Hi, this is the translation of the answer to a reader of PCWorld italy, April 1999, who was basically asking them why don't they speak about Linux in their magazine. In the next issue of PCWorld Italy you'll find a review of the major distributions of Linux and the analisys of the market situation of this operative system. Our magazine usually deals only with applications and o.s for desktop systems, so in the near future Linux will have the same coverage of WinNT, that is only the reporting of the most significant news. (?? They speak about NT VERY OFTEN) Both are very far from being effective for home systems, where the compatibility with all the available hardware and the availability of applications in the shops are more important than the cost of the o.s. itself and than its stability. (?) The recent availability of applications which are free for personal use, such as Corel Wordperfect or StarOffice demonstrates that something's moving, but the way to go is still long and difficult. The weak point about linux is that it lacks of a graphical interface compatible, even partially, with the thousands of base M$'s Win32 APIs, that could make it easier to port applications from Windows without adding costs. It's true that without the support of M$ it's difficult to rewrite from scratch such APIs, but neither building from zero a multiprocessor UNIX was a simple task, and they've done it. The insistence on using different graphic shells that are hard to configure, based on that old wreck (!) that is the old standard interface of UNIX, the X/Window, now old-fashioned and forgotten (!!), is only useful in making them waste precious time, leaving to MicroSoft the control of the desktop PC's, today and tomorrow. Ok, back to me. What strikes me most in this letter is that they seem not to care about the free applications... it seems that WP8 and StarOffice are the only ones available, and for gentle concession of some God; you see, there's no other solution alternetive to the tons of windows software... maybe this is because they fear a world ruled by free software, also because who would pay for their ads? In addition, that silly thing about APIs... I mean, if Linux wants to be an alternative to Win, why should they program such apis for free? And are we actually in need of them? I don't know, but it seems to me that 900f the problems of stability of Win come from the chaos in its 'thousands of base APIs'... One further word: why should Linus and his pals program such free APIs to allow the big software houses to make money on them? I won't speak of the 'old wreck': I don't think those guys have ever seen KDE or GNOME at work... Or they're too blind to have registered the fact. If someone will like to reply them, the address is pcworld@idg.it ; please report that yours is a translation. Me, I'll wait until the promised next month article; if it continues on the same way, I'm prepared to write the 'Divine Linux Comedy' about it, even if I'd have some reports to them even now... What makes me sad is that in my humble translation maybe that 'What a childish toy this Linux is' general attitude of this piece has been lost... sorry, about this, I've never studied at Oxford... By the way: happy easter! I'll be in holiday (France, wait for me!) for the next two weeks... alas! I won't be ablo to read your (eventual) replies... :( Greetings, however! mano :) ---------------------------------- Germano Rizzo - g.rizzo@usa.net <A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/germano"><A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/germano</A">http://members.xoom.com/germano</A</A>> webmaster of <A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/ACSpinea"><A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/ACSpinea</A">http://members.xoom.com/ACSpinea</A</A>> Linux Registered User N° 114445 Official Linux KDE Doc. Translator PLUTO member - www.pluto.linux.it ---------------------------------- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GE d-(--) s:- a-->? C++++>$ UL>+++$ P L+++>++++ E++ W+++ N+(++) ?o w---(+) !O M- ?V PS+ PE-- ?Y> PGP+ t-(--) ?5 X+ R tv- b+++ DI++ D+++ G++ e h! r@ y?* ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ <A HREF="http://www.geekcode.com"><A HREF="http://www.geekcode.com</A">http://www.geekcode.com</A</A>> -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archive at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>