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Duffman stop showing yourself to be a fool. Most modern Linux Distros do not require any form of software/kernel complilation. They are for all extents and purposes install straight from the box.

There is no need for a mom and pop user to have to resort to command line tools or compiling. Linux has progressed from your view of it and will continue to grow in usability and functionality.

"Duffman stop showing yourself to be a fool."

I greatly doubt that Duffman himself believes it.

">A world with only one OS to choose from is a very crappy world, especially if that OS is kept behind closed doors so no one can see how it works and how they can modify it to their liking.

Yes, because today, every mom and child in the world are recompiling their windows kernel and tuning their OS with command line tool.

Ho wait, in fact not. They just doesn't care. They just want something working out of the box because THEY ARE NOT power user. "

Wow that is complete flaimbait, I said a world with only one OS would be a very crappy one, that isn't an attack on Windows, in fact it's quite the opposite as without Windows there would be less choice.

Besides that, technical users are the ones that evangelized computers to the rest of the home user market in the first place. Those technical users are still around today and they do know how to compile kernels, they also still make up a significant percentage of people with computers at home along with the younger generation of "geeks" who possess the same knowhow. In fact "geeks" usually have several computers and they appreciate all sorts of software whether proprietary or open source. For those that aren't geeks they could choose any OS they want, that's where the ability to choose comes in. They could even use Linux as there are plenty of good Linux distributions out there that can go through the entire life cycle of each release without requiring the user to use a command line, as long as the company that makes the computer chooses supported hardware which there is plenty of if you care to look.

Then there's companies that already use open source software in their products, and the best part is that they can do so freely. Did you know that at one point Red Hat was advertising on their web page that Sony's PlayStations (I can't remember if it was the PSone or the PS2) were using Red Hat Linux and OpenGL? Did you also know that there are several devices that use Linux as an embedded OS and that many developer kits for such devices are built on Linux. If companies had to rely on Microsoft or Apple products they would have to pay royalties, thus increasing the prices when OSS software works perfectly for their needs and is free.

My comment was not an attack on Mac OS, nor was is an attack on Windows. My comment clearly stated that having only one OS would suck (that could be any OS including Linux), and I was right about saying that it would especially suck if it was a closed source OS because then people wouldn't have sample code to look at and learn from for the development of another OS or the improvement of that first OS.

"Anyway can you tell me what's kept behind closed doors in Mac OS X while his base is open source ? "

The only part that is open source is darwin and a few other minor components, the rest, which is essentially what makes the difference between any unix clone and Mac OS X is closed-source. The kernel is based off FreeBSD and it really isn't significant compared to the rest of the OS. The proprietary code that went into the graphical system and the applications that run therein are what really makes OS X what it is, the rest of it is essentially just a kernel and standard command line shell not much different than what you can get for BSD or Linux.

"> I know several people who use all three operating systems, they all have different preferences but only a fraction of them preffer OS X over Linux based on the OS alone (and not cost, these guy's can afford Macs).

Funny, I noticed that every time someone is arguing about something, all the people around him think like him, use the same OS, like the same flavour of ice cream. "

Actually there are several differences between myself and my friends, and no we don't like the same flavour of ice cream. Just because you dissagree with what I have to say doesn't mean I made it up. When your argument comes down to this I know your desperate.

"> No ... its usual crap.

Just as your IDC link indeed. "

Nice try, but that quote isn't from me.

And this is comming from a guy with a registered account which is easy to keep a positive score with (given the free + points on every comment you post for having a registered account), but still has a negative score. I wouldn't be worrying about my credibility if I were you.