[ Thanks to Will
Smith for this link. ]
“Before that can happen, the GNU/Linux community has to agree on
some standards. The most obvious case in point here is a desktop
environment standard, where the free GNOME and almost free KDE are
currently slugging it out amid many technical and philosophical
arguments. As much as these desktop environments are an improvement
over the traditional Unix command line, they have a long way to go
to approach the features and usability of even Windows 3.1.
GNU/Linux systems must eliminate their dependence on the command
line, and they must do it with a single desktop standard.”
“Commercial developers must embrace the platform. This is almost
a chicken-and-egg problem: users are reluctant to move to GNU/Linux
until applications exist, and commercial developers are reluctant
to create applications until there are users. But the commercial
developers appear to be slowly moving to Linux. The imminent
release of Borland’s Delphi rapid application development tool for
Linux (code named “Kylix”) will undoubtedly accelerate this
process….”
“More importantly, the GNU/Linux community must embrace the
commercial developers and work with them to create standards and
encourage standards compliance. If they try to ignore or lock out
the commercial developers, hackers will ultimately alienate
themselves and end up having no voice in the future direction of
the GNU/Linux system.”