Comment 1243 for bug 1

> One problem and a reason why so many people think that Linux is so non-standard is that when (not IF but WHEN) standards are agreed by various international bodies then MicroSquish goes ahead putting things together the other way around. Since most people's experience of machines is limited to desktop usage their perception is that the Windows way IS the "standard" way and that everyone else should conform to that.
>
> I remember as a child doing something similar when "helping" with the laundry. When "helping" put a duvet into it's cover i would agree to go up to the corner on my side of the cover but would instead immediately go up to the opposing corner as fast as possible making it very difficult for the other person to reach a corner without having to mitigate against the total chaos i had caused. Very childish but i found it hilarious everytime. Looking back i really pity my poor mother.
>
> MicroSquish appears to behave much the same way. It appears to get involved with setting standards and then works hard against those being able to be delivered. Those that do conform to the standards are then seen as "different" and "non-standard".
>
> Note that with OpenSource Drivers there is really very little difference between the drivers for the various operating systems and different releases but each Windows platform (Xp, Vista, Win7) requires very different drivers. The OpenSource ones can fairly easily be tweaked for Mac and i assume for BSD too but an XP driver would need a substantial re-write to work with Win7. Also while OpenSource drivers are often tweaked for free by people interested in getting their own system to work (or helpful people) the proprietary ones often need heavy investment and resourcing from the originating company.
Then lets go a bit further and make drivers portable between OSS platforms without any tweaking. The "tweaking" for Mac can be replaced with a small compatibility layer. Yeah windows will be tougher but if we get ReactOS to adapt to the standard then they will make a compatibility layer there. They already use the IP stack from OSKit. The idea is that with a common driver model a lot of duplicate work can be avoided. We do not really need windows/Microsoft to be a part of this. The important part is to make OSS easier to develop, maintain and use.

> So, instead of clever programmers being resourced to develop clever new innovations a lot of times they are being forced to just do re-writes of stuff that already exists. Their employers being quite scared of them finding out anything useful or interesting or "seeing the big picture". Instead of being treated as Rock-Stars they are often treated with suspicion & contempt by the very people that are paying their wages.
The people actually paying their wages are we. The problem is the middleman, which is quite replaceable. I see an obvious solution here...

> At least this is the impression i get of the current situation and i think we have got to do something to change this otherwise, if we keep making extremely clever people bitter and resentful then instead of making good progress we will continue to find ourselves continually held back (at best).

> If writing viruses is more fun than work then of course people will write them. In linux-land i think most of us do begin to appreciate our developers a lot more and it is hopefully more fun to write something productive than writing a virus, which i think is one reason why we see so much development and so few viruses in linux-land
Yeah. If you wanna do something clever in windows viruses is one of few valid options. If you wanna do something clever in Linux there are many projects to code on.

> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
> PS Hopefully we are doing something to change the demotivating dynamic of the Windows-world by helping people move into linux-land

Don't forget all the other FOSS operating systems... :)

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