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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byedivad ( 1186799 ) writes:
Choice, many times becomes really fast synonym of fragmentation and lack of standard.
And this is just a bright example. The situation described is 100% conforming to reality, as far as UI kits and sound infrastructure.
byiYk6 ( 1425255 ) writes:
Here is the great thing about having dozens of GUI toolkits, multiple libc, and several audio APIs. You only have to choose 1! Every time somebody complains about the "mess" of GUI toolkits, it just comes off as senseless whining. Where are the downsides? There are only 2 major ones, and if you don't have experience in either, just pick one.
The only downside I can think of is that end-users need several GUI toolkits installed, for their multiple programs that use different toolkits, but a) Linux still has a
byapoc.famine ( 621563 ) writes:
As an addendum to this good point:
The reason we have so many choices is because....the users and developers want choices. OSS choices exist almost by definition because people are choosing them. To say, "your choice sucks, choose a better one" is ridiculous. Google is showing off the corporate mentality here. If you're not paying the thousands of developers of the toolchains for the major (and minor!) distributions, you don't get to complain about what they're producing. If you want standardization, you don't bitch about it - you make your platform of choice far superior to the other options.
There are choices because they all have something to offer to someone.
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bySirLurksAlot ( 1169039 ) writes:
If you want standardization, you don't bitch about it - you make your platform of choice far superior to the other options.
Therein lies the problem. What defines a platform as "superior?" Does superiority simply mean that it does A, B, and C extremely well? If that is the case then you will ALWAYS have someone that says "Well yeah, it does A, B, and C, but what about D, E, and F?", and they'll go out and try to make their platform superior (Because, you know, D, E, and F are really important to them, and
byBurz ( 138833 ) writes:
The reason we have so many choices is because....the users and developers want choices.
But the userbase has not moved much beyond the sysadmin and system developer circles. These developers are mostly doing wheelies trying to impress their peers, not their potential novice end-users. They code for themselves and take great care with, for instance, APIs used among their peers--- but UI's are handled very sloppily and they squirm out of maintaining UI feature stability for the user by calling for "freedom".
Funny that... When you get below a certain level (say, to the kernel + GNU) then preventi
bybwashed75 ( 1389301 ) writes:
Quite a few of the choices are there because any application developer is forced to make choices from all the choices already out there.
Lets say I want an application with features XYZ. I go looking and find a large number of application with feature X, a large number of application with feature Y, a large number with feature Z. However, as the applications are spread out across different framework, GUIs, distros, personal coding styles and whatever, and since standarization is for suckers, I have a ha
byMgccl ( 1380697 ) writes:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html [ted.com]
funny, because most of the time, choice only make people less happy...
People think when they chose something, they become more happy, when it is likely... completely the opposite.
byCrystalX ( 1299317 ) writes:
If you want standardization, you don't bitch about it - you make your platform of choice far superior to the other options.
An an individual (of the normal or the corporate variety) it is difficult to muster the effort needed to make a superior platform when you have to do it without compensation (i.e. for free).
This is especially the case for near OS-level services such as GUI toolkits and global sound APIs, which require an incredible amount of effort to develop and maintain.
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