No only is the Unix set up not portable-binary-friendly, the standard executable format (ELF) easily breaks based on differences in the kernel. The program could fail to run because it doesn’t find the files it expects, or it could just core dump.

While businessmen may scream at this, it keeps the spread of viruses and worms to virtually zero.

If having a lot of incompatible distributions makes things difficult, having a lot of incompatible ways of overcoming this obstacle doesn’t help either.

Since these companies know best than anyone (through painful experience) what could be done to make binaries that are compatible with several (and moving target) distributions, they could share their methods to get a uniform interface. And since you work for one of them, you might pass along this suggestion. That would ease the work for your future projects and for others trying to create programs for Linux. That would add value to your Linux efforts.

JavaScript is known to have a similar problem with different browsers. There are JS libraries that layer a high-level interface over the different incompatible ways of doing something. I think that something alike could be done for binary distributions: create a stable, versionable, linkable library that acts as an interface to changing libraries.

Given that flash doesn’t work on my hardware anyway, I don’t especially care about Flex. It’s just the whole “difficult to support bit” I have an issue with.

SHE, the point is that if anyone is interested in maintaining the package on that platform, they will do all the hard work of packaging it.

To Rob T:

Your analogy is disingenuous. No one is forcing companies to create their own software, you can contract that out to a company who will do that for you, or you can keep it in-house (as some companies still do with their accounting, HR, and legal departments - none of which are part of the core business either, but are of equal importance as systems & networks). The point is that the CHOICE is there for companies to create systems that suit them, and there are many companies and contractors that specialise in providing bespoke solutions for their clients, complete with source code.

A better analogy would be, as a house builder, that you build a house for someone. Under the UNIX / OSS philosophy, that house is now theirs and they may modify it in any way they choose. Under the closed-source model, the owners would have to ask you permission every time they wanted to do so much as redecorate, let alone build an extension.

Your argument could equally be “I want to build houses, not deal with legal issues,” or “I want to build houses, not deal with staff,” or “I want to build houses, not deal with accounts,” and while there are many large companies who have outsourced all of that work, most of them have found the potential gains do not outweigh the eventual costs. Large companies are complex systems that have an entire support ecosystem built around the core business, every large company has to do things that aren’t its core business, no matter how they would “just want to build houses,” and this is a necessary thing for the security and stability of any large concern.

Furthermore, you - as a house builder - would be poorly served by a hammer that stopped working if the company who made it went bust, or that would only work with certain ’supported’ nails. You don’t have to make the hammers, just find someone who will transfer full ownership rights to you for said hammer (which is, thankfully, the norm when it comes to physical objects).

I know this argument is getting old as well, but I don’t really care whether mom and pop can ever use linux. I don’t personally care whether linux will ever “defeat windows”.

What I do really care about is that -I- retain the freedom (of choice) I found in linux. That may sound very selfish until you realize that my freedom is your freedom as well. If you don’t care about freedom but just want your virus-free windows for free please go look for it somewhere else.

Still, I use linux on my desktop and my laptop because that what works best for me for what I do. All my paying job is done on linux as well.

Nick, let’s say I build houses for a living. 500 years ago I had to know not only how to build houses, but also how to make hammers, saws, nails, etc… How many houses could I build?.. how well do you think they were constructed?

I want to build houses, not make hammers…

Ugh.

I had a similar experience when I installed Ubuntu on my laptop some months ago. I have some good experience with Linux, like I created a custom distribution derived from redhat couple of years ago at a different job. I like Windows and I happen to use systems because I like them and not because I have a need to look or sound like a geek. So when I heard so much being said about Ubuntu and after having seen the Compiz videos, I just had to have it.

After a huge amount of convincing my wife that I wont mess with her Windows install, I started the process of installing Unbuntu - Fiesty. Oh my god what a nightmare it was. It took me atleast 20 hours over several days. Not that any of this is the fault of the Ubuntu folks. In this case the primary culprit was NVIDIA. So I had install into text mode, compile and install the NVIDIA driver to make it all work. The irony was that after all that trouble they put me through, they shamelessly slap a banner into the boot process. Just unbelievable.

So, for all you who are screaming that mom and pop should get Linux pre-installed on their computers, hope you last name is Linus or Knuth. Please guys, when someone complains that they don’t find Linux to be user-friendly, of course they are just saying that it does not work like Windows. But here is the secret, they were there before you and they have set the standards for user-friendliness. So tough luck, nobody owes you. So quit calling everyone who complains an idiot. And make comments like “Its just a few shell scripts”, “It is just a compile”.

And while you are at it please tell the car manufacturers that when they sell a car you can get it real cheap as long as you can assemble a part of the engine yourself. Well in our world that how we do it.

P.S. I don’t care if it ‘looks’ crappy on Linux, and I don’t think most Linux developers would care either.