On Thursday 14 September 2006 02:11, Otto Moerbeek wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, steve szmidt wrote:
> > Over the years one gets used to some small things that makes life easier
> > but is only slowly catching up on OBSD. I'm curious as why this is. Is it
> > that real coders don't need some of them, or is it just something like a
> > matter of being a lower priority?
>
> When we do not need things, they become low priority by itself. When
> we do not want them, they get zero priority or active resistance.
>
> I won't go into details, others have covered them. But you'll have to
> take into account the history. BSD systems exist for a long time.
> Personally I learned Unix 22 years ago on a BSD system. I have some
> expectations of a Unix system based on that experience. When I log
> into a BSD system, I feel at home. When I log into a typical Linux
> distro, I feel alienated. I will strongly resist changes that only
> cater for certain users, who just ignore history and only know the
> Linux way of doing things, and draw wrong conclusions from that.
>
> -Otto
OK. I know what you mean. I learned it some two, three decades ago myself.
Worked on SCO, SUN and SGI on and off. It was very easy moving between the
platforms, and annoying when you found things different than what you
expected. But when I eventually ran into Linux in mid -90's. I liked a lot
about it. It certainly has its problems, but as a desktop grew with my desire
for a "better" window manager, and I simply did not want to be dependent on
MS on my desktop even though they really tried to make a good desktop.
Maybe I'm different in that I like change. Not drastic undo all you know kind
of change, but I like it when something is done in a way that makes it
easier, pretty, with new functionalities, and so on. If it can then muster in
good reliability, or at least hope of improved reliablity, well I'm
interested to see what is going on.
At the same time I don't think there's one close to perfect O/S that does all.
What gets silly are those O/S wars like we used to have between MAC and
windows people in the -90's. Recognize what each do well and use them for all
they got! For example; I love the security spearheading OBSD is doing. I love
checking out the new KDE releases. The new integrated development tools,
multimedia and so on. It's fun and help my productivity.
(Say what you will about Linux being inferior in ways, it managed to do what
no other Unice did for all that time -- captured a mainstream. A lot of
development is being done benefitting most if not all Open Source platforms
because of the attention coming down the Linux shute. So in the end we all
win regardless of the O/S.)
The underlying O/S, well I don't care too much what it is, as long as I have
faith in the developers keeping a future there for me to invest in. MS ruined
their former good name by being arrogant and not caring about their users.
There's a lesson there we could all learn from.
--
Steve Szmidt
"To enjoy the right of political self-government, men must be
capable of personal self-government - the virtue of self-control.
A people without decency cannot be secure in its liberty.
From the Declaration Principles
