mendozaro
November 5th, 2008, 03:47 AM
My story:
I use computers since 1992. Gone trough DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP and finally Vista. Windows 95 has been like a big stepping stone in all this time for me. Back then, i had to install windows 95 even 2 times / day cause it was terribly unstable + it was really easy to just mess it up. On the other hand back then i had TIME... LOTS of TIME.
After that point in time, windows experience got better and better until the internet became available everywhere at low costs. This time for me coincided with XP. The first year was kind of hard... with lots of reinstalls, lost data and lost nights.
In 2003 i started my own company covering web and media design. In no more than 6 months i had 2 employees and a small rented office. At first we started with html designs (using pirated Dreamweaver) presentation CD's (pirated Flash) and some printing layouts (pirated Photoshop). In time we scraped the printing layouts and presentation CD's and focused on web design only.
Im starting to get to the point of my post...
In 2006 i started buying licenses for ALL the software we used. So we got Office, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, 3DS MAX, Sony Vegas and some more obscure license in value of OVER 20k$. This was a HUGE chunk of money for me at that time but i considered it is necessary and somehow believed deep down inside of me that this is the right thing to do.
2007... i found Ubuntu (Note that i was always aware of the Linux operating system, but never found it to be suitable for desktop use). At first Ubuntu was a "fail" for me as you can see in this link (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=613611). But after a few more months and some serious changes in my company (we decided to make professional php/mysql web sites and C++ programing only) i realized that we can move entirely on Ubuntu and maybe get some money back off those licenses.
Today, we rely on Ubuntu only. As a side effect, we started investing more in hardware and people instead of software. Also our web pages are a lot more cleaner as a result of scraping wysiwyg web editors. Also we started some programming projects. This projects will result (hopefully in a few months) in some nice, low cost, games that will work on Linux, Windows and probably Mac. Now don't imagine we are writing another World of Warcraft... we are currently working on some educative 3d games for 2-8 years old kids. Maybe after finishing this projects we'll go after Blizard! (joking)
MY Conclusion:
I find it REALLY hard to believe that people that say windows is better than Linux really buy the software they use! Cause you see... the prices for those pieces of software are set by commercial market. This leads to the fact that software gets to be EXTREMELY overpriced today!
Vista 400$?
Office 2007 for an average of 400$?
Photoshop 700$?
ARE you really ready to pay all that?
The difference in usability between OpenOffice and Office 2007 WILL NEVER MAKE UP for a 400$ difference in price! HELL NO! If you have basic knowledge in programming and some common sense you will realize its a total RIPOFF! If MS would only have sold 10 milion copy's of Office 2007 they would be 4 BILION RICHER! Now you still think that is a fair price?
If we would start counting all the software value any Linux distro gives away free, we would probably get to ridiculous values really fast. I don't say Linux is perfect. Probably will never be perfect... but than, are you or your FREE and FLAWLESS Windows?
I use computers since 1992. Gone trough DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP and finally Vista. Windows 95 has been like a big stepping stone in all this time for me. Back then, i had to install windows 95 even 2 times / day cause it was terribly unstable + it was really easy to just mess it up. On the other hand back then i had TIME... LOTS of TIME.
After that point in time, windows experience got better and better until the internet became available everywhere at low costs. This time for me coincided with XP. The first year was kind of hard... with lots of reinstalls, lost data and lost nights.
In 2003 i started my own company covering web and media design. In no more than 6 months i had 2 employees and a small rented office. At first we started with html designs (using pirated Dreamweaver) presentation CD's (pirated Flash) and some printing layouts (pirated Photoshop). In time we scraped the printing layouts and presentation CD's and focused on web design only.
Im starting to get to the point of my post...
In 2006 i started buying licenses for ALL the software we used. So we got Office, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, 3DS MAX, Sony Vegas and some more obscure license in value of OVER 20k$. This was a HUGE chunk of money for me at that time but i considered it is necessary and somehow believed deep down inside of me that this is the right thing to do.
2007... i found Ubuntu (Note that i was always aware of the Linux operating system, but never found it to be suitable for desktop use). At first Ubuntu was a "fail" for me as you can see in this link (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=613611). But after a few more months and some serious changes in my company (we decided to make professional php/mysql web sites and C++ programing only) i realized that we can move entirely on Ubuntu and maybe get some money back off those licenses.
Today, we rely on Ubuntu only. As a side effect, we started investing more in hardware and people instead of software. Also our web pages are a lot more cleaner as a result of scraping wysiwyg web editors. Also we started some programming projects. This projects will result (hopefully in a few months) in some nice, low cost, games that will work on Linux, Windows and probably Mac. Now don't imagine we are writing another World of Warcraft... we are currently working on some educative 3d games for 2-8 years old kids. Maybe after finishing this projects we'll go after Blizard! (joking)
MY Conclusion:
I find it REALLY hard to believe that people that say windows is better than Linux really buy the software they use! Cause you see... the prices for those pieces of software are set by commercial market. This leads to the fact that software gets to be EXTREMELY overpriced today!
Vista 400$?
Office 2007 for an average of 400$?
Photoshop 700$?
ARE you really ready to pay all that?
The difference in usability between OpenOffice and Office 2007 WILL NEVER MAKE UP for a 400$ difference in price! HELL NO! If you have basic knowledge in programming and some common sense you will realize its a total RIPOFF! If MS would only have sold 10 milion copy's of Office 2007 they would be 4 BILION RICHER! Now you still think that is a fair price?
If we would start counting all the software value any Linux distro gives away free, we would probably get to ridiculous values really fast. I don't say Linux is perfect. Probably will never be perfect... but than, are you or your FREE and FLAWLESS Windows?