Binary incompatibility of Linux distributions

[Jerry Houston]

On Tuesday 19 May 2009 08:08:44 Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu) wrote:
 >
> > from source so easy, relatively speaking, it becomes a visible option to
> > the masses, whereas in Windows word, that kind of procedure would be way
> > too daunting to even be considered among non-developers."
> >
> > and 'I' asked him whether he thinks 'tar zxf tarball.tgz, cd tarball,
> > ./configure, make,
> > make install' is 'so easy'.
>
> Compared to the Windows world, yes it is a lot easier.
>
> To do something similar on Windows, you would have to install Visual
> Studio, which is very expensive, or Visual Studio Express, which doesn't
> have all the whistles and bells of the full Visual Studio...

Actually, most applications for Windows don't _need_ to be compiled from 
sources.  They're distributed (even open source freeware) as Microsoft 
Installer databases (.MSI files) that are installed on nearly any Windows 
system without any such problems.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm a Linux fan, or I wouldn't be here.  But there's no 
need for Linux enthusiasts to reduce themselves to straw man arguments.