Re: cpu-x

On Fri, 17 May 2024 03:09:43 +0000, RonB wrote:

On 2024-05-15, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2024 14:10:54 +0000, RonB wrote:
>

On 2024-05-15, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2024 05:45:03 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>

On 14 May 2024 01:02:56 GMT, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
 

On Tue, 14 May 2024 00:42:29 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
 

On 14 May 2024 00:11:11 GMT, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
 

So, it would be beneficial to open-source developers to make sure
that their software breaks easily and crashes, so as to sell the
support.

 
Clearly you have never used the stuff.
 
No, actually, you are depending crucially on it right now, without
realizing it. Without Open Source, there would be no Internet.

 
We both know that's not true. Without open-source, there would have
been an alternative based on UNIX or Windows.

 
Those alternatives existed, way back when. Before the Internet,
there were “online services” such as Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy and
others.
Before the World-Wide Web came to dominate, and in competition with
it,
there was Microsoft’s “Project Blackbird”, Quark’s “Immedia” and no
doubt something from Adobe as well.
 
(Are these names unfamiliar to you? Go look them up in the usual
places.
There will be a test--if you want to continue this thread.)

>
I am aware of them (I'm 45 years-old). In fact, Delphi Internet was
my first venture onto the Internet.
>

Linux is chosen because it's good enough and free, not because it
is necessarily better.

 
Open Source was better than all of those put together. That’s why it
wiped them out. Those proprietary products had the backing
(financial, marketing, technical) of some of the world’s biggest
megacorporations of the time, but they could not compete with Open
Source and open standards.

>
Not on price, that's for sure. If I recall correctly, those
proprietary services also wanted to make sure that you remained
exclusive to that service. There was no benefit for them to allow you
to venture outside of their walled garden, since that would cause you
to eventually look for a cheaper service which still gave you access
to things like Usenet, IRC and the World Wide Web without needing to
pass through their graphical interface. That might be why their
systems were primitive compared to the Linux ones, based on UNIX,
which resisted a user having any sort of middleman.

 
Microsoft could use their own server software for free on their Cloud.
They don't. They use Linux for their servers. That's all you really
need to know about the superiority of Linux for servers. I think Apple
mostly gave up on the server market a few years back.
 
If you're using the Internet, you're using Linux.

>
Apple probably gave up because the hardware they were selling when they
were pushing servers was wholly inappropriate, as was the software
running atop it. As impressive as the PowerPC was, combining it with
Mac OS at the time wasn't a great solution for running a server.
Whether today or back then, the mere fact that you can run a server
with Linux without even needing a GUI ensures that performance will be
good, and better than the alternative software on the same hardware.
Either way, I am glad that Linux runs servers well and especially that
a license from Microsoft, Apple or IBM isn't required to create our own
web server. I'm just pointing out that without Linux, one of those
would likely be behind most of the servers.

 
I think Apple is very good at selling fancy goo-gaws in the retail
market, and the server market really wasn't their thing. They've been
using UNIX for years now and, if they really wanted to get into the
server market, they probably could. But that's not their strength.
Besides, it's hard to compete against free OS for servers.

I think Apple misjudged the customer who would want to buy a server in the
first place. These people don't want anything fancy; they want whatever
hardware they buy to perform as it should. Whether the interface is pretty
or not means nothing to them because they have experts who are just as
comfortable in the command line as they are in a GUI. Given that, there
was truly no reason to pay an Apple premium for a thin server that
performs poorly when you could buy two ugly servers which performed a lot
better at the same price. The only drawback is that these servers would be
running Linux, which is not a drawback at all to whoever is maintaining
them.