Good Advice For Linux Developers

Science & Technology Software
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I thought since a lot of people here are interested in Linux that this article might interest a few people. Here is the core of the article:

Linux needs to recognise Microsoft’s leadership in some areas to better itself, Jim Zemlin, executive director for the Linux Foundation told delegates at the Linuxworld tradeshow in San Fransisco.

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Open source vendors have to recognise that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it.“There are some things that Windows does pretty well,” Zemlin said.

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“Not Invented Here” syndrome can cripple open source development just as effectively as it can cripple any other productive endeavor. If a competitor does something very well, denying their achievement doesn’t make it go away. Much better to analyze what they did well and figure out a way to top them.

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I thought since a lot of people here are interested in Linux that this article might interest a few people. Here is the core of the article:

Sounds like you love Microsoft, otherwise I really dont’ see the point of posting the article. Seems to sorta come out of nowhere.

I think XP is probably the best consumer OS to date but I think Microsoft is facing a huge (as former Intel CEO put it) Strategic Inflection Point where they are going to need to fine new ways to bring in revenue. Their big money makers are Windows and Office. Already there is an Office clone (Open Office) that is very very close in quality and features, Microsoft even said so. As time goes on there is no two ways about it, that is going to eat into their revenue big time.

Most new companies that haven’t already bought Office can save a bucket load by going with Open Office. What about Windows itself? Well a lot of great programs are increasingly being written for the web through either Javascript/Ajax or through Flash. That’s also going to eat a lot into the need for Windows. If you can get everything online in a browser and on top of that you can access those files on any computer there becomes much less of a reason to have to worry about natively written apps.

Also now in the United State 25% of home computers are now Macs. Microsoft is in trouble on quite a few fronts as far as their long term health goes. I don’t know that I think that linux is much better (in some ways it certainly is and in some ways it’s not) but a lot of big companies/governments are going Linux because it’s so much cheaper and they don’t gain much value going with Microsoft.

Matt

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There have been many, many competitors to Windows and Office throughout the years, all comparable to Microsoft software. OpenOffice and Linux are nothing new; their gimmick, if you will, is that they are distributed with no expectation of payment on the one side, and no expectation of support on the other. Microsoft is not at all in trouble, any more than any other company quick on its feet and constantly innovating and confident in itself and its own future, any more than it has been in the past.

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I am a Microsoft fan, but I am also a Linux fan. I have used many flavours of Linux and I am about to try Kubuntu thanks to the excellent Wubi I am about to try Kubuntu Linux.

As for Windows and Office being their main ones, that isn’t quite true, Visual Studio is also one of their main ones.

Anyway, the point is simply that criticising Microsoft and other priporiety software developers will not help Linux. To quote khaight:

“Not Invented Here” syndrome can cripple open source development just as effectively as it can cripple any other productive endeavor. If a competitor does something very well, denying their achievement doesn’t make it go away. Much better to analyze what they did well and figure out a way to top them.

I hope the Linux world takes Zemlin’s advice and comes to do as khaight suggests they do. It will be to their advantage to do so. If they do Linux will be a lot better and that would be a great thing as far as I am concerned!

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I am a Microsoft fan, but I am also a Linux fan. I have used many flavours of Linux and I am about to try Kubuntu thanks to the excellent Wubi I am about to try Kubuntu Linux.

As for Windows and Office being their main ones, that isn’t quite true, Visual Studio is also one of their main ones.

Visual Studio doesn’t bring in much revenue at all compared to either Windows or Office. What does it make? A billion or two? Windows + Office makes up 80+% of their revenue. Any attack to that is going to be a significant problem.

And to the poster before who said that this is nothing new, that’s untrue. Linux was never near as good as it is now, never

near as easy to use and the free solutions were never as good. 5 years ago governments wouldn’t even consider switching

to Linux, now it’s very common.

The people I know at Microsoft said that they have been getting a constant commandment that they need to out innovate the open source counterparts, though it’s been hard for them to do that. To say Microsoft isn’t in trouble just isn’t true. They are worried, they know the very real threat. It’s already starting to eat away at their revenue and it will continue to do so.

Also do you actually think Microsoft provides good support? Their support is atrocious. This are explained better in help files with MS but

that too eventually won’t be much of a gap.

There really isn’t much reason to use MS anymore. Microsoft is in trouble and they know it. What they do with it, who knows, but with all the free competition+google and others they are going to take a hit. They need to make some changes. We’ll see

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Microsoft still have about 90% of the operating system and browser market, not to mention a massive percentage of the office market. It will take a hell of a long time for that to change. Look at Firefox. It still hasn’t taken much browser share of Internet Explorer despite being better than IE7 even.

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Microsoft still have about 90% of the operating system and browser market, not to mention a massive percentage of the office market. It will take a hell of a long time for that to change. Look at Firefox. It still hasn’t taken much browser share of Internet Explorer despite being better than IE7 even.

Firefox has gone from 3.5% in late 04 to almost 15% now. That is a pretty big increase and there are more and more Firefox users all the time.

The thing I’m not sure you recognize or not is that if Microsoft loses a 10% share in the worldwide desktop market (which is just a simple matter of time, they have already lost 25% here in the US in just a few short years) that is a massive loss in revenue for them.

The fact is that Microsoft is in trouble where it matters. They don’t have the advantage they used to have and that advantage is going to be getting smaller soon. They have been trying to compete with Google and Yahoo for years now and getting dumped on consistently. They have a hard time making good products these days. They have in essence become a lot like the IBM they surpassed.

If you want to see if they are concerned just look at all the memo’s that have leaked in the last 2-4 years from Microsoft. They are obviously quite concerned dispite their brave front.

I don’t love open source, as I said I think XP is the best end user OS to date. I have used it for years now with not many problems at all. But with all the stuff on the web becoming available Microsoft is becoming a lot less relevant.

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Given Windows monopoly of the market, I think it’ll be around for a while. No, it’s not the best OS around, but their marketing strategy won. It’s not about if you have the best product. It’s how your market it. They’ve done a very good job there.

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Given Windows monopoly of the market, I think it’ll be around for a while. No, it’s not the best OS around, but their marketing strategy won.

But that means that they don’t have a monopoly.

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Given Windows monopoly of the market, I think it’ll be around for a while. No, it’s not the best OS around, but their marketing strategy won. It’s not about if you have the best product. It’s how your market it. They’ve done a very good job there.

The head of the Linux Foundation used their marketing as an example of one thing they done right. But, anyway, the point of this thread is that if the Linux people, both the supporters, and developers, stop being so abusive of Microsoft Linux will do a lot better and take away a larger portion of the Windows market than it already has. The way they constiently abuse Microsoft simply makes them look petty, which serves to dent Linux’s appeal.

Oh, and anyone that thinks Microsoft are in big trouble doesn’t know what they are talking about. Windows Vista sold 40 million copies in its first month and is still selling strongly. That figure is twice that which Windows XP sold in the same period. That is far from in trouble. It is the exact opposite.

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I thought since a lot of people here are interested in Linux that this article might interest a few people. Here is the core of the article:

Well I think that Microsoft definetely has the advantage when it comes to software development, this is something it does really well with .NET. And providing copious educational materials and documentation.

OK Linux has a lot of this too, but it the stuff in the distros is plauged with missing sections/text and such, and in general the documentation assumes a greater level of expertise, so is less suitable for less experienced developers.

.NET programming is becoming quite widespread and important. OK, there is Mono (and to some extent Silverlight) that lets you make .NET applications on Linux, but this has problems from what I have read and is apparently nowhere near as handy as actually running Visual Studio.

Few other software development tools compare to .NET. Qt, which is supposed to be a cross-platform development system for C++ is far more complex to use than Visual Studio, not to mention that most find C++ harder to learn than say C# and Visual Basic. The same goes for say WxWidgets, though from my limited expereince this is easier to use than Qt.

Some say that Mono helps draw developers from Windows to Linux, but I think its the reverse generally. Unless Mono is way better now than I am aware, it actually encourages those usuallty more prone to use Mac/Linux to Windows. Mono is apparently pretty buggy compared to say Visual Studio on Windows, and I would think many of those that are hooked on .NET languages through trying them in Linux would actually want to move to .NET programming in Windows.

So in short, one of the things Linux developers should stop saying is that Linux has hands down better programming tools. I think this is highly false, at least if .NET is a the best option for development (it isnt and in some cases some languages are easier to use in Linux or Mac: Ruby for one). As far as Im concerned programming is a far better expereince in Windows if you want to use some of the most important languages out there.

Not only due to .NET but the fact that many other languages have wonderful tools not available on other platforms to support such development.

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So in short, one of the things Linux developers should stop saying is that Linux has hands down better programming tools. I think this is highly false, at least if .NET is a the best option for development (it isnt and in some cases some languages are easier to use in Linux or Mac: Ruby for one). As far as Im concerned programming is a far better expereince in Windows if you want to use some of the most important languages out there.

I usually leave people to their own opinions on this sort of thing. However, my job requires me to be a Windows .NET programmer, but in my personal programming projects, as well as grad school, I am a UNIX/Linux programmer. So I feel I have experience in both areas.

Visual Studio/.NET is perfectly fine for BASIC business development projects. I have also cursed myself with volunteering for ALGORITHM developent projects in C# (neural nets). As far as .NET languages go, C# is preferred, but when it comes to computer science projects, Windows in general is just painful. Don’t get me wrong, .NET is just awesome for GUIs and BUSINESS projects. However, when it comes to A.K.A. “real” programming (algorithms), it’s C++ and *NIX all the way. I have used Visual Studio for several years now and there are *many*, *many* times where I have a bunch of stupid things to do that would never be required in a UNIX environment. In other words, MS solutions end up wasting my time and force me to re-invent the wheel. :o

*BUT* at work, where I mainly just build business solutions, it is very good. The whole drag-and-drop GUI development is quite nice. But I feel that MS has a corporate philosophy that mouse clicks are #1. There are certain areas of computers (programming) where GUIs just don’t fit. MS has tried to force programming to be a graphical development process when it is inherently a text-based process.

That’s just my personal opinion, I’m sure everyone else has their own development preference. :confused:

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No, actually I would tend to agree with you skap, when it comes to many more complicated “real” projects C++ or such often trump .NET, however I was talking about mainly for business applications :confused: .