Ask OSNews is apparently quite popular among you guys; the questions just keep on coming in. Since David took on the first two, we decided to let me handle this one - it's an area I've personally covered before on OSNews: file system layouts. One of our readers, a Linux veteran, studied the GoboLinux effort to introduce a new filesystem layout, and wondered: "Why not adopt the more sensible file system from GoboLinux as the new LSB standard?"
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Member since:2006-01-14
I was not implying that having a standard is a bad thing. There are many places where it is beneficial and makes things work. With the FHS, its a standard that is loosely followed by almost every distro. I don't think it would work being strict as Thom advocates. As for the end user, I think they are the last reason to make changes as the average user should not be mucking around.
I understand where Thom is going with the idea though. And that goal is more user friendly computing. Well, that will happen when the computer becomes an appliance. Like a Tivo. A Tivo runs linux yet it doesn't expose it to the end user. Now the good thing about that is ease of use. The down side is that it only does what it was designed to do from the beginning. People right now are used to being able to download what ever crap they want off the internet and expect their PC's to run it. They will not want to give up that power even though it causes them problems every single time. But eventually most people will end up using a thin client like device that just does the basics and is free from malware and viruses. Except for us geeks, we will always have the high end workstations sitting under the desks.
Member since:
2005-06-30
Well, you could say that the W3C recommendations are just suggestions, but you won't make many friends among web developers. Wouldn't it be nice if there was no standard data format? Then again, perhaps you really like the thought of being locked to a single program/vendor.
I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you got the point. Hey, even standards like the FHS might seem futile, but it got a goal : increase productivity and interoperability. If developers were respecting it (and the standard itself was more up-to-date), you wouldn't have to waste your time finding paths in different Unix-based/Unix-like systems. While learning to do the same thing in many ways develop your learning skills, your capacity to adapt to different situations and even your intelligence, there are times when it's just stupid.
Again, just think about it. Imagine having to use 4 or 5 different browsers, just because there was no HTML standard... Perhaps that isn't what you meant to say; that's why you have to be careful when stating such bold claims.
Edited 2009-05-28 23:20 UTC