Verily I say unto thee, that Linonut spake thusly:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, Erik Funkenbusch belched out this bit o'
> wisdom:
>> I think the issue here is that, for a variety of reasons, Linux
>> drivers are typically written in C, and not optimized to the Nth
>> degree for performance like their Windows counterparts are.
>
> What, you mean C code cannot be optimized? Cannot include inline
> assembler?
I have to assume Erik is referring to hardware features protected by
NDA, rather than compiler optimisations. I'm not quite sure how the
development /language/ is relevant. Certainly C code is more than
capable of being optimised.
Still, despite paranoid trade secrets, Linux and BSD developers manage
to not only create drivers for most current hardware, and most legacy
hardware that is no longer supported under Windows, but indeed it can be
built to multiple architectures, including AMD64.
Why a "bunch of hobbyists" can accomplish this goal; but a global,
multi-billion dollar company like Microsoft cannot; is beyond
comprehension. Of course Microsoft is hardly unique in this failing,
Adobe and Sun are just as bad.
This is especially incredible given that Microsoft supposedly works in
/collaboration/ with hardware manufacturers, whereas Linux/BSD
developers must invariably work autonomously, reverse engineering the
specifications, building drivers from scratch, and indeed facing
hostility from certain companies in the process.
Maybe Erik would care to explain that one.
So remind me again, exactly /why/ is the proprietary development model
so much "better" than FOSS?
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "OOXML is a superb standard"
| - GNU/Linux traitor, Miguel de Icaza.
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Fedora release 7 (Moonshine) on sky, running kernel 2.6.22.1-41.fc7
21:31:18 up 44 days, 20:26, 2 users, load average: 0.16, 0.33, 0.34
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