Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU!wypoon From: wyp...@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (WINGYUEN POON) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: MSDOS Better than Linux Date: 25 Jan 1994 12:13:33 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 36 Message-ID: <2i32dd$ie3@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <CK5JK1.L5z@eurom.fsag.rhein-main.de> <CK6IJ2.G9p@cs.utwente.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: cory-138.eecs.berkeley.edu Keywords: MSDOS Firstly, unless this person(?) who posted this rather sweeping statement is 1+1 = 3, he is obviously fustrated and posses little patience. Nonetheless, he is exerting his freedom of expression, and we ought to respect this. Like the recent court ruling on the KKK's mammoth cross - what use is the freedom of expression if we do not tolerate non-mainstream :-) views?! I think there is an ounce of truth in this person's rhetoric: there is a dearth of layman applications for unix. This is perfectly logical, given that *nix is ~not~ a user-friendly, low learning-curve, OS. And because the soft- ware market thrives on high volumes, *nix is, and will, never have the dishonor of being the OS with the most widespread usage. Look at the "Information *way", we already have that - for the technically inclined. Yet, the goal is to have the "*way" made so metaphoric that the bulk of the cash-endowed population will and can make use of it. *nix is almost solely used in academic institutions, research institutions, and commercial scientific houses, no? Commercial *nix applications will never sell for the $49 of Borland's paradox, the reason being simply because the software houses will never break even at the kind of volume for that sophist- icated a product. Face it, everybody loves (some) money. Public domain software will never reach the feature-level of commercial software. Look at Procomm: starting off as a shareware, it quickly became popular and now Procomm is a commercial soft- ware produced by a money-raking company. The above conclusion, however, does not preclude the possibility that someone with free time to spare, and motiva- tion to achieve glory for the fostering of self-worth, will create a superb app released under GNU license. I love *nix (after learning it, of course), but Windows - and the require os to run it (DOS?) - stays in my hardisk. The two can coexist side-by-side, and they are complementary in many ways too. sincerely, Wingyuen Poon.
DDDNewsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!news.dfn.de!news.dfn.de!darwin.sura.net! howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!cf-cm!cybaswan!iiitac From: iii...@swan.pyr (Alan Cox) Subject: Re: MSDOS Better than Linux Message-ID: <1994Jan25.191852.5210@swan.pyr> Keywords: MSDOS Organization: Swansea University College References: <CK5JK1.L5z@eurom.fsag.rhein-main.de> <CK6IJ2.G9p@cs.utwente.nl> <2i32dd$ie3@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 19:18:52 GMT Lines: 46 In article <2i32dd$...@agate.berkeley.edu> wyp...@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (WINGYUEN POON) writes: >I think there is an ounce of truth in this person's rhetoric: there is a >dearth of layman applications for unix. This is perfectly logical, given that >*nix is ~not~ a user-friendly, low learning-curve, OS. And because the soft- >ware market thrives on high volumes, *nix is, and will, never have the >dishonor of being the OS with the most widespread usage. If it wasn't for a set of co-incidences unix would have been the OS. Had Xenix taken off better, had real computing power arrived a little earlier.. Unix is effectively becoming much more widespread in its concepts if not implementation - Windows comes with IP networking nowdays , NT has a POSIX subsystem. Other problems with Unix were/are certain people's sheer greed. If unix had been at it's current price 7 or 8 years ago... anyway thats the past >*nix is almost solely used in academic institutions, research institutions, >and commercial scientific houses, no? Commercial *nix applications will never >sell for the $49 of Borland's paradox, the reason being simply because the >software houses will never break even at the kind of volume for that sophist- >icated a product. NO - Unix is used a lot in process control, financial processing, simulation, graphics/animation, film studios ... Most hospitals I know of seem to be Unix houses. >Face it, everybody loves (some) money. Public domain software will never reach >the feature-level of commercial software. Look at Procomm: starting off as a Emacs is more powerful than any commercial editor, gcc is the best C compiler I've ever used. Linux is more stable here than $3000's worth of SCO gear and more standard. A lot of people are forbidden by their contracts to do commercial work in the same area while working for xxx co. - Thus the freeware market is alive and well. Also many people write something use it and give it away - if you sell it people want manuals and upgrades. You can put free software on an archive site and say - its here, it works for me, but thats the end of the story. [Granted a few commercial vendors seem to take this attitude these days] >shareware, it quickly became popular and now Procomm is a commercial soft- >ware produced by a money-raking company. The above conclusion, however, does The reverse happens to - look at Hitech C for CP/M .... >I love *nix (after learning it, of course), but Windows - and the require os >to run it (DOS?) - stays in my hardisk. The two can coexist side-by-side, and >they are complementary in many ways too. In time everything will run DOS apps and windows apps and posix apps and we can stick the entire stupid 20 year period of history behind us. Alan