Wholly unnecessary flame. (was Re: pyXML!)

[Grant Griffin]

Tim Peters wrote:
> 
> [Tim]
> > We Windows weenies are *all* major leeches off Mark Hammond's tireless
> > multi-year Python Windows work, and he had no luck *begging* for help
> > much of that time.
> 
> [and among some similar replies, we have ...]
> 
> [Max Møller Rasmussen]
> > VC does not come installed on every windows machine you know.
> 
> [[Monty Taylor]
> > Which is a fairly appropriate summary as to why Open Source
> > projects do tend to wither a bit on Windows.  It's not quite so much
> > fun to contribute if you have to pay for the priviledge.
> 
> It's uncanny that, among tens of thousands of Windows Python users, a
> handful just *knew* I was complaining about them specifically <wink>.
> 
> It's a percentage game, Windows or not:  the majority of users of any
> project, regardless of platform, won't contribute anything tangible back.
> That's fine; the game works that way for good & obvious reasons.  But I
> maintain that the percentage among Windows users is *remarkably* small,
> after allowing for that relatively (compared to, say, Linux) few Windows
> weenies have a usable compiler.  It *appears* to be even worse on the Mac
> (Classic OS), where Jack Jansen has been making Python fly seemingly all by
> himself for years.
> 
> Curious, isn't it?  The availability of development tools isn't enough to
> account for it; neither sheer number of users nor their platform expertise.
> So don't think of it as an attack -- it's an invitation to ponder the
> mysteries of human nature and how they manifest in choice of primary OS <0.9
> wink>.

Hey waitaminute...are you suggesting that "techies"--who always
gravitate toward "the best" technology--mostly seem to prefer the
technology of Unix over the technology of Windows?  And are you maybe
suggesting that people who want to be a part of "The Open Source
Movement" <getting teary eyed just thinking about it> would prefer an OS
like "The GNU/Linux System" which is completely "open" (if not actually
free in a "beer" sense <wink>) over Windows?

in-that-case,-i-guess-i'm-stumped-too-<wink>-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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