Phasor Burn

A worthy rant if I ever heard one :

There is a prominent Unix derivate out there that doesn´t think about standards and portability isn´t an issue for this derivate. It´s called Linux, it got a large market share somehow and most people use it for the development of open source software. There is a make defined by standards, but most open source software insists on using GNU make. Often the only well tested makefile is the makefile for Linux, often you have luck for Solaris, but don´t try it on IRIX. I have the impression that portability comes just into mind, when some users ask about a different operating system.

… the worst thing that ever happened to development were notebook-class computer. People edit-compile-test their applications on their notebooks, optimize it and afterwards you get software for your server that runs exceptionally well on … well … notebooks. Then you get around with your server and the problems start. In essence you are forced to replicate the developers desktop on your server.

I find this a little bit funny: Microsoft gets critics for their embrace and extend attitude. But the Linux community isn´t much better when you look at the compliance to standards. And i think this is even a kind of lock-in. You aren´t locked to a hardware vendor. You are locked to you operating system community because of the toolset.

He’s very much on the same page as I, except more able to put it into writing without drifting off into rambling ranting spew. Funny, that a native German speaker puts me to shame that way

Read the whole thing at Thoughts of an admin starting to get old …

Stumbled across this today. I remember the video. Might have been one of the last times I watched a music video channel (do they actually play music on them anymore?). Can we call it a classic if it’s only 9 or so years old?

Thanks Mark, and apparently, thanks Melvin. Oy!