One fundamental difference guarantees that Windows will continue to dominate says Tom Yager.
Linux Can’t Kill Windows
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Uh, no offense Joe, but I use Windows and The GIMP for a ton of different things. My grandmother uses it to touch up and arrange photos and logos for a monthly newsletter she contributes to for local Navy vets. The GIMP is a pretty versatile program, and I haven’t had a need yet that hasn’t been satisfied by it (nor has anyone else I’ve talked to who has used it), so I don’t think that argument holds much water.
Who wants to kill Windows! You should always have rivel. It keeps u r feet on groud. Also the compitation is helping technology to move forward. Most important open source theory never says kill anyone. So live and let live!
Windows helps Linux show benchmark to know where it stands! and same vise versa.
Linux wont kill Windows, microsoft will commit corporate suiscide, (from shooting itself in the foot too many times)
thats right, I really hope that none gets killed….unlike some one tracked minded persons that feel that we would all be better with a single dominant OS. Hello….wake up.
The more competition there is the better for us when it comes to stability, performance, and looks.
@Uno Engborg:
Good post. Interesting.
@matronyx: The problem is there is not enough competition, because too many % of users use Windoze compared to Linux users, MacOSX users, Beos users, …
Open source Unix, in which category I place Linux, BSD, and Darwin (the OS layer of Apple’s OS X), is a 500,000-piece bag of Legos that comes with some drawings and a few models you can use, build on, or tap into as references for your own creations.
Actually, it is Windows the Lego OS. Let me explain. I install XP on my box. OK. I reboot. First, I need to find and install drivers for my graphics card. Reboot. Then for my sound card. Reboot. Then I buy a printer, I need to look for the correct drivers and install them. Reboot. I buy a scanner -> need to look for the drivers (sometimes they don’t even exist for XP). I buy a USB key (mass storage) -> drivers.
ever done the driver hunting on HP.com, ATI or nvidia.com ?
Under Linux : I buy a distribution -> it detects my hardware and installs the drivers automatically. A printer or a scanner ? I go to a Config center, which downloads and installs for me the correct packages, without even knowing their names. I buy a USB mass storage device ? I plug, an icon appears. I buy a device that has a kernel module ? I plug it, then hotplug/udev loads the correct driver. No hassle, no reboot, this is done transparently.
I am sorry, but Windows is not less a Lego when it comes to hardware support.
I am sorry, but Windows is not less a Lego when it comes to hardware support.
Funny how people pick on the weakness of an OS, proves that their OS can do it better and that magically makes the entire OS better.
So what? I’m a Windows user and I agree hardware ‘installation’ is better in Linux.
As for the other 99% of things, Windows is better. You just choose to ignore those.
If you can, buy a clue.
Will a semi transparant windows or 3D desktops make it faster to send an invoice, will it make it easier to write sales letters to my customers. I think not.
No that will keep the hardware vendors happy and better performing hardware needed.
Windows will kill Microsoft…
Commit sudacide…
Bill will hand himself with help of Balmer…
RIP
As far as I know, it is the author of the article who used the “Lego” argument. I wanted to demonstrate that was false. This news is about the content of the article, isn’t it ? Or maybe you have not read it and just decided to be biased ?
Now for the 99% of things, I would not say Windows is better. Linux is at least equal to Windows when it comes to 99% of tasks. Or have you better examples ?
I agree with the author that Linux won’t kill Windows even though I use Linux. I am tired of the rabid Linux attack dogs. This pack tears to pieces anybody who dares to criticize or point to any negative aspect of the current state of Linux. Anybody that runs foul of this pack is a moron, an idiot, ignorant, misinformed, paid by MS, or any other such BS. This pack however will slavishly agree with any other piece of garbage that praises Linux no matter how misinformed or lacking of corroborating data it may be.
My fear is that the growth of Linux will stall if somebody does not manage to muzzle this pack. Linus and co. need to start a campaign that emphasizes that abusing people that do not agree with your point of view is *not acceptable*. Companies and regular users interested in Linux are turned off by fanaticism. This is a big problem, and the Linux community needs to come to grips with it.
You’re soo right! And you get the same result from Mac users…
You can’t say anything bad about Linux or you get flooded by flame replys. This is realy not the good way to make Linux better…
Linux will ultimately surpass Microsoft for one reason and one reason only. That reason is the most powerful word in advertising. You just can’t beat “FREE”, no matter how hard you try. If Linux remains free and the other platforms continue to have an associated cost, eventually the functionality between the platforms will minimize, but one will be free and the others will have an associated cost. For the majority of the people in this world, the free platform will be good enough.
I currently run a dual boot box w/ SUSE 9.2 and Windows 2000. Linux is used for everything from surfing the net to programming. The only time I “need” Windows is to play network games w/ my son (ie Age of Empires). If high quality games would be ported to Linux I would never be forced to use Windows. For me it is all about games. I miss Loki.
I have been re-reading the article, trying to figure out what Tom’s up to.
Tom says that Linux is an OS, and not a platform.
He also says that Windows is a platform.
Then Tom says that because linux (and *nix) isn’t a platform, it can’t kill windows, which is a platform.
Further on, Tom does some more explaining.
He says that an operating system is something that you add device drivers and API’s too, and a platform is something you add Applications onto.
So what he is saying is the windows already includes API’s and device drivers, and that’s why windows is a platform.
He even goes so far as to say that developers aren’t going to use linux, because they waste all their time creating new API’s and device drivers, instead of writing applications.
Tom keeps on going and going.
He says that the only option developers on linux (*nix) have, is to pick from the hundreds and hundreds of API’s and device drivers. He then states that because Windows only has 1 API / platform, it’s easiest for a developer to write to windows.
Earlier in the article, he stated that “Businesses and organizations of all sizes need consistent, predictable, scalable, self-contained platforms for server solutions. Windows wins.”
Basically, ‘businesses need a platform, windows is A platform, so it wins’.
I hardly agree with anything he says.
First of all, let me start off by pointing out what I noticed about linux, which is slightly related.
Smaller companies that don’t have an IT department, or even a system administrator are not yet seriously considering linux.
They can’t support their own systems, they need a contractor/consultant to do it for them. Maybe in their local area one out of every 1000 consulting companies mention that they will support linux.
Also, like one other poster said, if all they know is ‘point clickety point lookout express’, then they don’t know enough to know about benefits of linux. Heck these people get loaded up with 1000 pieces of spyware and all they know is that their computer is running slower. They don’t have to ever fix it, they make an intrepid technician do it. But then they still get to pick which OS they are running.
In fact, it is larger businesses that get crushed by mass mailing worms. Smaller companies might not have exchange server and outlook, and for whatever reason, they are not so hugely impacted by a mass mailing worm. They usually only have dial-up connections, and that pretty much chokes any mass mailing worm to death.
Larger companies have tons of support staff. There are a lot of people there that know what an immense support burden windows is. They are at least willing to explore ways to support that burden.
They also have large programming staffs. If they decided to develop their application to run under linux, they could do it. It is true that they already have spent a lot of money to hire and train windows programmers, so there has to be a a good payoff for them to switch, but the truth is that the option is there for them today.
Now back to Tom.
He neatly ignores Novell. Now there is a company that has a platform by his own definition.
They supply a kernel (2), desktop, API’s, messaging, servers, middleware, netware, zenworks, probably more.
They can even re-use the large pool of programmers that have learned VB and .NET with Mono.
IBM also has a huge enterprise software suite. Middleware, messaging, you name it.
Even ignoring Novell and IBM, while there is more than one API, most of them can be ignored, and you can produce cross-platform code by choosing from 3 or so common Development Suites.
Sure there is flux in the API’s, but if you survey Windows developers, they are going to be the ones to tell you that there is as much, or more flux in even the windows API’s and programming languages.
Additionally, much programming is moving to higher level languages like python, php, java, etc, etc.
So then at the end Tom points out that his whole purpose was to make it look like linux has no chance against windows, and next week, he is intending to point out that windows has no chance against OS X and java.
Duh, like java doesn’t run on windows or linux, or symbian, or palm, or windows CE?
So even if you think java is the way to go, what’s the point of which Operating System or platform you are running. It wouldn’t even matter.
Tom isn’t discussing Joe and Jane AOL at this point. I have been trying to convert windows users to linux, and so far I have not found a linux distro that I am comfortable switching a halfway knowledgeable windows user to. I have successfully converted 1, or maybe 2 home users to linux. I would like linux to make some strides in taking the best of linux and adding some of the features from windows that are not yet working as well in linux.
But those will come with time. Those will come after more businesses start using linux.
So really, Tom is just off on a tangent. You can’t seriously believe that development on linux is all doom and gloom.
Matt
Linux is already making huge inroads on the desktop market and according to both Gardner and IDC research the percentage of Linux desktops is estimated to reach between 15% and 20% by end of 2005. According to the latest studies the Linux market is among the fastest growing markets and is projected to exceed $35.7 billion by 2008: http://www.techweb.com/wire/showArticle.jhtml?arti cleID=55800522
Looks like Linux is becoming the standard desktop OS much faster than anyone had expected.
I mean, apart from the fact that Windows just works and you don’t have to do any funny voodoo (or recompile the kernel) to get basic stuff like USB 2, FireWire and 802.11anything to work, what has Windows got that Linux hasn’t got?
Given the choice between an OS I can use out of the box, so to speak, and an OS I have to configure by hand (actually editing config files in many instances) I’ll take the one that lets me get to work ASAP, which is why I drive a Mac.
Linux? Sure, it’s always going to have a place as a server OS, but on the desktop? Only geeks with the know-how to force it to behave will want it. Until Linux reaches the “Just Works” stage it doesn’t stand a chance.
People can point to download numbers, saying that there are x million people downloading linux. So what? I’ve downloaded at least eight or nine distros in the last few years. Do you think I’m actually USING any of them? Nope.
I tried Linux PPC on my old Mac and it didn’t work at all. Then I tried Yellow Dog on my old iMac, and it failed to recognise the video card (despite their saying explicitly that it WAS supported). I even tried a live CD of Ubuntu on my iBook. Neat, but so what? I can do all of that with MacOS X. I’ve got a couple different Fedora Cores laying about for use on my gaming PC, but I always go back to Windows. Why? It just works.
Sure, there are security holes to work around. But I’d rather put up with that (on Windows) than try to manage Linux. Linux requires too much work with not enough reward.
yes, Linux market share $35.7 billion by 2008 is correct: http://www.techweb.com/wire/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=55800522
1991 : Linux? A plaything for college students. It’ll never work like *real* Unix.
1996 : Linux? So it makes a simple web server. It’ll never scale as an enterprise server.
2001 : Linux? Yeah, it’s nice for my enterprise servers, but it’ll never give end-users any satisfaction.
2005 : Linux? So hackers have pretty desktop. Didja see the effort they had to go to make it work? It’ll never be easy enough for our secretary Jane Typist.
Nope, Linux will never compete. Not even that Novell Linux Desktop that has proliferated our workplace and made every desktop look the same (but secure). It’ll never happen.
Interesting way of seeing it.
let’s jump straight to 2001. Linux isn’t nice, but it’s a cheap ugly option instead of using true Unix.
2005. Maybe a small amount of Haxx0000rs or whatever they call them starting using Linux, while those who really know something like Theo De Raadt stay with Unix which still owns Linux and will always own Linux.
What is also forgotten is that 1991 Linux was 3 years behind the competitors… 2005 Linux is 2 only 2 years behind the competitors… BUT evolution goes faster now. STill though, Linux will always be the least good solution for any given solution, however it seems like it has been and will be for quite some time the most hyped solution.
That was a useless article based on nothing, with no content, and up interchangeable terms (OS and platform). No logic in this article at all.
I mentioned early on that Linux would essentially make my brand-spanking-new computer useless, because it lacks sophisticated drivers for most of my higher-end hardware. Then someone suggested “Try the new ATI drivers”.
WTF? No. I won’t. Windows works fine for me. Why would I want to switch to Linux just to “try” the new drivers and see if they’re as good as the Windows ones? I hate that mentality — “try this, it might work”.
How about “NO”, because what I have already works?
The power the Windows holds over Linux can be seen in sort of a micro-ecosystem by look at the power that the iPod has over any other portable MP3 player on the market.
We can all agree that pretty much all of the MP3 players are as similar in their capabilities as Windows and Linux are. Pretty much do the same things in similar ways, using similar interfaces.
But, here’s where the iPod is Winning, and the others are not. While all of the MP3 players have similar feature sets, none have the 3rd party support that the iPod enjoys right now. All of these 3rd parties that make remote control gizmos, FM broadcasters, belt pouches, “pod casting”, etc. make the iPod an even BETTER choice than anything else because you can do that much more with it. I can get an iPod compatible BMW. Where’s my Dell compatible Mercedes? or Ford?
MS Office and all of the other boxed software is what makes Windows popular and powerful, despite any inherent problems with the platform itself.
Linux is the Dell of MP3 players. (or perhaps, more appropriate, the iRiver or some other hackable player).
If you actually read his columns you would find that he is pushing MacOS X servers, not Windows servers.
This is for two reasons:
(1) the slick interface that you talk about, and
(2) the programmability of the underlying BSD OS for heavy-duty lifting.
Maybe next time get a clue before you spew.
What you fail to acknowledge is that Windows advocates on this and other Internet forums are as rabid, as aggressive and as abusive as the most extreme Linux enthusiasm. One only needs to read the comments sections on this webiste to figure that out.
Disclaimer: I’m both a Windows and Linux user.
WTF? No. I won’t. Windows works fine for me. Why would I want to switch to Linux just to “try” the new drivers and see if they’re as good as the Windows ones? I hate that mentality — “try this, it might work”.
So basically your only interest is to trash Linux, without finding out if your criticism is valid or not? It sure sounds that way:
“I won’t try Linux because it doesn’t work with my hardware.
– The new drivers work with your hardware.
– But I don’t want to try them because Windows already works with my hardware.”
We know that you’re not interested in trying Linux. What I’m still trying to figure out is why you feel the urge to justify your bias by constantly attacking it.
Everyone I know is switching to linux lately. In another couple of month you’ll see a significant dent in windows market share. Linux turned out much easier to use than I expected. I love it and should have switched long time ago.
Really can’t make that statement until you’ve sprinkled it with holy water and driven a stake through it’s heart.
crap!
You can tell me for sure that these drivers work perfectly? You were just saying “Try these …”, meaning you weren’t sure, and now you ARE sure that they work with my hardware. What’s next? Will I get the same FPS and better quality?
Right. I’ve seen game performance in Linux, and it’s hardly impressive. What about all my other hardware?
My original statement could be likened to “I won’t try Linux because it doesn’t work with my hardware, and will not bring anything to the table. It’ll take from the table.”
This author of this article is 100% correct. Let me explain it again companies want supportable end to end solutions. They really do not care about flexibility of creating their own solutions becasue those type of development projects are extremely expensive and it makes better business sense to use commercial offerings.
Completely lame article. No facts at all, but a lot of wrong information. Linux is already doing a lot of harm to windows as well as to several close-sourced Unix’es.
And he clearly doesn’t know a dime about programming when he claims that programmers “spend most of their time encapsulating and abstracting low-level system calls to create what is, in effect, an application platform.”
This is not exactly true – actually it’s BS. A programmer _can_ do it, but many don’t since Linux (and other *nix’es) has all the programming tools, api layers, RAD-tools and whatever anyone could possibly need.
Anyway… claiming Linux does not “make a dent in Windows’ mind share or market share” is factually wrong.
Haha… Your statement “They really do not care about flexibility of creating their own solutions becasue those type of development projects are extremely expensive and it makes better business sense to use commercial offerings” is clearly wrong.
A closedsource end to end solution typically cost a two or three ciffered million danish crowns, however an open source selfmade solution typically cost less than a million danish crowns – when the company uses the potential to its fullest. Hire a few developers – create your own solution – let the developers handle maintainence. Price for 5 years: 25.000*12*5 per developer = 1.5 million danish crown or 7.5 mio. Dkr. for 5 developers in 5 years. And you don’t really need more than one developer when the solution has been developed. One is enough for maintainance.
If you do it right, you can save a lot of money on open source
Windows is threatened by linux no question, but each move MS makes agains Linux will have no result. Nobody cares, if windows gains market shares against linux (except MS of course).
Linux has grown out of itself, though there was a lot of “competition”. Kernel 0.1 was born in the beginning of the 90’s – a time with many different competitors (Atari, DOS, Win 3.11, several unixes of course, etc). Linux has grown though there were dozens of better operating systems at that time. It’s existing. Those who want to use it can use it, the others will have to pay.
You can tell me for sure that these drivers work perfectly? You were just saying “Try these …”, meaning you weren’t sure, and now you ARE sure that they work with my hardware.
I wasn’t the original poster to tell you to try the ATI drivers. For the record I have a Nvidia card and the Linux drivers are very good. My beef is that you don’t even want to try. In other words, you complain for the sake of complaining.
What’s next? Will I get the same FPS and better quality?
For native games? Sure.
Right. I’ve seen game performance in Linux, and it’s hardly impressive.
You get the same FPS for native games, such as Neverwinter Nights, UT2004 or Quake 3. In fact, you can get better performance if you use a minimal Window Manager for your gaming sessions, which reduces the overhead.
What about all my other hardware?¨
What about it? Look, if Linux won’t work well with your own specific hardware combination, then don’t use it. It works fine with mine. To each his own. There’s no point in trashing Linux just for the sake of it, like you’ve been doing in these comments sections. I don’t feel the need to trash Windows just because I prefer Linux…
A number of years ago I read an interview with an IBM exec, which was the a ha moment for me regarding IBM’s Linux strategy, where it was stated that IBM basically saw Linux as potentially being everything IBM thought Java should have been; essentially a highly flexible universal runtime environment. IBM knows platforms. In fact, it’s easily the largest “platform” vendor in existence, bar none.
In the datacenter, Linux is really just another Unix. Actually, if we’re talking about the very high-end side of the datacenter market, Linux as an OS compares pretty poorly with AIX and Solaris. That said, Linux, with some help from IBM, Oracle, and a few other tier 1 vendors, has been steadily pushing its way deeper into the datacenter for one important reason: commodity hardware. The economics of commodity hardware will eventually completely reconfigure the traditional enterprise datacenter market and Linux is what is making that possible. The Xen hypervisor, which has accumulated major vendor (hardware and software) support faster than any other technology I can ever recall, will, imho, accelerate this trend even more.
In the late 90’s it looked as though the only way commodity harware was ever going to get into the datacenter was either via Windows, an very unpalatable option to many, or the vaporous hopes then attached to the IBM/SCO Monterey project. Since that time MS has had very little luck moving up into the core of the datacenter and the Monterey project was officially abandoned by IBM for Linux.
Linux will probably never kill-off MS, but it has very effectively held off MS’s attempts at moving up into high end markets.
On the client side, Linux may never become a good general purpose home operating system, but it does have many compelling advantages when compared to Windows in a corporate setting, especially in light of continuing trend toward thin clients and application deployment models based around Citrix, Tarentella, and Windows Terminal Server. Ironically enough, Linux may well end up taking a significant part of client market by playing to its strenghts as server OS.
windows fanboys, download Enemy Territory from ID games… it is free you know…
anyway, play online and have a look at peoples usernames in there.
you will see they mostly have linux in their names, or the distro as their name…
No games on Linux ? nah – you are all living in the dark ages mate
It’s about being as good as it can be and offering people an alternative, and that’s enough.
A closedsource end to end solution typically cost a two or three ciffered million danish crowns, however an open source selfmade solution typically cost less than a million danish crowns – when the company uses the potential to its fullest. Hire a few developers – create your own solution – let the developers handle maintainence. Price for 5 years: 25.000*12*5 per developer = 1.5 million danish crown or 7.5 mio. Dkr. for 5 developers in 5 years. And you don’t really need more than one developer when the solution has been developed. One is enough for maintainance.
If you do it right, you can save a lot of money on open source
Well i am not sure how they do things in De Dansk but here in the States it happens exactly like i stated. Developing your own software soultion 9 times out of 10 duplicates software already on the market. Also depending on the quality of you developers you get locked into a proprietary software solution that over the long term becomes a huge headache to maintain and release new versions for. Buying a COTS product ensures maintainability since new versions of software and support will be released handled by the software company.
I belive this guy works for Microsoft, because no one else would defend M$ and Window$ like he does. Everything he tells is lies. Linux is a supperior operating sistem, safer, faster, bettar. Why wouldnt that please the companys?? Every day I see more and more companys moving to Linux, and this only shows how Linux became mature enought to be used in companys.
Why the fuck would *anyone* put their distro name in their game name? How *gay* is that?
Next thing you know, I’ll be playing as [NT5.1]OMGWTFBBQ. It’s no different than the turds who use AzN-pLaYaH-hAtaH or something equally stupid.
The argument of whether Linux will win over Windows is
just fodder for the marketing geeks to justify useless
conversation to pass the time at the water cooler.
And it gives each of them the opportunity to hear themselves
speak(however factually incorrect they make it to be).
Microsoft has invested a lot of time and money trying to
convince people such as _my boss_ and the many other
non-technical managerial-types that MS-Windows XP/Longhorn/etc is, and always will be the the BETTER
CHOICE. How about an “E” for effort on their behalf.
I work at a University which offers “computer science
degree courses” and the new generation of computer
geniuses are changing. Not because anyone is telling them
to change, but that they have become comfortable with
OpenSource.
Microsoft keeps hounding the baby boomers in the managerial
positions, but those people are the wrong segment. Old
ways, lose new business.
The computer science students which I employ under my
guidance don’t buy software. This is one blow to Microsoft
who’s productivity software costs a lot of money. Students
don’t spend money if they can avoid it. My students also do
not care if their assignments should be submitted in MSWord
format, because OpenOffice runs on their MAC OSX and Linux
x86 computers.
Microsoft *WILL* see a dent in their structure some day
soon, as the students of today will manage businesses
and corporations of tomorrow(very near future), and these
students have already had a taste for Opensource and it
works very well for them.
This _really_ is what is happening on our campus, and
we aren’t alone. Whether Microsoft achknowledges it or not,
Windows only resembles money. Our students believe that
the MS software is vastly overpriced.
Microsoft’s primary excuse will no longer be _Software
Piracy_ but lack of sales… and it is their mpending
legacy.
well i disagree with the author. last sunday i deleted windows. and installed ubuntu hoary. it works with all my hardware. and has all the programs i need. Also with the clearlooks theme its also much nicer to look at than windows. So far, i am quite happy with my choice to ditch windows. its been about a week, and i have become much more comfortable with linux. Also im really liking the gimp and inkscape. After getting used to the layout, its a bit easier to use than photoshop or illustrator. Plus the gimp works a million times better in linux than it does in windows.
Smartpatrol > It appears to me, that either you don’t grok the nature of opensource OR you just haven’t read what I wrote. There is no way a company can “get locked into a proprietary software solution” when they’re using free libré open source software. It’s impossible by the nature of that philosophy
But if you’re thinking about closed source selfmade software – this is always expensive – and a very bad idea. I was talking about free software / open source and not non-free / proprietary software. And in USA this is quite used as well, it’s not just in Denmark (and it’s not called De Dansk – there is no such word – it’s Denmark (in english – in danish it would be Danmark)) 😀
Feel free to mail me if you think you have questions I can answer – or write in here if that pleases you. Or perhaps even better – just ignore me 😉
Reading all the flamebait’s been fun. The article also left me feeling a little confused – Linux has one major advantage over the WinNT branch of Windows, which Yager went and forgot: sure, there may be a number of user-interface APIs, but the base API, POSIX, is unified and is also exposed to applications writers. It’s also shared with the *BSD including MacOSX. WinNT’s base API – the ntkernel-minus-Win32-GDI API – isn’t exposed, and instead, has been laboriously reverse-engineered by the ntinternals crew.
Consequently, Linux is already a platform. Yager just hasn’t recognized that. What us Linux enthusiasts are talking about, on the desktop, isn’t “developing a platform”, it’s extending it.
And it’s proving a lot easier to extend an already robust server platform with freely-redistributable source code to the desktop, than it has been to extend a fragile desktop to meet the demands of the server environment.
And in the meantime, what a waste of resources. Some people …. !
Yes, Windows can run run everything. Including every virus, worm, and spyware in the known universe.
I have used Linux for five years and my machine has never run one of those. I have also not paid for any software in the last four years.
As a retired journalist, I resent this person falsely representing himself as one. People like him think they are reporting when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
Everyone may never be converted to Linux (I don’t think is our goal anyhow), but then, Muslim extremists will never convert to Christianity either.
That does not make the terrorist right.
If you want to support a company that has been convicted of monopolistic practices, go ahead. That makes you just as much an outlaw as the people who steal a copy of Windows from the richest man in the world.
Open source equals open mind. Microsoft, or those — including journalists — who profiteer from it, are not open source. The rest of the equation is simple enough even for a Windows user to figure out.
I’m wondering, having read the articles in this list, if perhaps OSNews ought to reconsider it name, and perhaps change it to OSConjecture.
linux needs to be a “bag of drivers”. i hate installing new hardware on linux
Linux is a flagship of bad F/OSS software. It will eventually be replaced by a better free OS and *that* will beat windows.
I don’t know why they would want to put their OS name in their username in the game, it is just something I have noticed lately.
AND, another thing, I have asked these users about the distros they say they are using, just to make sure they are not the muppets who insert a live cd and think them is a linux guru.
On May 5th the UK is going to be having a general election. I will be asking the candidates around here how they feel on software patents, if they support the idea or not.
I will also ask them if they will be supporting proprietary software in the UK government infrastructure and schools, or will they be looking to replace this saving billions of tax payers pounds.
I will post the reply on some site… if I get a reply and not just a blank look from them hahaha
Linux is a flagship of bad F/OSS software. It will eventually be replaced by a better free OS and *that* will beat windows.
Those free OS have to catch the reality: none of them have yet to prove their usualibity in the real world (enterprise, server, hardware to name a few).
Linux as a kernel is a proven technology that does not need to beat Windows (based on a microkernel that does not provide scalability).