Javability (Java, Zaurus, Linux, Live)

4.11.04 13:27 Why Linux is a Better Choice than Windows (

)

As response to ongoing marketing activities from MS against Linux, Novell has created a new web site which 'clarifies' the situation of Linux in enterprise from Novell point of view.

As with the MS page, be very careful with information you find on those sites. It's very difficult to say which of this 'facts' are really true or 'made nice' by analysts.

Anyway, it's good to see that there is also more and more activities on marketing level for Linux Software.

My personal four steps of Software development:

Piece of Software: this are small applications or libraries which have been written very fast, are unmaintained, not stable ... You find many of those for Linux, especially on SourceForge (don't understand me wrong: I love SourceForge and this kind of software. This are often pioneers for new concepts and feasibility studies, things big companies often don't have time to do). You don't find much MS application in this category
Application: this means using qualitative Software development processes, having architectural concepts, API's, modularization, unit testing. Many Linux projects have this (Gnome, KDE, Apache, Linux, OpenOffice ...), and MS of course also.
Products: take an application and add more testing (QA), documentation, online help, ... Again I think that many Linux communities have reached this level.
Marketing: last but not least you need a good marketing to bring products to customers. OpenSource projects mainly only have a web site, a mailing list and IRC channel. This is where MS is very strong, but Novell activities above, the firefox newspaper campaign and more and more Linux articles in the press shows that time are changing.