Nick McGrath, Microsoft’s head of platform strategy, is at the spearhead of the software giant’s attempts to head off the open source danger. Having helped launched both NT4 and XP into the UK, the 15-year Microsoft veteran now concentrates on combating the threat posed by organisations migrating to Linux. But, with an almost mockingly dismissive opinion of the opportunities brought about by Linux, McGrath is insistent that Microsoft is not losing ground. Instead he claims that Microsoft is winning key corporate and public sector deals on the critical battlegrounds of cost and security.
And we are to believe the hype? Microsoft has a long history of dishonesty and of funding these “impartial” studies. No one buys it anymore. The FUD machine is losing steam.
One method you might try, write a better os.
To write a better OS they will need to know what’s wrong with the current OS. So tell us what is wrong with it?
Free software yes, free consultation never. I thought that’s what their Linux lab was for.
So you are going to criticize them but not tell them what they are doing wrong or are you just bashing MS because thats the cool thing to do nowadays?
So you are going to criticize them but not tell them what they are doing wrong or are you just bashing MS because thats the cool thing to do nowadays?
Nowadays? It’s always been fun/justified.
Person 1: You suck!
Person 2: Why??
Person 1: If I told you, you’d change and that’d be bad for me since you would be just like me.
If you don’t want to be called on it, don’t post flamebait.
So you guys don’t think that writing a better OS is all they have to do to eliminate percieved threats from their competition? Anyone without a white paper on how to maintain an iron grip on the desktop market STFU! Ok attitude I guess. As more from a victim of Microsoft’s rise to power, who would not care much one way or the other by their fall from such lofty heights I will give you this much, start by looking back at 3.11 or 95 and think on more of a spartan miniamalist point of view with a lot more component think and less monolithic, dummp dead weight like the registry so components could carry their own config. Wait that leaves room for other people at the trough and opens the door for third party products and little developer shops feeding their families. Better to just copy protect and theme the heck out of it. Yeah that’s what people need. Microsoft is the only threat to Windows, announcing these strategies as bulwarks against some hobbyist unix clone in my opinion seems more like propoganda to make them look less like a monopoly. I just don’t smell their fear.
I’ve been using Linux for several years and while I’ve seen some improvement, it’s just falling further and further behind Windows and other OSes. Fact is, without a large army of paid programmers creating a well-integrated, well-designed operating system, Linux is only going to continue to fall behind and all the steam that’s been built up will begin to collapse. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Linux’s marketshare began to decrease soon.
So… why are you still using it then?
Because I like doing C, bash and Perl programming on it, I have to do homework using Linux and we use Mac and Linux at work (so using Linux is much easier than using Windows). Xgl’s also kind of cool, though that won’t matter any more once Vista comes out.
Why doesn’t it seem to occur to some people (not neccessarily you) that Linux does not exist to fight/kill Microsoft. Some people may use/develop for that purpose – but many programmers program FOR Linux not AGAINST Microsoft.
This is in response to the XGL reference – it’s not just a competitor to Vista Effects/OSX Effects -it’s also a badly needed GUI update (adding hardware accel. etc). Plus some people might actually like using it. Maybe not hordes of new users… Maybe just those of us who’ve used Linux for a while now.
I’m curious though – how is Linux falling behind Windows? Seriously, Vista will be the first update to XP in what? 5, 6 years? And while there are some improvements/updates/new features – how is it beating out Linux?
It does matter because unless Linux gets significant marketshare and mindshare, it will be locked out of more advanced technologies which are increasingly proprietary and patent-encumbered. So even those who just want to be able to use their Linux and don’t care about MS really do have to care about MS because if they don’t, MS will make it impossible to really use Linux unless you want to use out of date software and hardware.
Edited 2006-10-05 02:30
Nonsens.
At the very least come with some examples. So far you’re just saying “meeeh maaah moooh”…
Why doesn’t it seem to occur to some people (not neccessarily you) that Linux does not exist to fight/kill Microsoft.
Easy, because MS PR always talks about everything as their competitors every time they can. Just look up articles and news items, countless sites start their headlines whenever talking about some word processing application, some online service, now some music player, development platform, whatever you pick, as MS-competitor-something. It’s good for them this way because thus they can order some “neutral” evaluation and make themselves look better in the eyes of the large crowds – and believe me, they are so easy to convince with good PR.
If they wouldn’t picture everybody else as being competitors, and just let them evolve, become better, gain ground, that would translate directly into loss of revenue for them, so they just must behave this way.
For many people, because of all this, it’s really hard to comprehend that an open source project can exist for its users and because of the passion of the developers. They just can’t easily comprehend that not everybody starts a project on sourceforge to become the next MS killer – although probably a fair amount of them dreams about this once in a while
Why doesn’t it seem to occur to some people (not neccessarily you) that Linux does not exist to fight/kill Microsoft.
Because that’s the impression that Linux users leave folk with. Rather than focussing on Linux, they spend all their time bashing MS. When people don’t see the ‘millions of viruses that appear as soon as they switch the machine on’ or ‘three hundred crashes a day’, then they wonder what else Linux fans are lying about.
Rather than focussing on Linux, they spend all their time bashing MS.
Right, that’s how KDE got developed, because bashing MS is a magical incantation that can create software.
When people don’t see the ‘millions of viruses that appear as soon as they switch the machine on’ or ‘three hundred crashes a day’, then they wonder what else Linux fans are lying about.
Well, I’ve never seen anyone, Linux user or not, say that “millions of viruses appear as soon as you turn the machine on,” or that it crashes “three hundred times a day”. However, I have seen Windows crash multiple times a day despite a total lack of interaction with the system by the user. I also know people who have had to reinstall Windows because of spyware, viruses, or because the system slowed to a ridiculously unusable rate. Given that what you say seems only to be unsubstantiated exaggeration, what else are you lying about?
Why doesn’t it seem to occur to some people (not neccessarily you) that Linux does not exist to fight/kill Microsoft. Some people may use/develop for that purpose – but many programmers program FOR Linux not AGAINST Microsoft.
Well, all that you have to do is look at comments on this and other forums to see people bashing Microsoft and its products. Granted, this contingent of zealots may comprise a small percentage of Linux advocates, but they are anything if not vocal.
Well, all that you have to do is look at comments on this and other forums to see people bashing Microsoft and its products. Granted, this contingent of zealots may comprise a small percentage of Linux advocates, but they are anything if not vocal.
You could equally well say:
Well, all that you have to do is look at coments on this and other forums to see people bashing Linux and the distributions. Granted, this continent of zealots may comprise a small percentage of Windows/MacOS advocates, but they are anything if not vocal.
Believe it or not, we also praise stuff, including but not limited to Linux distributions. However, a lot of our time is unfortunately spent attempting to defeat FUD. In most people’s minds “Microsoft=computers”, therefore any FUD spread about Linux and other systems is likely to be believed. The shoe would be on the other foot if MS were the upstart, believe me. Assuming that in this parallel universe, MS could produce software that could compete without being a defacto monopoly.
How do you figure it’s falling behind? Technically speaking, there is no possible way it can fall behind Windows, the newest released version of Windows is how old? Sure hey have Win2k3, Windows MCE,etc. But they’re stall all just WinXp with some modifications.
Linux distributions and the Linux kernel itself have only come leaps and bounds. Try a distribution from XP’s era (2001) and then try a current one, Ubuntu Dapper Drake, Fedora Core 5, Suse 10.1, etc. They are all far easier to install, maintain and look much nicer than Windows XP ever has. I don’t mean just initial install, how many WinXP installs out there actually have everything set up out of the box, anywhere near the level that Linux distros are. On my current hardware, which is quite old by computer standards (Still running AGP, amd64 3200+ non dual-core. Basically everything is about 2+ years old.) everything on it is detected and set up right off the bat in most Linux distributions, with the exception of the nvidia drivers, which are easy to install. Windows on the other hand, has no network card support for either of the on-board nics (it’s an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard nforce 3), needs chipset drivers, video drivers, sound drivers (audigy 2) etc. Granted a lot of this hard ware still came out after Xp, bu you’d think with slipstreamed service packs they’d add more drivers.)
I’ve seen nothing but the opposite as far as their marketshare, they’re also getting more mind share.
> How do you figure it’s falling behind? Technically
> speaking, there is no possible way it can fall behind
> Windows, the newest released version of Windows is
> how old? Sure hey have Win2k3, Windows MCE,etc. But
> they’re stall all just WinXp with some modifications.
Linux still hasn’t caught up to Windows XP, to say nothing of Windows 2000 or even some of the features in Windows 95. Furthermore, since commercial software HAS continued to be updated for Windows, Linux loses even more there.
“Linux distributions and the Linux kernel itself have only come leaps and bounds. Try a distribution from XP’s era (2001) and then try a current one, Ubuntu Dapper Drake, Fedora Core 5, Suse 10.1, etc. They are all far easier to install, maintain and look much nicer than Windows XP ever has. I don’t mean just initial install, how many WinXP installs out there actually have everything set up out of the box, anywhere near the level that Linux distros are. On my current hardware, which is quite old by computer standards (Still running AGP, amd64 3200+ non dual-core. Basically everything is about 2+ years old.) everything on it is detected and set up right off the bat in most Linux distributions, with the exception of the nvidia drivers, which are easy to install. Windows on the other hand, has no network card support for either of the on-board nics (it’s an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard nforce 3), needs chipset drivers, video drivers, sound drivers (audigy 2) etc. Granted a lot of this hard ware still came out after Xp, bu you’d think with slipstreamed service packs they’d add more drivers.)”
Again, see what I said above. Linux still hasn’t even caught up to the competition yet in any of the important areas…even security (the Unix security model is a joke in this day an age).
> I’ve seen nothing but the opposite as far as their
> marketshare, they’re also getting more mind share.
A lot of that is just left-over dot-bomb hype. As the evangelism and OMG! Cool! factors continue to melt away, we’ll see what happens with Linux marketshare.
Linux still hasn’t caught up to Windows XP, to say nothing of Windows 2000 or even some of the features in Windows 95. Furthermore, since commercial software HAS continued to be updated for Windows, Linux loses even more there.
Dood, XP is *later* than W2K or 95. And it’s not as if software development on Linux stopped in 94 or even 97.
Again, see what I said above. Linux still hasn’t even caught up to the competition yet in any of the important areas…even security (the Unix security model is a joke in this day an age).
Define “important areas”. Linux has LDAP, SElinux, and several other MAC schemes, Novell AppArmor, the list goes on. Webmin for graphical administration, kdevelop for graphical app development, firefox, thunderbird and openoffice for browsing, mail and office work. And Linux doesn’t encourage (much less force) you to run untrusted apps as a privileged user. Yet you say the *linux* security model is a joke? Yup, uhuh. Lots of catching up to do there.
A lot of that is just left-over dot-bomb hype. As the evangelism and OMG! Cool! factors continue to melt away, we’ll see what happens with Linux marketshare.
The “evangelism and OMG! cool” factors have been here since Linux got started; they aren’t going away. There’s also the advantage of there being some sort of relationship between the hype and reality; unlike some OSes we could mention, Linux actually works once in a while.
Could you please explain what areas you’re talking about? I’m very confused since after dualbooting XP and Linux for ~2 years I’ve gone over to run only Linux. Why? Well that was the OS I used the most and to top it off it runs better and doesn’t do things I haven’t told it to (unlike another well known OS).
Point being, what do you mean with “hasn’t caught up yet”? Because where I’m standing it is up to par and better.
I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s moving along nicely and from what I’ve seen Windows Vista won’t bring anything so great that I’d feel the need to switch, actually it seems to bring features that I’d never want in a million years.
Could you please explain what areas you’re talking about? I’m very confused since after dualbooting XP and Linux for ~2 years I’ve gone over to run only Linux.).
I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s moving along nicely …
Well, you yourself said it wasn’t perfect. So think about all the ways in which it is not perfect, and then you will know the areas where it is lacking.
Personally, I think Windows and Linux both have their strengths, but I think where it really matters, the appplications (at least on the desktop, dunno about the server), Windows wins hands down. Sure, there’s a lot of crappy applications out there for Windows, but there are also a lot of stellar ones.
If it wasn’t for this one thing, I’d be using either Linux or a Mac right now. I don’t think Linux is falling behind in this area, but it’s not gaining a lot of ground either. If you doubt me, ask yourself this quesiton …
If you could have any/all the Windows applications you wanted ported to Linux and available to you for free (and open source, for those of you who swing that way), how many Windows offerings would replace whatever you’re currently using in Linux? For example, would you still use NVU if you could get a native Dreamweaver for free?
Edited 2006-10-05 02:26
While I agree with your post. I honestly cannot think of any Windows software I want ported.
One of my hobbies is photography. I arty-farty up most photos I take. I qualified using Photoshop. However, the Gimp is a far better program to use. It does not take much to move from Photoshop to the Gimp. It is just that sheeple do not want to learn anything… they are worried that if they learn more stuff, it will push older stuff out of their heads hahaha.
Oh, and yes, I use the Gimp professionally.
Office suites ? emm, no, although I use Openoffice now and again, if someone sends me a .DOC, Abiword more than copes with it… no matter what version if Word created it… can all MSWords do that ? No
Spreadsheets are aptly hadled by Gnumeric. Sweetnic.
Now, I woukd like things ported the other way….
Lin3gp for converting Divx for my mobile phone, for free and not ad supported.
K3B, far better than Nero.
Gkrellm for system performance monitoring at a glance.
Amarok… no wait..
Amarok should NEVER be ported to Windows, it should stay *nix based, it is a killer app. Nothing on Windows or Mac comes close.
Real coders like Linux coders don’t use WYSIWYG editors, we use things like gVim, Jedit, Kate, etc. And we follow W3C standards, we validate our code and we do really nice web sites.dreamweaver is already old school.
Edited 2006-10-05 09:37
First of all. Stating that something is perfect would mean that there’s no need to develop it further and that is a really stupid thing to do.
Second, the areas I was thinking of was harware support. Stuff like webcams and graphic-cards. Considering the big hurdle that most vendors doesn’t release drivers for Linux the penguin has gotten a long way.
About applications… I actually think the applications for Linux wins. Totem is better than the movie apps on Windows, I like Rhythmbox better than iTunes (since RB can play OGG without problem, but also for it’s UI), Nautilus gets me around quicker than Windows Explorer so on and so forth.
The only thing I’m missing is a good BitTorrent-client that isn’t written in Java (*hint hint*).
Stuff like webcams and graphic-cards.
Nvidia chipset based graphics cards are sufficiently supported with drivers for linux,freebsd,solaris.
Nvidia chipset based graphics cards are sufficiently supported with drivers for linux,freebsd,solaris.
I know (I have a nVidia card myself for that sole reason) but there are other cards out there for which the situation is grimmer. There’s also the drawback that the closed drivers seems to develop slower than the OpenSource ones. But that aside they are the best option for a graphics card when using Linux. In my opinion at least.
My wife went a simular road a couple of years back. When I purchased a new computer about 3 years ago – I made it dual boot – mostly so my wife could have her Windows but some also because I need to test websites in IE from time to time.
For a while I was always rebooting the sytem. After a while the reboots became less often. Then one day I left the system in Windows – when I came back it was in Linux – I was told by my “got to have Windows” wife that Windows was both ugly and harder to use. This computer now rarely reboots.
It is all in the eye of the beholder. You mention some basic arguments that can easly be dismissed with if you bother to read up on it and see it objectively, case by case. “Commercial software has continued to be updated for Windows, Linux loses even more there.” Yeah, mass migration to Windows 98… yeah right.
What important areas are you refering to? The massive amount of software that i can install with a few clicks? And i dont have to worry about a virus, troyan or other pesky stuff. Or the fact that i can run a heavly used system for a few weeks without it ending up on a snail speed? The choises and freedom that one can do with it?
Linux has its problems, it aint heaven. But before you just state something without backing it up and refering afterwards to the same statement does’nt make much sence to me.
You say the security model is a joke.. Well, my servers arn’t joking with keeping people out. No locking down afterwards as is required with Windows. Why is it a joke? Because it doesnt have the same model as Windows has? Because there are multiple security implementations possible on about any level? Because it has stack protection? It is not like that was available when windows XP was released as far as i know. Most stuff came with the dreaded SP2.
Because there isn’t one big fat company behind it but a widespread legion of developers doing the work in their own time doesn’t make sence either. Big names are involved also, and they contribute nicely. Dont forget that a lot of those people that work on OSS in their free time have a living as a programmer. Just look at Samba. Transfer rates where higher then with Samba then MS’s implementation.
Linux and F/OSS software doesn’t have to conquer. As long as people just continue to write what they want to and continue to elaborate and share with one anoter there is no loss IMHO.
I’m starting to wonder why i even replied. I doubt youl consider my words seriously. To bed with me!
Edited 2006-10-04 23:46
I call troll. You attack Linux and declare it’s “falling behind” – but with nothing solid. Important areas? What?
Anything specific? Anything solid?
Even when you attack the “joke” that is the “unix security model” you don’t mention anything remotely specific.
Hence, I call FUD. Until you decide to actually BACK UP a claim.
“even security (the Unix security model is a joke in this day an age).”
It’s nice of you to flaunt your ignorance of the subject so openly.
Since you didnt specify exactly what you ment by “UNIX secutity model” I presume you mean the traditioal, non-acl-based model.
That model works percetly fine. While it doesnt allow the fine grained permissions of ACL systems 95% of the time you dont need such fine grained permissions and then all the ACL model does is make things unnecesarily complicated.
Also, what good does the ACL model do Windows since most users run with administrative privilieges anyway?
Btw, there are ACL implementations for UNIX but then again you wouldnt know anything about that.
“As the evangelism and OMG! Cool! factors continue to melt away, we’ll see what happens with Linux marketshare.”
As the market hype and OMG! Cool! factors continue to melt away, we’ll see what happens with Windows marketshare.
Edited 2006-10-05 03:00
Again, see what I said above. Linux still hasn’t even caught up to the competition yet in any of the important areas…even security (the Unix security model is a joke in this day an age).
Jeebus friggin’ heavens, do we really have to cope up with such types of professionals ? Man I just feel like throwing something somewhere.
And then, it has more !
Linux still hasn’t caught up to Windows XP, to say nothing of Windows 2000 or even some of the features in Windows 95.
See ? My fuses just went out the roof, and this is really a high building
Bullshit.
At least come with examples. Even a two year old linux distribution beats XP (no wonder – XP is 5 years old).
What do Windows (even win95) have that Linux today is missing?
Come with examples, and not just more empty claims.
umm adware and spyware
Oh sorry ’bout that. Should’ve remembered
no worries it’s human to forget
What do Windows (even win95) have that Linux today is missing?
People using it on their computers.
Hmm… last time I checked my father was running Gentoo, my older brother Fedora, and I’m running Gentoo as well – not to mention SkyOS, Syllable, Haiku, Windows 2003 Server Standard (just replaced my XP installation), eComStation, minix and AROS.
Does anybody still use Win95? :O
Maybe NotParker does. Apparently he runs a company. (Or at least he referred to some entity as “my company”). I wonder if he uses it (Win95) to run an Active Directory system. 😉
Is that even possible? :O
Nope, (thus the joke) – but does he know that? 😉
Unlike the last episode of South Park (10×08), your comment was pretty funny.
EDIT: Typo ^_^
Edited 2006-10-05 10:26
“A lot of that is just left-over dot-bomb hype. As the evangelism and OMG! Cool! factors continue to melt away, we’ll see what happens with Linux marketshare.”
And the point of Vista is what? Oh yeah, “OMG! Cool!” that have continuously melted away, and what do we have? A beast of an operating system that will require ungodly amounts of hardware to even boot up and be usable.
Any of the cool actual “Features” of Vista have been dropped.
And anyone who can possibly say that Unix security model is a joke is simply a troll or an utter and complete moron.
This is actually a great point -the ungodly requirements just to use.
I picked up a copy of PCWorld in a train station the other day – I used to be an avid subscriber 5 years ago or so and it’s where I started expanding my knowledge of the PC world.
Anyway, I was shocked to see an article referring to the author’s Athlon XP 3500+ with 1 (maybe 2) GB of RAM and a 250GB HD to be “Mediocre at best.”
Huh? Sorry? Excuse me? While it may not render video or handle 3D gaming like a Core 2 Duo, I’m shocked that this magazine had the audacity to print this…
Win XP/Linux is not going to boot much faster on that than my Xp 2000+ with 512mb of RAM and 80gb hd (and yes, I know I need more RAM…) that’s over 5 years old. My computer can play the most of the latest games, albeit not with all the settings cranked up.
XGL etc runs flawlessly. I can easily multitask and even handle video encoding pretty well – so I ask, if not to sell Vista, what the heck’s the point of the article?
Besides of course inspiring that urge “OMG ME NEED BUY MORE NOW! I need 2.9984% faster iTUNES LAUNCHIN!!!”
Any of the cool actual “Features” of Vista have been dropped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
Wow, you must be in a cave you surely have no idea what your talking about Bill G. opps, sorry you wanted to keep that secert.
+2 funny.
Wow, you must be in a cave you surely have no idea what your talking about Bill G. opps, sorry you wanted to keep that secert.
Oh grow up…
Is windows your idea of a well-integrated, well-designed OS?
Hint: integrated != monolithic.
I like how this guy from Microsoft is talking about maturity as in “commercially viable”.
There is also technical maturity. I’d really, really like them to get a clue on that front. I’m tired of the random slowness and responsiveness drops of their expensive OS, even with a boatload of ram.
But it’s weird that they are back to basic FUD after all those “we’re trying to understand linux” messages they have been sending, with their internal linux labs etc.
But it’s weird that they are back to basic FUD after all those “we’re trying to understand linux” messages they have been sending, with their internal linux labs etc.
You think that is weird? I think it is the only thing MS has left.
MS knows it can’t match what GNU/Linux has. GNU/Linux has major commercial companies backing it, it has volunteers backing it. It has mindshare among corporations and among average computer users. It has achieved a technical level on which it can easily compete with MS.
MS only got where it is with panache, good marketing and (until now) undercutting the competition on price. They sold IBM an OS that they didn’t possess at the time the deal was struck. Look up QDos. They had good marketing on Windows 95. They undercut Wordperfect and Lotus on office applications with sweatheart bundling deals.
All of that doesn’t work anymore. Panache, marketing and price reduction doesn’t make XP run safer or more reliable on PC hardware. GNU/Linux does offer a sounder technical solution to use a computer.
So the only way MS can combat the GNU/Linux threat, is making people doubt that GNU/Linux can work for them, so they fear that they might lose out if it becomes dominant. In turn all the people uncertain about the merits of GNU/Linux start FUDding themselves, because they have unconsciously started seeing GNU/Linux as a threat to the computing environment they have been led to believe to be the best they can get.
I’ve been using Linux for several years and while I’ve seen some improvement, it’s just falling further and further behind Windows and other OSes.
And what universe are you living in ?
I’ve been using Linux for several years and while I’ve seen some improvement, it’s just falling further and further behind Windows and other OSes.
And what universe are you living in ?
I remember hearing similar statements on a quick stop at planet Zonk.
“I’ve been using Linux for several years and while I’ve seen some improvement, it’s just falling further and further behind Windows and other OSes. Fact is, without a large army of paid programmers creating a well-integrated, well-designed operating system, Linux is only going to continue to fall behind and all the steam that’s been built up will begin to collapse. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Linux’s marketshare began to decrease soon.”
I -couldn’t- disagree more.
When started playing with Linux, more then 11 years ago, I was in the process of replacing OS2 with Windows NT 4.0.
NT had a semi-automated graphical isntaller; good out-of-the-box hardware support with semi-working PNP; decent UI and file management; multi-language-capable Office suite and a fully integrated development suite (Visual Studio).
Oh, NT also had full hardware-based OpenGL support – which ran HL1, Q2, 3, etc just fine.
On the other hand, RedHat 1.1 (?), had no real installer to speak of; had very limited (and I’m being nice!) hardware support and almost -zero- hardware auto-detection and PNP support (took me -hours- to get the floppy and the CDROM working… don’t get me started about my lousy VGA chipset); no 3D, no games, and using MWM as a Windows manager was a billion years from what Windows had to offer.
Fast forward 10 years later, FC5 detects all my hardware out of the box; hot-plugged devices just work ™; we have full 3D support and 3D enabled UIs; OpenOffice doesn’t rival Office 2K3/5 but it comes damn close (though a bit slow…); KDevelop and Anjuta are beginning to close the gap from the over-bearing uber-bloated VS 2005 (I don’t really mind, I switched to vim long ago
) and KDE + composite on my desktop makes the XP eye-candy look dull and old.
Yes, Vista may recreate the gap once again (though my experience with RC2 was less then stellar), but compare NT4 to RH1.x; compare W2K to RH6.x or compare RH7.x to XP, you’ll understand how well Linux (and the OSS world) did in the past ten years and how small the gap has become.
– Gilboa
Leave it up to zdnet for sensationalizing their articles. I especially like how they use the terms open source and linux interchangebly.
I’m not really sure what the threat was. Was it linux or open source? Linux I can understand as its in direct competition with Microsoft for the OS market. But open source shouldn’t pose a threat as it is a general term, and many of these open source applications can run on Windows.
But he did get one thing right when he said “There are many alternatives to Microsoft Office on the Linux platform.” I would agree with Microsoft not to put effort into making Office for linux since most of the linux community would shun them anyway.
Hmm, well yes and no. Pretty soon the only competition MS is going to have in anything other than bespoke applications is open source – the closed-source and/or fee-charging vendors just can’t compete with its “provide everything free and installed by default” mentality.
And no, Windows fanboys, Linux is not the same. In Linux you can choose to install any of several browsers from multiple sources. Or not to install any at all.
Hmmn, there isn’t much here aside from Microsoft denying that they do deals to retain big customers who’d otherwise move away from Windows. That, and casually feeding in alleged “facts” from these surveys they’re so fond of, such as Microsoft having a better record of issuing patches than the Linux boys. It’s been pointed out umpteen times that comparing Windows patches to patches on “Linux” which includes patches to any of about the 15,000 apps Linux supports is largely meaningless.
It’s too bad Mr McGrath wasn’t asked to expand on a more interesting subject. In his words:
“I don’t see people moving towards Linux — I see people moving away from Unix. We have an end-to-end solution unlike Linux, which is a point-to-point solution. In the Linux environment you end up buying a very specific solution for a point need. [But] will there be one operating system that everyone uses? No.”
This is stuff worth talking about, imho, and it’s a pity that the interview just settled lazily on the standard MS line market-speak stylee.
let’s look at it closer
“I see people moving away from Unix. We have an end-to-end solution unlike Linux”
He’s suggesting that Microsoft will absorb some of the business that HP, Sun, and IBM have with their Unix services. I cant vouche if that is true or not but how that ties into Linux I don’t understand, just lump anything with a *nix at the end of it I guess and no one will notice.
I’ve been bottling this up for years, but now I can’t hold it in any more.
Linux doesn’t end in *nix!
I feel better already.
We have an end-to-end solution unlike Linux, which is a point-to-point solution.
I too wished he had made this point clear at the end.
In the Linux environment you end up buying a very specific solution for a point need.
Very odd thing to say indeed about an os that tries so hard to be everything to everybody on every platform.
“We have an end-to-end solution unlike Linux, which is a point-to-point solution.”
End-to-end? I think he means something like general-purpose, and the point-to-point means … focused? Appliance-like and specially tuned for the task?
I can see where both have their uses, so I think McGrath’s just trying to remind us that Windows has a place, and Linux does too.
Marketshare statistic-ly speaking I’m sure Microsoft thinks the market should stay just as it is — well, back in 1999.
Edited 2006-10-05 01:52
“integrated.” I really wish they’d quit using that word. Am I the only person that thinks “bad architecture” and “high coupling” everytime someone says “integrated?” Or do most people think “intuitive to use?”
You’re not the only person who thinks that, but maddeningly your last sentence is right.
Personally, I think cat(1) is perfectly well integrated with lp(1)!
Ya Integrated Virus proliferation. Integrated Security holes, Integrated Spyware infestation. Seems to me Integration is the one thing MS has done right.
-nX
Linux – Tomcat – PostgresSql – SendMail
End of Story.
hahaha, linux is currently way ahead of microsoft in stability, security, ease, hardware support, EVERYTHING. the only thing linux doesent have is a ton of games, and crappy commercialized adware MSn clients.
“the only thing linux doesent have is a ton of games”
Hopefully this will change soon: GPL’d doom-like games are here
http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/
I think XP is the serious threat to Vista at the moment.
Linux as long as it keeps growing, and evolving will be just fine.
Company with near monopoly makes claims to having what customers want.
News at 6!
*snore*
Yes, Microsoft may have rivaled Linux at it own game but that wont be the end for us.
Linux and open-source developers will now have to work more diligently to rival Vista’s new kernel security features and beat it’s UI in KDE 4.
I think it will happen before Windows Fuji (the minor successor to Vista).
Linux and open-source developers will now have to work more diligently to rival Vista’s new kernel security features and beat it’s UI in KDE 4.
Why do people think this has to be a competition all the time?
The future isn’t Windows or Linux, it’s Web 3.0.
It will be beamed directly to your eyelids!!1
to my eyelids? BAH! W1Nd0z /15tA jACkz 1Nt0 t3h |3rA1||!!! m1CR0Z()fT pWnz Ur m1nD!!!!111!1!!1!
(my attempt at imitating a winboy. Too literary?)
Linux on the desktop: Less than 1% year after year
Linux on the server: 60% growth, to 40% to 20% to 6% this year. Probably 0 next year. Or even negative growth.
Essentially Linux just cherry picked the Unix installs that could be run on cheaper hardware. Now its over.
“60% growth, to 40% to 20% to 6% this year. Probably 0 next year. Or even negative growth.”
That’s because the larger share you get, the less there is left to grow in.
Growth cant continute forever, you know.
That’s because the larger share you get, the less there is left to grow in.
Growth cant continute forever, you know.
Sure, assuming that the market is saturated. But it clearly isn’t, so your reasoning doesn’t hold.
Saturated or not is not the point. A market has a limit and the closer to that limit you get the smaller your growth will be.
Is it your opinion that we are at a flat period in server sales?
Is it your opinion that we are at a flat period in server sales?
Hugely declining growth for Linux.
For example, in 2003 Linux was growing at 63% / 53% for revenue / unit shipments.
http://news.com.com/Linux+server+sales+show+high-end+trend/2100-734…
And in 2006, Q2 that dropped to 6.1 / 9.7
http://www.itjungle.com/tlb/tlb082906-story01.html
Windows in 2006 was still growing at 11% in unit shipments.
Edited 2006-10-06 19:30
Nice… where is the evidence? Your not using MS-stats right?
Which year was the 60% growth and which year was 40 and 20 and 6 percent growth?
Linux growth will at some point clearly decline, just like Microsoft growth has declined (and actually Microsoft growth is negative – in percent).
Which year was the 60% growth and which year was 40 and 20 and 6 percent growth?
2003-2004 (63.1%) : “Linux servers generated $960 million in quarterly revenue. Overall, Linux servers showed 63.1% growth year-over-year, while unit shipments grew 52.5% year-over-year.”
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/News/Hardware/20040226210506868
Q4 2003 – Q4 2004 (35.6%): “Sales of new servers running Linux as their primary operating system accounted for $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase in 35.6 percent compared to the same quarter in 2003.”
http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug031005-story02.html
Q2 2005 – Q2 2006 (6.1%) “After fifteen consecutive quarters of double-digit, year-over-year revenue growth, spending on Linux server moderated significantly, growing 6.1% to $1.5 billion when compared with 2Q05.”
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20323506
Nah nah nah nah … nah nah nah nah … say goodbye.
The problem with any sort of guess as to how many different linux installs there are world-wide is that since it’s a free download, you can’t really judge by “Sales of new servers running Linux” because a lot of servers are sold with windows, then hastily formatted to Linux. I know at least some of the servers where I worked were that way, we wiped ’em, put Asterisk on one server, and a smart spam filter on another one.
So the real question though, is how many of those servers replaced Windows or Unix or Mac servers? The only way we could kind of tell a better market share rate would be basically to take a poll of every company out there currently on what they’re running on their servers. Of course any smart company would say no, because they wouldn’t want anyone to know what they’re running, since that would be a security issue.
Linux is a free download. You can get it as such, even for a server.
Example: http://www.ubuntu.com/server
Now put a picture together in your head, imagine a pairing of the OS above, and the systems (as examples) from any of these places:
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail~dpno~443013.asp
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?C…
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&index=software&field-keywords=NovaS…
… and a myriad of others that feature “no operating system”.
Now in your quoted figures, such as : Q4 2003 – Q4 2004 (35.6%): “Sales of new servers running Linux as their primary operating system accounted for $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase in 35.6 percent compared to the same quarter in 2003.” … how many new servers running Linux would we count from servers sold with “no opeating system”? I’d count none. How much revenue from that number of copies of the operating system quoted above, at $0 a copy? That also comes out a $0.
So we could have untold thousands of servers out there, all sold with “no operating system”, all having a $0 copy of Linux installed, and hence coming to a grand total of $0 in your quoted figures … but still representing untold thousands of new servers running Linux.
Once a company/largish IT dept got a few paid-for-support Linux servers up & running, they would soon get the hang of how to install, setup and support one running a $0 copy of Ubuntu server. Once they trialled one, pretty soon they be having all their servers setup this way.
The result would be a veritable avalanche of new servers running Linux but still accounting for less and less dollars in sales revenue each year.
Oh, and BTW, even a 6% growth figure is not a decline, it is an increase.
Doesn’t mean “Linux is petering out”. That is just your wishful thinking.
Edited 2006-10-05 11:53
how many new servers running Linux would we count from servers sold with “no opeating system”?
As I’ve said before, IDC tries to adjust for such situations. I can pass on my situation. Over the past 5 years my K12 org has bought 200 or so Dell servers. Non had an OS. We bought the OS from a reseller. Most corporations have an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft. They do their own installs too.
I’ll give you some other stats. RedHat, with the top market share, will recieve about 300 million in Linux subscription revenue this year.
Thats about 200,000 RedHat installs paid for total.
Thats it. The number 1 Linux has 200,000 servers.
//I’ll give you some other stats. RedHat, with the top market share, will recieve about 300 million in Linux subscription revenue this year.
Thats about 200,000 RedHat installs paid for total.
Thats it. The number 1 Linux has 200,000 servers.//
Sigh!
I can buy another 200,000 server machines, download one (1) copy of Ubuntu server CD, and install it (perfectly legitimately) on each and every machine, and not one of them would show up in your imaginary figures. There would be zero ($0) cost for CALs for doing this as well.
You are thoroughly deluded if you think that Redhat is the number 1 Linux.
You are talking about sales figures. I am talking about the installed base.
These are different things entirely. You conflate and confuse these two very different things in your text above, when you mention in one sentence “RedHat installs paid for” and then immediately confuse that in the very next sentence with “The number 1 Linux”. Not the same. Ubuntu is the number 1 Linux. RedHat is way down the list.
RedHat is #27 on this list: Page Hit Ranking on this site: http://distrowatch.com/ and it has about one tenth (1/10) of the level of interest of either of the top 2, which are Ubuntu and OpenSuSe.
Event CentOS (which is just repackaged RedHat, without the expensive support) is more than twice as popular as RedHat itself.
Read more about it here: http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
Edited 2006-10-06 00:39
The so called #1 distro on distrowatch generates only 2400 hits a day?
What a miniscule amount!
How many for Windows? 50,000? 500,000?
You are talking about sales figures. I am talking about the installed base.
The “installed base” for Linux generates about 1/175th the traffic that Windows XP does:
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/September/os.php
Do you plan on arguing no one uses Linux to surf the web?
Face facts. The biggest use for Linux is to host unused parked domains. Other than that, most of the Linux “sales” are wiped clean and replaced with a pirated copy of Windows.
//The so called #1 distro on distrowatch generates only 2400 hits a day?//
2624 Hits per day on Distrowatch.
Distrowatch being strictly a site to find out information about the latest Linux/BSD et al distributions. If one had already decided to go with the foremost Linux distribution (Ubuntu) or indeed the next-most-popular (OpenSuSe), one would not need to go to Distrowatch at all.
Practically no hits per day at all for Windows on that site, BTW.
//How many for Windows? 50,000? 500,000? //
Err, no. So few hits in fact for Windows it doesn’t even appear in the top 100 list on Distrowatch. This could perhaps be due to the fact that you can’t download a Windows install CD quite as easily as other OSes on Distrowatch.
Edited 2006-10-06 04:32
//Face facts. The biggest use for Linux is to host unused parked domains. Other than that, most of the Linux “sales” are wiped clean and replaced with a pirated copy of Windows.//
Face facts. Pirated copies of Windows don’t generate sales for Microsoft, and as for what potential real business purchasers are thinking (or might be in the near future), have a look for yourself:
http://smallbusiness.itworld.com/4383/nls_networking061005/page_1.h…
The whole “Linux sucks”, “Windows sucks” thing that dominates this kind of discussion comes across as utterly silly. Is it so hard for people to accept that Windows and Linux both have their advantages and disadvantages? Neither OS is perfect for everyone, in some ways Windows is behind Linux, and in other ways Linux is behind Windows.
Obviously most people are going to have a personal preference for a particular OS, but it seems ridiculous to me that so many seem unwilling to accept that other people can genuinely prefer a different OS. According to some people, Windows users are all sheep afraid of change or too lazy to really try Linux, while other people say Linux users are all elitist geeks who only hate Windows for political reasons. Of course most people just stick with the OS that comes preinstalled on their computer, but I imagine that most of the people who visit this site have given Linux a try. Is it so hard to accept that someone can try both operating systems, look at their advantages and disadvantages, and simply make a choice that’s different to yours?
Personally I stick with Windows for most things because it works well on the hardware I own, runs the software I require and enjoy using, and because I simply prefer the Windows UI to any Linux DE. I’ve dual booted Linux since the days of Redhat 5 and regularly try out the latest Linux software, the rate that many aspects of Linux are improving is very impressive. I can definitely see why people are excited about Linux and why it’s a good choice for many people, I always recommend that people try Linux for themselves and I’ve burned quite a few live CDs for friends, but Windows still has advantages that make it a more pleasant and productive environment for my needs.
I don’t feel a need to attack Linux users because they would disagree with me on this, and I don’t have a lot of respect for people who attack users of any OS simply because they have different preferences.
The whole “Linux sucks”, “Windows sucks” thing that dominates this kind of discussion comes across as utterly silly. Is it so hard for people to accept that Windows and Linux both have their advantages and disadvantages? Neither OS is perfect for everyone, in some ways Windows is behind Linux, and in other ways Linux is behind Windows.
Well said!
Tell me what NEW (and by new I mean earth shattering) features in Linux? The ONLY thing that’s going on in linux is new drivers for devices that already have Windows support. They have run out of ideas in Linux.
Linux’s suspend/resume is in shambles – heck even Win98 had a more stable suspend/resume than Linux. Let’s forget the kernel and look at the user space – aka GNU/Linux – again, they cannot compete with Windows and Mac because all the content of the web is slowing being shackled into pay-per-view, for that you need codecs and licenses (DRM). Windows and MacOS.
Hmm, new? Udev, faster filesystems, Xen, customization (ok, that’s been here for Linux for years). We are just talking about the kernel, right? If you want to talk various GUIs, then we can go for Indexing (Beagle), fully 3d accelerated desktops, 20-30 second boot time (Yes, with Ubuntu’s new Upstart, my desktop boots extremely fast, and that is into fully usable GUI, which on a used Windows XP system (same computer) it takes a good full 2 minutes with all the anti-virus and firewall crap I have to have simply to protect my computer when it’s just sitting online.)
The Suspend/Resume even in WinXP is broken. The reason isn’t due to Linux, XP or Win98 or whatever, it’s because ACPI is still not implemented properly in the hardware of a lot of laptops, so unless someone has coded proper drivers for all the variations, it’s not going to work very well.
DRM is a horrible thing, and quite frankly most people should be appalled that Microsoft and various other companies are pushing this on us.
The fact that a guy I know had to re-download all 80 or so songs that he had legally purchased for his cell phone because his phone died. When he got a new phone, he took out his memory stick and put it in the new one, DRM reared it’s ugly head and wouldn’t let him play any of the songs. There is such a thing as fair use rights, and this just completely flushes them down the toilet.
Udev? It’s immature and a POS
Xen – not even close to VmWare
Beagle – don’t make me laugh – they can’t even index proprietary formats
3D desktops – Sun did the work first and now try Aqua on Vista
About your booting time – I call bull shit. My XP takes 10 secs and linux on the same box takes 47 secs. That’s a crock and you know it.
Suspend/Resume works on XP – don’t freaking lie about it. People don’t design laptops to be incompatible with WIndows XP – that’s patently false. ACPI problems are Linux’s fault.
DRM is here to stay – unless you’re a movie producer or a rockstar I don’t see you creating any media for my personal consumption so I’m going to rely on the industry that does know how to and they are going for DRM and I respect their license – just as I would like them to respect GPLv2.
I did rm -rf /* recently – and I flushed my entire OS down the toilet – people do stupid things. Deal with it.
Why are you so angry and so eager to spread lies ?
(yes, it’s obvious you’re a troll)
Udev? It’s immature and a POS
Xen – not even close to VmWare
Beagle – don’t make me laugh – they can’t even index proprietary formats
3D desktops – Sun did the work first and now try Aqua on Vista
How can you put so much lies in so few words ?
About your booting time – I call bull shit. My XP takes 10 secs and linux on the same box takes 47 secs. That’s a crock and you know it
OMG ! No XP boots in 10 s, even fresh installed with no antivirus. Why do you feel the urge to say such lies ? What are your PC spec BTW ?
Suspend/Resume works on XP – don’t freaking lie about it. People don’t design laptops to be incompatible with WIndows XP – that’s patently false. ACPI problems are Linux’s fault
You shouldn’t say such things, it just shows you’re completely clueless. The latest XP SP2 still hangs from time to time and won’t wakeup on my Windows client, and on any PC I tried it on at work. And that’s not because it’s designed to be incompatible with WinXP, it’s because ACPI implementations are full of bugs, which is why you need specific ACPI drivers for different motherboards.
And no, ACPI bugs are not Linux’s fault. But you’re patently clueless, that’s true.
DRM is here to stay – unless you’re a movie producer or a rockstar I don’t see you creating any media for my personal consumption so I’m going to rely on the industry that does know how to and they are going for DRM and I respect their license – just as I would like them to respect GPLv2
How can you be so clueless ? DRM is not a license ! But you’re a very good consumer. I’m sure *AA are very pleased with people like you.
They have the nth version of Star Wars to sell to you BTW. Oh, and that song that you already have in 4 different formats, they have a 5th format in which they would like to sell it to you, too.
I did rm -rf /* recently – and I flushed my entire OS down the toilet – people do stupid things. Deal with it
Doing an rm -rf /* won’t flush your entire OS down the toilet, but will render it unusable only if you are root.
Of course, people that do that are seasoned admins that have backups, or stupid people thinking they are seasoned admins…
How can you put so much lies in so few words ?
Instead of callng him a liar, why not address his points? I’d like to hear your reasoning.
OMG ! No XP boots in 10 s, even fresh installed with no antivirus. Why do you feel the urge to say such lies ? What are your PC spec BTW ?
UM, wrong. XP most certainly can and does boot in 10 seconds coming out of hibernation. Easy on the “liar” accusations. It’s unbecoming.
How can you be so clueless ? DRM is not a license !
He didn’t say that DRM is a license. He said that he would respect the industry’s license.
Doing an rm -rf /* won’t flush your entire OS down the toilet, but will render it unusable only if you are root.
And, as we all know, people do run as root occasionally and even seasoned admins do idiotic stuff without thinking.
Instead of callng him a liar, why not address his points? I’d like to hear your reasoning
My reasoning is that what he said is common FUD that has been addresses times and times again.
Instead of saying stupid things, try to inform yourself on the matter. I won’t repeat for the xth time sth that has been said enough already.
UM, wrong. XP most certainly can and does boot in 10 seconds coming out of hibernation. Easy on the “liar” accusations. It’s unbecoming
Try to understand what you’re talking about, please. We’re talking boot time here, not waking up from hibernation.
Linux comes out of hibernation in less than 10 seconds too you know. Actually, it depends more on your hardware than your OS.
But that’s not what we’re talking about. If he was talking waking up when we’re talking boot time (you know, cold boot), he’s a moron.
He didn’t say that DRM is a license. He said that he would respect the industry’s license
Then saying if it (the license) is DRM, he will accept it. Learn to read please.
And, as we all know, people do run as root occasionally and even seasoned admins do idiotic stuff without thinking
Like I said, seasoned admins have backups.
OMG ! No XP boots in 10 s, even fresh installed with no antivirus. Why do you feel the urge to say such lies ? What are your PC spec BTW ? OMG ! No XP boots in 10 s, even fresh installed with no antivirus. Why do you feel the urge to say such lies ? What are your PC spec BTW ?
XP cold boots on my Pentium III 800 MHz/256 MB RAM office system in under 30 seconds. This is hardly a fresh installation — it’s been through three users and four years without a reinstall. It’s even got Norton AV Corporate Edition on there.
My XP lab machines (2.x GHz Celeron/512 MB RAM) cold boot in under 20 seconds. Coming out of hibernation takes less than 10 seconds.
“Beagle – don’t make me laugh – they can’t even index proprietary formats”
And Windows can index ext3? At least in Linux there are more supported filesystems then in Windows. And as far as performance Beagle is far better then MS attempt which is still in beta stage
“3D desktops – Sun did the work first and now try Aqua on Vista”
Why would i try an OS that doesn’t work, when I have a perfectly functioning Ubuntu
“Suspend/Resume works on XP – don’t freaking lie about it. People don’t design laptops to be incompatible with WIndows XP – that’s patently false. ACPI problems are Linux’s fault”
I don’t have a clue what are you talking about. it works just fine
“About your booting time – I call bull shit. My XP takes 10 secs and linux on the same box takes 47 secs. That’s a crock and you know it.”
Even with modified prefetch setting to facilitate faster boot time my XP takes longer then Ubuntu on the same notebook
“did rm -rf /* recently – and I flushed my entire OS down the toilet – people do stupid things”
Just a minor correction STUPID people (as in, look in the mirror) do stupid things
Edited 2006-10-05 19:25
You really cannot give credit to Microsoft for Windows popularity since most windows users only use windows because their applications run on windows. Without companies like AutoDesk, Adobe, etc.. , a lot less people would be using windows.
nigga pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze
I’m a linux sysadmin here in my country, I mantain a lot of companies that run Linux and people use happily for desktop and I mantain happily the servers that run postfix, postgresql, mysql, apache, mod_ruby, mod_php, etc. I also do web programming using gVim/Vim and XHTML/CSS, PHP/RoR, etc. I also do some C++ coding with Qt 4, and I also administer network stuff with iptables, squid, samba, openvpn, etc. Everything works really nice, is like in your dreams, yeah. All my clients are happily using the computers every day and everything works perfect. They all prefers using Ubuntu instead of Windows.
Oh man, where did all this anger and disbelief come from this morning?
Anyways, while many of you keep crying about the unusability of GNU/Linux, people (n00bs, day-to-day users, admins, developers and scientists) are using it for fantastic stuff daily, sharing a code base which is more or less owned and developed by the general public. Most of these users are not crusaders who plot Linux world dominance, but focus on their own tasks at hand and could not really care less. They want to get the job done (and there are very powerful tools and code around to use and reuse, without constraints) or have fun learning something new and perhaps even feel a bit rebellious while doing it. Thats fine, I don’t care. Whatever suits them. Modern emulation, virtualization and web developments are making this discussion less and less relevant anyway.
For me personally, I know that there are some inconsistencies and gotchas in Linux world. Every distro is a little bit different, and not all tools have yet been finalized. So what? This is true for ALL consumer OSs as well. I can put up with debugging and reinstalling a faulty wlan card driver for half a day, because to ME its nothing as compared to having to use Windows and all it’s constraints and quirks on a daily basis.
Having used Linux distros for some time now, I have to say that to me, an important difference as compared to Windows, is the way in which you yourself can participate in the development of your own desktop/server/whatever experience. The developers are often just an IRC chat-button or email away, there are forums in which to post ideas and solve problems. And if you can spare the time, there are always translations, FAQs, guides, logos, themes, and of course, code, to be made. I never felt this level of participation and engagement on MS Windows, which is why in the end, I GOT BORED with it and dropped it.
For you who dont think that the FOSS GNU/Linux world is constantly inventing new tools for new purposes I can off the top of my head recommend the following links:
http://dynebolic.org
http://64studio.com
http://www.sabayonlinux.org
http://www.distrowatch.org
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html
http://www.kde-apps.org
My experience is that demoing some cool free apps to a friend or simply suggesting that there are other ways to deal with malware can be enough to gain a fellow Linux user. No marketing beats word-of-mouth.
FUDing like what is going on in the above posts is for people with too much time on their hands; executives and lazy Windows fanboys who don’t even care to spin up a recent Live-CD before they start complaining.
Edited 2006-10-05 09:46
I’d really like a much more integrated system from the bottom to the top. I find it completely unnecessary to have to tell people about my joy for systems like Linux and *BSD, everytime having to explain what all the different significant parts are all about, since there is always uncertainty about the ‘what is’ of the Kernel, NVidia and ATi drivers, X.org, GTK+, QT, Gnome, KDE and the list goes on… ‘What is a compiler?’ and the likes needs to be explained an it’s really quite intimidating to many that thay can’t grasp all of it as easily with the truly free OSs as they can with Windows or even Mac OS X.
Why not somehow create systems based on more integrated parts, like Kernel, CLI and utilities, a complete windowing system (X.org based or completely rewritten with all the challenges of the architecture taken into consideration from the beginning) with the equivalent of X.org + AIGlx +Compiz + Gnome and offer this as one package to install? Also, settle on one GUI toolkit and make it truly great, like Cocoa has a lot of strengths that translate into OS X strengths…
I know people call you a Mac fanboy or whatever if you let the word ‘Mac OS X’ slip into a discussion like this, however, it’s a beautiful example of something ‘no so simple’ made simple… The graphics model and the proposed powerful simplicity of the Cocoa APIs and the coupled Xcode tools simply stand out in many people’s eyes as being more ‘complete’ than many open source offerings opposing it.
I know there are some nice details that makes X11 stand out from the crowd, but there are equally many things that let other environments stand out from X11. I personally don’t understand why X11 + Gnome + Metacity still needs to be separated layers and I don’t understand why the consistency of the different GUIs need to be so easily messed up by a bad GTK+ theme or anything like that…
I like consistency and recognize Mac OS X gives me this to a certain degree… Even though there are definate problems with the many different application looks in recent versions, I still like the more uniform approach…
It seems to me that open source is often equal to saying that anyone should have the ability to change snything at any give time to make it unique based on his og her needs…
I just don’t see how this is going to helt promoting Linux or other free sofware to the public since the public is used to totally different ways of doing things.
What I miss is a more streamlined way of laying out the system so that it is more easy for users to identify the usage of different system elements and from there on give them control of things… Not the other way around… I don’t see why the user’s focus needs to be on every little tidbit just because that is the way it has been developed…
It’s a bit like computing in the early ’90s at times… And although fascinating and necessary with an alternative OS like Linux, I still miss the part of it being a truly viable alternative…
I’d really like a much more integrated system from the bottom to the top. I find it completely unnecessary to have to tell people about my joy for systems like Linux and *BSD, everytime having to explain what all the different significant parts are all about, since there is always uncertainty about the ‘what is’ of the Kernel, NVidia and ATi drivers, X.org, GTK+, QT, Gnome, KDE and the list goes on… ‘What is a compiler?’ and the likes needs to be explained an it’s really quite intimidating to many that thay can’t grasp all of it as easily with the truly free OSs as they can with Windows or even Mac OS X.
My goodness me, what are you on about? Kernels, drivers, compilers, even toolkits all exist on Windows and MacOS, and the concepts aren’t any easier to understand there.
Why not somehow create systems based on more integrated parts, like Kernel, CLI and utilities, a complete windowing system (X.org based or completely rewritten with all the challenges of the architecture taken into consideration from the beginning) with the equivalent of X.org + AIGlx +Compiz + Gnome and offer this as one package to install?
Well, I haven’t used Linux in, like, a week, but i seem to remember there being this thing called “a distribution”. Or perhaps more accurately, “a system installed from a LiveCD”.
Also, settle on one GUI toolkit and make it truly great, like Cocoa has a lot of strengths that translate into OS X strengths…
Many people think that GNOME and/or KDE is/are “insanely great”, and that MacOS isn’t. Linux people recognize that choice, flexibility, interoperability and “slot-in-ability” are good things, for reasons I’ll go into in a minute.
I know people call you a Mac fanboy or whatever if you let the word ‘Mac OS X’ slip into a discussion like this, however, it’s a beautiful example of something ‘no so simple’ made simple… The graphics model and the proposed powerful simplicity of the Cocoa APIs and the coupled Xcode tools simply stand out in many people’s eyes as being more ‘complete’ than many open source offerings opposing it.
OTOH, a lot of other people deride OS X for choosing Objective C. Personally, not having much experience of either ObjC or C++, ObjC looks better, but C++ is more widespread. This doesn’t mean you’re some sort of freak if you choose to use ObjC, even if the majority of people would say it does. And MacOS isn’t THAT simple: if you need to program, you still have to write code. If you want to do something over and over, the best way is to use AppleScript or some other scripting language, which still require coding. And for a long time, Apple and Microsoft still used Unix or Unix-like tools to create their MacOS or Windows software. The reason is, after “In the beginning was the commandline”, that you can’t make complicated things simple just by putting a picture over them.
I know there are some nice details that makes X11 stand out from the crowd, but there are equally many things that let other environments stand out from X11. I personally don’t understand why X11 + Gnome + Metacity still needs to be separated layers
Mac OS X and Windows could gain a lot from having separated layers like that, not the least of which is the ability to change one without having to redesign the other. MS seem to have learnt this lesson: I hear Vista takes the GUI out of the kernel and separates the graphical “engine” out into a “Desktop Window Manager”.
and I don’t understand why the consistency of the different GUIs need to be so easily messed up by a bad GTK+ theme or anything like that…
Nor do many people understand why the consistency of Aqua or the Windows “look” need to be so easily messed up by Brushed Metal and Media Player (and now, Office 2K3). Personally, I prefer Brushed Metal, so I’m glad there’s both; but a company hellbent on Apple’s stated goal of pretending that a general-purpose computing device can be used exactly like a single-purpose household appliance shouldn’t be indulging in pick-n-mix.
I like consistency and recognize Mac OS X gives me this to a certain degree… Even though there are definate problems with the many different application looks in recent versions, I still like the more uniform approach…
Noone is going to shoot you if you only use KDE apps in preference to GNOME ones, you know. Or the reverse.
It seems to me that open source is often equal to saying that anyone should have the ability to change snything at any give time to make it unique based on his og her needs…
Yes, because people aren’t clones. Or maybe that should be “some people aren’t clones”.
I just don’t see how this is going to helt promoting Linux or other free sofware to the public since the public is used to totally different ways of doing things.
It may not “help promoting Linux to the public” but the public will take what they can get – if people put the same thought into choosing an OS as they do into choosing drapes (or even a computer), we might not be stuck with the chimera of The Beast’s overwhelming marketshare.
What I miss is a more streamlined way of laying out the system so that it is more easy for users to identify the usage of different system elements and from there on give them control of things… Not the other way around… I don’t see why the user’s focus needs to be on every little tidbit just because that is the way it has been developed…
Linux is streamlined, it just does the streamlining a different way. There is nothing inherently wrong with this.
On the contrary, Unix is still around because of this. The Amiga and Atari of 92, the MacOS of 96, the Windows of 95 are obsolete and have all been replaced, usually expensively (measured either in time or in money, or both). The Unix of 1969 is horribly obsolete, but because of its history and development, we now happily use UFS or ext2 or HFS+, bash, ncurses, Aqua, X, KDE, GNOME, XFCE or openbox, kdevelop, gambas, cc and firefox instead of FS, sh, twm, {as,adb,bas,cc} and uucp – and the replacements are cheap. The alternative is to create a horrid, hopelessly-interdependent mishmash of components which can’t be replaced easily one-by-one, and you end up with an upgrade that’s been scrapped and redesigned, and is between 3 and 5 years late, depending on how you count.
Apple doesn’t really sell “a Unix” – it sells an operating system built on Unix. The reality is that given the motivation, (and especially considering that Apple controls its own architecture) it would have been easy in 97 to create an Aqua-like interface on top of X and hide the “implementation details” away from the average user – and it would be even easier to do it now.
It’s a bit like computing in the early ’90s at times… And although fascinating and necessary with an alternative OS like Linux, I still miss the part of it being a truly viable alternative…
Well, I’m not going to call you a Mac fanboy but the fact is, for people like me, Linux is a “viable alternative” and MacOS isn’t. In fact it would be more accurate to say that whilst there are people for whom “Linux is a viable alternative”, I and many others are people for whom Linux is their favourite OS, the BSD’s are a “viable alternative”, and Windows and MacOS don’t get a look in. No matter how long and how hard the Windows fanboys scream about how many thousands more apps Windows has or how much easier it is to use or to find hardware for, the fact is that millions of people DO use Linux or MacOS or VMS or even Amigas quite happily every day, often rushing in where Windows fears to tread.
What I talk about is a mix of what I know about Linux and its likes compared to some of the potential ‘switchers’ I know.
These people tend to be excited about the outlook towards an OS that doesn’t annoy them by catching all sorts of viruses, spyware threats and the likes, but yet they know that Linux is fundamentally different and often they’re interested in knowing things like:
‘What do I do if I cannot ‘apt-get’ an application?’ … And here the answer might very possibly be compilation of source code. This is done through a compiler, hence these people need to know what it means to compile something from source.
And to get back to your comment again: Have you ever been dependent on installing, using and knowing about compilers on either Mac OS X or Windows? -A fair guess would be a blank hollow sounding ‘NO’!!!
Your point on LiveCDs is somewhat off target. What do you actually mean by saying something like ‘last time I looked there was something called LiveCDs’ in response to a need for something that is combined, like e.g. a GUI package that includes all the stuff that X.org + AIGlx + Gnome + Compiz includes but in one complete package, combined without the many different layers of abstraction?
I talk of this in need of something *new* something that is logically percievable as the GUI functions of the OS, all packed into one – not just a bunch of packages that are being abstracted by name only (such as ubuntu-desktop).
Personally I think that many people that think that Gnome or KDE are *insanely great* are either free software fanatics as opposed to Mac fanboys…. Personally I can only give hail to consistency, hence my remark on Mac OS X getting cluttered by the many different looks and styles. I like Gnome a lot and use it on my desktop, however, I still do not see it match Mac OS X i terms of usability and ease of use, primarily because the main target to aim at is KDE and Windows (or so it seems) and thus you emulate the ‘Start’ menu rather than taking an alternative approach, an original Gnome approach to things… God knows the Dock of Mac OS X has its flaws, but personally I really find it problematic that the focus of Gnome and KDE seems to be to snatch up a few Windows users here and there, instead of targeting the computer user as such, attacking the way we look at GUI design and actually innovate a lot more…
I would like to see a more refined, uniform look for Gnome. Something like designing the GUI widgets to look really nice without the need for diffrent themes and the likes… It might very well still be possible to mess with this look, however, a nicer hardcoded default look would be a great step in the right direction for an open source desktop.
Concerning window managers and the separation of these in respect to the rest of the ‘windowing system’: It’s of course nice to be able to do things the way you like to do them… But I don’t see how all these different layers benefit the average uder. At least it’s illogical to talk of X.org as being the ‘windowing system’ when you need to install a desktop environment on top to make it work somewhat like you expect it to…
When talking about the public in terms of acceptance towards Linux I comment on the fact that choice is good as long as you don’t have to choose too often …. I know that open source software is about freedom of choice, but many people are not equipped to deal with chooices concering things that they’re not sufficiently qualified to make … If I were to ask my father if he’d like to have Linux installed, he’d probably be reluctant at first, then he’d start asking the questions like e.g. : Which distro to choose?, which desktop environment to use?, what is the difference between Grub and Lilo and what does it do?, what filesystem?, what’s a mount point?
I know this is hard to get ‘rid of’ but in a simple install, do not expose the user to these options unless extremely necessary. Start off by choosing a distro, installing it with the default GUI and that’s it! No fuzz….
I also know that UNIX is about modularity and that it’s extremely nice in terms of servers, however, whhat everybody seems to want from Linux is a breakthough on the desktop… Beat Mac OS X and gain market shares from Windows… Modularity doesn’t play a big part in achieving this goal… Software quality does! The quality of the experience of using the computer running the alternative OS matters… Funny how Windows users (the ones that Linux masses want to attract) don’t care about the ‘experience’ until they switch…. Then it’s all about: ‘My experience with Linux is that it’s stable, no viruses, it looks attractive’ + the optional ‘but….No MS Office’ or ‘but there’s a lack of internet plugins’ …
People get used to what they already have, and with Windows users having it ‘all’ so to say, the tend to ‘miss’ things from other OSs… this barrier is hard to overcome, but I seriously believe that what’s necessary to offer is a remarkably safer, easier to use, versatile yet uniform platform thatoffers them something other than Windows – and I really mean O T H E R …. Something innovative that looks ahead, not ‘only’ leverages on the goodies of the past + some nice ‘patch work’ (i know that one’s way harsh, but still…) like e.g. X11-style windowing system, sysv-init and the likes….
We need Linux to get out of the shade of Unix and the ’70s and start being a serious player in the game of the desktop of the future….
I like Unix a lot, though, but I still find that there are way more elegant ways of designing a desktop OS than the road along which Linux fares…
Sorry folks!
I wrote a detailed reply to this which OSnews kindly stuffed up (software problem). I’ll try and cover the main points again sometime between tomorrow and Sunday.
What I talk about is a mix of what I know about Linux and its likes compared to some of the potential ‘switchers’ I know
I’ll do the same, as I’ve lived in a Linux world since 2001.
‘What do I do if I cannot ‘apt-get’ an application?’ … And here the answer might very possibly be compilation of source code
Wrong. The answer is that they ask for the package on a forum, or wait for it to appear. Of course, it’s not recommended to install such packages.
And to get back to your comment again: Have you ever been dependent on installing, using and knowing about compilers on either Mac OS X or Windows? -A fair guess would be a blank hollow sounding ‘NO’!!!
Of course not, on Mac OS X but mostly on Windows, you’re stuck ! What you call ‘been dependent on’ is actually a bonus compared to Windows.
Sorry, but I know Windows world pretty well. Just look at the forums, full of people waiting the next version or the next installer in hope it will fix all the bugs.
This must sound familiar to you.
It’s the same for most appliances : you’re stuck if you don’t have the source code. On FOSS OS, you’re not stuck.
a GUI package that includes all the stuff that X.org + AIGlx + Gnome + Compiz includes but in one complete package, combined without the many different layers of abstraction?
I think someone will be able to do what you want for you once it makes sense. Are you saying that MS made a mistake by using the very same layers of abstraction since Win95, and adding even more in WinVista ? Or is what you want a Tivo like PC ? Or a Kiss like PC ? Or DirectFB ? What do you mean ?
I talk of this in need of something *new* something that is logically percievable as the GUI functions of the OS, all packed into one – not just a bunch of packages that are being abstracted by name only (such as ubuntu-desktop)
Strange, you don’t want ubuntu-desktop which is just what you want (something that is logically percievable as the GUI functions of the OS). And why do you feel the need to know what ubuntu-desktop is ? Do you even understand what you want ?
Personally I think that many people that think that Gnome or KDE are *insanely great* are either free software fanatics as opposed to Mac fanboys
You sound like a zealot. Why someone couldn’t think that Gnome or KDE are insanely great without being fanatics ?
I like Gnome a lot and use it on my desktop, however, I still do not see it match Mac OS X i terms of usability and ease of use, primarily because the main target to aim at is KDE and Windows (or so it seems) and thus you emulate the ‘Start’ menu rather than taking an alternative approach, an original Gnome approach to things
Are you insane or what ? You say Gnome doesn’t match Mac OS X because the target is KDE and Windows ? What is this nonsense ?
And Gnome doesn’t emulate the Start menu at all FYI. You’ll be hard pressed to find a “Start” like menu in Gnome.
I really find it problematic that the focus of Gnome and KDE seems to be to snatch up a few Windows users here and there, instead of targeting the computer user as such, attacking the way we look at GUI design and actually innovate a lot more…
The only problem here is that you believe this nonsense.
I would like to see a more refined, uniform look for Gnome. Something like designing the GUI widgets to look really nice without the need for diffrent themes and the likes… It might very well still be possible to mess with this look, however, a nicer hardcoded default look would be a great step in the right direction for an open source desktop
What is the benefit exactly ? You want a one-size-fit-all theme that pleases you, other people tastes be damned. You’re even more ‘monolithic way’ brainwashed than I thought.
Concerning window managers and the separation of these in respect to the rest of the ‘windowing system’: It’s of course nice to be able to do things the way you like to do them… But I don’t see how all these different layers benefit the average uder
That’s because you actually don’t use a free desktop. I’ll give you one example that I hope your brainwashed mind will understand : there are special high contrast themes in Gnome for vision impaired people. The window manager also includes things for move impaired people. These can be used as efficiently on a thin client as on a standalone box because of this separation. So the fact that you don’t see benefits in all this is only your loss, like I said.
At least it’s illogical to talk of X.org as being the ‘windowing system’ when you need to install a desktop environment on top to make it work somewhat like you expect it to…
That’s because you’re illogical. Nobody said Xorg is the windowing system except you. You don’t need to know about Xorg anyway. My wife use Linux since 2001 too, and she never heard anything about Xorg, windowing system, compilers and the like.
If I were to ask my father if he’d like to have Linux installed, he’d probably be reluctant at first, then he’d start asking the questions like e.g. : Which distro to choose?, which desktop environment to use?, what is the difference between Grub and Lilo and what does it do?, what filesystem?, what’s a mount point?
OMG ! What does your father do for a living ? None of the people I installed Linux for asked any of that, they don’t even know about these words in computing. You must be a VERY POOR computer helper.
I know this is hard to get ‘rid of’ but in a simple install, do not expose the user to these options unless extremely necessary. Start off by choosing a distro, installing it with the default GUI and that’s it! No fuzz
You should apply that to yourself. We know and do that already, only you doesn’t seem to know that.
Beat Mac OS X and gain market shares from Windows… Modularity doesn’t play a big part in achieving this goal… Software quality does!
Wrong. Market share isn’t gained just because you’re better, wake up please !
with Windows users having it ‘all’ so to say, the tend to ‘miss’ things from other OSs
No, only people with a geek nearby and full of pirated copies say that.
Something innovative that looks ahead, not ‘only’ leverages on the goodies of the past + some nice ‘patch work’ (i know that one’s way harsh, but still…) like e.g. X11-style windowing system, sysv-init and the likes
Except that there are lots of projects like that, that get abandoned because people like you never get behind these projects. People like you ask for sth innovative, and as soon as someone does, they all shun back to the familiar. When some dev proposed the Y server (to replace XFree86), you’d think all the people bitching about X would be behind it, because it was what they asked for. I laughed in advance, and what happened is exactly what I predicted : the project died, without any support from these vocal X haters, and to make things worse, these people are back with their stupid claims on X, instead of trying to improve Y.
@Ookaze
Excellent, well written rebuttal to this ill-informed Windows sheeple! 🙂
I find it completely unnecessary to have to tell people about my joy for systems like Linux and *BSD, everytime having to explain what all the different significant parts are all about
So why do you do that ?
I NEVER did that with any people. There’s absolutely NO reason to say these things to people.
‘What is a compiler?’ and the likes needs to be explained an it’s really quite intimidating to many that thay can’t grasp all of it as easily with the truly free OSs as they can with Windows or even Mac OS X
BS. None of the users I migrated to Linux even understand what an OS is. There’s no chance they would understand what a compiler is.
Again, there is NO need to explain what a compiler is, and it’s no easier to understand under Windows or Linux, as it’s orthogonal to either.
Why not somehow create systems based on more integrated parts, like Kernel, CLI and utilities, a complete windowing system with the equivalent of X.org + AIGlx +Compiz + Gnome and offer this as one package to install? Also, settle on one GUI toolkit and make it truly great, like Cocoa has a lot of strengths that translate into OS X strengths…
You should go out of your cave and stop describing a Linux distro : just use one instead !
The graphics model and the proposed powerful simplicity of the Cocoa APIs and the coupled Xcode tools simply stand out in many people’s eyes as being more ‘complete’ than many open source offerings opposing it
Actually it doesn’t. Only Mac user could say such a thing, and no, none of the people I know even understand what an API or code is.
Actually, all the Windows users I know despise Apple’s products, especially iTunes (saying it’s buggy like hell and all). Well, they like Apple’s hardware, but that’s all.
I personally don’t understand why X11 + Gnome + Metacity still needs to be separated layers and I don’t understand why the consistency of the different GUIs need to be so easily messed up by a bad GTK+ theme or anything like that…
That’s because you’re stuck in a monolithic world, and can’t think otherwise. You can’t imagine that some people may need X11 alone, or Gnome not based on X11, or Metacity alone. This is alien to you, but all you need to understand, is to really want to understand, which obviously you don’t.
You ask these questions only to try to validate the monolithic model which is the only thing you can understand.
A lot of people like you just don’t even believe me when I tell them that Linux can run apps on a wristwatch up to a supercomputer made of a cluster of Linux.
It’s impossible to do with a monolithic way.
It seems to me that open source is often equal to saying that anyone should have the ability to change snything at any give time to make it unique based on his og her needs…
Where you’re wrong, is that the benefit is not to make it unique, which is pointless. The benefit is to make it work in all situations.
That’s why I could run my exact same Linux based OS on a P75 200, on a Thinkpad 380XD, on a bi-pro server and on a PVR.
They’re all based on the exact same base OS, that can self recompile itself and recreate itself on a Live CD.
What I miss is a more streamlined way of laying out the system so that it is more easy for users to identify the usage of different system elements and from there on give them control of things… Not the other way around… I don’t see why the user’s focus needs to be on every little tidbit just because that is the way it has been developed…
I don’t understand what you mean. Your vision of how it is done is skewed at best. Streamlining the way of laying out the system won’t help identify the usage of system elements : that’s nonsense !
You don’t need to do that anyway, if you don’t want to learn.
It’s a bit like computing in the early ’90s at times… And although fascinating and necessary with an alternative OS like Linux, I still miss the part of it being a truly viable alternative…
Don’t worry, that’s only your loss. Other people took the time to understand, and rake the benefits (like myself or companies).
“I’ve been using Linux for several years and while I’ve seen some improvement, it’s just falling further and further behind Windows and other OSes. Fact is, without a large army of paid programmers creating a well-integrated, well-designed operating system, Linux is only going to continue to fall behind and all the steam that’s been built up will begin to collapse. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Linux’s marketshare began to decrease soon.”
Excuse me, but what planet are you living on? Linux is far from “falling behind Windows.” In fact, i’ve been using Linux exclusively for the past three years and I find that Linux is superior to Windows in nearly every way. Most major distributers release full updates of their Linux distro at least once, and often twice per year. In contract, Microsoft hasn’t released a major upgrade to Windows for five years! The areas where Linux is perceived to lag behind Windows is hardware support and availability of native versions of popular commercial software titles. If that’s your biggest beef with Linux, then you need to sit down and write your favorite hardware and software venders and ask them why they don’t support Linux and inform them that you will no longer support them until they do. Money talks. For those programs you absolutely cannot live without, Linux offers several ways to get them to run natively: WINE, or the commercial Crossover Office and Cedega for games. You can also use the freely available VMWare player or QEMU to virtualize any version of Windows in Linux. In the meantime, the vast army of open source developers have done a more than admirable job of referse engineering hardware drivers to the point where nearly every type of hardware just works “out of the box” on a fresh Linux installation. With windows, you have to supply vender driver CD’s in order to get Windows to recognize the newest hardware. Speaking of a fresh Linux installation, when I install Linux, I get an instantly productive desktop system complete with MS Office compatible productivity suite and a plethora of high quality programs covering every possible task. In Windows, all I get is just that: Windows plus a few very OLD programs that have been around since Windows 3.1 (i.e., Paint, Notepad, Solittaire.) Finally, in case you haven’t heard, Linux now sports a fully accelerated 3D desktop via XGL/AIGLX and Compiz (or Beryl.) The desktop effects, while technically for visual appeal only, rival those of even Apple’s OS X, the former gold standard. Compiz/Beryl effects put Vista’s upcoming “Aero Glass” effects to shame by comparison. In summary, Linux continues to grow at an astounding rate. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and offers a myriad of choice for users. Most importantly it’s free. Free as in no cost, no viruses, no spyware, and no Microsoft watching over your shoulder. Yes, folks, it is time to face the facts as this poster put it. Microsoft is who’s falling behind and if they’re not careful, they’re going to find themselves by the wayside as users move to Apple’s Mac OS-X and Linux en masse.
In contract, Microsoft hasn’t released a major upgrade to Windows for five years!
Other than Windows 2003. And Windows 2003 R2. And Media Center 2005. And I would call XP SP2 pretty major.
I personnally use Windows 2003 R2 as my desktop at work. Very nice.
I can understand the bitterness now that Linux growth is approaching zero. But the Linux faithful should consider that maybe its the vitriol you spew everyday is whats turning people off.
That’s an astounding statement coming from one such as yourself.
//I can understand the bitterness now that Linux growth is approaching zero. But the Linux faithful should consider that maybe its the vitriol you spew everyday is whats turning people off.//
The vitriol is all coming from you.
As for Linux growth (which you mistakenly try to infer from irrelevant sales figures) versus Windows growth, here is another opinion for you to consider:
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7530619440.html
Whereas the vision for the future in Windows servers and desktops is apparently far more stringent and drastic license policing:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/microsoft_software_licenses…
… and other licensing snafus and headaches:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/04/microsoft_wga-validation_sn…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/10/microsoft_sa_windows_vista/
The obvious conclusion: if you are running a business and looking to the next five years, switch to Linux now and you will save a fortune and be miles ahead of any of your competitors who do not switch.
Edited 2006-10-06 07:03
“I can understand the bitterness now that Linux growth is approaching zero. But the Linux faithful should consider that maybe its the vitriol you spew everyday is whats turning people off.”
Maybe we wouldn’t spew it so much if people didn’t act so ignorantly to what is a perfectly acceptable alternative to Windows…for FREE! All kidding aside, I do know what you mean. The elitist attitude that saturates the Linux community is a bit much at times, but, one can take it or leave it. It shouldn’t reflect badly on the body of work itself, which is exceptional.
Linux-hating Windows users such as NotParker have an “elitist attitude” all their own.