From: "Craig White" <craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 20:40 -0700, jdow wrote:
Of course, Windows machines have purposes in life - running software
and hardware features that cannot or will not appear on Linux due
to conflicts and doubts with GPL. (Truth or not this is not worth
a flame. It is pure fact that there is software some people need to
run that will not appear on Linux any time before the Sun freezes over
just like there are things on Linux that will probably never get fed
to Windows before the Sun turns into a red giant star. When one must
do these things one uses the appropriate OS. <shrug>That's no big
deal if you accept it as an unfortunate necessity of life. It's like
weather. So it's not worth another flame war, guys.)
----
It's very contrived to suggest that 'running software and hardware
features cannot or will not appear on Linux due to conflicts and doubts
with GPL'
No. It is a fact. The DigiSuite video cards Matrox makes will never
be fully supported by Linux within a useful timeframe. There is no
market for it. I rather suspect their Xmio cards which are the new
generation will fall under this rubric as well. Their programming
model is VERY thoroughly tied up with Direct Show and DirectX
features. By the time somebody back engineers the boards and writes
Linux drivers the boards will be obsolete. I suppose it was a little
disengenuous to suggest the Sun might grow cold before software to
support it was written. But it will be a long enough time that it is
useless to buy one today for a current need and expect to run it on
Linux even in a rudimentary way. (They are NOT display cards. They
are studio video card for the video industry, particularly broadcast
video.)
It is also disengenuous for you to suggest there will be drivers for
certain unusual pieces of hardware for Linux in any useful time frame
for people with professional needs.
It would also be equally disengenuous to suggest that certain MAC
products will appear on either Windows or Linux "real soon now."
If you have a specific need you grit your teeth and purchase what
you need in order to support that need. That is all I am saying
and not a bit more. You are extending the arguement into something
else entirely. I am not addressing licensing or anything else. I am
addressing pure likelihood that a given hardware widget will be
supported in any given other operating system than the one it was
originally designed to support within any useful timeframe for people
with needs beyond hobbiest and historian.
If you are speaking for yourself and your own reasoning for any software
that you might write, you are entitled to your own justifications but I
am quite certain that most companies decide to release software for
Linux or not based upon their projection of whether they can get a
financial return for their investment.
No, I am not. I am addressing complexity of products engineered to
use specific features of a given operating system appearing on another.
Please don't go all fuggheaded and put words in my mouth and thoughts
in my head. Windows has a use. Vrtx has a use. MaxOS and OSX have
their users. All the 'ix operating systems have their uses. Even
Plan 9 has its uses. For SOME of those uses no equivalent is likely
to appear elsewhere. If a person has a specific need for those uses
the best shot is to purchase the OS and hardware that supports it.
Believe it or not, there are companies that write, package, sell,
support software that actually runs on Linux and are not concerned, do
not have doubts or conflicts with GPL such as Nero, Tolis Group,
Computer Associates, IBM and on and on.
Duh.
Indeed Windows has the lion's share of the desktop market which is what
most computer users are using and that is fine. Linux is just another
option, and probably a viable option for many computer users and
certainly not a viable option for many computer users.
To suggest that the GPL license is the reason that most software
companies don't market software to Linux users is simply not true.
Show me where I used the GPL license, the GPL initials, or directly
implied either in my original posting. I had entirely other issues
in mind that suggest that some people will some times find that
Windows is their best tool for a given task. I am not even suggesting
great or small NUMBERS of such tasks. But there will be specific
needs. And I rather predict that this will change over time due to
licensing, practicalities, market, complexities, and other hardware
support. (I'd not try running either Windows or 'ix on an 8051 in
an animated teddybear for an awfully extreme example.) When someone
needs something now one makes purchase decisions given what is
available now. Wise people do not pick the OS first and then try
to find something on that OS that will support their needs. One does
what one must.
Craig
Did I hammer that home hard enough to stop the frigging argument
in its tracks?
I did say I was not trying to start a flame. And I am not. I am
simply stating a practical necessity of modern life. You buy a boat
to travel on water. One does not try to change the OS in an
automobile's engine computer so that the car can function as a
boat or even drive most cars into the water expecting it to behave
like a boat regardless of how much you hate boats and love cars.
{o.o}
