[Info-vax] [OT] Linux use, was: Re: Unix on A DEC Vax?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2013-01-19, Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> wrote:
> In article <50fabc31$0$6059$e4fe514c at dreader36.news.xs4all.nl>,
>  MG <marcogbNO at SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> On 19-jan-2013 15:04, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> > Linux (at least the kernel) bypassed the desktop for normal users
>> > and went straight to their consumer level handheld devices where
>> > it has become dominant in just a few short years.
>> >
>> > The userland tools on those devices however are not the fullblown
>> > tools which desktop Linux users are used to, but a restricted
>> > version suitable for the devices in question.
>> 
>> Android is hardly 'regular Linux' and in some areas is hardly as
>> open.  Many people don't even realize it's based on Linux.  The
>> fact that indeed the userland tools are so stripped down (e.g.
>> "busybox") doesn't improve the situation much either...
>
> I gather that there's a lot of fragmentation within Android too.  Here's  
> a web site devoted to the subject:
>
> http://www.androidfragmentation.com/
>
> http://www.androidfragmentation.com/about
>

Android is fragmenting, but it's fragmenting because it, and the hardware
it's running on, is evolving at an amazing rate, and to be honest I find
it rather exciting.

It reminds me of the early days of the PC when the PC standards we see
today were still developing (or didn't exist yet) and vendors tried all
kinds of different things in the race to create a better product.

This resulted in just as fragmented a PC marketplace as exists now
with Android, but look at where we are now with PC technology.

I think people, including a number of professionals, have got used to
nice safe incremental developments in a mature PC market and have
forgotten the rate at which the technology in the PC world used to grow
at in the early days and the new applications which opened up as a result.

In the same way that the PC became a enabling technology that we now take
for granted, what we are seeing now is also going to become a enabling
technology for new portable/mobile applications.

One day we will get the Android version of beige boxes, but by that time,
a whole new ecosystem will have been created. (And then, if history is
any guide, we will get additional platforms to fix whatever limits might
remain in Android. :-))

Simon.

PS: Yes, I've just read back over my post and it sounds rather gushing :-),
but been honest, I'm happy I have not lost my enthusiasm for new enabling
technology.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world