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Robustness Principle It's no secret that many commercial software products are deliberately designed to be incompatible with other products. Usually, incompatibility is the goal of a market leader trying to ensure marketplace dominance. Customers are afraid to buy products from other companies because they know that incompatibilities will increase their costs over the long haul. They keep their costs low by purchasing everything from one vendor - the market leader. This is how monopolies are created and how they continue to flourish. Even when customers discover that there are better products from different vendors, customers continue to buy from the market leader. Designers of Linux and Unix software are influenced by the Robustness Principle. The principle says "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others". The majority of Linux and Unix software abides by this principle and the result is general compatibility between systems. The Robustness Principle dates back many years and can be found in many of our core Internet standards such as the IP and TCP protocols. These standards were published in 1981 but the principle predates them. This priciple encourages excellence in design and maximizes interoperability. It's practical meaning is:
The principle is still honored today and is frequently mentioned in modern day Internet standards documents (RFC 2015 is just one example). Compatibility is a tradition in the world of the Internet, Unix and now Linux. As vendors try to catch the Linux wave and capitalize on its popularity, they must be aware (and we must remind them) that this time-honored principle also applies to them. |