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Re: [News] Another Story About the Evils of Binary Drivers

In article <AcPqh.39$tZ2.27@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
 flatfish+++ <flatfish@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I know you're a cola troll, but what the heck. :)

> > Yeah, that is the word in cola - but I've yet to see any examples of 
> > this. Gimp isn't better quality than Photoshop, OO isn't better 
> > quality than Office, Firefox isn't better quality than Safari (but 
> > obviously better quality than IE) and so on.
> 
> It's just more fluff from Roy Schestowitz the head fluffer at Manchester
> Universities 'Fresher Day'.

Fluff? No, it isn't. It's advocacy. He likes the platform and has 
every right to talk about why he likes it. Others are free to agree or 
disagree, but just by disagreeing doesn't make his words "fluff".

> > I'm not trying to step on some toes here, Those are amazing products 
> > considering how they were developed, but I have yet to see a product 
> > that actually benefits in *quality* by being open source. In fact, if 
> > you look at the Mac, the application with the worst quality are 
> > generally those that are lifted from Linux OSS. OSS Mac software can 
> > be a lot better, but the best Mac software is most definitely the ones 
> > made by small or medium-sized companies with a good focus on what 
> > makes a Mac a Mac and sells great software that leverages OSX 
> > functions and by costing money, keeps them at the job. Great examples 
> > of this are OmniGraffle, Acquisition, NetNewsWire and Interarchy just 
> > to name a few from the top of my head.
> 
> This is very true.
> Pick up just about any OSS application and now look at things like:
> 
> 1. An inferior interface.
> 2. No or little help system.

But documentation for the Linux distros themselves are in pretty good 
shape.

> 3. A PITA to install.

The applications? How do you figure? Generally, it's a click in the 
package manager. Linux is, when it works as designed, the operating 
system where application installation is the easiest. It even beats 
Mac bundles.

> 4. Depending upon which one of the 700+ different versions of Linux you
> are using, differences in stability.

Applications, which is what we're talking about here, differ in 
stability on all platforms, this isn't unique to Linux. 

> 5. Constant bug fixes which is good for alpha software but not released
> products.

No comment here. Some want the latest bug fixes, most don't, or even 
know about them. 

> 6. Support usually limited to geek stuff and not real life problems.
>    ie:I once asked a question about getting alsa to give me lower
>    latancy with a particular soundcard and I was introduced to the world
>    of C++ programming, stacks and all kinds of other kernel hacks.
>    Jeeeeeezzz!!   All I wanted to do was make music with the thing.

Well, you did ask how to alter the system, so... But yeah, support for 
Linux is sparse unless you're ready to pay for it.

>> OSS software on Linux may look better, but I think that's because
>> they're running in a "lesser" environment without a strong UI
>> foundation. I'm not trying to diss KDE or Gnome, but I do think
>> they are pale compared to commercial UI's. I realize, of course,
>> that you won't agree with that, which is fine.
> 
> I think the kde environment is better, overall than Windows

Well, really, what kind of achievement is that? :-D

> but not as good as OSX. Most people don't care though and use
> Windows like a huge task switcher anyhow. I do not like gnome.

I've not used both to discern a difference actually.

> > So, the point is that sure, Nvidia had a buggy driver. They won't lose
> > any customers due to it thoguh. Do I like buggy drivers? No, of course
> > not. But do I think it would have helped Nvidia in any way if the driver
> > were OSS? No, I do not.
> 
> The people in COLA have a totally twisted and out of touch with reality
> outlook on what the real world thinks of these little faults.

Well, really, so do most advocates, you and me included. Me, being a 
Mac advocate, can't phantom any reasonable reason for a person to 
choose Windows over Mac, even though there are probably thousands.

"people in COLA" isn't a demographic, and some are here to 
discuss/advocate and some are here to troll. Me? Well, I'm hardly here 
any more, and I do't use Linux other than on my servers so I can't 
comment much on the desktop stuff other than the things I've tried out 
from time to time. You can read about me Ubuntu installation here:

http://mac.sandman.net/pages/MyUbuntuInstallation

> People like Roy Schestowitz need to get out from behind the keyboard and
> step into real life once in a while.

That's extraordinarily narrow-mindedly to say. Roy, being somewhat a 
news-fetish in here, quite clearly has a pretty good grasp on the 
events in Linux-land, which is his motive. I don't know what you think 
he will find when he "step into real life". This is his real life, and 
there is nothing wrong with that.



-- 
Sandman[.net]

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