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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!news.nd.edu!chi-news.cic.net!cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!gatech!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!uknet!news.swan.ac.uk!iialan From: iialan@iifeak.swan.ac.uk (Alan Cox) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Getting off the stick [was Re: TCP latency] Date: 19 Jul 1996 15:08:42 GMT Organization: Institute For Industrial Information Technology Lines: 69 Message-ID: <4so8dq$p0l@news.swan.ac.uk> References: <4seo88$fqd@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sesh4$2ls@dworkin.wustl.edu> <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: iifeak.swan.ac.uk Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:45799 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:23997 In article <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> writes: >watching with interest each and every player who's scrambled aboard the >Linux commercial software bandwagon with their 3rd-string spreadsheet >application or aging desktop manager in hopes of making a modest buck, You'll offend a lot of people with those claims. People like Empress and Applix are not third string, and their bankbalance says that. Nor are WordPerfect corp... >watching (*BSD runs Linux apps too, so their "victories" are ours too), Not always. Most commercial applications are licensed for Linux specifically so you are probably violating the license (do encourage people doing this to be more reasonable about it if they can - Caldera can't for WordPerfect alas) >but competetive? We're not even close, 1 million Linux users or not. Surveys suggest we are well past that although its hard to get good figures because of the nature of Linux. People like X/Open have been reckoning Linux is over a million seats. >Pride goeth before the fall. Face it - porting software to new >platforms is hard, and most companies won't even bother unless they're >guaranteed a potential customer base far greater than Linux or *BSD >could muster combined. Very very debatable argument. Companies will port a product when cost < direct profit + indirect advantages people who dont work to those kind of equations don't tend to be big. A guy from S.A.S. summed it nicely - "Show us $1,000,000" of orders and we'll port it to anything. The Linux commercial software list is growing quite fast. I don't know how well the BSD one is doing. Also Linux is picking up big commercial interests from people with a lot of money (Apple, OSF, SGI, Digital) That means you must make porting easier - POSIX compliance, strictly compliant C compilers and libraries etc. >hacking on any of the standard areas. Then where do we go? Try and get >that TCP interrupt latency down from 200uSec to 190? Jesus, what's the >point? The users certainly don't give a damn by that stage since People doing things for fun they enjoy. Not every Linux and BSD hacker is on a personal crusade against Big Bad Billy. Nor should anyone make it a requirement. Working well with the old world is a key Linux focus (eg the ability to work with netware, share files as a client of NT or Windows) >For us to hold our own against Microsoft, much less gain any ground, we >need to stop focusing on the classic desktop applications that Microsoft >has already won for itself and start thinkng more about server No. You don't win wars by running away. You don't sell many servers without desktops[1]. You go straight back at them. You run their applications (eg WINE, Executor, DOSemu) and you provide a faster cheaper and more stable platform. [1] Just ask SCO.. Servers are a legitimate target platform too. You provide the full solution or you lose market share badly. Alan -- Send unsolicited junk mail to this address and maybe win the chance to have yourself added free to several hundred random mailing lists. ,--------------- ------------------------------------------------------------/ Alan Cox This signature comes with a free redistribution license / alan@cymru.net