On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 12:23, Derek Martin wrote:
> Remember, we're talking about ONE driver. One driver which does not
> fit the development model of Linux.
Actually we are talking about the one vendor that is really making
an effort in spite of the obstacles through by the distribution.
There are plenty of drivers that could be better done by the
vendors - and have many more features in the OSes that accept
the vendors' driver.
> Open-source code (in general) IS better than proprietary, not because
> of ideology, but simply because a lot more people are looking at the
> code, and those people are doing it not just for pay (or not for pay
> at all), but because they just love doing it.
That might be true for some programs. I don't think it is true for
device drivers.
> My 10 years of
> managing both Windows systems and Linux systems professionally have
> proven that out; Windows crashes a lot (less so today, but even still,
> it does)
Windows is not the only system that ships vendor-written drivers.
> and Linux doesn't [with certain well-understood exceptions
> involving drivers that are highly experimental or still under heavy
> active development -- or proprietary drivers like this one, which
> break the model]. You can say I've drank too much GPL kool-aid all
> you like; I've watched the development of both Linux and Windows very
> closely -- it's just a fact that Linux is generally more stable than
> Windows, and has been since the 0.something days.
You can't generalize from a single bad example. Show how Linux
is more stable than Solaris, or IBM's mainframe OS's, or OS X
and how the drivers are better.
> I actually had a lot more to say to rebutt your specific points, but
> I've decided that it's a waste of time to pursue this; you're entitled
> to your opinion, even if you are wrong... ;-)
Rebut with some examples other than Windows. Windows problems
stem from MS-written code. But, I'd accept some specific cases
where Linux device drivers are measurably better or more feature
rich than the windows counterparts. I'd be particularly interested
in your experiences with SATA cards and 802.1g devices over the
years they have been available.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
