[Gllug] frustrated with Linux

[Pete Ryland]

On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 12:49:45AM -0000, Steve Nicholson wrote:
> skip to questions at end if you don't want to read about my problems.
> <rant on>

As an addition to what others have said about your specific issues, I'd just
like to point out that your concerns are known by developers, and there is
constant effort in these areas.  Traditionally, Linux development has been
focussed on getting the low-level stuff working stably and efficiently, and
developers have not seen it necessary or interesting to work on hardware
detection, and fancy but un-bloated GUIs for the masses (no itch to scratch
for the average developer), but with the user and developer base growing, it
is becoming a worthwhile cause to work on these things, and the Linux
desktop is improving gradually.

Another thing to note is that there are numerous hurdles to overcome when
developing software for Linux.  I'm talking about things like patents and
proprietary protocols and such.  Video formats are notorious for this, which
is why playing a lot of video formats on Linux is so much effort.  There is
also significant impact on hardware drivers due to lack of availability of
specifications, leaving the developers the time-consuming task of trying to
work out how to actually communicate with certain devices.  This is one of
the biggest problems facing Free Software, and this is why many groups are
fighting a constant battle to allow us to play on an even field.

The path of least resistance for you may well be to grit your teeth and
migrate to MS Windows.  We'll miss you.  Hopefully those fighting for Free
Software will at some stage win us the ability to gain access to what we
need to compete fairly.  I think we're currently winning, but the war's not
over yet.

My 2p,
Pete
-- 
Pete Ryland
http://pdr.cx/

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