Should OS vendors limit your choices?
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In the Ren and Stimpy episodes, PTM is forever rescuing the world fromproblems of his own creation, repeatedly offering the catchphrase, "Leaveeverything to me." The words sound eerily familiar to those coming fromRedmond as Microsoft soothes the huddled masses by deciding for them whichtechnologies it will support and which it won't. These recent attempts byMicrosoft to play technology favorites put to rest, beyond a shadow of adoubt, any pretense that the company actually encourages innovation in themarketplace. Rather than let the marketplace sort out whether USB 2.0 isbetter than FireWire, Microsoft prefers to dictate what's best for you.
Hmm. So far we've had to deal with choices between SCSI and IDE, serialand parallel and USB, ISA and PCI and AGP, and the industry hasn't fallenover as a result. Sophisticated users have been able to make their owninformed choices; those who don't care about the innards leave the choicesto retailers or integrators.
This represents a major culture clash between Microsoft and Linuxworldviews. To those craving simple solutions, Linux offers too muchchoice. Microsoft, on the other hand, places unnecessary (and arbitrary)limitations on choice, especially for those capable of making informeddecisions.
All things equal, would you prefer too much choice or too little? Do youwant a choice on Election Day? Would you prefer that your carmakerdictate what brand of gasoline you use?
In the Linux world, just about every open source driver of sufficientquality is included with a kernel distribution. Even if the kernel teamwants to play favorites among, say, file system designs, it doesn't offerjust one and leave out support for the others. And even if the team leavesout a driver, distribution makers can add the software later.
The Linux emphasis on choice has confounded those who are used to a singlevendor leading them by the nose. But, given all that computers do forpeople now--everything from run machinery to exchange mail to providesecurity--why must people operate on the principle that one size, onevendor, must fit all?
It's a feature, not a bug, that Linux is about choice. Recently While GNOME moves full steam ahead to be the best desktop that it can,developers know that it's not the only game in town. According to This combination of competition and cooperation is good news for users anddevelopers alike. While I've been critical of the GNOME Foundation in thepast, I must give credit where it's due. And credit is due by thebucket-full for the following statement, detailed in Mason's report: Thus, we are in favor of increased collaborations with KDE to ensure thatend users will be able to seamlessly mix GNOME and KDE apps. And that sounds a lot more palatable than powdered toast to me. Will cooperation and competition give Linux a fruitful future? Tell Evanin the TalkBack below or in the ZDNet Linux Forum. Or write to Evandirectly at evan@starnix.com. We believe that for GNOME to be successful, it needs tointeroperate with other computing environments and services platforms.
Such strategies give us the best of both worlds. They show thatchoice--coupled with interoperability where it counts--offers the bestinnovation. It also allows user demand--not vendor decree--to determinewhere technology will take us.
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