, not the users.
Changes have to be introduced to meet needs, but needs have to be well known first.