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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave who wrote (63229)	11/21/2001 7:08:08 PM
From: dybdahl	Respond to of 74651

OK - the missing word in your post was "Windows". Your statement "But desktop apps cannot be debugged this way." isn't valid for the applications included in a Linux distribution like Red Hat. Your other statement "You need to be compatible with nearly all permutations of hardware configurations and OS versions." isn't true for the binaries included in Red Hat. For instance, KDE is available for many processors and many platforms. A Sun Solaris Sparc KMail program won't run on an Itanium version of Red Hat. It's the same with PlayStation 2. If I had such one, I would get the Linux kit from Sony at once. I have no idea which processor a PlayStation uses, and it frankly doesn't matter since all the software is supplied by Sony. Just like when you buy some game for PlayStation 1 - all the software needed to run the game is included on one DVD and supplied by a single vendor. It is true, that source-code should be as independent as possible of hardware configurations and OS's and OS versions. It is also true, that software that is not included with the OS, must be compatible with many different configurations and versions. Your example with bugs is treated very differently in a Linux distribution than on other systems. On Windows, a shipped version is something you must be compatible with. If a Playstation 1 game developer gets some binaries from Sony, they will probably just work around bugs. On Linux, however, you can choose to fix the bug. Red Hat's KDE version is really a KDE 2.2 with almost all KDE 2.2.1 changes incorporated, and they call it KDE 2.2.1, although it technically is a modified KDE 2.2. When they find bugs, they put the bug fixes for automatic download on the Red Hat Network. Last week, I sent a bug request to Red Hat about a printer driver. This week, the bug has been fixed and has been automatically installed on my computer. Although I am probably not the only one to submit a bug request about that particular problem, I feel treated well by Red Hat, and I even didn't have to do anything to my computer to get it fixed. There is no doubt, that commercial software from different installation sources are still necessary. But it's not that Linux is binary incompatible from version to version - there are certain platforms, but Borland, Loki, VMware and many others show that it is very easy to provide binary software that runs well on a variety of Linux's and is easy to install. I think that this method of software distribution and maintenance is the best that has been around, ever. And the revolution has only just begun. Lars

To: Dave who wrote (63229)	11/22/2001 2:45:28 AM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

I had one or thing to add: If a commercial software vendor for Linux wants to have ultimate stability, all needed libraries can be part of the installation, and be installed in the program's directory, duplicating any existing libraries. For instance, a KDE 2 based program may be installed on a computer with KDE 1, having all the KDE 2 system files in the program directory. A very good example of this is how TransGaming converts Windows games - they provide system files that will not exist already on most Linuxes: Windows system files. The only things needed from the existing installation is the Linux kernel and X-Windows (the graphics driver). This would be equivalent to having software that requires Windows XP run on Windows NT 4, with full functionality but without installing new system files. In terms on stability, this approach, that is widely used on Linux, is close to the Playstation 1 aproach. Lars.