What makes Linux great?

[Charles Steinkuehler]

Michael Surkan wrote:

> I am particularly interested in hearing from Linux users, and get their 
> input about what they feel should be the priorities. In particular, I 
> would like to better understand what it is that makes Linux and Open 
> Source solutions so useful for you.

- The ability to fix bugs.  I have personally submitted numerous 
bugfixes for open-source code I use, and proivded detailed bug reports 
to the maintainers if something was beyond my coding ability to fix.  In 
M$ land, the same annoying bugs live on from version to version, never 
getting squashed  (despite detailed reporting of the problems, and 
usually picking up a few new friends with each version update).

- Flexability of configuration.  I run linux on single-purpose firewall 
machines, 1U headless servers, GUI desktop systems, and 64-bit Alpha 
machines (that used to run NT, but are now unsupported by M$).  Each 
system has enough software installed to do the tasks required, but not a 
lot of 'extras'.

- Ongoing support of alternative architectures (ie 64-bit Alpha systems, 
above, as well as the ability to run on PPC, Arm, and other processors).

- Security updates.  While all software will occasionally require 
security updates, I find that updating a particular package (or 
packages) on a linux distribution tends to be a much 'safer' process 
than installing the bundled service packs typically released by 
Microsoft, requiring less regression testing to verify everything still 
works since each package update is limited in scope, and I can easily 
control which updates I choose to apply or not apply.

- Ease of remote administration via low-bandwidth ssh sessions.

- Licensing.  Last time I checked, linux was not a member of the BSA. :)

> If you would be willing to take a survey I have put together, please 
> write me at lnq at microsoft.com.

I'll take a look at it, but I'll be suprised if you're asking the right 
questions...

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net