This ones for Scott
I thought this post would be especially good for Scott who likes not understanding what I’m saying. 
I decided to open up Google Reader this morning as it has been a long time since I’ve had a few extra cycles that weren’t already claimed. Some people like to browse the newspaper on a fine Sunday morning. Some like to watch the TV news to find out whats going on in the world. Me, I like to get caught up with my feeds.
Anyways, the very first post was Ravi’s mention of a kernel comparison between Linux and Windows on All About Linux. Nothing like reviewing system calls and memory allocations routines first thing in the morning! I must admit though, I was not surprised that Linux comes out ahead, and in my take, the clear winner. I think the crowning achievement with Open Source is definitely not the UI, but the underlying meat of the system, the kernel. Although the UI portion is really catching up and (sh|c)ould surpass Windows this year; more on that later.
In particular I think it has been the organization of the kernel team and their less than democratic process of overseeing the kernel. Don’t get me wrong, democracy is good, but sometimes it gets in the way. It seems this happens more often than not on large open source projects that have a very large, diverse developer base. As long as you have someone in charge that can lead the ship in the right direction, then it will smooth sailing for everyone on board. Linus definitely fits the bill and has surrounded himself with a core set of brilliant developers.
The only worry I have would be if a new kernel development philosophy would come along that radically differs from the current mindset. One that would require a major change in direction. I think that could really hurt the Linux rhythm and where Microsoft could jump to the head. Since they have a lot of resources at their disposal, they can shift direction immediately and still turn out a relatively good kernel (and OS) at the same time. In contrast, it would take some time to build up enough momentum on the open source side to get anything outputted worth using. And then you’d have to wait on the other surrounding groups to digest the output and build up the rest of the OS.
But at the same time, MS’s size is its Achilles heel. Collectively they miss a lot of the new and revolutionary ideas that the OSS groups experiment with and offer releases for. Of course, MS could be experimenting with these new technologies, but since they are closed source and guard themselves from prying eyes, we, the ever loving consumers, never see the fruit.
It would be interesting to witness this theoretical change as it goes down. Would the Open Source crew have the advantage with their early adoption and experimentation practices? Or would MS gain the upper hand with their shear size and budgets?
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