[NMLUG] Linux (and Open Source in general) vs. Windows Design Philosiphy

[dwilde1 at gmail.com (Don Wilde)]

Awesome post, Brian!

I heartily agree. I have a new laptop that I've installed FreeBSD-6-STABLE
on, and I'm in the process of running 'portupgrade --all' on it (I loaded
from a FreeBSD-5.4-RELEASE disk) It's taking days to get it all, because I
chose to build this l/t with KDE. I was just watching it update koffice last
night, and you're exactly right. There are dozens and dozens of happy little
UN!X utils being updated as part of koffice, some of which have been around
since the Dark Ages, but they're still actively being maintained and
lovingly updated.

BTW, the Dell Inspiron 6000 with UWXGA screen and Radeon X300 is a great
open source machine. I was going to buy an iBook, but got this one for less
than $1100 with a Pentium M, a gig of RAM, 40GB disk, firewire and a
DVD+R/W. Everything is playing nicely, including the Centrino. The stock
Intel graphics looked problematic, but the Radeon is happy on Xorg.

On 1/4/06, Brian Rodgers <brians.outfit@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> This is the first of what will hopefully be several Linux related
> notes.  I figure you can pass them on to whoever might benifit from
> them, or use them to create a F.A.Q. once the users group's website is
> up.
>
>
> Linux (and Open Source in general) vs. Windows Design Philosiphy
>
> Windows:  A software package should be complete in and of itself.  It
> must include all supporting packages to make it work.
>
> Linux:  Do one thing, and do it well.  Link programs together to do
> many things well.
>
> The Windows philosophy is nessecitated by the closed source mindset.
> You can not expect a user to have another software package installed,
> because it most likely costs money.  Also, you may not be able to use
> another program's code because of licensing issues.  So, for example,
> a word processing program has to include it's own dictionary, it's own
> grammer checker, it's own thesaurus, it's own export filters, etc.
>
> Open Source developers have to think differently.  First, most of them
> are working for free.  They don't get paid for their work, so they
> have less time and resources to devote to a project.  Also, they tend
> to focus on their area of expertise.  So they make their software
> modular.  If they are designing a word processor, they focus on the
> word processor.  If they want to add spell checking, they simply pass
> the data out to a different program (aspell or ispell), and let it do
> the spell checking and read the results.  They can do this because
> they know that installing aspell is not a hardship on their users
> (it's free, and it's small because it does just what it needs to -
> check spelling).  If they want a dictionary, they don't write one,
> they offer an interface to a dictionary program like dict.  If they
> want it to be able to export to a pdf, they link to an existing pdf
> library instead of designing their own.  Because the source code is
> open, if someone needs a word processor with a specific feature, they
> can just add that feature to an existing program instead of having to
> write a totally new word processor.  They could then contribute their
> changes back to the developer so the whole world could take advantage
> of the new feature.  In this way, it is possible to create high
> quality software with limited resources.  It also allows different
> programs to develop and grow individually.
>
> As an example of individual growth, think of the above senario.  With
> a Windows word processor, if the dictionary needs to be expanded, that
> company has to create the new one, and the user has to download and
> install it.  If the user has several word processing programs
> installed, they would have to download and install an updated
> dictionary for each of those programs.
>
> On the other hand, the Linux user would just install an updated
> version of dict.  Immediately, every program on his system that
> interfaces with dict would take advantage of the new dictionary.  This
> also means that only 1 dictionary has to be installed on a computer,
> instead of a seperate dictionary for every software program that needs
> one.  Also, since the program does not require dict to be installed,
> the user doesn't even have to install dict if he never intends to use
> the dictionary feature.
>
> This allows Linux utilize it's resources better.  Computers that could
> never run a recent version of Windows, can run the latest Linux
> kernel, and be put to productive use because of it's modularity.
>
> Say you want to host a web page.  If you use Windows as a host,
> windows loads first the kernel, then the Windows Desktop and all
> supporting programs.  Even though you may never even touch that
> computer, it is still using memory and hard drive space for all the
> Windows icons, displaying the desktop, running several (unneeded)
> services in the background, device drivers for your video card, sound
> card, etc.  If you were using Linux, you would only load the kernel
> and those programs needed to run a web server (apache, network
> drivers).  You could even customize your kernel to remove support for
> hardware that you don't have.
>
> This aproach allows reduced memory, cpu speed, and storage
> requirements.  It also allows you to customize your system so it does
> what you need it to do, without excess cruft.  It increases stability
> because there are fewer places for problems to occur.
>
> All this flexibility does come with a price.  Because the user has
> choices, they have to make some.  They need to be more familiar with
> what is installed on their system, because by default, not everything
> is.  They may need to install some programs that other programs rely
> on.  There's a bigger chance that software won't "just work" without
> some tweaking.
>
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