Linux development pace (was Re: [oclug] Good Point)

[David F. Skoll]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Jon Earle wrote:

> I was not expressly thinking of that, however, that remains a nice goal to
> aim for. :)  I was thinking more that if brand X supports all the hardware
> I have on my system, and will more than likely immediately support the
> hardware I plan to buy in the future, vs brand Y which may support my
> hardware, or may not, or may have partial support, or may support it in the
> future, I think the choice is clear.  Brand X will win in the eyes of
> consumers simply because it gets the job done.

Sure.  Microsoft maintains its dominance because of its monopoly.  Hardware
vendors of course only write drivers for Windows.  They're also loathe
to give out documentation, ostensibly because of the Competitive Nature
of their Deep Dark Secrets, but actually because most hardware vendors
have awful documentation -- even their own engineers don't know what's
going on half the time. :-)

A 10% market share will make it worthwhile for hardware vendors to pay
someone to write Linux drivers.

> That's fine, but as you stated earlier, most people are not paid to write
> Linux software.  It tends to get written when people get around to
> it.

So pay us already! :-)

Seriously, I write Linux software for a living.  I make a PPPoE client
and have incorporated many features people have asked for -- except
for a GUI.  Well, one company wanted a GUI badly enough that it paid
me to write one.  As of today, rp-pppoe has a GUI.  I don't think
GUI's are interesting, and it certainly wasn't challenging, but it
earned money.  (And it's GPL'd.)

Another company paid me to write a PPPoE relay agent, which is now
GPL'd.  A third organization paid me to write an e-mail scanner, which
is now the GPL'd MIMEDefang.

If Linux users and the Linux community want fancy GUIs, niche business
programs, slick desktops, etc., they have to pay for their
development, because as programming projects go, they're pretty
boring.

--
David.