Hi Chris. As you can probably see, I am from the Speakup list. I am an active user of the Linux operating system, however I still rely on Win for some things, but am increasingly switching to Linux. Following the posting of your testimony to this mailing list, one person commented on the fact that Win98 especially, is unstable, therefore it will reduce output from a company because of crashes and/or rebooting. This is why I use Linux. It is a much more stable environment. I would also like to comment on your statement about Win being the most used OS in most companies. I believe that this highly depends on what job you take. For example, a lot of companies are now using Linux especially in their server architecture. So if you got a job there, you could very well find yourself working at a Debian Gnu Linux 2.2 or later system, Slackware, or Redhat. I also feel that it is necessary to comment on bugs in programs. Most Windows programs that I have used have a lot of bugs in them. As a result, they usually crash, giving some invalid page fault in some module, usually within the application. If you report the problem to the vendor of the product, I have found that the response is that "We are currently looking into this problem."
They don't attempt to put fixes up for the bugs, and as a result you have to wait for the next upgrade. Then you possibly have to pay full price for the upgrade, and this can get rather annoying after a while. In my opinion, this is a case of developers making money off of software bugs, and purposefully coding buggy, untested software so it can get to market quicker. This is where Linux andthe OSDN become superior.
You report a bug, and a patch for the program can come back to you within hours, not days. The developers have the code in front of them, a well as the end user. In other words, if the end user has knolige in C/C++, and the program happens to be written in either of these two languages, the user can very well modify the software to fit his/her needs, and also fixing the bug (s).
I also believe that your statement about open source programs being of different versions because different developers are working on them is wrong. This is where Cvs comes in. I'm not sure if you are familiar with this, it is a system which manages and tracks all versions of your programs. Once a developer which is working on the program submits his modified sourcecode with the new changelog, then it is there for other developers to download and work on and then recommit the code with their changes. In this way, there is no mistake about version information and features.
A lot of people from this list have been putting their two-sense in regarding your testimony. I just felt that I should sum up the opinions and include mine in as well.
Regards, Igor and Speakup Mailing List
