On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:18:00PM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote: > > > LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work > > > fine on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these > > > platform should get more support than others. > > > > There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source > > project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system > > and spend resources on "fixing" "funny behaviour" on such platforms. > > > > If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of > > _developers_ on that platform, such development will eventually > > happen. > > > > Andre' > > On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer > will attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve. I would > not expect anything more. Indeed, that is the whole point of open > source, that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool. By > extension, it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note > behavior in said tool. All this information constitutes knowledge of > the tool, and provides suggestions to developers who care about that > knowledge. I don't see any reason for negative reaction to > acquisition of knowledge, and since I did not present the observation > in negative words (like those of a university professor a few weeks > back), some reaction obtained is unexpected.
Well, for one, OS developers traditionally get touchy when the 'M' or 'W' words are mentioned... Apart from that: I personally have no problems to acknowledge the existence of software outside the OS world. I've actually used (and coded myself for a living...) software "in this 'M' and 'W' world" for a few years, so even if I consider it an extremely hostile environment (mostly technically, and only partially for political reasons) I believe I can handle it comparatively well. At least I can compare it to other environments I used. I also think that I am generally open for knowledge. I have managed to survive in academia for a dozen years or so. However, especially in this 'M' and 'W' world you get swamped with a kind of knowledge that is completely useless outside. Have you ever wondered why "Custom Action Type 39" for MSI Installers was declared "deprecated" by Redmond after it has been out in the wild for a few years? No? Well, I had to... And I think even typing this into a google search would be a waste of _your_ lifetime, too. So, no, "knowledge" does not imply "good" by itself. And, no, in my spare time I am in no way obliged to gather more "knowledge" in an area in which I feel I spent far too much time already. [Well, this, of course, depends on whether you consider "job time" as "my time" or not ;-)]. Maybe that explains the possibility of negative reactions here... Andre'
