I actually agree. A commercially supported system will eventually work this way but
strangely enough here is a weird aside:
In the PC market up till now Linux bugs have been fixed faster than windows bugs.
And my linux servers seems to crash a lot less often than my windows servers. (never
for a linux server (redhat 6.1,6.2, 7.1,7.3) compared to often (windows NT 3.5 Windows 2000).
This should not be the case, but it has been so far but is an unsustainable model in
a capitalist society and it is changing.
Redhat is now charging for their newest Linux OSes.
But one thing I dislike and see often is that most of the commercial things I use
have lots of bugs that are never fixed when its a big company but..... little open source
projects or small time companies seem to fix their bugs very fast. JShrink (license java program)
fixed their bug almost immediately for me, Sun has never gotten around to fixing a bug in their
system for me, WinSCP (opensource scp) fixed his bug very quickly as well.
Windows bugs are rampant and rarely fixed like the OS crashing on shutdown bug....
I have a patch for that bug but its not official and not included in Windows Update.
Whether someone fixes a bug or not seems to be not money motivated but
dependent on whether the programmer(s) involved have the ability or time to
or not. Now a programmer needs to eat so they need money so commercial
software must win eventually.
Now if food was free..... that would be different.
Most of the handsets I have have worked with (a LOT) bugs and some serious.
But once a handset is in the market the only way to fix it is usually through
a recall or mandatory upgrade and those are expensive. The Handset manufactures
will not do this unless the bug is a very very serious one. So bugs don't get fixed until
the next release and not even then sometimes due to budget constraints.
Now if the problem is not dealing with phone quality, like a ringtone playback or
browser bug, many manufacturers elect to not fix them because it costs money.
Ian Mansfield wrote:
> Personal Opinion....
>
> One of the huge advantages of Symbian is that it is backed by several major handset vendors. While Linux does have a vast number of developers working on it - they are volunteers, and have no commercial obligations to offer support when it is needed.
>
> What guarantee can you offer the network operator and content providers that a Linux bug will receive the necessary priority from its developers ?
>
> None.
>
> Now that may be acceptable to a programming geek on a backend server platform - but it is not acceptable in the consumer market.
>
> If a mass market handset has a software bug - then it needs to be fixed, and fixed NOW.
>
> If the handset vendor lacks the ability to compel the volunteer developers to provide a bug fix (because there might be something better on TV that night, or they have all run off to Burning Man for a party), then they run the risk of damaging their reputation and market share.
>
> The cost of that damage could easily outstrip the cost of licensing an OS that is backed up with commercial SLA's and service agreements.
>
> For that reason, I personally believe that for the consumer market - it is far safer to stick to using OS's that are backed by commercial service agreements and leave the geeky OS's to the smartphones where the users are more familiar with the flakyness (?) of complicated operating systems and are more forgiving when their handset crashes (after all, their PC probably crashes more often!).
>
> >> Dear Group members,
>
> >> These days many cell phone manufacturers are shifting their focus to
> >> embedded linux, which is easy to customize as per the requirement and is
> >> royalty free. What benefit symbian can provide to the OEMs or to normal
> >> user
> >> over the linux. These days, T Engine is also coming up in Japanese market
> >> with solid foundation and backing of approx 500 companies worldwide with
> >> proper support body. Can anyone envisage use of this platform in the cell
> >> phone market in near future ? I wonder if some of the cell phone OEM
> >> started working on this !! any say ??
>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Vinay Tiwari
>
> >> This mail was sent to address ian.mansfield@amplefuture.com
> >> Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
>
> >> ______________________________________________________________________
> >> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
> >> For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email
> >> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> This mail was sent to address paul@thetamusic.com
> Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
--
-Paul Lester
pbl1@cornell.edu
paul@thetamusic.com
http://members.tripod.com/~pbl1/
--Its in every one of us to be wise...
we can all love ev'rything without
ever knowing why...its in every one
of us...
Received on Wed Sep 15 01:39:51 2004