>The problem pointed out is a distro, library compatiblity, packaging, or sand-boxing problem, not a Linux problem.
Are you suggesting Windows users switch to Linux and not use a popular distro that can provide software they need? Otherwise, its simply a pedantic argument.
>Nothing should prevent your favourite packaging/sandbox tool to present a facade that the file system has some specific files (your specific version of libraries) over some more generic files (say, Flatpak: freedesktop SDK, Steam Pressure Vessel: Steam Runtime) over some even more generic files (your actual distro libraries).
If you introduce a new library in facade 2.0, its not going to work in facade 1.0. You can backport, but how many versions are you realistically going to support indefinitely? Its a good idea, but it doesn't solve the full problem.
If my employer would still pay me the same salary, I couldn't care less about the license. I'm all for outsourcing this problem to the package managers.
>This is what you do for Flatpack, Steam, or Docker. All these are popular options.
Yes, Flatpak is decent, but its a separate runtime with its own sandbox and perms that can sometimes make things more awkward for things like accessing host components installed outside of flatpak e.g. IDE running installed compilers, and compilers accessing project files inside the sandbox. But yes, its nice when it works.
Docker is the nuclear option. Fundamentally, I don't see Docker as a good and legitimate way to ship software (I already ranted about the giant bundle of everything approach!). I can also image my entire dev box as a VM and ship software that way too :P
The issue on Linux is that the distro's package manager decides which versions of shared libraries exist system wide, and this works well when you install everything through the package manager. Windows SxS is specifically designed to allow multiple incompatible versions of the same shared component to coexist without forcing the entire Windows install to use it.
But okay, I accept your point. However I'd like to point out that "the OS allows you do something in multiple ways" is different from "this is the only way to do it"
Speaking of portability, As a developer who has shipped software on Windows for over a decade, and then some on Linux. Targeting Windows is insanely easy, because of the ABI. You compile once and you have an extremely high chance that it just works on every Windows version. Not perfect, but better than any other platform ever made. Heck I've used software from CDROMS where the binary was compiled 20 years ago and it still works today without any modification.
With Linux, you have to target specific distros, do something insane like a giant bundle of everything, or static linking or some other craziness, or open up your source code and let someone else take the headache. Oh and I almost forgot.. install scripts that detect distros, install dependencies. And god help you if you need to ship a kernel module.
>The ecosystem was not won on technical merit. OEM per-processor licensing, embrace-extend-extinguish against Java and the web, document format lock-in, and a long pattern of obstructing standardization attempts that would constrain Windows (PWI in 1994, ECMA-234 in 1995, OpenDocument later) while pushing their own through when it extended reach.
Windows has broad hardware compatibility, a stable enough application platform (see above), aggressive backward compatibility, a large developer ecosystem, and distribution through OEMs. Those are technical merits, even if they are not the only merits.
Every single program has to write logic to parse/store/query/validate those values. A common API with a single store can be type-enforced, backed up, and likely easier to work with from an internationalization perspective.
I do like dotfiles for portable apps where everything the program needs is in one folder. Personally, my need for portable apps has gone down year on year.
I like to think of LLMs as idiot savants. Exceptional at certain tasks, but might also eat the table cloth if you stop paying attention at the wrong time.
With humans, you can kind of interview/select for a more normalized distribution of outcomes, with outliers being less probable, but not impossible.
Yes, you're correct. To add - companies don't fundamentally care about all the things that we like to think of as "nice things", like good design, lack of dark patterns, robust security architecture, minimizing technical debt, etc.
If customers cared about reputational damage from cybersecurity incidents (sure.. some do) , then you would see that reflected in their priorities. Also, non-technical customers don't really know who to blame for security anyway. They'll just blame the OS vendor or other random parties even if its the Application that is not secure.
There are various types of triggers for gene activation, some genes turn on/off all the time (housekeeping), some follow the circadian rythm, some are immediate response, some are specific to specific phases of cell division, some are persistently on all the time, etc ,etc. Not sure what type of chart you're looking for.
This is true when fresh college grads are building stuff. Experienced engineers know how to build things much more efficiently.
Also people like to fantasize that their project, their API, their little corner of the codebase is special and requires special treatment. And that you simply cant copy the design of someone much more experienced who has already solved the problem 10 years ago. In fact many devs boast about how they solved (resolved) that complex problem.
In other domains - Professional engineers (non-swe) know that there is no shame in simply copying the design for a bridge that is still standing after all those years.
BTW - UAC is not a security boundary, so UAC-bypass is not the same as privilege escalation, and there is no bounty for it, etc, etc. It's a common misunderstanding, probably in no small part due to Microsoft's own lack of communication around it.
I'm not seeing it the same way. Businesses in various industries have several types of moats - money, knowledge, experience, skills, etc. There is ton of competitive intelligence hidden in private data.
Its one of the reasons you can't use chatGPT and start manufacturing chips or vaccines, or anti-cancer medication. The gap between publicly available data that informs academic "core science" research versus specific product-based knowledge that shows you how to make a successful drug candidate that can withstand regulatory scrutiny or be a safe and effective drug for the worlds population.
We could iterate so quickly if this private data set was democratized.
The amount of private data that is locked up inside private internal databases is huge. This is especially true of regulated industries. There is a wealth of data - financial data showing how to budget for things, pricing data on various products that are B2B, standard operating procedures at mature companies that have gone through various revisions, designs for manufacturing plants so people don't keep reinventing and making the same mistakes again, and on and on.
Sure, If ranking is done purely based on clicks and not quality. I'm just thinking of it as a meta "loss" function in the AI context. So I'd say its the passionate enthusiasts who care enough to provide feedback on such topics.
Out of curiosity, have you asked customers to run your software in a VM? How did that conversation go?