Tim: >> I do, I mind that a lot. At home, I have one telephone on my desk, >> and I can ring anybody on the world with it, no matter what telephone >> network that they're on. James McKenzie: > That is because their are strict standards on how a phone MUST work. > Not so for most of our in-use computer products. There are only two > standards that have existed over the years: ISA (created by IBM) and > the connectors that are in use. Everything else is a "Request for > Comment" type document. This is how we ended up with the mess we have > today. No, not really. I'd say that the majority of the RFC-compliant stuff is interoperable, and opposite of the chaos you describe. Because we have open specifications / long term reliable specifications / a specifiable way to interact between the things that aren't able to directly communicate. Compare that against ad-hoc multiple manufacturers/designers doing their own proprietary thing. Who only care that their product "A" can talk to their product "A" and "A.1" for a couple of months while they sell them. Then screw you... You want to chat/compute/game next month, buy the new product "B". Rinse, lather, repeat. The RFC stuff that really works, email, HTTP, etc., is because it was designed to work. Sure, there'll be some proprietary crap that's also published some specifications, but more as a PR stunt than for the good of all. > And I'm not arguing that this is a good or bad thing, it is the way > we've boxed ourselves in. Um, no. It's how we've *been* boxed in, and how far too few protest about it. Linux is a bit of a quiet revolution. Every now and then there's a bit of a public flap, but mostly it's in the background. Rather than try to fix the cock-ups the /others/ have made, it's an alternative that does its thing, and lets the rest carry on going to hell in a hand basket, under their own steam. I'm just wondering how long it'll take the "give them enough rope" approach before the other /bad/ ones put the final nail in their own coffin. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
