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December 16, 2003
Windows vs. Unix Culture
Posted by Arnold
Joel Spolsky writes,
What are the cultural differences between Unix and Windows programmers? There are many details and subtleties, but for the most part it comes down to one thing: Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers.
This is exactly my view of the cultural difference between open source programmers and proprietary programmers. One group is geeks writing software for geeks. The other group is geeks writing software for suits.
Comments (4)
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1. ivan on December 16, 2003 10:11 AM writes...
I'm not sure this is right. Take the fact that, as pointed out in the lastest Technology Quarterly of The Economist, open source code is translated in much more languages (real languages that is) then proprietary so that computers with open source software is much more accessible worldwide. It shows, i think, that open source software can become more then only programs for geeks...
Permalink to Comment2. lee on December 16, 2003 10:23 AM writes...
We need to keep clear the distinction between Unix and Open source. Not all Unix programmers are Open source programmers, and vice versa. There is such a thing as proprietary Unix software that was written for suits.
Permalink to Comment3. Brad Hutchings on December 16, 2003 11:08 AM writes...
The key quote is:
"Apple finally created Unix for Aunt Marge, but only because the engineers and managers at Apple were firmly of the end-user culture (which I've been imperialistically calling "the Windows Culture" even though historically it originated at Apple)."
Generally, I have perceived open source people to value source code above all else. For them, the source code is the product. Proprietary developers, by contrast, value source code in proportion, and a fairly small one at that. Source code is just a means to take a vision and a design and turn it into something Aunt Marge can use. And in fact, the vision and design has to be right before the source code can do any good for usability. Even in the Mac and Windows culture, there are few people who really get that.
So why, if proprietary developers value source code in proportion, would they not want to participate in open source processes or give the source code away? I don't think it's so much about wrecking the market for the "product" as much as it's a recognition that few people value vision and design in the right proportion in general or would in practice with their specific case -- that hobbyists would do stupid things like add a button here or a menu there without considering overall performance and usability.
-Brad
Permalink to Comment4. t-shirt-man on April 6, 2004 04:53 AM writes...
Very interesting article.
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