Roy Schestowitz wrote:
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> ____/ Don Zeigler on Tuesday 02 June 2009 18:53 : \____
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>> Fuck you, trolls. The editor-in-chief arbitrarily deciding to kill the
>> magazine over some ad screwups is not a decision he alone is able to
>> make.
>
> The trolls cheat, smear, and steal. That's why their noise is killfiled by
> many. Where did they say PCLOS magazine was dead? The distro is thriving
> and it garnered immaculate reviews, e.g.
> tanding release for the PCLOS team.
Roy,
I can understand your perception. From my perception you have also smeared
some facts, in disfavor of Linux, on several occasions. The most recent
that occurs to me was your recent message about 20,000 bugs in some
Microsoft OS being unresolved IIRC, before they released it. As I pointed
out in that message, the Linux kernel has over 1300 known bugs, and Ubuntu
has over 57,000. If you calculate the sum using the GCC, glibc, Xorg, and
other groups/contributors you will probably find that Linux has more than
20,000 bugs which you attributed to Microsoft.
I say that you do a disfavor to Linux, because not honestly acknowledging
the problems, does not lead to solutions. I understand that most people
here are probably not developers, so you fight your battles in your own
ways.
A pattern I have observed often is that when someone has a problem with a
certain Linux distribution, they will ask a question, and be told by another
"it works for me" (which is probably true). The experience of Linux varies
depending on the distribution, hardware, drivers (kernel), and installed
software.
I have used Linux for > 10 years now, sometimes with regret, and often with
frustration. The perception of the quality of Linux, often doesn't match
the reality, test suites, or bug trackers.
All major operating systems that I am aware of ship with some bugs.
Software engineering is a difficult task, and we tend to use very primitive
tools in general. Some people have been calling and claiming we need to
rethink the whole software stack, and I think they are right (in hindsight).
I'm not sure how developers will begin to get out of the bog we have built
for ourselves, and users.
I think it's important to also note that the PCLOS magazine not doing well
may not be related to PCLOS being successful. In fact paper magazines are
very difficult to sell these days, especially technical magazines. The good
tech magazines that used to feature electronics, computers, etc. are now
only online, if they survived at all. Usually before this, they make a last
effort to trim the useful content, and fatten up the ratio of ads/noise.
The compensation that authors earn in those magazines have also plummeted,
and most of the magazines are now owned by a single company. The content
that remains is more like an advertisement for a certain technology or book.
If I wanted such shallow conclusions for input I'd watch Oprah...
It's sad to see many detailed technical magazines fail over time. The US
used to have many interesting magazines, and they encouraged people to build
and experiment. Now the message is "BUY! BUY! BUY!" Like many modern
nations the US is now primarily a nation of consumers. The real work is
done by people in China and India now, or robots. This relates to Linux,
because now the same thing is happening to Linux. It's slowly inching
closer, and in many cases it has already reached the point of this useless
consumer-only device (Maemo anyone?). Note: I have nothing against China or
India.
-George
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