On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 03:58:31 -0600, Jan Depner <eviltwin69@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > I'm definitely in favor of open standards. I don't understand why you > think that the Linux kernel code is available only to *most* people. > Also, final decisions on the main branch of Linux are made by a select > few. Anyone can change the code and use, run, distribute it. It's > almost like it's completely open but not completely standard (unless you > stay with the main, blessed-by-Linus, branch). Monta Vista (and Ingo > and others) are trying to sway that decision making process right now > but, if they don't, I'm sure they'll keep going. > > Jan Some companies restrict the reading of Open Source code for fear of contamination. This makes it open to most people, but not to all. I know of one company that felt they had to pay an outside consultant to break the code apart into pieces so they would not have their engineers reading code that was in direct competition with what they were doing. One big difference here is that the Linux 'standard' comes with a working implementation - the kernel itself. It is that operation that sets the standard and not a written document. Good or bad the kernel developers, be it Linus, or Alan, or who ever is running things at the time, are free to make a change that effects many people. Those changes are not voted on in any formal sense. They may meet the needs to the overall group or they may not. (See recent threads about Wine's use of memory, etc., for examples of decisions taken that are not exactly in the spirit of a 'standard'.) In the IEEE world there is no 'implementation'. Only a standard document. Companies are left to develop the implementation themselves and then, in the process, attempt to be compliant with the standards and compatible with other devices that advertise their compliance with the same standard. It's a very different approach. I enjoy watching, from the outside, what the kernel developers are doing. I think that's pretty entrepreneurial and not very 'standards' based though. Just my thoughts. Cheers, Mark
