-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday October 2 2003 09:55, Andre Truter wrote:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:29, david stevenson wrote:
On Thursday 02 October 2003 3:00 pm, Ken Schneider wrote:
Mind you... we've got a long way to go to catch up with the version numbers used by a certain proprietary Operating System vendor...
Will we be able to stop updating soon?
Linux systems have been evolving rapidly recently, and I am sure this will carry on for some time. But when something works why change it. I look forward to the day when there is no need to update the base system every year or so. In the commercial world if you stop selling new versions your income stream is dead, but one aspect of "free" distribution is companies need to find another business model that is not dependent on cash flow from distribution. Hopefully we all benefit from more stable products.
I don't think we will ever stop updating, because if that happens, then we have either reached the limits of our imagination and skill, or we have reached perfection (no more bugs to fix). Both of these scenarios is impossible to reach.
There will always be bugs to fix, because this is an imperfect world and we will always come up with better ideas - this is what makes us different from animals. (Well, even some animals tend to find better ways of doing things)
Just my 1c
PS: If any of the above states are reached on this world, I will die of boredom. :-)
I think another thing to consider regarding the update process in Linux is that much of the development of Linux has been done with little or no help from the OEM and ISV sector. This is changing, but one only has to look at the state of drivers for scanners. I have been following the sane project on and off and it never ceases to amaze me the stonewalling the devs get when they ask for specs from the manufacturers. This holds true to some extent with printers as well - but has and does continue to improves. I'm sure if you give it some thought you could come up with many other examples. This also extends to the software arena. What would it take to get PhotoShop ported to Linux. It has been rumored that OSX 10.3 will be using X and this has implications for ports between Mac and Linux software - but to date this is unconfirmed. And even if Mac uses X will the ISVs port? Then there's the question of functionality and usability for Linux on the Desktop. This is the main reason in my opinion that Linux continues such a vibrant and almost dizzying upgrade pace. Cheers, Curtis. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/fIksiqnGhdjCOJsRAor7AJ9EASaS/5RbdkxCPA3G1BP7vwhzcwCfZaBd RhcyMohP/ebrUJGMFB48Efg= =s1Bi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----