[PLUG] Linux Envy: Another Perspective

[Rich Burroughs]

On Sat, June 18, 2005 7:06 am, Rich Shepard said:
>    The Register has a very interesting article on Theo's Ballmeresque
> bashing
> of linux. Makes sense to me.
>
>       <http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/17/de_raadt_channels_ballmer/>

I agree with it to a certain extent, but I don't agree with putting all of
the emphasis on the vendors. Not everyone who upgrades a Linux kernel does
it because their vendor has released a new version of their OS. Some
people do it on their own because there is a driver they need, a bug that
has been fixed, or some other new feature.

Theo's comments are pretty extreme, but I have heard some of those same
concerns expressed by people in the Linux community. It's just a very
different style of development when you have a small core group of people
who are writing your kernel code. There are tradeoffs on both sides. If I
was looking for a rock-solid Open Source OS for a web server, I might very
well go with one of the BSDs (probably FreeBSD, but maybe OpenBSD if
security was a major concern). If I was building a desktop box, I would be
more likely to go with Linux so I could get whatever goofy new driver I
wanted.


Rich