Killer apps/"selling" points of FC and GNU/Linux

[Avi Alkalay]

I wrote a HOWTO some time ago to help developers find their way.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HighQuality-Apps-HOWTO/
http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/HighQuality/ (better layout)

Regards,
Avi


On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:57:15 -0300, Avi Alkalay <avibrazil at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:26:53 +0100, Harald Hoyer <harald at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> > Avi Alkalay wrote:
> >
> >
> > > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:27:33 +0100, Kyrre Ness Sjobak
> > > <kyrre at solution-forge.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >>On the server side things are looking better - as far as i can see,
> > >>Linux is often the preferred platform here for developers to develop on,
> > >>simply because it is the most widespread.
> > >
> > >
> > > Unfortunatelly this is not true. I worked with several Windows
> > > developers that were starting projects on Linux, and they couldn't
> > > wait for the day they'll go back to Windows IDEs. Linux is a
> > > wonderfull platform for developers as long as they have that
> > > hacker-spirit, as we have :-). Linux drawbacks for developers are too
> > > much configuration files to edit while deploying their software, like
> > > add user access to tty on /etc/security/console.perms, or simply
> > > activating a needed Apache module for their CGI. Oh, and configuration
> > > files location and format differ from distro to distro, so all
> > > deployments must be done by hand, with a human brain, and almost not
> > > automations (they usally don't know sed, perl, rpm, etc, and probably
> > > will not learn it). Also, the FHS is wonderful, but they don't know
> > > it, so they ask "why /etc, why /bin, why /usr/bin ?".
> > >
> > > Microsoft's most killer apps are their IDEs and development
> > > frameworks. Because they know how strategic is to have the developers
> > > (killer and business apps) working for them.
> >
> > Did you show them kdevelop??
> 
> 
> Yes, and they don't really like it, compared to MS' tools.
> I use KDeveloper. It is so so... has some annoying usability bugs.
> To manage open source autoconfig source packages is a huge chalenge
> for KDeveloper.
> 
> The most difficult part is packaging and deployment.
> Windows developers don't know how to integrate their (killer) apps
> into the OS. They are not aware of the FHS, they don't know how to
> RPMize, every distribution has different approaches to /etc/sysconfig,
> /etc/security stuff, etc. So the final experience is: "This Linux
> stuff, too confusing and it doesn't work".
> 
> Just my impressions from the market and commercial development ecosystem....
> 
> Regards,
> Avi
>