The director of platform strategy at Microsoft, Bill Hilf has lead the Linux and open source software technology group at Redmond for the past two years and formerly headed the global Linux technical strategy of IBM. He says reliability and predicability are the key factors which give Microsoft's software the edge over Linux and open source alternatives.
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Member since:2006-01-11
> in plain english that just means that you never bothered to learn how to use the software, you just started blaming it for your own lack of knowledge and experience.
I have never ever ever ever seen such utter disregard to backwards compatibility - if a piece of software works in FC4 why won't it work on SuSE 10? - isn't that what Open Source is supposed to be all about - no lockin and no DLL hell and no incompatibilities because source code is available?
I've never had problems running software on Solaris - the binaries that ran on SOlaris 8 will still run on Solaris 10. Apple moves from PPC to Intel and yet they take care of compatibility for the user by providing rosetta software.
You open source guys are really very apologetic and no wonder Linux gets no where. You guys don't accept that in other parts of life - why do you settle for shoddiness in Linux?
Member since:2005-06-29
Unix has no committment to backward compatibility. Seriously, if something's broke, and it's a small fix for developers, it will likely get changed. Now, of course, there are things that'd take too much to fix, and they'll be steady.
But by and large. Libraries actually cut deprecated symbols (although, Java's library seems to be even nastier about this), your binaries are rarely guaranteed to work later, and /proc is an endlessly changing nightmare.
And any sort of compatibility is done from source, never a binary level. Binary distribution systems are built on source level compatibility and work, typically, via sync mechanisms. There aren't binary patches for a reason: It's a source world (and binary patches are tough to get working I hear).
Are your Solaris 8 binaries c based?
Compatibility is taken very seriously. But you've completely missed where it happens. It's in autotools, which build source code. It's in gcc (the compiler that builds for how many arch's?). It's not in binaries. Because binaries aren't compatible, aren't good for distributions, are hard to check. Why does everyone else use them? Because they don't want you reading their source 
.
If you want to run Solaris, go ahead. I don't really care. But at least understand your problem. You don't have a problem with bad compatibility, you have a problem with intentional "bad compatibility." You probably think binary compatibility is a good thing. Fine, that's your belief, but that assertion is denied in the circles you criticize. So fight that battle, fight your broken assertion, not the symptoms.
Member since:2006-03-13
> if a piece of software works in FC4 why won't it work on SuSE 10?
SuSe and Fedora Core are from two different manufacturers (Novell and RedHat, Respectively). It's sort of like asking why an iPod sock doesn't properly fit a Dell Jukebox. It was made for a different product. This is the same reason why most Windows programs released now days are 2000/XP only. Most of the time, programs compiled for Windows 95 won't work in XP (NOTE: THESE ARE THROUGH MY EXPERIENCE. I MAY BE WRONG ABOUT SOME SOFTWARE, BUT WHAT I HAVE TRIED IS THIS WAY). Perhaps try using a Fedora Core 4 RPM.
Please explain the shoddiness of which you're talking.
Member since:
2005-06-29
"I am really getting fedup with this crap in Linux."
All of your problems were PEBKAC. In plain english that just means that you never bothered to learn how to use the software, you just started blaming it for your own lack of knowledge and experience.
" Hellooooo Solaris (or Hellooooooooooooooo MacOSX)"
If you can't figure out Linux don't even bother with Solaris, you're only options are Mac or Windows.