Wiggins: Top 10 Things Wrong With Linux, Today

[ Thanks to Kraken for this link. ]

The rapid pace of development of free/open source software has always stunned me. In just a few years, Linux and the free BSDs have become serious players in every major computing market, from embedded systems up to enterprise-class servers. Most impressive, however, is the strides they have made on the desktop. KDE and GNOME rival, and sometimes exceed, commercially available desktop environments who have been around for decades. (With apologies to the BSD developers, I am going to shorten 'Linux and the free BSDs' to 'Linux' for the rest of this essay.)

"And there's nothing that gets FS/OSS moving like criticism. Three years ago journalists and industry pundits complained loudly that Linux has 'no journaling filesystem!' Today it has a dozen. Everyone complained, 'No good web browsers!' Today there are half a dozen. Everyone complained, 'No good office suites!' Today there are three or four. I sense a trend here...

"So, in that spirit, I am now going to complain loudly about every major nitpick I can think of. Understand this: I love free and Open Source software. The powerful tools it offers allows me to work at speeds I never could have dreamed of five years ago. And more importantly, it made computers fun again. If there were no FS/OSS and my choices were Windows, MacOS (not counting OS X, which wouldn't exist without FreeBSD anyway), or a proprietary UNIX...I probably would have lost interest in computers long ago. So please realize, the 'complaining' I'm doing here is purely an act of love..."

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Related Stories:

• Collins: A Linux User Goes Back(Jul 11, 2002)
• ZDNet: Why I've Learned to Like Linux (But Not to Love It)(Jun 18, 2002)
• Forbes Magazine: Linux Gets Friendlier(May 24, 2002)
• Linux and Main: Why Linux Isn't on the Desktop Yet (Apr 30, 2002)