why isnt windows far superior to linux?

[PetePete]

I dont want this to be a MS bashing thread, as there are enough of those already, but I was thinking, with all the money and resources which MS can pour into the development of Windows, how come free alternatives such as Linux can compete in the same market and deliver a product to rival Windows?

I know many linux projects such as ubuntu do have paid devs, but there is no way they can compete in the sheer number of resources MS has and has access to, so how come MS hasn't delivered the most ground breaking super dooper OS yet with features that are unmatched in any other OS?

If I worked at MS id be asking some serious questions such as how a free operating system with components written by hobbyists compete and rival our multi billion dollor product?!

[tweakedenigma]

The simple answer is that they have too much to work with. Remember after all necessity is the mother of Invention

[AndyCooll]

Microsoft may have more paid developers, however Linux has far more contributors and developers. It's simply that most of those developers are voluntary. And just because they work voluntarily doesn't mean their work is inferior. You and I can freely contribute, and it is this community and the sheer size of it that enables open-source to compete.

:cool:

[~~Tito~~]

Because Bill Gates doesn't care anymore he has money already. Also they want to stay the same and make more money.

[phenest]

One simple reason could be that MS do not invent. They buy complete rights to software from other companies and repackage as their own with very little modification if any. How do you think MS started? They never wrote MS-DOS. They never invented NTFS. They didn't invent the concept of windows. The list is extensive.

Basically, MS would have no idea how to write an OS from scratch. Why do you think each new OS they release has backward compatibility? It's because each new OS is based on the previous OS. If MS released a brand new OS built from scratch which was totally different from previous OS's, they could simply add a layer to the code to add support for previous OS's (similar to the idea of Wine in Ubuntu). But clearly, they don't know how. Otherwise they would have done it by now.

Vista was 5 years of development and billions (?) of $'s invested. The end product is basically XP with eye candy.

This was not meant as a bashing of MS, but simply facts that anyone can look up on the internet.

[PilotJLR]

Keep in mind the Linux itself isn't really made by "hobbyists." Lots of people get paid by companies like Red Hat, Novell, etc.
Of course, some apps are made by people who are not being compensated. That doesn't make it poor quality, though. I'm fairly sure Amarok and K3b, for example, are done purely for free, and both are high quality apps.

[GFree678]

Bad management/managers.

[jfinkels]

In addition to what has already been said, it is important to understand that Windows is only a small part of the range of products and services Microsoft offers. Microsoft is working on all sorts of research projects (like http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ and http://labs.live.com/photosynth/ and everything here http://labs.live.com/ ) as well as all the countless software products that make up the Microsoft Windows environment for desktop users, servers, developers, etc. etc.

And of course, it is important to remember that being paid doesn't necessarily mean one is more able than one who is not paid.

[DoctorMO]

It's got a lot to do with focus, being involved and connected to real users instead of shills and fanboys; and even then the fanboys have been getting mad because they get ignored by Big Red (Microsoft).

On the other hand most FLOSS projects are written, started, fixed by the very people that will end up using them; we don't have to be forced to eat our own dog food because we only make what we're going to use.

That isn't to say that some developers don't grok users; I think there is much room for some of the elitist and hard nosed devs to improve their community participation by looking for ways to improve the lives of people that aren't them.

As for Microsoft, it also has to deal with a lot of internal politics, so instead of developing good technology it's forced to develop bad technology in order to retain control or develop trade and/or technical barriers for competitors.

[rbprogrammer]

i think this is just a prime case that money isn't everything.

i mean microsoft has who knows exactly how much money, yet something like linux which is funded much less, can have so much more security, stability, tons of other features, and definitely some sexy eye candy.

[juxtaposed]

with all the money and resources which MS can pour into the development of Windows, how come free alternatives such as Linux can compete in the same market and deliver a product to rival Windows?

Because windows has the goal of making the most profit for microsoft.

Linux has the goal of making the best operating system possible.

Linux hasn't gotten into the corporate profit driven motives nearly as much as microsoft, but it could happen if linux got a comfortable ammount of marketshare (or the majority). Right now even the corporations working on/with linux know they need to make the OS the best it possibly can be.

[phrostbyte]

Don't get me started. Politics, bad management, lack of focus, excessive amount of meetings, badly constructed legacy code all over the place, and a really really bad revision control system.

[abso_816]

Or... maybe Microsoft's goal isn't to make money, and isn't to provide a viable operating system to end users either.

Maybe they have one big client who calls all the shots (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html), and maybe Vista was created for that client and that client alone. And maybe the features and functionality of Vista that this client demanded are not apparent to the end user. But as far as this client is concerned, maybe those features and functions work perfectly. For all we know, this client may be very, very happy indeed with the operating system Microsoft has created.

[aysiu]

Complacency.

No improvements in Internet Explorer for years... until Firefox became a threat.

[phenest]

Or... maybe Microsoft's goal isn't to make money, and isn't to provide a viable operating system to end users either.

Maybe they have one big client who calls all the shots (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html), and maybe Vista was created for that client and that client alone. And maybe the features and functionality of Vista that this client demanded are not apparent to the end user. But as far as this client is concerned, maybe those features and functions work perfectly. For all we know, this client may be very, very happy indeed with the operating system Microsoft has created.

It doesn't say CLIENT, it says PARTNER. And they only helped with the security. Read before you post, man! And if it was the security they helped with, then they no nothing about the subject. Vista's security has already been circumvented. It's crap!

[abso_816]

It doesn't say CLIENT, it says PARTNER. And they only helped with the security. Read before you post, man!

I know what it says...

Man, I need to get out more. I forget that there are people out there who actually take everything the government, big business and the media tells them at face value and without the slightest bit of skepticism.

But hey -- I guess you must be right. After all, The Washington Post would never print a lie, would it?

[stmiller]

It is a poorly run company. When some MS source code got out before (it was on slashdot awhile back) plenty of hackers replied how they couldn't believe what crappy code was being written by Microsoft employees.

[Hex_Mandos]

I second aysiu, and I want to add backwards compatibility. Without centralized package management, Windows needs to keep it's packages compatible with as many versions of Windows as possible. I'm sure many apps compiled for DOS/Win 3.1 still run on Vista. Try running 10+ years old binaries on Linux (of course, thanks to centralized package management and good repos you'll never need to do that... but Windows doesn't have that).