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On 16 May 2004 at 11:44, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
You still haven't answer my question. Why throw away POSIX, an open standard, for a non-standard, proprietary API?
Whether something is proprietary or not isn't anything like as important as its ubiquity. In fact, most ISO standards start life as a proprietary interface.
Sure it is. If it's proprietary it means there is no good documentation about the interface, one company can change it at their will, etc. And that is *very* important.
And by doing so break binary compatibility with legacy applications, something anyone with a system with as much application software available for it as Windows would be loathe to do.
Just because it's proprietary doesn't prevent cold hard commercial reality. In fact Linux is *more* able to arbitrarily change interfaces due to its faster release cycle and higher technical competency of its usership (most Linux users know how to recompile an application).
But back to the point - we're moving into "what applies to techies" again. For Joe Soap computer user they value the ability to insert the CD-ROM which came with their peripheral and everything just goes. They value the ability to buy a software package in the shops without worrying whether WINE will barf on it or not. While Linux has made great strides in consistency and ease of use, it cannot conquer the home market nor the SME market until it gains far wider support which will be hard as Linux doesn't cost money. And despite best intentions, the precisely wrong way to engender this is to press ahead with an incompatible system ie; Linux.
I posit once again that Windows users are those most in need of free software principals and Linux the least (preaching to the converted) - you have suggested nothing to counter this. I posit once again that if the FSF were truly serious about advancing free software thinking, methodology & ideology into a larger world they would push hard for a binary compatible clone of Windows.
After all, implementing a totally free operating system is one thing but the spread of the thinking behind it is far more important IMHO. Software, like people, live and die but ideology can live forever and make the lives of billions of people better.
Cheers, Niall