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New So is ESR right?
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764

Is this how Linux wins the desktop wars?

Old ESR story: I saw him give a lecture about portability across various unixes. This was 1985 or so. I went up and complimented him on it and told him I was working under SCO unix and I was f*****. I was using the original bourn shell and the only alternate was C-shell and he was describing korn shell in his lecture concerning portability.

He said no problem and arranged for me to get the source code for the korn shell which I then ported to SCO Unix.

Good times.
New No, it's fantasy.
Microsoft's control of the Windows kernel is a strategic issue; with it, MS is in command of its own destiny and platform. Sure, MS could fork the kernel, but then you're maintaining a kernel but this time, it was written by a lot of people for whom MS's best interests really didn't align with theirs.

For a similar reason, I doubt Apple will ever transition away from Darwin, which is an open-source project that no-one else gives a shit about, and which definitely goes wherever Apple wants it to go. Indeed, Apple is so desirous for total control over its platform that it's developing its own CPUs!

("The thing about games is that they are the most demanding possible stress test for a Windows emulation layer, much more so than business software." Bullshit. Games aren't demanding on Windows itself. They're almost totally abstracted through the various frameworks - Vulkan, Havok, etc. The bit of the game that talks to the host OS is mostly concerned with input (collecting key/button presses) and networking. Games don't give a shit about your screen reader, or your system-wide locale, or whether you have sticky-keys enabled because you're motion-impaired, or whether you have fifty printers installed, or whatever)

Being real for a moment, and accepting that MS aren't going to suddenly support the entire Windows GUI layer (and all its dependencies) on Linux (via Proton or otherwise) - what about Linux itself?

LOL no, basically. Linux is just too much of a UX shitshow across the board to gain traction with normal people.

Even amongst the nerds - Steam users, for example - it hovers between 0.5% and 1% of users. Sure, a bunch of developers use it, but even then, in my experience, they're vastly outnumbered by Macverts. Even those whose development target is Linux use Macs.

ESR fails to recognise that the vast majority of users, both domestic and commercial, are perfectly content with what they've got now - be that macOS or Windows.

It's been 30 years. The window of opportunity for Linux on the Desktop has long since closed. Both macOS and Windows are very, very good operating systems with vast, entrenched software ecosystems.

As a user environment, Linux needs to be dramatically better than Windows to give people a reason to undergo the pain of transition, and it just isn't - and, at this point, I doubt it ever will be.

tl;dr: ESR is just having an idle, eyes-half-closed tug over the end of Microsoft. Worse, he's fantasising about a world where there is One True OS, which is no better than the world he's trying to replace.

After all, if we had to converge on One True OS, anyone with a brain would base it on VMS.
New Piffle
If there was one true OS, they'd start with a clean slate OS written in Rust.
New Pshaw
It'd be written in Ada, and it would be VMS.

If it's good enough for the uninteresting parts of nuclear submarines, it's good enough for you!
New I suspect even those parts are somewhat interesting
--

Drew
New Not when they're written in Ada, they're not
New I interviewed the guy who tought the Oracle pl/sql team
I was looking for a pl/sql expert. I found this professor of computer languages who was looking for a consulting gig. So during the interview he explained that he teaches Ada. Other languages as well but that's his primary and he loves it.

Then he explained how Oracle sent their coders to him when they were designing PL/SQL. I hate Ada. I hate pl/sql. And at that point I understood why.
New I had about a year of deep VMS
I already had spent about 5 years in Unix and xenix and various derivatives at that point and I worked for a company that had a huge VMS investment. Probably the largest in North America.

So I had a project that required a database. SQL in some form, it could be Oracle it could be postgresql or whatever the commercial variant was at the time, it could be DB2. But I had to do a cost-benefit analysis and write the code to make it all work. It was about a six months of coding at that point. There was lots of c code that was the user interface that interacted with the SQL database on the back end. I initially coded it under MS-dos 3, with large memory extensions. I could do it on Unix or on VMS. I ported it to SCO Unix to prove it could run there. But I had free vax boxen available to me and the corporation really wanted me to use them. So I had to port everything I did to the corporate data center VMS to see if I can make it work.

Of course first I actually had to learn command line vax VMS. That was about two months of doing nothing but studying the books and playing. Then I had to learn Eve TPU. That is one evil editor. Then I was able to start moving my code to the system and compiling and seeing what failed in weird ways. That's when I learned I could see everyone's command line and their passwords when I looked at the process table under the VMS console. With random end user privileges.

I settled on Oracle. That meant that I could put it on the vax VMS system that the hardware was for free but I'd have to pay for support for the operating system and the cost of Oracle is about five times as much as the equivalent Unix platform. So I killed that idea and ended up on SCO Unix.

And thankfully never had to deal with the evils of vax VMS again.
New uh huh and what does the microsoft kernel run on?
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
New Not VMS.
It shares some heritage, that's all.
     So is ESR right? - (crazy) - (9)
         No, it's fantasy. - (pwhysall) - (8)
             Piffle - (InThane) - (5)
                 Pshaw - (pwhysall) - (4)
                     I suspect even those parts are somewhat interesting -NT - (drook) - (2)
                         Not when they're written in Ada, they're not -NT - (pwhysall) - (1)
                             I interviewed the guy who tought the Oracle pl/sql team - (crazy)
                     I had about a year of deep VMS - (crazy)
             uh huh and what does the microsoft kernel run on? -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                 Not VMS. - (pwhysall)

I don't like those orange potatoes like that.
80 ms