Daniel James wrote: >>but if linux on desktop doesn't accomplish freebsd on desktop >>then we didn't really get anywhere. > > > I disagree. The resources of free software developers are finite, and being locked in into linux is not much better than being locked in into ms windows. isn't the promise of unix design the ability to cooeperate, to work together, the portability etc.? and doesn't it work that way for pretty much everything? networking, graphics, apps - almost everything that you can run on linux runs on other unix/unix-like systems. > yet the potential demand from users for diverse (and therefore > difficult to support) configurations is great. The reason that Linux > audio is becoming successful is that a number of developers have > standardised their work around that kernel. Imagine if everyone on > this list ran a different system, maybe Hurd or Darwin based - > progress would be very hard. yeah, just like tcp/ip, X windows etc. didn't get anywhere because they work on top of different kernels... > The only free software system with a chance of breaking into the > mainstream desktop market is a Linux based one, and that's by no > means assured. So I see no point in supporting any other kernel for > the time being. breaking into desktop market is _consequence_ of good apps. and portability brings good apps (even though it might not be obvious) large picture: I really don't understand this obsession with linux, which quite often becomes exactly opposite of what linux is standing for (sort of, it stands for something else for different people). I mean what we (all users) need are computers that work (good functionality, flexible enough, easy to use, robust, interoperability etc.). and linux is bringing what unix was almost giving us - a unix(like) system that has no vendor lock-in features that were so annopying when using proprietary unix-es. So all the free unix/unix-like systems work very nicely together, pretty much all apps are fairly portable, even oss is portable (I haven't used it on non-linux systems personally), alsa is one of the few proprietary-like feature of linux... of course, somebody can port alsa since it's open source so it's not exactly the same... (yes, I know there are too few people working on alsa and that I can go ahead and port it to other kernels if I care so much etc.) erik
