Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 13th Apr 2007 16:50 UTC
It's been a while since the latest Microsoft-should-open-source-Windows article, so SJVN felt compelled to write one. "Although Microsoft may claim otherwise, Vista, from both from a technical and business point of view, is proving to be a failure. Why not turn it over to people who have shown time after time that they can deliver the goods?"
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RE[31]: Can they deliver better goods?
by psychicist on Sat 14th Apr 2007 18:48
in reply to "RE[30]: Can they deliver better goods?"
Member since:2007-01-27
Don't know what is that supposed to mean? OS itself is good for what? You just said nobody cares about OS in and of itself.
A typical end user wouldn't care. But since I am not I do care about the quality of the system itself even without extra applications. My Slackware based setups have always since their release been a lot more stable than any Windows version from 9x through 2000 and XP.
Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1/SP2 make each of them more stable than initial releases. But it took a few years for each of them to reach that state.
And that made me abandon all of them years ago with the exception of the possibility of running them in virtual machines but I hardly ever do. That's the problem with Windows. As soon as a certain release becomes stable it is being EOL'ed.
Or are you trying to compare kernels?
Although the Linux kernel is pretty stable in my opinion (at least when unpatched!) I don't regard it as the ultimate in kernel engineering. SunOS 5 is arguably a better kernel and also microkernels such as L4 and Minix tout higher reliability and better engineering.
Well, I would bet my money on Dave Cutler et al any day versus Linus and friends.
Any quality Cutler's design may have had when he initially wrote it has been diluted by any Microsoft engineering that cut corners or compromised the NT design e.g. putting the graphics into the kernel.
And it is said Cutler is not so much of a good implementer but more of a good designer. Current OpenVMS implementers were very happy when the last Cutler-written code was finally removed from it.
Edited 2007-04-14 18:54
Member since:
2005-11-10
So you are right it is the applications that matter. Nobody cares about the OS in and of itself.
Agreed.
But when comparing just the bare OSes Windows isn't in the same league as GNU/Linux.
Don't know what is that supposed to mean? OS itself is good for what? You just said nobody cares about OS in and of itself.
Or are you trying to compare kernels? Well, I would bet my money on Dave Cutler et al any day versus Linus and friends.
And what exactly are you missing in Windows these days? Bear in mind that Windows (especially Vista or forthcoming 2007 Server) is much improved and different from, for example, Windows NT 4. In my experience, most of people are completely unaware of what Windows offers. They think it's just a bit better Windows 9x. So wrong.
Just look at those statistics from EU comission: Windows is now at 75% of workgroup server market share, up from 35% in 1999. In just 8 years they doubled their presence. And don't forget - you have to pay for Windows Server (and for client access licences), yet..
And you can't really say that people that buy those servers are unaware of alternatives.
..and this guy, SJVN, is telling us Windows needs to be saved from Microsoft? Is that not a joke, really?
Edited 2007-04-14 17:11