On 15/05/07, Ian Murdock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 5/12/07, Glynn Foster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Shawn Walker wrote:
> > As long as there is a way for users to get a fully standards-compliant
> > environment when they need / want it, I'm happy. Solaris' strict
> > standards compliance is one of the things I liked about it most. I
> > started using GNU/Linux in 1996, and didn't start using Solaris until
> > 2005. Standards compliance and documentation were the two areas the
> > stood out the most when I started using it.
>
> I agree with everything you've said, but I do wonder what happens when volume
> overcomes standards. For example, in GNOME/KDE/... we don't really have any
real
> formal standards body behind a lot of our freedesktop.org based work. We use
the
> term 'defacto standard' to pretty much mean that the technology has been
> discussed, a document written describing it, and adopted by enough projects
that
> have influence over a volume of users.
>
> Are we getting to the stage where volume is trumping an official formal
> standard? - it's an open question, I don't have any answers.
Interesting question.
One thing to think about is how standards have changed.. It's no
longer big vendors in a room deciding what "the standard" is (i.e.,
the top down approach). It's more the developers (largely in open
source projects) deciding what "the standard" is as a side
effect of writing their code.. How do we adapt to the new reality?
As long adjusting to a new reality includes the same high quality
documentation we have in Solaris today, and a standard that I can rely
upon for specific behaviour, that's good.
So far, the GNU community doesn't have that so my picture of the new
reality doesn't involve plopping down a "GNU-land" and saying we're
done.
--
"Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/
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