Michael wrote:
>I would like to let you know, that I have noticed, that cost of comfortable
>life in Czech Republic is cca 30% of realy minimalistic, plain survival
>lifestyle in USA. And even in Czech Republic, I wouldn't survive from
>the individual registrations - they are nice, they make me feel obliged
>to the users, but they are definitely not for real life. And it's in
>Czech Republic, where living costs are 30% of living cost in USA - in
>fact, some people are living quite decently for 4000 USD per year here,
>and 20000 USD per year would be considered to enough for really very,
>very comfortable life in Czech Republic. I am talking about middle and
>upper middle class.
Yes, this is a fact in most of the former "east block". I have a friend who
has been to Lattvia a few times (working for free for the swedish church
and other organisations) and it's amazing how you can buy most things there
for a very small ammount of money. I make two-three times as much as a
normal worker in the Baltic states do (I assume that it's roughly the same
in the most of the other countries as well) but here I can't actually live
on it because of the high prices on things. (I would need to make almost
the double only to get myself an appartment). BTW: I'm a student.
>So, if you want to develop shareware for DOS, I bet you should first
>move to Central or Eastern Europe ;-) Even with very, very tough
>shareware registration policy (which is not case of Arachhne) and lot
>of free promotion from fans (which is the case of Arachne), it can't
>cover your costs. But of course, you can try to persuade some investor
>to take the risk and give you some money ;-))
Most shareware comes from that part of the world. I assume that's one
reason, but also because of the fact that not everyone there got new jobs
when market economy came.
"Eastern" programmers are in general very good at programming. To bad not
all that is used, atleast very few make programs for Windows that's good :)
>The funny thing is, that by the time it was on TV everywhere (two years
>ago), it was really a crapy software. No really Netscape compatible,
>not really stable, not really usable. It were money from Caldera which
>turned Arachne into what is it now. Funny thing is, that they finally
>developed their own line, because they thought that I am proceeding two
>slow or unreliable, or what....
Caldera/Lineo seem to focus more on JS and Linux and you on user support
and configurability, and of course faster and faster program.
I think a friend told me about Arachne and I finally came around to
download and install it (not that he was using it, he had just seen the
homepage - just like he told me that Caldera had changed name and he
haven't even downloaded anything form their site).
>What is true is, that DOS is the only system simple enough for most
>people to let's say analyze current system configuration within ew
>minutes. Linux can be either provided with nifty front end - and then it
>becomes as confusing and uncontrolable as Windows - or you can spend
>weeks trying to understand all the conffiguration files in /etc directory
>... it's powerful, but it can't completely fill the niche which
>remained abandoned after DOS.
I agree, either Linux need to be made easier for the user(s) or the whole
thing will become a very small OS. It shouldn't be needed to understand
everything in Linux after you have installed it. A more minimalistic
approach would probably gain more users then would be lost. The users could
then learn more and more as they need to. If they don't want to learn how
to change a makefile or other script file to get a program installed then
that shouldn't be needed.
>The DOS apps in their separate directories took care about really
>everything, completely not dependent on each other, with strictly defined
>interface between them - files of certain formats.
>
>It was pretty easy to undersand for logicaly thinking people, pretty easy
>to write new applications. Compare this simplicity to systems which
>claimed they will be user friendly - the reached such level of
>complexity, that users are not able to actualy understand reasons why
>this or that is not working. Interface is not strictly defined
>(upgrading certain application may result in overwriting shared
>libraries essential for other apps - this is true for both Windows and
>Linux), in strictly GUI systems, programs are not always able to easily
>configure all system as applications are configured by clicking, not by
>text based configuration files... maybe it's really time for some kind
>of "new DOS": fast and simple system for personal use. But I still feel
>like simplifying (or better understanding) Linux may be the way to go...
Most people assume that when they shall uninstall a program they would
remove the directory where it is. (I'm talking about people who never used
a computer before Win95 here so it's not like it someone who have been
tought something else). I feel that this is the most logical way of
uninstalling a program - removing it from the HD but that isn't the case in
Windows (and probably not in Linux either, if X is installed that is).
//Bernie
http://hem1.passagen.se/bernie/ DOS programs, Star Wars ...
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