[Dovecot] Standards of expectations for software installs

[Stan Hoeppner]

Marc Perkel put forth on 8/16/2010 12:22 PM:

> No - I'm saying that an upgrade that does exactly the same thing as the
> earlier version should "just work" without having to research cryptic
> error messages you get after the new software fails to load. What I'm
> saying is that Linux should be as easy as Windows.

Would you like Linux based operating systems/applications to be as insecure as
Windows?

Would you like Linux based operating systems/application log entries to be as
worthless when attempting to troubleshoot something as with Windows?

Would you like Linux based operating systems/applications to change the
location of menu items and configuration options with each upgrade just for
the sake of "change"?  So people don't think "what the hell did I just pay
$500 for?  Nothing changed!?"

Etc, etc, etc.

Everything is a trade-off Marc.  All the effort that Microsoft puts into
making things "easy" takes resources and focus away from other areas, often
critical areas.  Those other areas are more critical for Linux/Unix systems
and applications because people need reliability from them more than they need
ease of installation.

The Linux world doesn't do everything right, and the MS world doesn't do
everything wrong.  But overall I think the Linux world tends to strike a
better overall balance.  It all comes down to expectations.  You _expect_ MS
things to work a certain way.  The Linux world is inherently different.  So
you shouldn't automatically expect things in the Linux world to work "The
Microsoft Way".  And frankly you shouldn't want it that way either.

-- 
Stan