Future of Microsoft?

[whoa_551]

I'm interested in what folks around here think about the future of Microsoft.

I remember when I got into this computer thing around ten years ago, people were predicting its demise, or the certain demise of MSN, IE, etc. It has never happened. Where do you think it will be in two to three years? (I guess I would prefer you to be as sincere as possible :( )

[_simon_]

I read an article a few months ago saying that Vista could be the last MS OS and that they may be concentrating on the services market hence all this Windows Live stuff.

I think I read it on Digg, I can't remember who the author was though.

[ComplexNumber]

the bigger MS becomes, the less quickly it can adapt to what is, essentially, a fast moving market. with vista, we will see MS start to go downhill. how much so is a moot point. it depends upon how quickly it can adapt and how many dirty tricks it can pull out of its inexhaustable bag of dirty tricks.

[FISHERMAN]

Within the next 2 or 3 years, I don't believe anything will change. MS will be able to keep its near-monopoly market share.
As for the long term(20-30 years), I haven't got the slitest idea.

[commodore]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

[henriquemaia]

I think Ubuntu can have a say on what's going to change on other OSes camp, since I really believe that its product has the quality to change things around. The odds are changing.

[mostwanted]

I believe open source will have an increasing important role in South America and the less developed parts of Asia (roughly, Asia minus Korea and Japan). I'm very confident that once big upcoming world powers get more supportive of open source, it's gonna help tremendously in the long run.

As for Europe and North America, I'm not sure if much will happen these next couple of years. There are a few debates about open standards where I live, but not so much about open source. The politicians seem too reluctant to do anything about it, even the "shift to open standards" proposals. They're welcomed, but the excuse is "it's not wise to do now, wait some more years".

Over time I do predict a paradigm shift from convenience to "openess", but it's not going to happen right at this instant.

[BoyOfDestiny]

This blog entry is somewhat biased... Has some good points though

http://toorg.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-microsoft-will-fail.html

ODF is already a standard, MS is trying to get their open XML (which has patents on it) on the same track.

http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/TC45-2006-50.htm

Regarding Vista,

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT8288296398.html
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5308_05.asp
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html

So... I guess it's hard to tell. I doubt they are going to dissapear. The way things play out in 2007 will be a good indicator of how things are going.

[BoyOfDestiny]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

;)

There are paid developers / bounties for Free software...

[mostwanted]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

Not really true. Donations, government initiative and support spendings (Red Hat, Novell, anyone?) help fund free software projects right now.

[woedend]

making OS's isn't really a thing of the future. I mean, take a serious look at windows 95 and at windows XP - they both do functionally the same thing. Sure, one is chock full of features and gizmos, but they do the same basic things. I can definetely see MS not concentrating so hard on windows(even though it will always be their bread and butter...even if they went 8 years without a new version i'm sure it still would be) and move towards appliance application and services.
I just hope we don't get these stupid all in one devices like webtv and countertop email machines...I hate those things.

[ComplexNumber]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money. yes, but money doesn't last forever. MS can't fight linux because there is nothing of substance to fight. linux will overtake MS....guaranteed. its not a case of if, but when.

[curuxz]

I'm interested in what folks around here think about the future of Microsoft.

I remember when I got into this computer thing around ten years ago, people were predicting its demise, or the certain demise of MSN, IE, etc. It has never happened. Where do you think it will be in two to three years? (I guess I would prefer you to be as sincere as possible :( )

Were msn and IE around 10 years ago....

Personaly when I got into computing 12 years ago the only thing we were talking about going down the drain was RISC, and it did :D

MS is doomed, too big, too slow, poor product, high cost its a recipie for a distaster. Give it 5 years and they will have lost market dominance, the internet is allowing the mindless mass to see how things really are and the strength of Linux is growing more and more

[BoyOfDestiny]

yes, but money doesn't last forever. MS can't fight linux because there is nothing of substance to fight. linux will overtake MS....guaranteed. its not a case of if, but when.

Can't argue with that. :)

[helpme]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

Overall revenues from Linux-based servers increased by about 40 percent in the quarter, to $1.5 billion, Gartner said.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/networking/163701115

[Rhapsody]

I have to admit that I would like to see the Microsoft Goliath fall. Reason #1 is that they've decided to try and muscle in to the console market in recent years (the one place where I thought I'd never see them) which I really don't like. Reason #2 is Steve Ballmer saying "DRM is the future" (your future Mr. Ballmer, not mine). On a side note, as entertaining (Re: Dance Monkeyboy (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3446931931514285011) and developers (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2599797389815138128&q=developers+developers+developers)) as he is, Steve Ballmer is the catalyst that finally got me burning a Kubuntu install CD. Guess he didn't really do his job properly in that case.

But do I think Microsoft will actually be toppled? Well, they're resiliant, adaptive (it takes them a few attempts, but they usually wake up in the end), and have very deep pockets to finance their tradmarks brand of expansionism. But their slowness to react to Mozilla Firefox and lukewarm responses to Windows Vista are showing weakness. They're going to easily hold on in the short-term, but signs are not good for the long-term. Microsoft are going to have listen to their customers better and get more competitive if they wish to survive indefinitely.

[Zimmer]

Saw this on the Register today... one of my machines falls short of the spec...

Microsoft has specified what kit you'll need to run Windows Vista, with and without the upcoming operating system's fancy Aero user interface. It has also posted an application that will assess your system for its Vista suitability.

To get Vista's full array of graphical geegaws, you'll need a Premium Ready PC. To qualify, your machine has to have a 1GHz 32- or 64-bit processor, 1GB of memory, 40GB of hard drive capacity with at 15GB free space, a DVD-ROM drive and internet access, Microsoft said.

You'll also require a DirectX 9 graphics chip capable of doing PixelShader 2.0 in hardware, supporting 32-bit colour and having a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver. The GPU also needs access to "adequate" graphics memory: 64MB to 256MB, depending on the size of the monitor you plan to connect it to.

System not up to spec? You can still run Vista with a more basic GUI if you have a 800MHz CPU, 512MB of memory and any DirectX 9-capable graphics card. Together these specifications define what Microsoft calls a Vista Capable PC.
should be plenty of decent company laptops on the second hand market in the next 2 years, then... ;)

[catlett]

Microsoft's revenue was somewhere around $40 Billion last year. They aren't going anywhere. They have been smart enough to donate computers to schools and libraries so that a child's first experience is with windows.
The (at least in America) office workplace is totally windows. I do not know any "regular" working people from Boston who can open or edit a document, spredsheet, etc without Microsoft Office on their computer. Any hardware maker who wants to sell computers loads windows on them before sale.
For Microsoft to collapse they would have to loose this edge. I don't see schools or libraries turning down computers any time soon. I don't see companies spending thousands of dollars to convert their workstations and retrain their employees on another operating system. I don't see a major hardware manufacturer not giving Windows with their computers, The best you could hope for is that they will offer an open source system as a choice.
The only market that open source has a chance to get market share is developing countries. Places with no computers right now. Where the low price of open source and the ability to run well on old hardware will make open source OSs like linux accessable. Vista will be out of reach to people outside of industrial nations. The cost to have a P4 chip and at least 800mb of ram will keep it out of the developing and third world countries.
The thing I hope for is not the demise of microsoft but the emergence of the $100 laptop. It keeps getting closer to reality and it will be a huge step for civilization. Without getting too philisophical, information has always been controlled by governments. A cheap reliable computer connected to a free worldwide network will allow people to get their information from a non biased or at least alternative source.
But Microsoft is not in trouble. They had $40 billion in revenue and I think they have something like $12 billion cash on hand. It is healthier and wealthier than most countries in the world.
That doesn't mean linux isn't great. It means Linus and Bill have different philosophies about what intellectual property is and it's place in society.

[ComplexNumber]

But do I think Microsoft will actually be toppled? Well, they're resiliant, adaptive (it takes them a few attempts, but they usually wake up in the end), and have very deep pockets to finance their tradmarks brand of expansionism. But their slowness to react to Mozilla Firefox and lukewarm responses to Windows Vista are showing weakness. They're going to easily hold on in the short-term, but signs are not good for the long-term. Microsoft are going to have listen to their customers better and get more competitive if they wish to survive indefinitely. thats why its a case of when rather than if. MS can't kill linux in the same way that it can kill other companies that rely on paid employees. MS can swallow up companies. MS can use one method or another to bring its competitors to a state where their sales and other income don't balance well with the companies outcome (ie having to pay their employees), thereby rendering their competitors bankrupt. but those tactics don't work with linux. they can't cut off linux's income because there is no income(or outcome) to cut off. MS must really hate linux because it can't use the tactics of old. its having to try different tacs now because the traditional ones are futile. linux is making MS honest (or more honest, at least).
even if it takes 30-40 years, MS will grow old and weak and its resources largely depleted. all the time its having to balance its outgoings with its incomings to make sure that its incomings exceed its outgoings. month by month, tiny chunks are being eroded away from MS's incomings. those tiny chunks will have to be balanced by small chunks of its outgoings(eg employees or profits/earnings) that need to be removed. after a while, those tiny chunks all add up.

MS v linux is akin to a strong, resiliant, but mortal human that needs to breathe against a much smaller, but invincible and immortal entity

[disturbed1]

Microsoft is becoming too large. A jack of all trades, and master of none. IMO They made a good/great OS when they released Windows 2000, this was leaps and bounds above NT4 and Windows 98. XP has it's ups and downs, but once the user has configured, setup, and patched correctly, XP is usuable. But XP wasn't a huge step above 2000. The different versions of Vista are just down right not needed, and will add too much confusion for most people.

What I think most people don't understand, is that Microsoft didn't make Windows a good OS, it's the third party software and drivers that have allowed Windows to do what it does. Any one imagine using only MS apps? There are a decent selection, but most just aren't enough. 3rd party support is starting to trickle more and more into Linux.

Nvidia and ATI releasing binary drivers was a huge huger event. More hardware makers are also coming on board, with a few software vendors here and there. Nero, which could be the #1 burning solution for Windows, has a linux app. Not the greatest, but it is a start. This Linux version of Nero was even shipped with Samsung DVD Burners. Printer support is better than ever, the list goes on and on.

Most non-linux converts are such, not because of Microsoft apps, but third party apps and driver support.

Large corps, govs. and edu are moving over to open source left and right. With Microsoft not wanting to add support for ODF, this will turn off mass numbers to their office product(s).


I honestly don't believe, in it's current state, Linux will ever out number Windows in terms of Desktop PCs. LSB needs to be writen in stone, and followed by everyone, along with a standard for application installation. Which is the main reason most 3rd party support doesn't exist. You have to worry if you need a deb or an rpm. Then the fact that each deb type distro could have a different set of default libs installed, you would compile for Ubuntu, but leave out compatibility for Debian. Or you compile your RPM on Fedora, but lose support for Mandriva. Once/IF linux can come a standard, Microsoft would most likely topple. Then do I use QT or GTK? You can imagine the overhead, chance for bugs, and headache from attempting to cover all bases.

^^Evolution, or natural selection, you would think should sooner or later weed everything out. Or so I thought 7 or 8 years ago.

[BarfBag]

It's here to stay in America. Too many people think Linux sucks without even remotely knowning ANYTHING about it besides the name. Since Mac is getting more popular, that may bring the number of Linux users up. People who need to move on.

[whoa_551]

Thanks for all the input. Interesting thoughts and opinions...

[RavenOfOdin]

I've always believed one thing, and this has come through leadership experience of many different sorts as well as a knowledge of human nature. Those who grow too far, and too fast, will fall. . .That goes for any business, group, or project.

Microsoft has made itself into a sprawling cluster[censored] of stuff.



MS can't kill linux in the same way that it can kill other companies that rely on paid employees. MS can swallow up companies.


Agreed. That's one of the best things Linux has going for itself, and it just happens to be inherent to the open source movement. Even if MS goes ahead and buys out Novell (which they could probably do) Linux will grow just fine.

I think that with all the lawsuits Microsoft has a tendency to get into, combined with their bad business decisions and past track record, the next ten years are going to be the definition of the words "death by a thousand cuts."

[ctgray]

On a side note, as entertaining (Re: Dance Monkeyboy (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3446931931514285011) and developers (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2599797389815138128&q=developers+developers+developers)) as he is, Steve Ballmer is the catalyst that finally got me burning a Kubuntu install CD. Guess he didn't really do his job properly in that case.
Sorry to go off-topic but I still laugh when I see those videos

On-topic: I think that Microsoft will still have significant market share for a while yet but long-term it's looking better for open source.

[3rdalbum]

Vista has been a large drain on Microsoft's resources. Sure, they can technically afford to spend a lot of money, but it's taken such a long time and there's still no finished product yet. Vista may well be Microsoft's last self-contained operating system, and they'll just add a few new features to it every couple of years in the form of non-free service packs. Look how long Windows XP has lasted when the only updates have been service packs and new drivers.

Linux is already exceeding Vista's real-life capabilities, so imagine where it will be 3 years from now. This alone won't be enough to drive people to Linux. The catalyst will be the people in developing parts of the world, many of whom already use Linux and/or can't afford Windows.

[commodore]

There is money in open source by RedHat, Novell, donations and so on, but not all projects are funded and those who are still don't have enough.

But it's not important to beat Microsoft into the ground. It's important to have fun coding/ doing artwork/ writing and so on.

[graigsmith]

i think microsoft usage will slowly go down, it will start at schools, or businesses. and then it will slowly loose ground to linux. it will probably take a lifetime to happen. but i believe it will.

[Dr. C]

Microsoft has been going down and stagnating since 2000, at least according to Wall Street.

MSFT on Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=my&l=off&z=l&q=l&c=)

[marcelm]

They need to get their OS 100 % safe from viruses and malware. If they fail in Vista to do that, more and more users will get disgusted and switch to Linux distros. If their new OS is indeed as secure as they say it will, Microsoft will i.m.o. only strengthen their position. Because as earlier mentioned the software on windows is just way better, and develops faster, because people have jobs and get paid to develop it. So linux will have to fight really really hard, with excellent software, that's equal to windows, to be a competitor. my 2 cents. If not, Ms could be teh winner.

[BoyOfDestiny]

They need to get their OS 100 % safe from viruses and malware. If they fail in Vista to do that, more and more users will get disgusted and switch to Linux distros. If their new OS is indeed as secure as they say it will, Microsoft will i.m.o. only strengthen their position. Because as earlier mentioned the software on windows is just way better, and develops faster, because people have jobs and get paid to develop it. So linux will have to fight really really hard, with excellent software, that's equal to windows, to be a competitor. my 2 cents. If not, Ms could be teh winner.

Well, MS will be rolling out their own anti-virus. As far as I know, stopping malware completely, rests on the shoulders of the end users.

As for rapid development, bah and humbug. Uninformed hogwash.
Linux hasn't been around as long as windows, so in comparison developed at quite a rapid pace.

I don't think it's universal. I'll say some open source apps come out more often/faster than closed source. And vice versa.

Secondly, there are plenty of paid of developers. Not to mention that there are donations and bounties too...

Next, there is already plenty of software that is as a good if not better than closed source stuff. Again, there are exceptions both ways...So I'd prefer to not generalize...

[nocturn]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

Strange. Then how did the Linux kernel appear? Where did KDE and Gnome come from?

[UbuntuStudent]

It seems that the more people that are switching to Linux, the faster Linux grow in market share. Some reason people choose Windows over Linux is because a lot of people look at Linux as a geek/nerd os, though the fact is that many distros is way simpler and user-friendly than Windows. Antorher huge fact that you can't blame the Linux-communite is missing officual support for hardware, few games and software.

[B0rsuk]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

Strange. Then how did the Linux kernel appear? Where did KDE and Gnome come from?

in response: (the quote will be overly long so you can't say it's taken out of context)



Andrew Morton, the lead maintainer of the Linux production kernel, is worried that an increasing number of defects are appearing in the 2.6 kernel and is considering drastic action to resolve it.

"I believe the 2.6 kernel is slowly getting buggier. It seems we're adding bugs at a higher rate than we're fixing them," Morton said, in a talk at the LinuxTag conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Friday.

Morton admitted he hasn't yet proved this statistically, but has noticed that he is getting more emails with bug reports. If he is able to confirm the increasing defect rate, he may temporarily halt the kernel development process to spend time resolving bugs.

"A little action item I've given myself is to confirm that this increasing defect rate is really happening. If it is, we need to do something about it." he said. "Kernel developers will need to reapportion their time and spend more time fixing bugs. We may possibly have a bug-fix only kernel cycle, which is purely for fixing up long-standing bugs."

One problem is that few developers are motivated to work on bugs, according to Morton. This is particularly a problem for bugs that affect old computers or peripherals, as kernel developers working for corporations don't tend to care about out-of-date hardware, he said. Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers, which can cause problems as they can mainly be motivated by self-interest.

"If you're a company that employs a kernel maintainer, you don't have an interest in working on a five-year-old peripheral that no one is selling any more. I can understand that, but it is a problem as people are still using that hardware. The presence of that bug affects the whole kernel process, and can hold up the kernel — as there are bugs, but no one is fixing them," said Morton.

[RavenOfOdin]

Well, MS will be rolling out their own anti-virus. As far as I know, stopping malware completely, rests on the shoulders of the end users.


I was under the impression that they wouldn't be shipping any anti-virus with Vista.

[RAV TUX]

Future of Microsoft:

"(Microsoft/Windows...)
3) 100000 Viruses
4) An unprecedent unstability
5) If you want to know about how will feel ******* in 2 decades, use an OS X Mac now."
--Doctor Zoidberg



Strange. Then how did the Linux kernel appear? Where did KDE and Gnome come from?

(the following info from Wikipedia)

Linux Kernel:

History(brief)



The project was launched in 1991 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991) with a famous post to the Usenet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet) newsgroup comp.os.minix that includes this sentence: "I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU)) for 386 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386)(486 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486)) AT clones..." [1] (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=1991Aug25.205708.9541%40klaava.Helsinki.FI) At the time, the GNU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU) project had created many of the components required for a free operating system, but its own kernel project, the GNU Hurd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd), was incomplete and unavailable. The BSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution) operating system had not yet freed itself from legal encumbrances. This left a space for the Linux kernel to fill, and despite the limited functionality of the early versions it rapidly accumulated developers and users. Early on, Minix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix) hackers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker) contributed code and ideas to the Linux kernel, and today it has received contributions from thousands of programmers.
[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Linux_kernel&action=edit&section=2)]

Timeline
Apr 1991 - Linus Torvalds, then 21, starts working on some simple ideas for an operating system. He starts with a task switcher in 386 assembly and a terminal driver.
25 August 1991 - Torvalds posts to comp.os.minix: [2] (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Aug25.205708.9541%40klaava.Helsink i.FI&output=gplain)"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things). I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months [...] Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. [...] It's mostly in C, but most people wouldn't call what I write C. It uses every conceivable feature of the 386 I could find, as it was also a project to teach me about the 386. As already mentioned, it uses a MMU, for both paging (not to disk yet) and segmentation. It's the segmentation that makes it REALLY 386 dependent (every task has a 64Mb segment for code & data - max 64 tasks in 4Gb. Anybody who needs more than 64Mb/task - tough cookies). [...] Some of my "C"-files (specifically mm.c) are almost as much assembler as C. [...] Unlike minix, I also happen to LIKE interrupts, so interrupts are handled without trying to hide the reason behind them"
September 1991 - Linux version 0.01 is released. (10,239 lines of code.)
October 1991 - Linux version 0.02 is released. [3] (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Oct5.054106.4647%40klaava.Helsinki .FI&output=gplain)
December 1991 - Linux 0.11 is released. This version is the first that is self-hosted (Linux 0.11 can be compiled under Linux 0.11)
19 January 1992 - First post to alt.os.linux newsgroup. [4] (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=1992Jan19.085628.18752%40cseg01.uark.edu)
31 March 1992 - The newsgroup comp.os.linux is created. [5] (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1992Mar31.131811.19832%40rock.concert. net&output=gplain)
March 1992 - Linux version 0.95 is the first to be capable of running the X Window System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System).
During the whole of 1993, and early 1994 - 15 development versions 0.99.*, with 0.99.11 (July 1993) introducing BogoMips (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BogoMips) into the kernel
14 March 1994 - Linux 1.0.0 is released. (176,250 lines of code.)
March 1995 - Linux 1.2.0 is released (310,950 lines of code.)
9 May 1996 - Tux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux) the penguin is suggested as mascot for Linux
9 June 1996 - Linux 2.0.0 is released. (777,956 lines of code.)
25 January 1999 - Linux 2.2.0 is released, very buggy at first. (1,800,847 lines of code.)
18 December 1999 - IBM mainframe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe) patches for 2.2.13 published, bringing Linux into the biggest enterprises.
4 January 2001 - Linux 2.4.0 is released. (3,377,902 lines of code.)
17 December 2003 - Linux 2.6.0 is released. (5,929,913 lines of code.)
24 April 2006 - Linux 2.6.16.11 is released. (6,981,110 lines of code.) [6] (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.16.11).KDE:

History(brief)



KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Ettrich), who was then a student at the University of Tübingen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_Karls_University_of_T%C3%BCbingen). At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the UNIX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix) desktop. Among his qualms, outlined in a now-famous newsgroup post (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=53tkvv%24b4j%40newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de), were that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. He proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but rather a desktop environment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment), in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use. One of his complaints with desktop applications of the time was that his girlfriend could not use them. That post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born.
Matthias chose to use the Qt toolkit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28toolkit%29) for the KDE project. Other programmers quickly started developing KDE/Qt applications, and by early 1997, large and complex applications were being released. At the time, Qt did not use a free software license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license) and members of the GNU project became concerned about the use of such a toolkit for building a free software desktop and applications. Two projects were started: "Harmony", to create a Free replacement for the Qt libraries, and the GNOME (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME) project to create a new desktop without Qt and built entirely on top of free software.
In November 1998, the QT toolkit was licensed under the open source Q Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Public_License) (QPL), but debate continued about compatibility with the GNU General Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) (GPL). In September 2000, Trolltech made the Unix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix) version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL, in addition to the QPL, which has eliminated the concerns of the Free Software Foundation. Starting with the release of Qt 4.0, it is available as free software for the Unix, Mac and Windows platforms, indicating that the next major version of KDE applications and libraries will have native support on these platforms.
To prevent the codebase from being lost should Trolltech fail commercially, ownership of the code is held in a trust to be released under a BSD license should Trolltech cease to exist or stop updating the code. Both KDE and GNOME now participate in Freedesktop.org (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedesktop.org), an effort to standardise Unix desktop interoperability, although there is still some friendly competition between them.



Gnome:

History(brief)



The GNOME project was started in August 1997 by Miguel de Icaza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza) and Federico Mena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Mena) in response to licensing concerns over software used by KDE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE), a free software desktop environment that relies on the Qt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28toolkit%29) widget toolkit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_toolkit). At the time, Qt did not use a free software license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license) and members of the GNU project became concerned about the use of such a toolkit for building a free software desktop and applications. Two projects were started: Harmony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_toolkit), to create a Free replacement for the Qt libraries, and the GNOME project to create a new desktop without Qt and built entirely on top of free software.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#_note-stallman)
In November 1998, the Qt toolkit was licensed under the open source Q Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Public_License) (QPL), but debate continued about compatibility with the GNU General Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) (GPL). In September 2000, Trolltech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolltech) made the GNU/Linux version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL, in addition to the QPL, thereby removing most of the objections that had fuelled years of licensing debates.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#_note-stallman) The licensing of Qt is still controversial for some because the use of the GPL for a library imposes restrictions on the licensing of code linking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker) to it, such as applications and libraries using the KDE/Qt framework. In particular, in order to develop proprietary software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software) with KDE and Qt, it is necessary to purchase a commercial license from Trolltech.


In place of the Qt toolkit, the GTK+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK%2B) toolkit was chosen as the base of the GNOME desktop. GTK+ uses the GNU Lesser Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_Public_License) (LGPL), a free software license that allows software linking to it, such as applications written for GNOME, to use a much wider set of licenses, including proprietary software licenses.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#_note-1) The GNOME desktop itself is licensed under the LGPL for its libraries, and the GPL for applications that are part of the GNOME project itself.
The name "GNOME" was proposed by Elliot Lee, one of the authors of ORBit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORBit) and the Object Activation Framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Object_Activation_Framework&action=edit).[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources)] It refers to the possibilities that people, at the time, thought CORBA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORBA) would bring to a desktop environment — a Network Object Model. Since that no longer reflects the core vision of the GNOME project, some members of the project advocate dropping the acronym and re-naming "GNOME" to "Gnome". [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#_note-2)

also most important:

GNU


History(brief)



The GNU project was announced publicly on September 27 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_27), 1983 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983), on the net.unix-wizards (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Net.unix-wizards&action=edit) [1] (http://groups.google.com/group/net.unix-wizards/browse_thread/thread/f2dc1f44f33bf6ed) and net.usoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Net.usoft&action=edit) newsgroups (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup). Software development began on January 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_5), 1984 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984), when Stallman quit his job at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology) so that they could not claim ownership or interfere with distributing GNU as free software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software). The correct pronunciation of GNU is g'noo (IPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_for_English): /gnu/), with a hard "g", to distinguish it from the word new. According to Stallman, the name was inspired by various plays on words, including the song The Gnu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gnu).
The goal was to bring a wholly free software operating system into existence. Stallman wanted computer users to be free, as most were in the 1960s and 1970s; free to study the source code of the software they use, free to modify the behaviour of the software, and free to publish their modified versions of the software. This philosophy was published in March 1985 as The GNU Manifesto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GNU_Manifesto).
The majority of the software needed had to be written from scratch, but when compatible free software components already existed, they were used. Two examples were the TeX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX) typesetting system, and the X Window System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System). Most of GNU has been written by volunteers; some in their spare time, some paid by other companies. In October 1985, Stallman set up the Free Software Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation) (FSF). In the mid- and late-80s, FSF hired software developers to write the software needed for GNU. At its peak it had 15 people on its staff. FSF also holds the copyrights for some GNU software packages. Most GNU packages are licensed under the GNU General Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) (GNU GPL), while a few use the GNU Lesser General Public License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License) (GNU LGPL), and a still smaller amount use other free software licenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_licenses).



So that it would be convenient for people to switch to GNU, it was decided that GNU would be mostly compatible with Unix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix), which was a popular proprietary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software) operating system at the time. The design of Unix had proven to be solid, and it was modular, so it could be reimplemented piece by piece.
As GNU gained prominence, interested businesses began contributing to development or selling GNU software and technical support. The most prominent and successful of these was Cygnus Solutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_Solutions), now part of Red Hat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat).

[BoyOfDestiny]

I was under the impression that they wouldn't be shipping any anti-virus with Vista.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_OneCare

"Windows Live OneCare, previously known as Windows OneCare Live, is a computer security service developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating systems. An annual charge of $49.95 will be charged for the service, for use on up to three computers. As of May 31, 2006 Windows Live OneCare should start showing up in stores in the United States."

http://www.windowsonecare.com/

[SHodges]

It's sad how delirious some of you are. Here's a reality check - Microsoft is going to be here, successful, and dominating the OS market and software in general, for the next 20 years. Linux will never, and I mean never become a dominant force in it's current state. Ever. Never ever ever. Even though it's open source and 'totally free, man' and you think that it's "uber leet" or whatever, it will never be a market success, and it will never topple Microsoft. Microsoft worries about an IBM trying to muscle into their market, an Apple that has rejuvenated brand recognition thanks to iPod that experiences a massive upswing in sales of their hardware/OS, a Google that decides that a big sack of cash would be nice and decides to do an operating system (which they WOULD charge for and would NOT make open source, even though I'm sure you'll stupidly argue against common sense and capitalism because they use Ubuntu internally), they worry about a Sony who turns their game console into a set top box and pushes Microsoft and PCs out of the big picture. Because those are the things that Microsoft needs to worry about. Those are the things that are at least in some form or fashion a threat to microsoft and it's profits and it's position in one or more markets. I highly doubt that Microsoft gives two shits about linux anymore outside of the business server market. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself my little linux zealot.

[BoyOfDestiny]

sorry double post

[BoyOfDestiny]

It's sad how delirious some of you are. Here's a reality check - Microsoft is going to be here, successful, and dominating the OS market and software in general, for the next 20 years. Linux will never, and I mean never become a dominant force in it's current state. Ever. Never ever ever. Even though it's open source and 'totally free, man' and you think that it's "uber leet" or whatever, it will never be a market success, and it will never topple Microsoft. Microsoft worries about an IBM trying to muscle into their market, an Apple that has rejuvenated brand recognition thanks to iPod that experiences a massive upswing in sales of their hardware/OS, a Google that decides that a big sack of cash would be nice and decides to do an operating system (which they WOULD charge for and would NOT make open source, even though I'm sure you'll stupidly argue against common sense and capitalism because they use Ubuntu internally), they worry about a Sony who turns their game console into a set top box and pushes Microsoft and PCs out of the big picture. Because those are the things that Microsoft needs to worry about. Those are the things that are at least in some form or fashion a threat to microsoft and it's profits and it's position in one or more markets. I highly doubt that Microsoft gives two shits about linux anymore outside of the business server market. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself my little linux zealot.

Wow. What a troll. Rather than go with hypotheticals.

Ballmer Sees Google, Open Source as Strongest Competitors
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1961078,00.asp

"When asked by moderator Roger McNamee, the co-founder of Elevation Partners, to choose between IBM or open source as the threat he most worries about, Ballmer quipped that IBM is then no longer in the game."

So, what you are saying is unfounded. MS does care.

As for the software being free, the GPL deals with free software in the sense of freedom. You are free to sell it and charge whatever you like...

[Lord Illidan]

It's sad how delirious some of you are. Here's a reality check - Microsoft is going to be here, successful, and dominating the OS market and software in general, for the next 20 years. Linux will never, and I mean never become a dominant force in it's current state. Ever. Never ever ever. Even though it's open source and 'totally free, man' and you think that it's "uber leet" or whatever, it will never be a market success, and it will never topple Microsoft. Microsoft worries about an IBM trying to muscle into their market, an Apple that has rejuvenated brand recognition thanks to iPod that experiences a massive upswing in sales of their hardware/OS, a Google that decides that a big sack of cash would be nice and decides to do an operating system (which they WOULD charge for and would NOT make open source, even though I'm sure you'll stupidly argue against common sense and capitalism because they use Ubuntu internally), they worry about a Sony who turns their game console into a set top box and pushes Microsoft and PCs out of the big picture. Because those are the things that Microsoft needs to worry about. Those are the things that are at least in some form or fashion a threat to microsoft and it's profits and it's position in one or more markets. I highly doubt that Microsoft gives two shits about linux anymore outside of the business server market. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself my little linux zealot.

I don't think so. Linux development is extremely fast, compared to Windows. A comparison.
In 2001, XP was released.
In 2001, Linux looked really ugly.. I remember screenshots from old magazines...ugh.
In 2002-03, Red Hat released Fedora Core 1
Now, in 06. Red Hat has already released Fedora Core 5.
Ubuntu has seen four releases. Warty, Hoary, Breezy and Dapper, and will see Edgy Eft before Vista comes out.
We are catching up to Microsoft on all fronts. In fact, Microsoft is taking ideas from opensource and putting them into Vista.
I think MS might be more concerned about Mac. However, with heavyweights such as IBM and Novell behind Linux, it would be a fool to ignore it.

In 20 years, I forsee Linux as being neck and neck with MS. Lots of things can happen in 20 years though.

[G Morgan]

I'm amazed that with things like Enron that people still believe that a huge market share will instantly guarentee the survival of a company for all eternity. Microsoft are in the same position as IBM were a long time ago. They're crippled by middle management incompetance and have become slow and unweildy. They react to problems rather than taking the front foot with issues such as security. The last innovative thing to come out of MS was product activation and that says it all.

I think Linux will grow slowly but continuously over the years. People look for that breakthrough 'year of Linux on the desktop' event and it won't happen. The only way to get into the market is via attrition.

On the other hand I can see Apple taking a much larger marketshare in the coming years. That Windows will now run on the Apple machines people will have less reservation about going for it.

[aysiu]

I'm amazed that with things like Enron that people still believe that a huge market share will instantly guarentee the survival of a company for all eternity. Microsoft are in the same position as IBM were a long time ago. They're crippled by middle management incompetance and have become slow and unweildy. They react to problems rather than taking the front foot with issues such as security. The last innovative thing to come out of MS was product activation and that says it all. Wal-Mart used to be a little mom-and-pop store that was dwarfed by Sears, KMart, and a few other department stores. It took only a few decades, but Wal-Mart pretty much rules the America, and it's soon taking over the world.

[Lord Illidan]

Nothing can live for ever. Not even Microsoft. Larger companies have failed. Even Linux will eventually fall. However, it has the advantage that being open source, there will always be a small percentage of people willing to use it and develop for it. On the other hand, if Microsoft itself goes belly up, Windows is dead.

[aysiu]

Linux will eventually fail? I'm not sure about that. Ubuntu may eventually fail, but can't people always fork off of whatever distro was last used and revive the Linux kernel?

[Lord Illidan]

Linux will eventually fail? I'm not sure about that. Ubuntu may eventually fail, but can't people always fork off of whatever distro was last used and revive the Linux kernel?
They could, but as it becomes out of date, compared to whatever new OS is running at that time, interest will take a plunge and it will fall. Though it will go through a number of changes, Hurd being one of them.

But then, I think someone else will develop something new, and interest will shift towards that.

(Heading towards a career in prophecy)

[aysiu]

Well, that'd be interesting. Computers have been in a whirlwind since the 80s. I remember when Amiga was the big thing...

[BoyOfDestiny]

Well, that'd be interesting. Computers have been in a whirlwind since the 80s. I remember when Amiga was the big thing...

Well I'm not worried. If Linux is replaced by Hurd let's say. Our favorite apps and games don't have to dissapear. For the closed stuff we have emulators (even now capable of running it). Or for things that are open source, or made open source, if there is interest it will survive.

Imagine my surprise when I found sopwith in the repos. A game from 1983, with 4 colors, and pc speaker sound has an SDL port. I can run it natively in 64-bit. Believe it or not I kept my copy of the exe, I transfered it from floppy 5.25 to 3.5 then eventually to a cdr. Runs perfectly in dosbox... The original game is a whopping 48.4kb... :)

P.S. For those who give it a try. Ctrl + c exits. :) You use
x for accelerate
, for going up
. for flipping
/ for going down

Yes it's weird, but not when you've used it on off for nearly 2 decades. ;) And yes, it is extremely simplistic. You can play it for a few minutes or an hour. Depends. :)

[ihavenoname]

Vista has been a large drain on Microsoft's resources. Sure, they can technically afford to spend a lot of money, but it's taken such a long time and there's still no finished product yet. Vista may well be Microsoft's last self-contained operating system, and they'll just add a few new features to it every couple of years in the form of non-free service packs. Look how long Windows XP has lasted when the only updates have been service packs and new drivers.

Linux is already exceeding Vista's real-life capabilities, so imagine where it will be 3 years from now. This alone won't be enough to drive people to Linux. The catalyst will be the people in developing parts of the world, many of whom already use Linux and/or can't afford Windows.

That is very true. The thing about linux is that it is much more versitile then Windows could ever be. Linux moves at a rapid rate. Think back just one year ago, look at how much Linux has improved in just one year! Many devs have offerd methods and themes that aim at duplicating what Windows and Mac can do, and that is all very nice. But it is my opinion the now Linux needs to go beyond what Windows can do, we've got them on security, we've got them on stability, we are very close to catching up and surpassing Windows in terms of a functional 3d desktop. The only place that windows has an advantage (and it's a big one) is gaames. The problem there is that gaming companies won't invest in Linux unless they belive that it has a large enough market. Cedega helps bridge the gap to some extent but its not perfect. Case in point we need to convince gaming companies to support linux platforms and at the same time we need to start to innovate alot more. Many people are wondering what the purpose of upgrading to Vista is and that may provide us with an advantage, however if those ppl aren't going to upgrade to vista what will make them switch to Linux? We've got to give them a reason.

[G Morgan]

Personally I've always dual booted for gaming and seen this as an acceptable compromise. However I will not install Windows: Longwait - Corperate Spyware Edition so if games switch to DX10 and give no XP compatibility I simply will not play them. I think that the futher Micros~1 goes down the path of messing around with users the more people will dump them, they are creating the Linux market as they try and take more control of peoples life. I just find it interesting that they do this at a time where there is an increasingly large 'born with a keyboard' population who can rebel against it.

//edit - also unless theres very specific legislation against it there will always be FOSS OSes. Linux may not last forever but if the HURD ever makes an apperance and is capable then it really won't matter. Theres also BSD and newer things like ReactOS and Syllable so I don't think the movement is going to die anytime soon.//

[IYY]

If MS continues with its current business plan, it will be out of business in several years. I don't know who will be the victor, could be Linux or Apple, but there is no future for the current Microsoft.

If I was in their place, here's what I would do: shift the focus to software, not operating systems. The fact is, that Microsoft has made most of its profit from software like MS Office, not from Windows itself. And not only that, software is the only thing they're really good at. You have to admit that Office is a good piece of software. It really is better than OO. And even Internet Explorer is not really a bad piece of software, it's just its integration with Windows that makes it the horrid security hole that it is. Micosoft should abandon Windows and start making software for Linux and Apple. It doesn't have to be open source, and they don't have to switch their business plan greatly, but they do need to leave this ship before it sinks.

[RAV TUX]

More about this future of Microsoft:

People will eat sh_t only for so long until they have had enough.










Future of Microsoft:

"(Microsoft/Windows...)
3) 100000 Viruses
4) An unprecedent unstability
5) If you want to know about how will feel ******* in 2 decades, use an OS X Mac now."
--Doctor Zoidberg

[ihavenoname]

//edit - also unless theres very specific legislation against it there will always be FOSS OSes. Linux may not last forever but if the HURD ever makes an apperance and is capable then it really won't matter. Theres also BSD and newer things like ReactOS and Syllable so I don't think the movement is going to die anytime soon.//


Is Linus one of the only people working on the kernel? I think that many Linux applications and distros/companies rely heavily on one person (example: Linux kernel and Linux (not sure about that one, if he dies is anyone capable of carrying on with his work? Is anyone willing?) and Ubuntu and Shuttleworth. THe only free distros that seem to have the capability to continue on no matter what are Fedora and Debian because of the dynamic nature of their "social contract". That to mee is the only thing holding Linux back.


On the topic of Windows read this, it seems to be a blog for people who work for Microsoft, It's very sad indeed, Microsofts' bad practises hurt even its own people. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html

[hermitology]

MIcrosoft is alread loosing ground

I am from INDIA (Hyderabad),

here in Hyderabad the whole municipality of Alwal has gone Linux . Its really a big leap .

i think if its a success , then things in Government Sectors In INDIA may change ,

as they r the next biggest custmers to Microsoft apart from MNCS in INDIA .

[sfpeter]

Here's my spin, confluent with the future of Linux/Open Source:

Microsoft as we know it is doomed; but then we should remember people were also saying IBM was a goner back when the PC clones were being made left and right in the 80's.

The company is bloated, and it's thinking is almost entirely reactionary. For too long they've been on the mentality of an upstart company out to decimate the opposition. They've been on top for over a decade and their only competition is customers not buying more. My last "critical" update was that "Geniune Advantage" crap to make sure my copy was legit and let me know how to buy one if it wasn't. Seriously.

And yet the new releases have slipped and slipped. Vista should have been out in 2003, and it should have been a light and fast 64 bit operating system, not a media player with an operating system underneath it.

I really don't see a major change happening until the current leadership changes; what really surprises me is that there hasn't already been a coup of someone younger and faster wanting to take over. Maybe there is someone out there and I just don't read the news enough.

What the company can end up entirely depends on circumstances; it can go anywhere from a services company to a gaming/media/whatever conglomerate to a manufacturer of mousepads. What I don't see it in the future is the manufacturer of the end-all be-all operating system.

As for Linux, Ubuntu is the first distro that's worked well enough for me to drop Windows on all but one machine. (Poser, Vue D'Esprit, Amapi, and Raw Shooter Essentials, I use those four and there's not a workaround for them. Haven't tried getting them running on Wine but I know it would be ugly.)

However, I still see Linux being a niche market for home users for a while; what will matter is the increasing sophistication of everything from cell phones to printers. It's already possible to get by without a computer if you accept some limitations. Embedded OS's amd smart devices I think will have a very strong influence on the future.

The world unfortunately revolves around money, I like free software and hope it stays that way, but I don't see the tug of war over money and copyright going away anytime soon. The mentality of every potential sale, even for secondhand software, being "piracy" because more money wasn't being made, as opposed to someone actually stealing it, is harmful to industry and consumers alike. Maybe someday a truce will be drawn where the entertainment people can have their protections and reasonable controls, and the rest of us can still make our own movies/pictures/whatever.

Or ot put all this in a nutshell, Windows will decline in influence, while Linux becomes one of many players in a sophisticated market of smart devices and computers.

[SHodges]

Wow. What a troll. Rather than go with hypotheticals.

Ballmer Sees Google, Open Source as Strongest Competitors
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1961078,00.asp

"When asked by moderator Roger McNamee, the co-founder of Elevation Partners, to choose between IBM or open source as the threat he most worries about, Ballmer quipped that IBM is then no longer in the game."

So, what you are saying is unfounded. MS does care.

As for the software being free, the GPL deals with free software in the sense of freedom. You are free to sell it and charge whatever you like...
This post is so dumb that I had to take a significant amount of time to mentally debate whether you were doing a satire on a moronic linux zealot, or if you were in fact, a moronic linux zealot. Yeah, I'm definitely a troll who hates linux...who also uses it as his only OS when he isn't playing Civilization IV, and whom recommends it to friends whenever a chance comes up. Yep, I hates me some linux :rolleyes:

I'm sorry that you don't want to hear this (actually, no, I'm not), but telling you that Linux is not going to spark some weird geek revolution where people storm Redmond with torches and hang Bill Gates from a tree does not make me a "troll". It makes me, much unlike yourself, "right".

As for your link, hmm, should I believe Ballmer, a raving lunatic who makes all sorts of claims like these and later contradicts them, sometimes in the same week, or Bill Gates (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=2347&tag=nl.e539), the recognized face of the company whom probably defines who their "rival" is far moreso than Ballmer does? Microsoft has nothing to fear from Linux as long as it can't even get installed on machines at a Circuit City or a Best Buy, as long as it can't find drivers for half the hardware on the market, as long as it has not one game to speak of, as long as the people behind it remain stupidly focused on their "all open source" ******** to the point that they can't even get mp3 support out of the box, and as long as the entire linux communities mindset seems to be "erm....we're right, we don't have to defend it with logic or any real facts, speaking of linux and open source as though it were a philosophy to live your life by will suffice...anyone who disagrees is a troll" whenever asked what their OS has to offer that Microsoft and Apple do not. They have nothing to fear from Linux. NOTHING. The sooner you can accept that little morsel of truth, the better.


This next one really deserves to be quoted again, I can't read it enough.

As for the software being free, the GPL deals with free software in the sense of freedom. You are free to sell it and charge whatever you like...
Ahahaha, oh man. It never ceases to amaze me when I get into an argument on here and someone begins to give me little facts that I never called into question in the first place. Free doesn't have to mean free of charge? Really? Wow, that's quite a big surprise to me guy, but I think I have something even more earth shattering. [Insert absolutely anything here. Seriously. Anything you want. There's nothing you can come up with, aside from just repeating "Free doesn't mean free of charge", that will be less of an earth shattering revelation than that.]

Next time you write a reply, try to come up with a foundation a little stronger than "Baseless accusations of being a troll, and then arguing with things that no one said in hopes of confusing my opponent long enough for me to escape". Thanks.

[BoyOfDestiny]

This post is so dumb that I had to take a significant amount of time to mentally debate whether you were doing a satire on a moronic linux zealot, or if you were in fact, a moronic linux zealot. Yeah, I'm definitely a troll who hates linux...who also uses it as his only OS when he isn't playing Civilization IV, and whom recommends it to friends whenever a chance comes up. Yep, I hates me some linux :rolleyes:

I'm sorry that you don't want to hear this (actually, no, I'm not), but telling you that Linux is not going to spark some weird geek revolution where people storm Redmond with torches and hang Bill Gates from a tree does not make me a "troll". It makes me, much unlike yourself, "right".

As for your link, hmm, should I believe Ballmer, a raving lunatic who makes all sorts of claims like these and later contradicts them, sometimes in the same week, or Bill Gates (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=2347&tag=nl.e539), the recognized face of the company whom probably defines who their "rival" is far moreso than Ballmer does? Microsoft has nothing to fear from Linux as long as it can't even get installed on machines at a Circuit City or a Best Buy, as long as it can't find drivers for half the hardware on the market, as long as it has not one game to speak of, as long as the people behind it remain stupidly focused on their "all open source" ******** to the point that they can't even get mp3 support out of the box, and as long as the entire linux communities mindset seems to be "erm....we're right, we don't have to defend it with logic or any real facts, speaking of linux and open source as though it were a philosophy to live your life by will suffice...anyone who disagrees is a troll" whenever asked what their OS has to offer that Microsoft and Apple do not. They have nothing to fear from Linux. NOTHING. The sooner you can accept that little morsel of truth, the better.


This next one really deserves to be quoted again, I can't read it enough.

Ahahaha, oh man. It never ceases to amaze me when I get into an argument on here and someone begins to give me little facts that I never called into question in the first place. Free doesn't have to mean free of charge? Really? Wow, that's quite a big surprise to me guy, but I think I have something even more earth shattering. [Insert absolutely anything here. Seriously. Anything you want. There's nothing you can come up with, aside from just repeating "Free doesn't mean free of charge", that will be less of an earth shattering revelation than that.]

Next time you write a reply, try to come up with a foundation a little stronger than "Baseless accusations of being a troll, and then arguing with things that no one said in hopes of confusing my opponent long enough for me to escape". Thanks.

Well, you present that MS or apple having nothing to fear. I disagree.

No need to be so dramatic.

No where in my post did I say anything about storming gates. Pun intended. I tried to provide a source to illustrate MS does see open source as a threat. Which you rejected (fine with me), I didn't write the thing, sheesh.

I made no mention of "revolution" in my initial post. Linux has been erroding at MS's market share, even if it's insignificant in your eyes. As for a free software "revolution", well it's already here. There is plenty of free software, enough to run your computer on (except for civ IV). It will just improve little by little. As history has shown.

As for people wanting all free. Some people have principles. So what if you can't install it on a computer from Best Buy or Circuit City. I'm sure you've tested every single one. Again I'd disagree since you are just generalizing and presenting it as fact. Driver and hardware support have been improving steadly. So if/when Linux has this level of compatibility, then what? Are you saying it's impossible?

In your initial post you did bring up capitalism. Now I do see your post was satire.

Some people may take a satric post as a serious one. It's hard to tell on a forum post. And people often do misunderstand terms such as free.

Also, there are mp3 decoders and encoders that are open source (libmad and lame respectively.) They are not included out of the box as it's a patent issue... Not open source bs as you called it. So by that reckoning, by 2010 MS will be scared. :P

Hopefully this post is more to your standards. Your extremely angry reponse, with 'moronic zealot' , the 'I'm right you are wrong' business, pure opinion (MS has nothing to fear because of "made up stuff", ironic ranting about "logic" and "real facts" ...), does not persuade nor anger me.

Not to mention your lack of understanding of why mp3 support isn't out of the box...

I don't think it's so baseless to say you are a troll at this point.

Hope I didn't argue things no one mentioned this time (although I believe a good part of your post was just that. I mean look at the response to my little 6 line post with a quote in it...)

P.S. Shame on me if that post I just responded to was satire too... =)

[IYY]

They have nothing to fear from Linux. NOTHING. The sooner you can accept that little morsel of truth, the better.

This is interesting. I've been seeing many advertisements on the internet lately from Microsoft, and every single one (well, except for one or two office ads) were against Linux. They were not saying "Use MS servers", they were saying "You may be hearing a lot of good stuff about this Linux thing, but don't believe it! Please stay with us!". If that's not fear, then I don't know what is.

[G Morgan]

Some Distros do offer proprietry codec support out of the box (Mepis and Linspire to name two). The argument is irrelevant. Driver compatibility is improving, I've never had a problem with my machine in the slightest. There is also a lot of money being put into Linux at present, Red Hat recently bought JBoss for $480,000,000 so they obviously have enough money for development (and since inertia will carry JBoss for some time they'll have more money in the future, much of their development will find its way back to us). Not to mention the money that IBM are putting into and making from a free OS at the moment.

Linux doesn't have to make a huge breakthough, it only has to continue working away via attrition over a long period. That it has comperable market share with Apple virtually by stealth is something in itself. What Apple achieve with big market campaigns and flashy bell's and whistles Linux achieved through word of mouth and hard work. When one of the Linux companies reaches a critical mass and decides to start going for expansion via mass advertising then what will happen.

[airtonix]

fisherman : I dare say if your the kings brother, you would be able to hold ANY market share you deemed viable.

[airtonix]

damn my stupidity and these wretched dual posts!

[SHodges]

Well, you present that MS or apple having nothing to fear. I disagree.

No need to be so dramatic.

No where in my post did I say anything about storming gates. Pun intended. I tried to provide a source to illustrate MS does see open source as a threat. Which you rejected (fine with me), I didn't write the thing, sheesh.
The storm the gates revolution stuff was very obviously (to me, I don't know, maybe I over estimated the intellect of this board) to illustrate the viewpoint that pretty much every linux zealot here spouts off about day in and day out, it wasn't a direct response to anything you said (again, obviously, or so I thought). Good way to open the post by the way. "Flat out wrong and proud" has a long history of frustrating opponents into just giving up on internet message boards. I see what you're doing here.


I made no mention of "revolution" in my initial post. Linux has been erroding at MS's market share, even if it's insignificant in your eyes. As for a free software "revolution", well it's already here. There is plenty of free software, enough to run your computer on (except for civ IV). It will just improve little by little. As history has shown.
I know. I know you said nothing about revolution and storming gates. I know. I also know not to over estimate the intellect of people who are going to read my posts and assume that they are going to catch middle school writing techniques like I employed when writing the revolution and gate storming bit. Don't worry, won't happen again. Everyone here is dumb as rocks. Got it. As for improving little by little, I disagree. Linux makes huge improvements in shorter periods of time than Windows, and maybe MacOS (I haven't really used it a whole lot so I'm not going to compare it to anything). On top of that, Windows doesn't make improvements in all the areas it needs to make improvements, and it doesn't make big enough improvements when it does. I know that Linux, Ubuntu in particular, can be a great product, as an Operating Sytem. As a "computer" (I know the difference between hardware and software and that linux isn't a "computer", please don't be an idiot and tell me that crap again like you did with the revolution comment aimed at all "linux on every computer by 2007, believe it guys!!" people), Linux just sucks. It's only web browsers have difficulty rendering a lot of web sites out there. It's only chat programs have difficulty with file transfers and other basic IM features many users expect. It has no games to speak of, the only way to find any is to use terrible windows emulation to run the 5% of the games that you can get working, at 5% the speed they would run under windows. More often than not, in Ubuntu's case in particular, it can't even play most people's music collections out of the box. Is Linux, and open source software as a whole, improving? Yes, it is, rapidly. In it's current state, and the state it will likely be in 10 years from now relative to other Operating Systems out there, does it do the things people expect it to be able to do well enough (or at all) for anyone to really give a crap about in large numbers? No, not a chance. History has shown that, too. Linux distro's have been better OS's than Windows (mostly) for a while now. And yet, people aren't quite jumping ship in droves, are they?


As for people wanting all free. Some people have principles. So what if you can't install it on a computer from Best Buy or Circuit City. I'm sure you've tested every single one. Again I'd disagree since you are just generalizing and presenting it as fact. Driver and hardware support have been improving steadly. So if/when Linux has this level of compatibility, then what? Are you saying it's impossible?
It'd be so cool if I could get a response from you, only instead of the usual, you'd break character and actually respond to something I said instead of just making up your own argument and following along with that. Can you buy a computer from Best Buy and Circuit City and install Ubuntu (or most any big distro) on it? Yes, of course you can, that's what I did. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that at least 90% of the machines sold there work flawlessly with Ubuntu. Can you walk into a store like Best buy and Circuit City and find a section for "linux powered computers"? Like I said in the previous post that you tried (and failed) to properly reply to, no, you can not, and until that changes (and it won't in the next ten years, not without major corporate backing on the desktop, which is nowhere to be seen), Linux will never go beyond the curious and the computer savvy. You think soccer moms, teeny boppers, and grandmas are going to sit down and go look for a distro to download and install on their windows PCs? Get a clue.

What happens when Linux achieves the driver support of Windows? Without retail chain support, it might obtain the market share that MacOS has managed to carve out...but I doubt it. No stores in most cities where I can walk in and buy a linux PC, no major market share. End of story.



In your initial post you did bring up capitalism. Now I do see your post was satire.
Here's a prime example of one thing that Windows does better than Linux. Had you typed this post on Windows, I'm certain that the little paperclip guy would have come up and informed you that this line makes no damn sense whatsoever before you posted it and gave everyone who read it an aneurysm trying to make sense of it. Satire of what? Who? The two people on this board, if that, that agree with me? I don't know, maybe you could include some context or some background information in your post, that might help. Just try to keep in mind that not everyone shares your backwards thought process, and I'm sure you'll understand why your posts are kind of falling short of their goal to "not be utterly stupid and incomprehensible".



Some people may take a satric post as a serious one. It's hard to tell on a forum post. And people often do misunderstand terms such as free.
Yeah...thanks for sharing that, I guess. I'll get back to you if I figure out where this fits into the argument :confused:



Also, there are mp3 decoders and encoders that are open source (libmad and lame respectively.) They are not included out of the box as it's a patent issue... Not open source bs as you called it. So by that reckoning, by 2010 MS will be scared. :P
Hahaha, incredible, it's like you run your posts through 18 different free online translations before bringing them back to english. There are open source mp3 decoders/encoders. Great. I know. Too bad that with Ubuntu they are, as far as I can tell, not there out of the box since I have to run automatix to listen to music (or do anything worthwhile actually), which was my original argument, not that they don't exist, making you look like a complete moron, again. And what happens in 2010 that makes MS "scared", "by that reckoning" (which, by the way, also makes no sense, what reckoning are you talking about, the reckoning that mp3s exist and can be played? Seriously, wow.)? Anything of interest? Absolutely nothing?



Hopefully this post is more to your standards. Your extremely angry reponse, with 'moronic zealot' , the 'I'm right you are wrong' business, pure opinion (MS has nothing to fear because of "made up stuff", ironic ranting about "logic" and "real facts" ...), does not persuade nor anger me.
A few notes
- No, it wasn't to my standards, try again. Or, better yet, don't, and never type something that can be publicly read by innocent people ever again.
- Did I call you a moronic zealot? I'm sorry, I don't know what got into me, I usually reserve that for people who show an embarrassing lack of intelligence combined with an embarrassing lack of personal attachment to linux and it's "ideals" that they've conjured in their minds...oh. Now I know what got into me.
- I am right. You are wrong.
- You're right, it's real ironic that I would present an opinion like "Microsoft has nothing to fear" while talking about logic and real facts, both of which are not only incomprehensible to you as far as I can tell, but totally unrelated to an opinion if need be. Hence why it's an opinion.
- I'm terribly disappointed that it doesn't persuade nor anger you, since I was totally hoping someone of your mental caliber would join me, while at the same time I was hoping to **** someone off...over the internet. Because I care so much. :rolleyes:



Not to mention your lack of understanding of why mp3 support isn't out of the box...
What lack of understanding? I know it's because of...wait a second, I just remembered, I don't care why they aren't there, because it doesn't have any bearing on what I was saying in the first place. Hopefully the bold text will be easy enough to read and I won't have to read another hamfisted attempt at a response from you, though that's probably too much to hope for. I don't care why the support isn't there out of the box. I care that it isn't there out of the box. You know who else cares about that sort of thing? Pretty much every computer user in the Country. But gee, I can't figure out why that would be relevant in an argument about why Linux will never have a big market share...That's sarcasm, by the way. I know it sort of kills it if I need to telegraph it like this, but knowing who I'm dealing with, it's probably best to just go ahead and get it over with rather than reading your brain dead response to it taking it seriously later on.



I don't think it's so baseless to say you are a troll at this point.
Dissenting opinion = troll, right? Funny, I could have sworn that trolls were the ones who vehemently "disagreed with" (as in, randomly attacks) anyone with a different opinion. Oh well.


ps - the above was also sarcasm. Be sure to write this down somewhere if you're planning on responding so that you can actually respond to my post and not something you imagined in your head again.



Hope I didn't argue things no one mentioned this time (although I believe a good part of your post was just that. I mean look at the response to my little 6 line post with a quote in it...)

P.S. Shame on me if that post I just responded to was satire too... =)
I guess that was a little too much to hope for, try to aim lower next time, like getting dressed in the morning unassisted. And you seem to be bringing up the satire thing a lot what's the deal..aww, I get it. I said your post was a satire because it was almost too stupid to believe, and rather than coming up with a suitable response, you've made a poor attempt at turning it around on me. Ahhh, I get it now. I see what you did there. Good job.



I have to admit though, you are a persuasive guy though. After reading your post, I did some thinking, and I've done a complete 180 on my previous positions, and now totally support abortion whenever possible. Very good argument you made for it above, if I may say so.

[ihavenoname]

damn my stupidity and these wretched dual posts!
HAHAHA. Ok now to rant.
edit: took out the part that was old, I addressed the issue in my post below.

I don't see how Windows as an OS is better then Linux, which has better security (a fact), more configurability (which is mostly an opinion but a valid one, I mean come on we can choose what DE we use! Can't do that on Windows!) The only things that Linux lacks are not the fault of the Linux devs, it's the game dev's and SOME hardware vendors (many of them are being bypassed for open source solutions thou (ndiswrapper...etc)). All these will be solved as Linux becomes more popular. In defence of Windows XP, it is not THAT bad, at least not on my Computer, it works, barley but it does work. But it is like being in a straight jacket. Windows won't fall, but it will, one day, no longer be the dominant desktop. Think of it this way, 250 years ago the british were the dominante throughout the world ( The Sun never sets on the British Empire, does that ring a bell?) Now, this is not the case, while still a very powerful and influential country they are not the most powerful country out there, it is the nature of life. Linux poses a threat to Windows because it is not one entity, there are many distros, Ubuntu might lose popularity one day, but it will be replaced by a newer (better?) distro. If windows falls, then it's all over. They have already begun to falter, let's hope they don't fall too quickly thou. If they do the results could be catasrophic for the economy. Slow and steady does it people. Let's do this right.

Edit: this is off topic but does anyone know why this post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=169159) got locked?

ps. As a follow up to this I posted here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=190244)

[ihavenoname]

Shodges, speaking of the paperclip guy. That had to be one of the worst features EVER! It never helped me, it was just annyoing! The fact that you hyped that part of Windows shows how much Windows has to offer:p Now that I got that out of the way let me ask you this,
whos fault is it that some websites don't render on the Linux browsers? It's the foolish administrator of the website who desgined it only for IE, why would you do that? It limits the number of people who can see your webpage.

Shodges, did you ACTUALLY USE Linux or did you just try it a few times and give up?

In referance to your statment that windows has nothing to fear. If Windows did not pay attention to Linux then why would they make websites such as this http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/facts/default.mspx ? Ok, so its mostly aimed at Linux as a server, but consider the following. Most of the Linux projects get their money from companies such as IBM, Red Hat, and Novell. These companies are involved Linux servers! These same companies are the ones who pay for the open source projects (XGL anyone?) that aid in the improvement of the Linux desktop. If all of those companies were to fall to the Microsoft machine then many Linux projects would go under and it would greatly hurt the Linux desktop, two birds with one stone.


Don't call us Linux zealots, it has bad conotations, we don't run around carring a Linux flag, we don't all have pet peguins named after our favorite distros, we don't break every microsoft cd we see. We have simply found a wonderful OS that solves out needs and costs us substatially less then Windows does and allows us more control. The reason many people feel so passionatly about the Linux vs. Windows issue is that they see a free OS that in many ways out classes an OS that costs $100 - $300+ AND it comes with no restrictions. We just want other people to save money and get the same enjoyable experiance we do. Also we would like more people to use Linux as it will lead to better 3rd party support for hardware, and allow for more people to invest in Linux. If you don't like that go to your Windows buddies and you enjoy yourself, we don't need you and if your going to be rude to some of the members on this board then quite frankly we don't want you. If you want to have a constructive dialogue with us and you truely have the best in mind for the Linux community then welecome.

In the end I would like to point out that these OS wars rarely change anyones mind, everyone has the freedom to choose, in the end isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that what Linux is about?


Linux just sucks. It's only web browsers have difficulty rendering a lot of web sites out there. It's only chat programs have difficulty with file transfers and other basic IM features many users expect. It has no games to speak of, the only way to find any is to use terrible windows emulation to run the 5% of the games that you can get working, at 5% the speed they would run under windows. More often than not, in Ubuntu's case in particular, it can't even play most people's music collections out of the box.

WOW! I am offended that you would out right lie about these thing (or at the very least write on that which you know little about) Linux does not have many commercial games, but it has quite a few OSS games, have you played chromium? Tuxracer? Cube? Unreal Tournament 2k3 and 2k4 both have linux installers. Did you not see the "Games" menu in KDE and GNOME?

On the music, how is it Ubuntu's fault that mp3 decoders are proprietrary? We have OGG as well as others. We don't have to conform to those standards, we make out own. Those who really want to can get the encoders and decoders themselves. How come Windows does not come with OGG support out of box? How come Windows doesn't support the viewing of ext and reiserfs partitions? We are here to change the standards, to improve them! We don't have to conform to Window's standards! I am sick of the people who complain about this like it is the most difficult thing in the world to get mp3's to work! Are you seriously that bent on conforming? If we kept all the same standards as Microsoft what would be the point? We are an alternative, you don't like it leave. At least Linux is free, you won't be losing any money. I see why BoyofDestiny thought you were joking, your arguments can at times be on the ridiculus side. No offense. This was not meant to insult you Shodges, just to educate you on some basic concepts of Linux.

[vinodis]

hmm.. this feel like reading slashdot last posts.

[awakatanka]

The biggest thing that hold back linux to dominate is linux it self, if it isn't going as easy to install a new piece of hardware that you bought like windows then most normal users won't use it. If big closed source company don't write a linux version of there software it will hold back linux to.

If linux doesn't get the support of closed source hardware and software then it will never take over MS.

Why is MS big because everthing is possible on there OS and its easy to do, and they will defend there marketshare with tactic like giving there software almost for free to schools just for the first contact.

Apple computers aren't that wide spread as in the past in company so not many come in contact with apple computer so not many are sold now. In the past they had bigger market share because there first contact at work. You don't see them much in stores also.

First contact is very important and advertise and preinstalled. This you don't see for distro's.

And in the future internet will be faster and faster and then the computers will start there OS from the internet and every prg to. In the past they tryed allready to make it possible but then they failed, but it will still be the future. Just look at the live thing from MS they already moving that way.

[disturbed1]

Why is MS big because everthing is possible on there OS and its easy to do, and they will defend there marketshare with tactic like giving there software almost for free to schools just for the first contact.

Apple computers aren't that wide spread as in the past in company so not many come in contact with apple computer so not many are sold now. In the past they had bigger market share because there first contact at work. You don't see them much in stores also.

First contact is very important and advertise. Both you don't see for distro's.

And in the future internet will be faster and faster and then the computers will start there OS from the internet and every prg to. In the past they tryed allready to make it possible but then they failed, but it will still be the future. Just look at the live thing from MS they already moving that way.
Apple used to have the middle and high school accounts during the Apple IIe and 040 times. But everyone I know still bought Windows machines.

MS isn't the only company making LIVE internet products. Sun has been doing it for years, that was always one of the corner stones of Java. Yahoo has a live beta Google has Writely and a new Spreadsheet, and don't forget about AJax applications.


Microsoft makes it's money from OEM accounts like Dell, HP, Gateway.... There are far more new PCs sold, than there are Windows operating systems by themselves. Even if Vista is a complete flop, the OEMs will still push it out the door the same way they did with 95,98, and ME. Microsoft has had a few products that did not do that well. Their MSN webTV, and one might go as far as saying the Xbox and Xbox 360 <-- the sales show a net loss across the board for those products.

The thing is, Microsoft is a house hold name. They have brand recognition. When most people think of Internet they think of Computer. When they think of Computer they think of Windows. You'd be surprised how many people don't even know what an Apple Mac is.

The technology sector, believe it or not, is not controled by us 1%'ers, it's controled and marketed to average joe that thinks the internet is that big blue E. It will take years of blunders on Microsofts part to get away from that brand recognition. Before that happens, they will do what they've done in the past, lie, cheat, steal, and buy out who ever has something better. Microsoft has for a long time been trying to hire open source programers, they even lured away a key Gentoo programer.

As long as the general public remain un computer educated, and the OEMs continue to push Windows, Microsoft will be on top for the foreseeable future.


Microsoft should, and does fear Linux. Though, honestly at this point in time, Linux is a cockroach on the wall when it comes to desktop use. But we all know how fast cockroaches can multiply :mrgreen: But no one should under estimate Microsoft. Think what you want about who what where how and why they operate, but no one can deny the fact that they are a sucessfull business, and in business terms, they did it correctly.

[G Morgan]

I don't think anyone is underestimating Windows, personally I believe the end result of all this may be a huge cull of management at MS and a move towards making good software to supplement their aggresive tactics and mass illegal actions.

As for SHodges. I love the way he complains that Ubuntu has no MP3 support so Linux will never take off. A logical fallacy since he's linked the fates of all Linux distros on the basis of a perceived weakness in one. It's called the Straw man fallacy. We believe Linux will grow on the desktop. He purports Ubuntu won't because of lack of proprietry codec support. Therefore Linux will fail on the desktop.

Of course all this ignores that most major distros with eyes on the desktop do include MP3 support out of the box.

[disturbed1]

I don't think anyone is underestimating Windows, personally I believe the end result of all this may be a huge cull of management at MS and a move towards making good software to supplement their aggresive tactics and mass illegal actions.

As for SHodges. I love the way he complains that Ubuntu has no MP3 support so Linux will never take off. A logical fallacy since he's linked the fates of all Linux distros on the basis of a perceived weakness in one. It's called the Straw man fallacy. We believe Linux will grow on the desktop. He purports Ubuntu won't because of lack of proprietry codec support. Therefore Linux will fail on the desktop.

Of course all this ignores that most major distros with eyes on the desktop do include MP3 support out of the box.


:):D

I wonder how Microsoft made it this far without MPEG2 and AC3 support to watch a common DVD :-k

[SHodges]

I hate to steal lines from Maddox, but "someone call the CDC, turns out stupid is contagious afterall. You people are more delusional than the flat earth society. Oh well, time to take another crack at explaining why you guys are so damn stupid. I mean, "go back to my windows buddies" even though I use linux almost exclusively? Are you kidding me? :confused:


Shodges, speaking of the paperclip guy. That had to be one of the worst features EVER! It never helped me, it was just annyoing! The fact that you hyped that part of Windows shows how much Windows has to offer Now that I got that out of the way let me ask you this,
whos fault is it that some websites don't render on the Linux browsers? It's the foolish administrator of the website who desgined it only for IE, why would you do that? It limits the number of people who can see your webpage.
Yeah, I totally "hyped that part of windows" and didn't just use that to make a joke about how stupid the post I was replying to was. Look into "reading", I hear it's all the rage these days. Who's fault is it that some websites don't render on linux browsers? The guys who make the websites. Does that matter one damn bit? No, it doesn't, because at the end of the day, you still have the average user saying "haha, it can't even do half the internet right, what a joke". It doesn't matter why there is a handicap to the OS, it really does not. All that matters is that the handicap is there, and until it's removed, it will continue to hurt the product.



Shodges, did you ACTUALLY USE Linux or did you just try it a few times and give up?

In referance to your statment that windows has nothing to fear. If Windows did not pay attention to Linux then why would they make websites such as this http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...s/default.mspx ? Ok, so its mostly aimed at Linux as a server, but consider the following. Most of the Linux projects get their money from companies such as IBM, Red Hat, and Novell. These companies are involved Linux servers! These same companies are the ones who pay for the open source projects (XGL anyone?) that aid in the improvement of the Linux desktop. If all of those companies were to fall to the Microsoft machine then many Linux projects would go under and it would greatly hurt the Linux desktop, two birds with one stone.
I ordered an Ubuntu 5.10 CD out of curiosity, tried the LiveCD and have been using Ubuntu as my primary OS for everything I do save for playing Civilization IV, which keeps windows around until the day I get bored of it and Windows is gone, probably forever. So no, I didn't use it once and give up. As a matter of fact, I use it more often than most of the people you see on this board who have dual boots and only use windows for games...music...movies...chat...office...internet. ..and pretty much everything else that isn't just "hey look, I'm using linux, neato!". Nice try though, you almost made me look like I was attacking something I had no experience with. The only thing your plan lacked was logic, a touch of reality, and maybe a little less being completely stupid, and it would have worked. Why does Microsoft say "hey, use Windows server"? Because they make money for it. There's a reason they don't advertise "hey, use Windows desktop" though. And that reason is because Microsoft has nothing to fear from Linux on the desktop. Get it through your head, please.



Don't call us Linux zealots, it has bad conotations, we don't run around carring a Linux flag, we don't all have pet peguins named after our favorite distros, we don't break every microsoft cd we see. We have simply found a wonderful OS that solves out needs and costs us substatially less then Windows does and allows us more control. The reason many people feel so passionatly about the Linux vs. Windows issue is that they see a free OS that in many ways out classes an OS that costs $100 - $300+ AND it comes with no restrictions. We just want other people to save money and get the same enjoyable experiance we do. Also we would like more people to use Linux as it will lead to better 3rd party support for hardware, and allow for more people to invest in Linux. If you don't like that go to your Windows buddies and you enjoy yourself, we don't need you and if your going to be rude to some of the members on this board then quite frankly we don't want you. If you want to have a constructive dialogue with us and you truely have the best in mind for the Linux community then welecome.
I'll stop saying "Linux Zealot" the second this entire community grows up and realizes that criticism towards linux does not equal "omg m$ fanb0y tr011, get h1m1!!1!!!!!1". All the stuff you said you wanted? Me to. The only difference is that I'm smart enough to see the things standing in the way of those things happening, where as the rest of you are apparently content to sit around saying "oh, well it's already perfect, they're all just stupid and like Microsoft. Yeah, that's it". I'll be sure to go run back to my "windows buddies" though...even though we'll have little to talk about, since I barely use Windows.




In the end I would like to point out that these OS wars rarely change anyones mind, everyone has the freedom to choose, in the end isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that what Linux is about?
This is so stupid, I wish people would stop saying crap like this all the time, linux and open source aren't about ANYTHING but making good software. It's not a political platform, it's not a philosophy, it's a collection of media players and web browsers and stuff that makes your computer work, jesus :rolleyes:




WOW! I am offended that you would out right lie about these thing (or at the very least write on that which you know little about) Linux does not have many commercial games, but it has quite a few OSS games, have you played chromium? Tuxracer? Cube? Unreal Tournament 2k3 and 2k4 both have linux installers. Did you not see the "Games" menu in KDE and GNOME?
http://media.teamxbox.com/forum/smilies/lol.gif
There's no way you're serious. Hahaha, Tuxracer? CUBE? Hahahahahaha http://media.teamxbox.com/forum/smilies/lol.gif

Yeah, I'll be sure to tell the windows buddies you guys have decided I have (because everyone is geeky enough to define friends via operating system, just like you guys) to drop Crysis and Neverwinter Nights in favor of...Tuxracer. Heheh...and "Cube". *giggle*




On the music, how is it Ubuntu's fault that mp3 decoders are proprietrary? We have OGG as well as others. We don't have to conform to those standards, we make out own. Those who really want to can get the encoders and decoders themselves. How come Windows does not come with OGG support out of box? How come Windows doesn't support the viewing of ext and reiserfs partitions? We are here to change the standards, to improve them! We don't have to conform to Window's standards! I am sick of the people who complain about this like it is the most difficult thing in the world to get mp3's to work! Are you seriously that bent on conforming? If we kept all the same standards as Microsoft what would be the point? We are an alternative, you don't like it leave. At least Linux is free, you won't be losing any money. I see why BoyofDestiny thought you were joking, your arguments can at times be on the ridiculus side. No offense. This was not meant to insult you Shodges, just to educate you on some basic concepts of Linux.
What is it with you guys and who's "fault" something is? Do you really think anyone on the face of the earth save for you idiots gives a crap who's "fault" it is that basic computer tasks can't be accomplished out of the box? Really? No one (NO ONE) cares why mp3 codecs aren't this and that, they care that when they try to play music after setting up their computer...they can't. Why does windows not support OGG? Probably because the music industry and consumers don't support OGG, because no one gives a damn about it, so there's no need to support it. Not quite the same case with mp3, but I see what you're saying (not really, I'm just trying to keep the list of things you need to reply to short, hopefully that will make writing a post that doesn't suck a little easier on you). And my arguments are "ridiculous"? Says the guys who make speeches about what linux is "about" and how cool and nonconformist it is (too bad it doesn't work that way guys), who decide that someone who probably uses linux more than they do is a windows troll, etc. Hahaha, wow. The linux community is universally considered a bad joke to the outside world for a reason, and that reason has been made abundantly clear in this thread. You guys are so brain washed about some of the stuff, it's almost scary. It's a wonder that Linux has managed to improve as much as it has with this many people saying how perfect it is no matter whats clearly wrong with it. Shuttleworth may as well just give you guys a command line and soak up the praise. :rolleyes:

[SHodges]

I don't think anyone is underestimating Windows, personally I believe the end result of all this may be a huge cull of management at MS and a move towards making good software to supplement their aggresive tactics and mass illegal actions.

As for SHodges. I love the way he complains that Ubuntu has no MP3 support so Linux will never take off. A logical fallacy since he's linked the fates of all Linux distros on the basis of a perceived weakness in one. It's called the Straw man fallacy. We believe Linux will grow on the desktop. He purports Ubuntu won't because of lack of proprietry codec support. Therefore Linux will fail on the desktop.

Of course all this ignores that most major distros with eyes on the desktop do include MP3 support out of the box.

Amazing. Yeah, I can't figure out why I'd talk about Ubuntu primarily on an Ubuntu board, especially since it's by and large the most popular distro out there. You want to get away from Ubuntu and it's lack of mp3 out of the box support? Great, let's talk about other distro's and their poor user friendliness, or their poor hardware support, their instability, their poor update/release cycles, their poor and difficult installation, their bloated software packages or their too barebones to actually be a decent computer software packages, etc. Every distro out there has problems. I was pointing out one in the distro most relevant to the discussion. If you'd really like me to make a laundry list of all the things wrong with all the various obscure distro's that will die in a few months, I'll be happy to do so.


[snip]
This post is right about absolutely everything. I wish there were more of you.

[Kilz]

Amazing. Yeah, I can't figure out why I'd talk about Ubuntu primarily on an Ubuntu board, especially since it's by and large the most popular distro out there. You want to get away from Ubuntu and it's lack of mp3 out of the box support? Great, let's talk about other distro's and their poor user friendliness, or their poor hardware support, their instability, their poor update/release cycles, their poor and difficult installation, their bloated software packages or their too barebones to actually be a decent computer software packages, etc. Every distro out there has problems. I was pointing out one in the distro most relevant to the discussion. If you'd really like me to make a laundry list of all the things wrong with all the various obscure distro's that will die in a few months, I'll be happy to do so.


This post is right about absolutely everything. I wish there were more of you.
Every OS has its weak points, you can pick them out if you want. Windows has weak points to. But for some reason people still use it. Windows problems.
1. No ogg or odf support out of the box. The ODF support will be a big problem soon.
2. Poor hardware support if you are not getting a pre installed computer or using a restore disk. Try installing Windows from a Microsoft Windows disk some time.
3. Windows release dates are a joke. Updates for serious holes take months on end.
4. Bloat? LOL that is funny Can anyone say ME?
5. Bare bones. Don't compare preinstalled systems, What version of Microsoft Windows has an office suit included?
6. Poor user friendliness? I can point out a few pro Microsoft sites with idiots on them , you can probably point out a few bad Linux sites. But Ubuntu's site has to be one of the nicest to most people, at least those that don't prove themselves jerks first.
You can pick out a few distro's that may die, but the fact is Linux is like the hydra, cut off one head and two more take its place. Once Microsoft finally dies, the code base will happily be buried with it.

[bsell]

SHodges,

WMP supports OGG via plugin. Many video games use OGG and personal media players support OGG as well.

You wouldn't be able to get on the 'net in Windows if it hadn't been for the open source technology MS co opted (Free BSD's TCI/IP stack).

GNU embodies a philosophy, just like Microsoft does. Only a fool would suggest there isn't a philosophy behind any of it.

IE7 beta2 has doesn't render as well as Firefox and is nowhere near as fast.

Read the Halloween papers. MS does see Linux as a desktop competitor. Ubuntu stole you away from MS, didn't it? Why did Bill Gates request a meeting with the president of Brazil over his decision to go open source two years ago?

[G Morgan]

Amazing. Yeah, I can't figure out why I'd talk about Ubuntu primarily on an Ubuntu board, especially since it's by and large the most popular distro out there. You want to get away from Ubuntu and it's lack of mp3 out of the box support? Great, let's talk about other distro's and their poor user friendliness, or their poor hardware support, their instability, their poor update/release cycles, their poor and difficult installation, their bloated software packages or their too barebones to actually be a decent computer software packages, etc. Every distro out there has problems. I was pointing out one in the distro most relevant to the discussion. If you'd really like me to make a laundry list of all the things wrong with all the various obscure distro's that will die in a few months, I'll be happy to do so.

I don't think anybody is claiming that any distro is perfect but using Ubuntu and Linux interchangably as you talk is a distortion whether intentional or not, Ubuntu, Fedora Core, etc are different if similar OSes and should be treated as such. Also when people talk about these things they fail to mention that Windows has many of the same problems. When XP was first released it had no MP3 support (which is why WMA's exist, MS didn't want to get bogged down by the licensing either) and it was only added as an update that you have to install after the OS is installed. Of course you can roll a SP2 install disk but even this doesn't include WMP10 (the first one to have full MP3 support) IIRC and there aren't many users with the capability of slipstreaming a disk anyway.

So you need Windows update for complete MP3 support in XP. You need Synaptic for complete MP3 support in Ubuntu. Wheres the difference apart from the fact LAME will install without a reboot. I suppose you could install a third party app but your into even more obscure territory then.

The same thing can be said about most codecs in Windows. How many people install things like k-lite because otherwise your hunting down a million and one codec packs.

[rcarring]

I just rumbled through most of this thread in an attempt to understand the various arguments for and against and so on.

In the first place, this thread's topic is about the Future Of Microsoft.

The inference is that Ubuntu (Dapper Drake 6.06 LTS) is a viable alternative to Windows. I would say, tentatively, that if you are an advanced user with at least five years experience in Windows, Macs and Linux then it is. If however, you are someone who has only been using Windows for a short while say a year or less and have only recently come across Ubuntu and are trying it out, then good luck to you, because it is not the easiest of systems to understand or configure, and somethings simply don't work without thirdparty tools such as emulators etc.

Microsoft is well aware that machine technology is driven by gamers and always has been, not by Linux or Windows fans (Mac fans are in a whole different category, they are ENTIRELY software driven). So there are machines out there now that really need a monster system to strain them to the limit, and so Microsoft prepared Vista. Of course people whine that 1GB of Ram and 15GB of disk space is a bit much, but think about Windows 95... this system was introduced over ten years ago and supported a monochrome display, 4MB ram and i386. I know cause I installed Windows 95 on just such a machine. By todays standards this is almost as laughable as a Commodore Console with 64k ram... but I put it to you that in 2006 512mb Ram is equal to 16MB Ram in 1995.

I have been using the net since 1996, and had accounts with MSN, Compuserve and Netcom. In those days it was not thought unusual to lose a download at 98% having spent an hour and a half downloading Netscape 2.01 which rolled in at a mere 2MB.

I guess I am lucky, I guess that having ripped apart and rebuilt more than 70 pc units since 1997, and finding that Windows 95 or 98 would almost definitely work on all of them, that I find it hard to believe that Dapper Drake is viable for old pcs, especially as its hardware requirements are not that onerous, just out of reach of a P200.

And yes, I have installed (successfully) XP on a 64MB HP Vectra P166, but it was as slow as ****.

+++

Microsoft pissed me off with their changes to VB, I haven't forgiven them for it.

+++

Um, let's see, this post is totally off topic isn't it?

Well, MP3s, they only work on my machine because I installed beep-media-player, I havent got the time nor the energy to frig around looking for codecs, I know I can play mp3s with Beep so what the hell. I havent run RhythmBox because there were a lot of posts saying it had problems.

I have OpenOffice, and Gimp. i have tried Crossover a few times, but really I couldn't see any lasting reason for using it, unless I wanted IE6, and then if I am going to an aspx site I would probably use it under Windows.

+++++

I use Windows XP SP2 Professional as my default operating system as it allows me to run the software I need. I also have a Macintosh, and I use that to run software I need to run on a Mac.

I don't have a dedicated Linux PC, I don't have one simply because I don't have a spare machine (which is why I run Ubuntu under vmware quite happily).

+++

However, I have since installing Breezy a couple of months ago and then Dapper probably used my Linux vMs more than XP for software. And that is the true test -- which system do you use more?

XP or Linux?

If the answer is Linux, then Microsoft should think about joining the fray with MS Linux.

They have been talking about that for years.

[G Morgan]

If the answer is Linux, then Microsoft should think about joining the fray with MS Linux.

They have been talking about that for years.

If MS did make a Linux based OS it would be welcome because then everyone would be using at least some free software. Also you'd get 100% driver support, compatible API's and a mountain of extra OSS released.

Microsoft will never do it because they're dependant on standard lock-ins. If they went for a Windows Linux then even if they built their own API on top of it people would still use POSIX for simple portability.

All win win really but I think MS adopting BSD in the Apple style is far more likely.

[rcarring]

I personally would like to see Microsoft bring out a BSD/Apple clone.

I really like the Mac, and used one continuously for nearly a year (before the cd rom drive gave out on the powerbook I was using).

I think that's why I prefer Gnome to KDE, my first experience of Gnome was with Breezy Badger, and since then I prefer it to KDE. PC-BSD is quite good too, if you want to install a package, you download a self installign pbi package and you know it will work as it has been test and approved and all the dependencies are satisfied with the pbi. Unfortunately it uses kde which I have issues with.

My Gnome desktop has maybe twenty packages on the menu including OOo and Gimp and they are really all I need.

I think Microsoft are already working on a Linux/Unix clone at the moment.

[azazel-]

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what timespan most of the people responding in this thread have been using Linux? Not specifically ubuntu, but Linux in general.

[RAV TUX]

I personally would like to see Microsoft bring out a BSD/Apple clone.

I really like the Mac, and used one continuously for nearly a year (before the cd rom drive gave out on the powerbook I was using).

I think that's why I prefer Gnome to KDE, my first experience of Gnome was with Breezy Badger, and since then I prefer it to KDE. PC-BSD is quite good too, if you want to install a package, you download a self installign pbi package and you know it will work as it has been test and approved and all the dependencies are satisfied with the pbi. Unfortunately it uses kde which I have issues with.

My Gnome desktop has maybe twenty packages on the menu including OOo and Gimp and they are really all I need.

I think Microsoft are already working on a Linux/Unix clone at the moment.

"(Windows...) 3) 100000 Viruses 4) An unprecedent unstability 5) If you want to know about how will feel ******* in 2 decades, use an OS X Mac now." --Doctor Zoidberg

[disturbed1]

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what timespan most of the people responding in this thread have been using Linux? Not specifically ubuntu, but Linux in general.
I started using Linux in 2000, Mandrake 7.2. First computer I used daily was an apple IIe, even owned a Laser which was an Apple IIe clone, along with other MACs II(cx,fx,vx? can't remember), Quadra 650, my last mac was a 7200 with the PPC 601 chip. My first Windows compatable PC I built from parts ordered out of Computer shopper, it was an AMD 5x86 for a 486 board 16mb of ram, a huge 1gig hard drive, and the just released Windows 95

[ihavenoname]

Shodges, I'll start by saying this Microsoft does not simply say "Hey use a Windows server" they say, don't use Linux use windows. Thats why they have that campaign "Get the facts".

About the Games, you said the Linux did not have a single game, it does and that was the point I sought to make, I never said it had better games then Windows. Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 both have Linux versions, you neglected to mention that. I will agree that Linux does not have as good of a selection of games as Windows.


That is the last "argumentative" statment I will make on this issue with you, I let your "rude" (my opinion) comments to another Board memeber get to me and I shouldn't have done that, I apoligize if I was at all insulting, and I apologize to the rest of the members for sinking so low and becoming so childish.


I concide that Linux is not as good as it could be, but it most certainly does not "suck". It is a wonderful OS and IMHO rivials Windows as an office OS, the only things linux lacks are relating to multimedia and games, However I see this being resolved in the near future.

Shodges, my questions to you are as follows, if you belive Linux to be so inferior ( that is what I have understood from your posts) then why do you use it so much? Do you see no flaws in Windows? Finally, you seem to know very well what Windows users want, so why don't we start a distro together, I'm sure we can get others on board and secure some method of funding. If Linux is not capable of doing something, why not fix it yourself? The source is available.

To clarify my point on the issue of userfriendlyness, I do not belive Linux to be a good solution for everyone, its a tougher OS and that is what I like about it, I can do more on linux then I can on windows. Windows lets you use the computer, Linux lets you mold it to your liking. Many people forget that not everyone understands computers. Still, many distros are as easy to setup and use as Windows, (Mandriva, Suse, PclinuxOS to name a few) This does not say that they have support for every format, but to be fair neither does Windows. In any case I could desing a website that would not support IE if I wanted, would you then say Windows sucks because it cannot view every web page? Also out of box Windows does not support ogg, why doesn't anyone point that out? Out of box Linux can view Vfat filesystems, Windows cannot.

I would hope that you would clarify your point of view in the next post without using (what I belive to be) baseless insults as I am certainly no fool and I do not appreciate being refered to as an "idiot".


Finally I disagree on the issue that Linux is not a political statment, as it can be used to make a political statement, it can be used to imply that you no longer wish to submit to capatalistic trends which focus solely on the gaining of wealth reguardless of morals. It's not designed to make that point but it certinaly can make that point if someone wants it to.

P.s. Shodges, there are over 1,000 users on this forum, I highly doubt that you will be able to change their minds about Linux. (even if half of them are here just here to make comments about how much it "sucks" that still leaves over 500 people, you cannot change their minds. Live and let live.

[SHodges]

Shodges, I'll start by saying this Microsoft does not simply say "Hey use a Windows server" they say, don't use Linux use windows. Thats why they have that campaign "Get the facts".
Yeah, they do. Which amounts to 'Hey use windows server'. Thanks for playing.


About the Games, you said the Linux did not have a single game, it does and that was the point I sought to make, I never said it had better games then Windows. Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 both have Linux versions, you neglected to mention that. I will agree that Linux does not have as good of a selection of games as Windows.
Yeah, I did neglect to mention that. I guess because they are two and three year old ports of games available on other platforms? That's like someone making a casual comment "compared to PSP and Nintendo DS, the Nokia N-Gage has no games" and then you pointing out the 14 or so ports that it does have, as if that person literally meant "it has zero games" and not "it is a complete joke and no one cares about it".



That is the last "argumentative" statment I will make on this issue with you, I let your "rude" (my opinion) comments to another Board memeber get to me and I shouldn't have done that, I apoligize if I was at all insulting, and I apologize to the rest of the members for sinking so low and becoming so childish.
Oh please, get over yourself. The only thing that you let "get to you" was me making a criticism of Linux. Too bad in your anger you apparently didn't bother to read, like so many other users here, since you and others continue to make arguments against things you've imagined. Nice apology though. If it weren't so obviously fake and generally corny, someone might have taken it as something other than a cheap attempt at taking the moral high ground.



I concide that Linux is not as good as it could be, but it most certainly does not "suck". It is a wonderful OS and IMHO rivials Windows as an office OS, the only things linux lacks are relating to multimedia and games, However I see this being resolved in the near future.
Then what is this argument? Because "Linux is not as good as it could be" is pretty much what I said, and so is "it most certainly does not suck" when I repeatedly pointed out that I use it (I pointed it out over and over and over and over as a matter of fact, but it disproved half the posts against me so I guess it was willfully ignored). The multimedia Linux does not "lack", the multimedia things are just not there by default, and that hurts it. Games, however, are completely absent (I know there are two or three and a few crappy windows emulators that can barely run Deus Ex, don't bother pointing them out, I and the rest of the gaming community don't care), and until Linux picks up large market share, they will continue to be. And as long as they are absent, it will be incredibly difficult for Linux to pick up large market share.



Shodges, my questions to you are as follows, if you belive Linux to be so inferior ( that is what I have understood from your posts) then why do you use it so much?
I don't believe it's inferior. As a matter of fact, I've said several times that it's a better OS than windows and that I use it almost exclusively, more than most of the people on this board can say. I use it so much because Ubuntu is a great OS and I just like running it. It's fast, it's virus and ad-ware free (thanks to it's low market share, not any inherent security features, it'd be as bad as windows if it were as big a target), it's got the software that I want, it looks nice, it's just a really nice product. To be honest, Ubuntu is so good that depending on the cost I would even pay for it, and it's given out for free. I love Ubuntu, I don't think it's inferior as an operating system at all, certainly not to Windows, and it can go toe to toe with MacOS. However, I'm also not so blindly in love with it that I think it's going to kill Microsoft while lacking a lot of the basic things that people want out of their computers. Synaptic is great, the little "add software" deal under the applications menu is great.....but having pretty much every piece of software in the world run on your PC, and being able to just do a google search and click on the first link for the software you need, is a whole lot better, and a lot of casual users are going to miss that. How many people are actually going to prefer Gimp over Photoshop? From a few polls I've seen, even the hardcore linux community doesn't prefer Gimp over photoshop. How many people are actually going to prefer Anjunta or MonoDevelop to their .NET suite? Not any that I've seen. And it goes on and on and on from there. From my perspective, Linux by and large has (better) alternatives to (almost) anything you can find on Windows. But from the perspective of the average user, the user you're going to need behind you for the sort of stuff being talked about in this thread like removing windows from it's dominant position or getting universal driver support, from their perspective Linux is difficult to find software for, it doesn't have the software they want 9 times out of 10, and it doesn't work with the hardware they have more often than windows as well (a quickly disappearing problem, I'm well aware of that). That's why I said what I said, which, without it right in front of me, I believe in context was something along the lines of "Linux sucks for the average user". And it most certainly does.



Do you see no flaws in Windows? Finally, you seem to know very well what Windows users want, so why don't we start a distro together, I'm sure we can get others on board and secure some method of funding. If Linux is not capable of doing something, why not fix it yourself? The source is available.
I see all kinds of flaws in Windows. I spend more time removing infections/annoying spy and ad-ware than I do playing around/working, "service packs" only serve to break things that I have working, things never seem to uninstall when I tell them to, or for that matter, do anything I tell them to after a few months of operation, etc. That's why I switched to Ubuntu save for Civilization IV, because Ubuntu is far superior. As for starting a distro, I wouldn't mind that at all really, though I'd much prefer to just whine about things until they get changed, since that saves me from needing to learn how to program things in something other than visual basic and visual C#. And "fixing things", I can't. There isn't anything I can do really to make publishers start putting games out for Linux, to make OEMs start putting out a few Linux machines, to make drivers magically appear, and I know that there's nothing the Ubuntu team (for the most part) can do either. But that doesn't change the fact that those problems are still there, and are still going to impede progress and stop Linux from ever hurting Microsoft.



To clarify my point on the issue of userfriendlyness, I do not belive Linux to be a good solution for everyone, its a tougher OS and that is what I like about it, I can do more on linux then I can on windows. Windows lets you use the computer, Linux lets you mold it to your liking. Many people forget that not everyone understands computers. Still, many distros are as easy to setup and use as Windows, (Mandriva, Suse, PclinuxOS to name a few) This does not say that they have support for every format, but to be fair neither does Windows. In any case I could desing a website that would not support IE if I wanted, would you then say Windows sucks because it cannot view every web page? Also out of box Windows does not support ogg, why doesn't anyone point that out? Out of box Linux can view Vfat filesystems, Windows cannot.
First of all, Linux is only a tougher OS for the average user, whom judging from my experience doing tech support for a few hundred people, are complete morons who will never open a help program or read a manual or use google or a forum or do anything to make themselves less of a high blood pressure causing moron. There's more precise typing and less random clicking around (which needs to change, not replace the typing because I like cutting and pasting into a terminal, but there needs to be a random clicking option to accomplish tasks as well), so yeah, it's a more difficult OS for the average user. For someone who knows they can cut and paste into a terminal and where to find the stuff they need to cut and paste, or for someone fresh off of windows/a mac and willing to learn, it's actually pretty easy. Your other points, yeah, you could do that to IE6, but your page and all the others that are like it would be less than 1%. Meanwhile, at least 10-15% of the pages I see on a weekly basis have some sort of problem with Firefox, whether it's text running off the page, images stretching too far, things not getting rendered, weird errors, etc. It's not quite the same thing. And neither is comparing OGG and MP3 support. One is an obscure format that support for only really matters to linux zealots who think of open source as some sort of philosophy, a format that has hardly any support from the music industry (from what I've seen, I don't go around checking file formats on every song released), a format that most people have never even heard of and couldn't care less if they have support for it, and the other is the recognized "standard" of music formats. Support for the one is a lot less important than support for the other. One is so important that it's just assumed to be there by most people, and the other is so unimportant that most people don't even know it exists, and couldn't care less that it does. As for viewing file systems....what? Does anyone really care about viewing a file system outside of the one your computer is using (ie, being able to view your files)? Do you honestly give a crap about that? I can't imagine that anyone does :confused:




I would hope that you would clarify your point of view in the next post without using (what I belive to be) baseless insults as I am certainly no fool and I do not appreciate being refered to as an "idiot".
I will admit that I jumped to insults right off the bat, but that's because I've seen these arguments before and I've seen the kind of reaction this community has for ANYTHING critical you say about Linux. They're incredibly nice when you ask for help usually, but the second you point out something that should obviously be there and is not, suddenly you're a troll and the antichrist of open source. I can recall at one point being called a "troll" because when I was first beginning to use Linux I said I'd prefer to double click and go through an install wizard when installing things that aren't there in synaptic rather than jumping through all these terminal hoops. It's amazing that these people talk about the improvements that dapper made (and it did, I'm not saying otherwise) even though it was the follow up to an apparently perfect operating system sent from the heavens.



Finally I disagree on the issue that Linux is not a political statment, as it can be used to make a political statement, it can be used to imply that you no longer wish to submit to capatalistic trends which focus solely on the gaining of wealth reguardless of morals. It's not designed to make that point but it certinaly can make that point if someone wants it to.
Anything can be used to make a political statement of some sort, that doesn't mean that it's about something. Linux is software. It's sole purpose/meaning behind it's existence is to make computer use "cooler" for lack of a better word. I can drink water in protest of every company that makes a non natural beverage of any kind anywhere on the earth. That doesn't mean that my local city water service is involved in some conspiracy against Pepsi and Coke, or that water itself is "about" anything. At best, one could say that Linux is "about" open source, which is in turn "about" releasing code so that you can get free labor from more people to do some of the work rather than needing to use paid labor supplied by less people to do all of the work.



P.s. Shodges, there are over 1,000 users on this forum, I highly doubt that you will be able to change their minds about Linux. (even if half of them are here just here to make comments about how much it "sucks" that still leaves over 500 people, you cannot change their minds. Live and let live.
I don't view myself as some weird "e-messiah" here to bless everyone with the truth and bring them over to myside over night, I don't really care that I can't change everyone's mind, I don't even aim to. I post when I'm bored or when I need tech support for Ubuntu, I couldn't care less who's convinced of what :confused:

[azazel-]

Been using linux since '96. Started out with slackware on a 133mhz AMD proc with 32 megs of ram. Everything usable had to be essentially compiled from source. I remember compiling GNOME from source, KDE from source, Enlightenment was an unholy nightmare to get working. Compiling a kernel would take somewhere in the realm of -hours-. There were few, if any, forums such as this in which to ask questions. No wikis, hell, no one even knew what google was. So to say that a fledgling linux user had it a bit tougher than now is a drastic understatement. 9 times out of 10, the answer to any question one might have would be answered with a harsh "RTFM, noob" and you'd be sent on your way.

In ten years, the improvements to Linux has been profound, drastic and in no lesser terms, amazing. It is light-years beyond what it was when I first started. Ubuntu is perhaps the most impressive distro I could imagine, and is far beyond my wildest dreams for linux 10 years ago.

That being said, there is no way in everloving heaven or hell that linux is anywhere near ready for widespread adoption by the masses. No way. Not even close. Microsoft has absolutely nothing to worry about in regards to linux on the desktop. For the average normal person, a computer is merely an appliance, and the operating system is the framework with which they must work in order to manipulate and interact with their data. Pictures, video, audio, text files, research, games...what have you. People want to actually DO THINGS with their computer, not do things TO their computer. If you spend more time doing things to your computer, the computer becomes your hobby, not that which is produced from your efforts. Ergo, if the operating system is what causes you to spend all your time doing things to your computer, than said operating system becomes the hobby. Which is, essentially, what linux is.

Normal people don't know what source code is, care about it, or care that they have access to reading it. Normal people do not want to have to read a HOW-TO in a forum on how to get their wireless card working properly, or how to get hibernation/sleep working on their laptop. Normal people do not care about the reasons behind why their SD-Card reader doesn't work, and probably never will. Normal people don't want to have to edit a text file or install a patch in order to get a native resolution working on their laptop. Normal people don't want to have to figure out how to load a kernel module to get the hotkeys working for their laptop. Normal people do not want to invest time and effort figuring out why their trackpad spazzes out, or the scroll funtions work in a wonky way.

I own two laptops, and each of them had every one of the issues I listed.

That is NOT desktop-ready. I don't care WHY, or the politics behind it, that's simply how it is. Does that mean that I hate Linux, or I fling poo at Ubuntu? No, I love it, and I've loved linux for a very very long time. But I can see it for what it is, with honesty. It's not ready, and may never be. I can say with near certainty that Microsoft will not reign forever, but I can say with almost just as much certainty that linux will not be their downfall.

Personally, I'm putting my money on either OS X or BSD. I have two PC/Linux laptops now, but my next will certainly be a macbook. I've played enough, now I just want things to come out of the box and work, all the time, every time.

[SHodges]

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what timespan most of the people responding in this thread have been using Linux? Not specifically ubuntu, but Linux in general.
I used some sort of Linux back in my first year of high school (I just graduated in may, so that's around 3-4 years ago I guess depending on what month it was), I don't know what distro or anything, but I only had an hour with it and it wasn't like windows so I hated it's guts. Later on, in my senior year, my IT teacher who was supposed to be training us for later when we'd get jobs as tech support guys for the school, mentioned something about Ubuntu to us to see if we had heard of it and mentioned that he liked it, and about a month later for one reason or another I decided to try out linux (don't really know why, just looking for something to do I guess) and remembered Ubuntu, and I ordered a few CDs off of the ship it thing, they got here, I used the live cd, and installed Ubuntu over my windows partition that day. Once I discovered that Wine and Cedega didn't work quite as well as advertised (read: not at all, for anything, at least for me), I ended up reinstalling Windows on a small partition so I could play Civilization IV, which is pretty much where I'm at today. So I guess I've been using it for a few months now, but Ubuntu at least has a pretty easy learning curve, there isn't anything I want to do but can't by now.[/long history lesson for me to type while I wait to get sleepy so I can go to bed]

[azazel-]

I gave up on Wine and Cedega for gaming a looooong time ago. Just really not worth the effort, and I have nothing to prove by bragging to others that I got such-and-such working in Linux. They'd just point and laugh. Granted, I have the luxury of having a dedicated gaming rig, so it wasn't some ideal-breaking decision. Best tool for the job is usually the smart way to do things, and sometimes only a Wintendo will do.

[G Morgan]

It's fast, it's virus and ad-ware free (thanks to it's low market share, not any inherent security features, it'd be as bad as windows if it were as big a target),

How many times does this have to be debunked before people stop repeating it. Apache (70% market share) has a much bigger market share than the MS equivalent (20%). In the last 18 months MS IIS had 30+ major security flaws while Apache had 0. Clearly in this case the more popular OSS product has been written with far more care and consideration than the proprietry MS solution which despite being a much smaller target has been hit far more times. Size of the target is irrelevant when software is wrote well.

User base is not the primary metric for security vulenarbilities, ease of attack is. People can say what they like, Windows has badly flawed security. It's not that Linux is special its Windows is rubbish in this respect for countless reasons that I'm not going into because people are fed up of repeating them. It's safe to say that both the evidence and the theory suggests that security is a Windows problem more so that anything else.

To put it into perspective. Linux holds around 5% of the desktop market with Windows XP holding something like 90% (Apple hold 5%). There are more than 100,000 known wild exploits for Windows. Currently there are around 800 exploits in total for Linux (accord to Kerpersky at least) only 2 of them are wild. So Windows has 18 times the market share yet 50,000 times the wild exploit share. Even if you included all the lab vulnerabilities for Linux thats still 125 times the vulnerability factor (what if we included all the Windows lab vulnerabilities).

Remember, if a thief is walking down the street and sees only your car with a steering wheel lock he will try to steal your car with varying degrees of sucess. If he walks down the street and sees yours protected but sees the keys left in the ignition of the car next door he will steal the car next door irrespective of whether your car has the market share.

[aysiu]

Can't it be both?

I think Windows is targeted more often because of its larger marketshare--but it also has a bad security setup (the fact that sudo or "Run as" is crippled in the XP implementation of it is evidence of this bad security setup--clearly, Windows is designed to be run as Administrator by at least one user).

There's another factor involved, too--the user. If the security setup is good but the user is stupid and/or picks easy-to-guess passwords... well, the security goes right out the window. And the OS that has the majority of users will tend to have a higher concentration of dumb users.

[G Morgan]

It's very true that market share does play a factor but the suggestion was it would be 'just as bad as Windows' when clearly the evidence using other systems suggest otherwise.

Also the user does make a difference and this is the real worry. It's preferable to keep the adoption of Linux slow and steady so that users that come in are taught properly why we have sudo and why root should be avoided. People are stupid and don't care because MS have allowed them to be stupid and not to care. 10% market share with mostly clued up users is far preferable to 90% market share and morons with double click syndrome everywhere.

Anyway how anyone can claim that MS's run as root with crap firewalls and code thats been mangled for years to fit a task it wasn't designed for is exactly as secure as an OS designed from the bottom up with security in mind is beyond me. It's pointless and irrelevant digging your head in the sand rather than accepting that some products have advantages over others.

[aysiu]

You're absolutely right. I just want to make sure people don't slip into a "Linux is invincible" mentality.

[deadgobby]

I feel MS see's Linux as a threat and is in fear of any thing that may take away from their tidy market share. After reading a review on Vista on Distrowhatch. I even grow more dislike of MS. I think that Linux will win as the most favor Desktop in 3 years. As long Linux stays open source. Howver, there is people who do not like change and happy as sheep in a field of fresh grass.
Gobby

[azazel-]

I feel MS see's Linux as a threat and is in fear of any thing that may take away from their tidy market share. After reading a review on Vista on Distrowhatch. I even grow more dislike of MS. I think that Linux will win as the most favor Desktop in 3 years. As long Linux stays open source. Howver, there is people who do not like change and happy as sheep in a field of fresh grass.
Gobby

You can think whatever you like...it won't happen. I've been hearing "this year is the year Linux takes over the desktop" ever year for going on...9-10 years now.

[G Morgan]

You can think whatever you like...it won't happen. I've been hearing "this year is the year Linux takes over the desktop" ever year for going on...9-10 years now.

and each year the Linux market share has increased. It's only the last few years its been a competitive product. The problem is most people expect a breakthrough, it will not happen. When Vista comes out a small fraction will be disenchanted and will switch moving the market share from 5% to 5.5%. Then over the course of Vista bloated existance more and more will switch in trickles and the market share will be about 7% by the Windows release after. Then Industry will start to take notice* and we will then see a higher paced but still gradual adoption of Linux at home. It won't ever get more than 15% likely but that is more than enough generally.

*it is now but it will need that time for Linux to truely polish off the rough edges.


//edit - of course China and other growing countries are still the wild card in all this. 10 years from now China will be economically more important than the US and that has to be taken into account.//

[aysiu]

You can think whatever you like...it won't happen. I've been hearing "this year is the year Linux takes over the desktop" ever year for going on...9-10 years now.I agree that 3 years is overly optimistic, but your logic's a bit flawed. Just because the boy cries wolf every day, it doesn't stop the wolf from actually coming next week!


Normal people do not want to have to read a HOW-TO in a forum on how to get their wireless card working properly, or how to get hibernation/sleep working on their laptop. Normal people do not care about the reasons behind why their SD-Card reader doesn't work, and probably never will. Normal people don't want to have to edit a text file or install a patch in order to get a native resolution working on their laptop. Normal people don't want to have to figure out how to load a kernel module to get the hotkeys working for their laptop. Normal people do not want to invest time and effort figuring out why their trackpad spazzes out, or the scroll funtions work in a wonky way. Why don't you give these "normal" people a Ubuntu-preloaded laptop (http://www.system76.com) and a copy of Windows XP and see how well they do with that?

Your huge rant about "normal people" this and "normal people" that amounts to one thing and one thing only: normal people don't install operating systems. They use what was on there when they bought the computer.

[richbarna]

I would love to beleive that Linux would threaten Microsoft, but at the moment it won't happen.
Ubuntu users are increasing everyday due to word of mouth ,more user friendliness, and forum spport.
Windows was always pre-installed on new computers, this is changing in europe as companies compete to sell desktops and laptops, (Asus for example), sell without an operating system.
I feel that as soon as companies/businesses start to use Linux servers AND Linux desktop distro's this will affect the general public more, as most people use what is compatible with the work-place at home.

Promotion is a biggie as well, if every Ubuntu user set up a blog or website dedicated to information and help guides, the internet would be awash with Ubuntu publicity.

As much as I love Ubuntu, (and do not hate Microsoft), Linux still isn't ready to provide what "Joe public needs". All my systems now are Linux including Damn Small Linux, all of them needed some kind of tweaking and learning to get them how I want them. Most people can't even solve windows problems.

As Linux progresses and becomes more "GUI n Clicky" and easier to install there will be a steady flow of new users, but this won't even dent Microsofts market share for the next 10 years.

Personally I am happy as long as my systems are running fine, and if other people continue to use windows that's their choice.
As long as Microsoft's continuing world domination doesn't affect my internet usage or privacy, I am not bothered.

[richbarna]

Sun Java Linux Vs Windows

Sun is shattering modern computing mythology. The myth that the desktop belongs to Microsoft is being systematically demolished under some heavyweight deals that are propelling Sun's Java Desktop System onto millions of seats and removing Microsoft's OS from many of those seats in the process.
In the second major announcement by a national government - the British government according to news accounts will begin replacing Microsoft Windows on 500,000 civil service desktops and using the Java Desktop System from Sun. The deal is said to be for five years with UK's Office of Government Commerce.

Java Desktop System

Project Looking Glass
Final compatibility trials which if successful will see the Java Desktop System on large numbers of government desktops. This is the second major announcement - last week - it was disclosed the government of China was piloting a project that would see from 500,000 to one million desktops using the Linux/Java-based Java Desktop System. If that pilot is successful - the Chinese government expects to expand that to 200,000,000 million desktops.

The depth of Sun's quick success at this early juncture is based on independent evaluations by numerous parties that suggest that Sun has done a very good job in creating a highly usable and competive desktop based on Linux and Java. Sun is also innovating on another front with some 3D Java-based technologies that are raising eyebrows. Sun's Project Looking Glass is looking at bringing users a usable 3D desktop. While still in very much an exploratory phase - it looks promising.

[azazel-]

I agree that 3 years is overly optimistic, but your logic's a bit flawed. Just because the boy cries wolf every day, it doesn't stop the wolf from actually coming next week!

Why don't you give these "normal" people a Ubuntu-preloaded laptop (http://www.system76.com) and a copy of Windows XP and see how well they do with that?

Your huge rant about "normal people" this and "normal people" that amounts to one thing and one thing only: normal people don't install operating systems. They use what was on there when they bought the computer.

I'm not "ranting", I'm being realistic.

Which would you think was easier; handing a person a pre-configured Ubuntu laptop and an XP install disk, walking them through the install, download the drivers from the internet, and walking someone through the install. Or...hand someone a pre-configured Dell Windows XP laptop and walking them through a Ubuntu install and tweaking all the little issues via editing text configuration files via a command line. I've walked *MANY* people through an XP reinstall, over the phone, and never had nary a problem. Lets see the same happen with the second scenario...I wish the best of luck to anyone that tries...and I hope it's not a long-distance call.

Linux will not be the downfall of Microsoft. Deal with it.

[azazel-]

Sun Java Linux Vs Windows

Sun is shattering modern computing mythology. The myth that the desktop belongs to Microsoft is being systematically demolished under some heavyweight deals that are propelling Sun's Java Desktop System onto millions of seats and removing Microsoft's OS from many of those seats in the process.
In the second major announcement by a national government - the British government according to news accounts will begin replacing Microsoft Windows on 500,000 civil service desktops and using the Java Desktop System from Sun. The deal is said to be for five years with UK's Office of Government Commerce.

Java Desktop System

Project Looking Glass
Final compatibility trials which if successful will see the Java Desktop System on large numbers of government desktops. This is the second major announcement - last week - it was disclosed the government of China was piloting a project that would see from 500,000 to one million desktops using the Linux/Java-based Java Desktop System. If that pilot is successful - the Chinese government expects to expand that to 200,000,000 million desktops.

The depth of Sun's quick success at this early juncture is based on independent evaluations by numerous parties that suggest that Sun has done a very good job in creating a highly usable and competive desktop based on Linux and Java. Sun is also innovating on another front with some 3D Java-based technologies that are raising eyebrows. Sun's Project Looking Glass is looking at bringing users a usable 3D desktop. While still in very much an exploratory phase - it looks promising.

I've used it. It's damn impressive.

[richbarna]

I've used it. It's damn impressive.

What ?!?!:o
I NEEEEEED This NOW !!
I'm using xgl/compiz and it's awesome.
I've just been looking at this :-
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.xml

It will be mine..... oh yes, it will be mine :twisted: (loud satanic laugh).

I suppose it needs a 3000 chip and 2gb RAM just to make it boot, no?

[RAV TUX]

Sun Java Linux Vs Windows

Sun is shattering modern computing mythology. The myth that the desktop belongs to Microsoft is being systematically demolished under some heavyweight deals that are propelling Sun's Java Desktop System onto millions of seats and removing Microsoft's OS from many of those seats in the process.
In the second major announcement by a national government - the British government according to news accounts will begin replacing Microsoft Windows on 500,000 civil service desktops and using the Java Desktop System from Sun. The deal is said to be for five years with UK's Office of Government Commerce.

Java Desktop System

Project Looking Glass
Final compatibility trials which if successful will see the Java Desktop System on large numbers of government desktops. This is the second major announcement - last week - it was disclosed the government of China was piloting a project that would see from 500,000 to one million desktops using the Linux/Java-based Java Desktop System. If that pilot is successful - the Chinese government expects to expand that to 200,000,000 million desktops.

The depth of Sun's quick success at this early juncture is based on independent evaluations by numerous parties that suggest that Sun has done a very good job in creating a highly usable and competive desktop based on Linux and Java. Sun is also innovating on another front with some 3D Java-based technologies that are raising eyebrows. Sun's Project Looking Glass is looking at bringing users a usable 3D desktop. While still in very much an exploratory phase - it looks promising.

the question is which one to load?

http://developers.sun.com/resources/downloads.html

[azazel-]

What ?!?!:o
I NEEEEEED This NOW !!
I'm using xgl/compiz and it's awesome.
I've just been looking at this :-
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.xml

It will be mine..... oh yes, it will be mine :twisted: (loud satanic laugh).

I suppose it needs a 3000 chip and 2gb RAM just to make it boot, no?

Oh no no no, I've not used Project Looking Glass. I've use the Java Desktop System. Just go sign up at Sun.com and you can download Solaris 10, since it's open source now. That's the foundation for Project Looking Glass. The hardware compatibility is a bit more iffy than Linux, but it's rock stable.

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp

However, if you'd like to play with PLG in its testing incarnation, you can download it here; https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/

[richbarna]

Even Better !!!! They've got deb files for Ubuntu !!!!
https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/binary-builds.html

Tomorrow I'm going to set up a partition for another Dapper and give it a go, files are downloading as we speak !! :)

[aysiu]

Which would you think was easier; handing a person a pre-configured Ubuntu laptop and an XP install disk, walking them through the install, download the drivers from the internet, and walking someone through the install. I've installed XP and 2000 from scratch myself, and it sucks worse than any Linux install I've done.

Deal with it yourself.

The fact of the matter remains that your supposed "normal" people don't install Windows, and when they do, they're usually just using the restore disks that the manufacturer gave them.


I'm not "ranting", I'm being realistic. You are ranting. Realism acknowledges that Windows' position is maintained through being preinstalled, not through being easy to install. Ranting goes on and on about unrealistic scenarios where "normal" people install operating systems and troubleshoot it themselves.

As you said yourself--"normal" people think of computers as appliances. Why, then, would they install an operating system on one?

[azazel-]

I've installed XP and 2000 from scratch myself, and it sucks worse than any Linux install I've done.

Deal with it yourself.

The fact of the matter remains that your supposed "normal" people don't install Windows, and when they do, they're usually just using the restore disks that the manufacturer gave them.

Then I feel sorry that you find easy things so difficult. Although considering someone doesn't know the difference between a primary and logical partition, such things aren't that hard to believe.

...and are there "restore disks" for Linux? I've not seen any. Yet another negative for Linux on the desktop. Keep diggin' that hole. :rolleyes:

installing Linux is easy...getting it working correctly is completely another thing. If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Windows is easier to get working properly with all hardware functional, then I pity you.

[aysiu]

Then I feel sorry that you find easy things so difficult. Although considering someone doesn't know the difference between a primary and logical partition, such things aren't that hard to believe.

...and are there "restore disks" for Linux? I've not seen any. Yet another negative for Linux on the desktop. Keep diggin' that hole. :rolleyes: Making fun of me for being too incompetent to install Windows doesn't really help your argument. I've installed and configured many a Linux distro without having to know the difference between a logical and a primary partition.

I've used Microsoft products since MS-DOS. I've used Linux for just over a year now.

Just goes to show you--Linux is easier to install.

But that's beside the point. Normal people don't install operating systems, which is the main obstacle to Linux's desktop adoption, apart from most people just never having heard of Linux.

[azazel-]

No, I'm making fun of your blatant ignorance to the reality of the situation at hand, as well as your ignorance in general.

Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Sorry cupcake, but it's true. :(

[aysiu]

No, I'm making fun of your blatant ignorance to the reality of the situation at hand, as well as your ignorance in general.

Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Sorry cupcake, but it's true. :( Calling me "cupcake" doesn't make your case any stronger either.

"Ready for the desktop" is a meaningless phrase. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=113874) When someone can't do something in Windows or doesn't know how to get spyware off her Windows computer, she doesn't call it "not ready for the desktop." When my co-workers ask me to troubleshoot their Windows problems practically every day, they don't call Windows "not ready for the desktop."

People just use Windows because, ready or not, it's there, and it's everywhere. They have to use Windows. Most jobs require you to use Windows. So "readiness," whatever that is, is irrelevant.

Prevalence is relevant. That's all that matters. Windows is the de facto standard, and because everyone uses it, it becomes what they're used to. Because everyone uses it, it comes preinstalled on Dell computers. Because everyone uses it, hardware manufacturers have to make drivers for Windows. Because everyone uses it, software companies have to make Windows ports.

Is Linux for everybody? No. But neither is Windows. And it doesn't really matter, because almost everyone is forced to use Windows--whether at home or at work. Many don't realize there's an alternative.

Read this for more of my apparent delusions. I realize you hardcore Slackware users from back in the day think one must be a computer whiz to use Linux. I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't 1993 any more.

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktop

You see, people who throw around the phrase "ready for the desktop" imagine that one day Linux might possibly be so impressive from a software standpoint that swarms of "normal users" will suddenly start installing it themselves... all in one mythical "year of the Linux desktop."

Adoption will be slow because people have to install it. It won't be until after major manufacturers preinstall Linux (and I'm not talking about the obscure only-in-France, only-for-students Mandriva Dell laptop) that it will gain widespread adoption. If you want to call that conclusion "blatant ignorance," go and live your life thinking that way, and I'll go living my life thinking my way.

[RAV TUX]

I'm downloading Solaris 10 now

[azazel-]

I apologize for coming off harsh and attacking. But I've been hearing the same spiel for years. Linux advocates need to quit worrying about Microsoft and concentrate on making Linux the best OS that it can be. Let nature take it's course. Just don't delude yourself or allow others to be caught up in thinking that it's the next big thing to crush Redmond. It's been the Next Big Thing for YEARS.

[aysiu]

I apologize for coming off harsh and attacking. But I've been hearing the same spiel for years. Linux advocates need to quit worrying about Microsoft and concentrate on making Linux the best OS that it can be. Let nature take it's course. Just don't delude yourself or allow others to be caught up in thinking that it's the next big thing to crush Redmond. It's been the Next Big Thing for YEARS. No, I'm with you on this--let nature take its course.

I think we may just be arguing over nothing... or semantics.

You're right about one thing--there will not be a deluge of new users that make the press declare in retrospect (not as a prophecy) that this year is "the year of the Linux desktop."

If the Linux desktop ever happens, it'll be the decade of the Linux desktop. I'm confident that there are more people who stick with Ubuntu than that try it and leave... well, in other words, that Ubuntu's desktop user population is growing, however slowly. But it's not like all of a sudden people will be installing Ubuntu in troves.

My hope is that Ubuntu will be the Linux distro that becomes the most popular--the one that will force other distros to be standardized just because Ubuntu is that popular. Then, projects like Skype and Opera won't have to make one binary for Ubuntu, one for Fedora, one for SuSE. They'll just make a Ubuntu binary, and every other distro will have to force themselves to make their packaging and file structures Ubuntu-compliant.

I also hope, though, that Ubuntu will reach a respectable marketshare but not dominate the desktop. I don't want it to be Windows. I would like it to be more like Macs--people respect it, it's popular enough for commercial software companies to consider and hardware vendors to put little penguins on the sides of their boxes--but not so popular that it gets swamped with viruses and spyware and dumb users who'll click on anything and offer up their passwords for sketchy software.

Edit: I'm sorry, too, for being so hostile. I can get really worked up. Geez.

[richbarna]

Aysiu and Azazel, maybe when this happens :-............

Sun Java Linux Vs Windows

Sun is shattering modern computing mythology. The myth that the desktop belongs to Microsoft is being systematically demolished under some heavyweight deals that are propelling Sun's Java Desktop System onto millions of seats and removing Microsoft's OS from many of those seats in the process.
In the second major announcement by a national government - the British government according to news accounts will begin replacing Microsoft Windows on 500,000 civil service desktops and using the Java Desktop System from Sun. The deal is said to be for five years with UK's Office of Government Commerce.

Java Desktop System

Project Looking Glass
Final compatibility trials which if successful will see the Java Desktop System on large numbers of government desktops. This is the second major announcement - last week - it was disclosed the government of China was piloting a project that would see from 500,000 to one million desktops using the Linux/Java-based Java Desktop System. If that pilot is successful - the Chinese government expects to expand that to 200,000,000 million desktops.

The depth of Sun's quick success at this early juncture is based on independent evaluations by numerous parties that suggest that Sun has done a very good job in creating a highly usable and competive desktop based on Linux and Java. Sun is also innovating on another front with some 3D Java-based technologies that are raising eyebrows. Sun's Project Looking Glass is looking at bringing users a usable 3D desktop. While still in very much an exploratory phase - it looks promising.
.........it will finally be the Linux year ........
.... For the UK and China ? :)

[confused57]

"Ready for the desktop" is a meaningless phrase. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=113874) When someone can't do something in Windows or doesn't know how to get spyware off her Windows computer, she doesn't call it "not ready for the desktop." When my co-workers ask me to troubleshoot their Windows problems practically every day, they don't call Windows "not ready for the desktop."

People just use Windows because, ready or not, it's there, and it's everywhere. They have to use Windows. Most jobs require you to use Windows. So "readiness," whatever that is, is irrelevant.

Prevalence is relevant. That's all that matters. Windows is the de facto standard, and because everyone uses it, it becomes what they're used to. Because everyone uses it, it comes preinstalled on Dell computers. Because everyone uses it, hardware manufacturers have to make drivers for Windows. Because everyone uses it, software companies have to make Windows ports.

Is Linux for everybody? No. But neither is Windows. And it doesn't really matter, because almost everyone is forced to use Windows--whether at home or at work. Many don't realize there's an alternative.



You see, people who throw around the phrase "ready for the desktop" imagine that one day Linux might possibly be so impressive from a software standpoint that swarms of "normal users" will suddenly start installing it themselves... all in one mythical "year of the Linux desktop."

Adoption will be slow because people have to install it. It won't be until after major manufacturers preinstall Linux
I think you can rest your case...you've eloquently summed it up in a nutshell.

I was the "average" computer user up until about 5 months ago, always bought computers with Windows preinstalled...never had to reinstall, because I had no crashes that necessitated doing so. I'm going on 60, so I didn't grow up using computers and buying preinstalled Windows suited my purposes quite adequately.

I wanted to learn more about computers, so I read a few books and built my first computer back in December...paid $100 for WinXP home, which was my first experience ever with installing an OS. The install was pretty straight forward, it already had SP2...took awhile to install all the patches. Then took even longer installing a firewall, antivirus, 4 anti-spyware programs(all free)...my prior experience with WindowsXP helped immensely in knowing what I needed to do in order to get a secure install.

A few weeks later, I decided to see what Linux was all about...stumbled upon Ubuntu Breezy. I was fortunate that I had an old computer to play around with...Breezy installed the first time with no problems, I had internet access, the sound worked...only had to "fiddle" with the resolution settings from the GUI.
I had read the FAQ, so I knew I needed to enable the universe & multiverse repositories(from the GUI "Synaptic Package Manager". I immediately got an automatic notification of "available updates", which I installed with a couple of mouse clicks. I found out that Ubuntu Linux is "secure" out of the box, iptables for a firewall, it isn't readily susceptible to viruses or spyware.
Now after 5 months, I can install Ubuntu in about 30 minutes, then another 30 minutes or so setting it up(Automatix, of course). I've found Ubuntu faster than WinXP, probably because of the anti-virus, anti-virus, and firewall running in the background. I personally can do just about everything with Ubuntu that I can do with WinXP, usually only with the GUI; I've learned how to use the CLI just to do the initial configurations...but after that it's all GUI.
I think I've graduated past the "average" computer user, but it is my opinion if computers came "preinstalled" and configured with Linux, the average computer wouldn't know the difference.
aysiu,
I've probably completely blown your case for Linux.

[BoyOfDestiny]

Aysiu and Azazel, maybe when this happens :-............

.........it will finally be the Linux year ........
.... For the UK and China ? :)

On that note, I stumbled upon this at Linux Watch

The Software Wars map
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS6586515742.html

[aysiu]

Aysiu and Azazel, maybe when this happens :-............

.........it will finally be the Linux year ........
.... For the UK and China ? :) America will be the last to adopt Linux on the desktop, for sure. I have been keeping abreast of Microsoft's fallout with China, actually. I also know about South Korea's "Linux city" and the $100 laptop project.

Things are happening. They are. I just don't see it happening overnight.

If China forces people to use Linux, though, the Linux desktop marketshare will shoot up, just by virtue of China being 1/5 of the world's population!

[ihavenoname]

Yeah, they do. Which amounts to 'Hey use windows server'. Thanks for playing.
No, it amounts to, yes we know how popular Linux is becoming, we know that the trend is to start using Linux, but please give us a chance. You know this so stop arguing the point its obvious that they recognize linux as a competitor.




Yeah, I did neglect to mention that. I guess because they are two and three year old ports of games available on other platforms? That's like someone making a casual comment "compared to PSP and Nintendo DS, the Nokia N-Gage has no games" and then you pointing out the 14 or so ports that it does have, as if that person literally meant "it has zero games" and not "it is a complete joke and no one cares about it".

Ah, but here is a direct quote of what you originally said


It has no games to speak of, the only way to find any is to use terrible windows emulation to run the 5% of the games that you can get working, at 5% the speed they would run under windows.

I won't even aruge that point anymore it's a dead issue. All you will say is that I should have been smart enough to read through to what you meant and that you were comparing the two and I should have figured it out. But this is a forum you must say what you mean and mean what you say, and for the record when UT2007 comes out it too will most likely support Linux.



Oh please, get over yourself. The only thing that you let "get to you" was me making a criticism of Linux. Too bad in your anger you apparently didn't bother to read, like so many other users here, since you and others continue to make arguments against things you've imagined. Nice apology though. If it weren't so obviously fake and generally corny, someone might have taken it as something other than a cheap attempt at taking the moral high ground.

Ah, except it was sincere, and I was attempting to take this discussion to a more mature level, you just proved that you're here to argue, were you more mature you would have simply taken the moral high ground yourself and it would have made you look slighly more credible, obviously you didn't do that, fine by me. I will not sink to your level again. I was not angrey I was annoyed, you don't know me, stop telling me what I thought. The truth is, had you been more mature and not so insulting I would have thought better of your argument and at least made a better attempt to see it from your point of view, that is not the case. Finally don't ever attempt to make me sound like I am a lieing scoundrel who attempts to fake apologies just to look good, I truly should not have sunk to your level and for that I apologize. You need to learn to understand something, some people are sincere, that does not make them fake or corny because you may perhaps lack that sincerity, does not mean that everyone else does. In any case the point of this (thread) is not my persoanlity or yours, it is the future of microsoft so let us stick to that and not things like how intelligent someone may or may not be.



Then what is this argument? Because "Linux is not as good as it could be" is pretty much what I said, and so is "it most certainly does not suck" when I repeatedly pointed out that I use it (I pointed it out over and over and over and over as a matter of fact, but it disproved half the posts against me so I guess it was willfully ignored). The multimedia Linux does not "lack", the multimedia things are just not there by default, and that hurts it. Games, however, are completely absent (I know there are two or three and a few crappy windows emulators that can barely run Deus Ex, don't bother pointing them out, I and the rest of the gaming community don't care), and until Linux picks up large market share, they will continue to be. And as long as they are absent, it will be incredibly difficult for Linux to pick up large market share.

I agree with most of that, but could you point out what exactly it disproves? I got the impression that you did not like Linux at first because you continually pointed out the negatives in Linux and postives in Windows, now that you have clarified this it makes your argument much more understandable, as it turns out there is not much of an argument as to "what is" but more of a disgreement as to the extent that "it is". Fill "it" in with whatever the issue being being discussed is.




I don't believe it's inferior. As a matter of fact, I've said several times that it's a better OS than windows and that I use it almost exclusively, more than most of the people on this board can say. I use it so much because Ubuntu is a great OS and I just like running it. It's fast, it's virus and ad-ware free (thanks to it's low market share, not any inherent security features, it'd be as bad as windows if it were as big a target), it's got the software that I want, it looks nice, it's just a really nice product. To be honest, Ubuntu is so good that depending on the cost I would even pay for it, and it's given out for free. I love Ubuntu, I don't think it's inferior as an operating system at all, certainly not to Windows, and it can go toe to toe with MacOS. However, I'm also not so blindly in love with it that I think it's going to kill Microsoft while lacking a lot of the basic things that people want out of their computers. Synaptic is great, the little "add software" deal under the applications menu is great.....but having pretty much every piece of software in the world run on your PC, and being able to just do a google search and click on the first link for the software you need, is a whole lot better, and a lot of casual users are going to miss that. How many people are actually going to prefer Gimp over Photoshop? From a few polls I've seen, even the hardcore linux community doesn't prefer Gimp over photoshop. How many people are actually going to prefer Anjunta or MonoDevelop to their .NET suite? Not any that I've seen. And it goes on and on and on from there. From my perspective, Linux by and large has (better) alternatives to (almost) anything you can find on Windows. But from the perspective of the average user, the user you're going to need behind you for the sort of stuff being talked about in this thread like removing windows from it's dominant position or getting universal driver support, from their perspective Linux is difficult to find software for, it doesn't have the software they want 9 times out of 10, and it doesn't work with the hardware they have more often than windows as well (a quickly disappearing problem, I'm well aware of that). That's why I said what I said, which, without it right in front of me, I believe in context was something along the lines of "Linux sucks for the average user". And it most certainly does.

I think other have already answered this part of your post and there is little I have to add except this. How many people actually use the .NET suite? I have not met too many, besides the .NET suite is very handicapped in terms of allowing the user to program for multiply platforms. That said for what it is ment to do, it is a very good piece of software. IMO more people use photoshop then the .NET suite but I doubt that the "average" users does. I don't think Linux will gain amazing market share in the US any time soon, where Linux will really take off is in foreign Countries, (I think someone else already pointed out Bill Gate's trip to Brazil. ) Microsoft really began to take off (from my understanding) with Windows 95. By 98 they had essentially dominated the PC OS market within the United States. That gives them about 3 years. IF Linux can do the same with the developing countries (which seems to be what is happining) then some time in the near future Linux will develop a formidable Marketshare outside the US (and probably Europe). Which given the trend towards globalization will lead hardware companies and software developers to include Linux support for their products in order to grab a bigger share of the world's economy. In areas where Windows is dominante i would hope that the progression would be slower because people will need to learn to forget the sloppy pracitises the Windows has fostered in them, where as in other countries the people will be taught good computing practise from the begining.



I see all kinds of flaws in Windows. I spend more time removing infections/annoying spy and ad-ware than I do playing around/working, "service packs" only serve to break things that I have working, things never seem to uninstall when I tell them to, or for that matter, do anything I tell them to after a few months of operation, etc. That's why I switched to Ubuntu save for Civilization IV, because Ubuntu is far superior. As for starting a distro, I wouldn't mind that at all really, though I'd much prefer to just whine about things until they get changed, since that saves me from needing to learn how to program things in something other than visual basic and visual C#. And "fixing things", I can't. There isn't anything I can do really to make publishers start putting games out for Linux, to make OEMs start putting out a few Linux machines, to make drivers magically appear, and I know that there's nothing the Ubuntu team (for the most part) can do either. But that doesn't change the fact that those problems are still there, and are still going to impede progress and stop Linux from ever hurting Microsoft.

Infact many people have been sucessful in finding work arounds to uncooperative hardware vendors. For example the Ndiswrapper devs. and the people who are working on the rtx00 drivers for the ratlink wireless cards. The gaming issue is another one entirely and one that should be resolved in time, I discussed that issue earlier.



First of all, Linux is only a tougher OS for the average user, whom judging from my experience doing tech support for a few hundred people, are complete morons who will never open a help program or read a manual or use google or a forum or do anything to make themselves less of a high blood pressure causing moron. There's more precise typing and less random clicking around (which needs to change, not replace the typing because I like cutting and pasting into a terminal, but there needs to be a random clicking option to accomplish tasks as well), so yeah, it's a more difficult OS for the average user. For someone who knows they can cut and paste into a terminal and where to find the stuff they need to cut and paste, or for someone fresh off of windows/a mac and willing to learn, it's actually pretty easy. Your other points, yeah, you could do that to IE6, but your page and all the others that are like it would be less than 1%. Meanwhile, at least 10-15% of the pages I see on a weekly basis have some sort of problem with Firefox, whether it's text running off the page, images stretching too far, things not getting rendered, weird errors, etc. It's not quite the same thing. And neither is comparing OGG and MP3 support. One is an obscure format that support for only really matters to linux zealots who think of open source as some sort of philosophy, a format that has hardly any support from the music industry (from what I've seen, I don't go around checking file formats on every song released), a format that most people have never even heard of and couldn't care less if they have support for it, and the other is the recognized "standard" of music formats. Support for the one is a lot less important than support for the other. One is so important that it's just assumed to be there by most people, and the other is so unimportant that most people don't even know it exists, and couldn't care less that it does. As for viewing file systems....what? Does anyone really care about viewing a file system outside of the one your computer is using (ie, being able to view your files)? Do you honestly give a crap about that? I can't imagine that anyone does :confused:

Obviously SOMEONE does otherwise people would not have attempted to make a tool that alows ext2/3 to be viewable from inside Windows, you may have meant by that statment that the average user does not care about it, and in that respect your probably right. (Though we could be wrong) On the issue of your webpages not displaying correctly, I have seen ONE website that did that with me, so i agree it exsists, however 10%-15%??????!!!! I think that is a little high, could you please point us to at least, I dunno ten? Ten really useful websites that are not viewable via a Linux native browser. Many have already answered the music format issue, I'll just add that perhaps we can include a link in Ubuntu that directs people to the proper locations. Have you used Yast? It's a tool in SUSE that IMHO is more useful then the Control Panel in Windows. The point n click soultions that you talk about are becoming available, however I do belive that they should be implmented with caution. Linux is an entirely diffrent Operating System, I belive people will need to learn to use Linux WITH the command line,(hence I favor slower growth in the US and Europe) as we all already know the problems with executables. Just a point that I would like to make here, not neccessarly in context of this issue, many of the suggestions that are made for "beating" Windows tend to want Linux to do things like Windows, this is a bad idea, Linux is NOT Windows you will have to LEARN a little at the beggining. This will become less of a problem as the number of people who are born with a computer in their house increases.(again this is not necessarly directed at you Shodges).

Edit: One more thing about mp3, Linspire has many proprietary format, has that really helpped their market share? No. Also to the issue of whether or not Windows is paying attention to Linux,the have a "Linux Lab", and they sued Linspre when it was Lindows. So yea they are keeping an eye on Linux. Does this imply that they are scared, no not by itself, but their are other indications they are at least wary of the OS that is slowly moving in on their territory.


I will admit that I jumped to insults right off the bat, but that's because I've seen these arguments before and I've seen the kind of reaction this community has for ANYTHING critical you say about Linux. They're incredibly nice when you ask for help usually, but the second you point out something that should obviously be there and is not, suddenly you're a troll and the antichrist of open source. I can recall at one point being called a "troll" because when I was first beginning to use Linux I said I'd prefer to double click and go through an install wizard when installing things that aren't there in synaptic rather than jumping through all these terminal hoops. It's amazing that these people talk about the improvements that dapper made (and it did, I'm not saying otherwise) even though it was the follow up to an apparently perfect operating system sent from the heavens.

Hmm, well in this case it may not have served you well to lose patients as I otherwise would have been more symapthetic to what you have said, (even though I would have still disagreed) In the end it seems that is where we are heading as Dapper now has gDebi (is that what it is called) and that is now what you do essentially.



Anything can be used to make a political statement of some sort, that doesn't mean that it's about something. Linux is software. It's sole purpose/meaning behind it's existence is to make computer use "cooler" for lack of a better word. I can drink water in protest of every company that makes a non natural beverage of any kind anywhere on the earth. That doesn't mean that my local city water service is involved in some conspiracy against Pepsi and Coke, or that water itself is "about" anything. At best, one could say that Linux is "about" open source, which is in turn "about" releasing code so that you can get free labor from more people to do some of the work rather than needing to use paid labor supplied by less people to do all of the work.

And I am not arguing about that. I agree. However I don't see why it should matter to you when someone does apoint a phiosphy behind something and pushs it further, after all the "father of GNU" Richard Stallman is "an activist".




I don't view myself as some weird "e-messiah" here to bless everyone with the truth and bring them over to myside over night, I don't really care that I can't change everyone's mind, I don't even aim to. I post when I'm bored or when I need tech support for Ubuntu, I couldn't care less who's convinced of what :confused:

Ah, well thanx for clariflying that I was confused my self.

[ihavenoname]

...and are there "restore disks" for Linux? I've not seen any. Yet another negative for Linux on the desktop. Keep diggin' that hole. :rolleyes:


There are scripts for installers such as the ones anaconda, and autoyast. The fact is that there are (to the best of my knowledge) not computers that come from the manufacturer (Dell,HP,Gateway..etc) that already have Linux on them, so why in the world would linux have a restore disk? If your talking about a Linux installer that does install everything by itself, then theres is the blag install, u just need to type blagblagblag and it install the most common installation. When Linux comes pre-loaded on computers then a restore disk would be very simple to make, the tools are in place all that would be needed is for the installer to by directed to use the autoscript. (autoyast w/e) and those scripts to be properly formated.

[ihavenoname]

America will be the last to adopt Linux on the desktop, for sure. I have been keeping abreast of Microsoft's fallout with China, actually. I also know about South Korea's "Linux city" and the $100 laptop project.

Things are happening. They are. I just don't see it happening overnight.

If China forces people to use Linux, though, the Linux desktop marketshare will shoot up, just by virtue of China being 1/5 of the world's population!
true

[disturbed1]

I agree that 3 years is overly optimistic, but your logic's a bit flawed. Just because the boy cries wolf every day, it doesn't stop the wolf from actually coming next week!

Why don't you give these "normal" people a Ubuntu-preloaded laptop (http://www.system76.com) and a copy of Windows XP and see how well they do with that?

Your huge rant about "normal people" this and "normal people" that amounts to one thing and one thing only: normal people don't install operating systems. They use what was on there when they bought the computer.

and
I've installed XP and 2000 from scratch myself, and it sucks worse than any Linux install I've done.

I just have to say how true that is. Windows xp and 2000 do have some built in drivers, but not all. What happens when you need a driver? You donwload it. Kind of hard to do when Windows doesn't intall the driver for your Nic :mrgreen: So you run the driver install CD that came with your Motherboard, and it complains about needing Direct X 9 because it's one of those all in one installers, and offers to download it for you!!! Duh, no net ](*,) Good luck finding the driver on the disc because the directories all labled 0,1,2,3... What about your built in video card? Is it a sis, trident, Via, intel? The device manager in windows gives 0 details about that. Your sound card also, let's say you have a built in VIA sound card, head over to the manufactures website to get the driver, there are 3-5 different ones listed, with no way to dectect which one you have installed without figuring out the model # of your motherboard and getting the pdf for it. You have no clue how many FCC reference checks I've done to figure what kind of modem was install, and MAC lookups for NIC cards.

And then the updates, OMG!!!!! windowsupdate.com, wait... checking system.....wait some more..... you must install these 3 components to use windows update. Restart.... update.... restart.... update.. (get the picture ;) ). Then all of the software you need or want. Search all over the net for it, winamp.com, divx.com, download.com, don't forget your antivirus and spyblocker too.

It's a royal pain in the *** to install Windows. Takes me on average 3.5-4 hours to do a Windows install from scratch. It takes 1-1.5 hours to Ubuntu to the way I want it, and only 2 restarts not 12.

[bluemuffin]

i bravely foretell the future, microsoft will continue to flourish.

why?

1. People will continue to use pirated Windows and never be introduced to Linux.
2. There are a lot of quality FREE software for Windows than Linux.
3. Major hardware manufacturers continue to see the world through Windows.
4. Every running pirated Windows is a potential Microsoft customer.
5. Computer educaiton (at least in our side of the world) uses Windows and teaches Visual Basic.
6. Quality Linux-based apps are being ported to Windows (i know, it's supposed to familiarize them with software available in Linux but that's not how the average user thinks).
7. Linux is understood only by geeks, techies, and profesionals.

The only problem of mr. gates is how to stop piracy and i have one good suggestion how to do it... HE SHOULD PROMOTE LINUX!

peace!


:-\"

[lapsey]

eventually they will give it away if it means that more people get into their drm or patented formats

[cyberlite]

After reading all the threads, I came to one conclosion MS is not going anywere soon( there here to stay for the longterm.), The way I see it, ubuntu and other linux distro's are getting easer and easer to use and more apeling.The way I also see the world economy going, more and more people have less and less money. So if 1+1=2 more people will start using linux and that includes the so called therd world countries. And when that starts to happen, linux will get stronger and stonger as an OS, it will be like a snow ball affect.\\:D/

But MS will strike back with stronger DRM, and incompetible wmv & wma, and also muscle hardware companies to work mustly with MS products etc,etc.
I think we can wait to see what comes out of countries like china.But also here in europe I see alot of companies moving to open souce because there not willing to give so mutch money out for there OS's,It read in one of the posts that MS has a lot of money, that may be true but alot of companies are moving slowly to open souce and I take the example of a city here in holland were the meyar switch form MS to open souce and that redouced the costs of the city. So yes it's all about the money and ubuntu is free and getting stronger every day.

[jeremy]

I think that ms's future will be a drunken and down-on-his-luck Steve Balmer on a beach somewhere in South America or the far east, trying to convince bored american tourists that he used to be important.

[Virogenesis]

I think that ms's future will be a drunken and down-on-his-luck Steve Balmer on a beach somewhere in South America or the far east, trying to convince bored american tourists that he used to be important.
God I'm using this as my sig...hahaha its so true

[wilko]

Toppled no but a dimishing future certainly. MS rode the gravy train through the boom years of pc's but talk to non tech home users and you find that the home pc is now nothing more than any other household appliance. The majority of them want to create documents and the odd spreadsheet, use the internet, use email, use instant messaging and manage their music and photos. They can do that fine with Windows 98 and a lot of them don't see the need to change or to buy the latest version of MS Office - the one they've got does everything they need.

On the subject of Office MS get get 40 percent of their revenue and 60 percent of their profits from it. There's no way that's going to continue. Whilst I've only converted a few friends or family to Linux, I've met with almost 100 percent success in moving them over to OpenOffice. Add In the online office apps that Google are producing and the major part of MS's profits are under huge threat.

Expect to see more openess from MS in the future and an ever growing number of commercial and free Linux apps ported to Windows. I also expect to see an ever growing penetration of Linux into the server market and eventually the desktop end but expect that to take a few more years yet.

[ComplexNumber]

the beginning of MS's downhill spiral has already started. they're even losing market share on their smartphones. i don't think that vista will have anywhere near the impact that windows 95 and XP had in keeping them bouyant. they are growing old and slow now, so within the next 5-15 will see them dwindle on the desktop. their server market share won't fare much better either.
one thing is for certain is that they are not going away anytime soon.

[ihavenoname]

the beginning of MS's downhill spiral has already started. they're even losing market share on their smartphones. i don't think that vista will have anywhere near the impact that windows 95 and XP had in keeping them bouyant. they are growing old and slow now, so within the next 5-15 will see them dwindle on the desktop. their server market share won't fare much better either.
one thing is for certain is that they are not going away anytime soon.
I think old and slow is a good way to describe microsoft. On the other had there are the OSS alternatives that are young and fast. And they are slowly chipping away at the giant. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Perhaps the giant will show that he has life in him yet. Perhaps the new kids on the block will dispatch the giant. (History shows that Giants always fall and make way for more nimble youngsters, however even they will one day become giants themselves only to be toppled by a more mobile oppenent.) In any case I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. Linux is generally a geek toy. Distros like Ubuntu, Mepis, and PClinuxOS are trying to change that. (which is a good thing as it helps those in less wealthy nations get the benifits of new technology without taking a bite out of their sometimes very thin wallets. For that reason I see Linux rising. But at the end of the day their will always be the geek toy distros like Arch and Gentoo. Personally I Don't hate Bill Gates. Or Microsoft. I just highly dislike their OS. It really does limit you. (That might be a good thing for some people though.

[jimbo2150]

I am ganna have to agree with a lot of people. MS will probably start to degrade as an operating systems company.

First off, let me say that I have been an avid Windows user since I was about 5 years old (Windows 3.1). I knew of Macs but didn't feel like buying a specialized computer to run the OS. Had they ever opened up their OS to other systems I might have considered it. I then learned about the time I was 10, but thought of it as nothing more than a text-only developer's OS (at the time, thats pretty much all it was). Within the past 5 years I have swiched over to Linux (Ubuntu). I cannot get enough of it. It is faster, more stable, and just about as easy to use as Windows (and gets better with every new release).

As for Windows.. it took long enough for them to release XP and that was a major leap. Windows XP to Vista is nothing more than a baby-step forward, and in some areas backward. I have tried the Beta of Vista. First off, it's HORRIBLY SLOW compared to XP. Turning off "AERO" and removing all the 'spiffy' features actually gives you a performance hit (supprisingly enough). In XP, shutting off the extra features usually gave you a performance boost... so I was a little confused by Vista. Also, they apparently crapped on OpenGL. I haven't got a single thing to work using OpenGL, and when I tried to install the OpenGL driver from XP, it killed the mouse. Not sure how the two are so intertwined, but it would not read the mouse at all after I restarted Vista. Also, the interface is new and confusing as hell. Some of the interfaces are still the same as in XP and do not reflect the new "AERO" look at all, and even some (like the font-install form) still appear exactly as it does in Windows 3.1 (a 16-bit system).

In short, Vista is nothing more than XP with a visual makeover as far as I can see. Besides the new networking interface, most the other features have been stripped to the point at which it seems to act exactly like XP. Sorry, but I don't feel like buying a new version of Windows just to get XP with a new shiny theme.

[Derek Djons]

Not being ready for the desktop:

- Microsoft Windows users say installing Linux is too difficult.
* When it comes to installing Windows they cry for help or reinstall it not proper. Many settings are being left default and the system isn't being optimized, secured and updated.

- Microsoft Windows users say there aren't a lot of quality applications available.
* Most people demand applications such as Adobe Creative Suite 2, Macromedia Studio 8, Microsoft Office. But they hardly use 40% of all the available functions.

- Microsoft Windows users want a reliable operating system.
* A cost-free, open source operating system has become more reliable in multiple factors than a full-paid corporate operating system.

- Microsoft Windows users say that GNU/Linux and Open Source can't be fully trusted with the demands and needs of modern society.
* More and more people are using Open Source applications already on their Windows installation. Mozilla Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, OpenOffice and more.

- Microsoft Windows users complain about Microsoft's attitude and products, usability, support and ideology.
* GNU/Linux come in countless different distributions offering not only the necessary but more as 12.000+ applications. Support is more accessible and personal than help desks which are being disliked worldwide. Everybody can choose his/her distribution based on usability, ideology and ask, contribute and share his opinions and believes.

- Microsoft Windows users complain with every new version of Windows about the new hardware requirments.
* GNU/Linux distributions are very transparent Operating Systems which can be installed on Intel Pentium II/III machines with 'nowadays' old hardware.

Now I don't find this reasons why Windows Users should switch immediately. But these arguments should make clear what the future is for both operating systems. GNU/Linux is developing itself very rapidly and it will be a matter of time before GNU/Linux distributions will be able to support all games just as Windows, it will be able to be used as a 'Home Entertainment' system and for the people who care about 'appearance' it will look like hot-candy.

Why are people always in one company will win over the other. It's a market and though GNU/Linux is based upon a capitalistic / economic model it will have to take up against features and pros / cons of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. In fact I don't bother myself that there are people using Microsoft Windows.

There are enough people who own a car and a motorcycle. There are enough people who have a computer and a laptop, there are enough people who have sneakers and fashion Italian shoes and the list goes on.

[ihavenoname]

Although I too think that vista will not be very good, we have to keep in mind that it is still Beta. However after all that development time you would think it would be ready by now. Ubuntu delayed release by 2 months and added new features (nothing was dropped as far as I know). Vista delayed and is removing things in order to be ready. Right now though everybody will probably go to vista. Because they don't know there is an alternative. And those that do are to scared to install it themselves. If it came with their computer they would love it, but that is no so. I think it would be a great idea to get Live Cds and put them in electrionic stores (best buy ...) so that people cam pick them Up and try them at home.

Edit: Ubuntu was delayed by 2 months not 6 as I previously stated. Thanx aysiu.

[aysiu]

Ubuntu delayed release by 6 months and added new features (nothing was dropped as far as I know). This doesn't invalidate your point, but is just a small correction--Ubuntu delayed release by two months, not six.

[ihavenoname]

This doesn't invalidate your point, but is just a small correction--Ubuntu delayed release by two months, not six.
Ah! Sorry, you are correct. I am not sure what made me say it was 6...

[msandersen]

- Microsoft Windows users say installing Linux is too difficult.
* When it comes to installing Windows they cry for help or reinstall it not proper. Many settings are being left default and the system isn't being optimized, secured and updated.
Windows users usually don't have to install their OS. It comes preinstalled. There is no need to "optimise" even if you do. The defaults since SP2 is far more secure than they used to be. The default is for the system to update itself.

- Microsoft Windows users say there aren't a lot of quality applications available.
* Most people demand applications such as Adobe Creative Suite 2, Macromedia Studio 8, Microsoft Office. But they hardly use 40% of all the available functions.
For MS Office, OpenOffice provide maybe 90% of the features, the rest are largely poweruser features which the powerusers probably won't want to do without. But Word import is not perfect, and not good in a mixed environment. There are still bugs, missing features, and polish that OOo needs to attend to, but it is very promising.
As for the rest, there simply are no real alternatives to Adobe's and Macromedia's products (now all Adobe). The Gimp is interesting, but no match for Photoshop. NVu, Quanta, Screem etc don't compare to Dreamweaver. Inkscape is very basic and poor compared to Illustrator or Freehand. There's nothing else when it comes to Flash. At least not on Linux. And this only relates to Adobe. There are many commercial or even freeware Windows apps that have no Linux counterparts, or only 3rd rate ones at best, which people rely on or just prefer. I like the free XNews for Newsgroups. One of many newsreaders on Windows. Linux has Pan. No contest, though they may improve with the next major version. The current Beta is not promising.

...
Mozilla Opera
...
:grin: I know what you mean, but that's funny. Maybe there's a new collaborative product I haven't heard about? :)

- Microsoft Windows users complain about Microsoft's attitude and products, usability, support and ideology.
* GNU/Linux come in countless different distributions offering not only the necessary but more as 12.000+ applications. Support is more accessible and personal than help desks which are being disliked worldwide. Everybody can choose his/her distribution based on usability, ideology and ask, contribute and share his opinions and believes.
Having over a hundred different distributions is not a plus, just confusing. There's bound to be more consolidation as time goes by, though also even more distros to take their place. If they all agree on a standard that will allow applications to install on any distro, whether Red Hat or Debian based, or anything else other than Gentoo etc, then it's not such a big deal beyond the confusion. The 12,000+ refers largely to countless small commandline utilities and libraries that most users won't want to deal with, they just want their image viewer to display jpg, gif and tiff or their media player to play mp3, aac, ogg, etc without worrying about which system libraries they depend on. They simply curse Linux if they fail to do these basic tasks. The basic install of a distro like Ubuntu utterly fails in this respect. Users have to learn they have to install non-free codecs and display drivers. Commercial distros tend to include these however. Fully-formed and polished GUI applications are more scarce. OpenOffice or K3B are 2 notable exceptions.
There are a multitude of Windows help forums out there just as there are Linux ones, you know. Probably more.

- Microsoft Windows users complain with every new version of Windows about the new hardware requirments.
* GNU/Linux distributions are very transparent Operating Systems which can be installed on Intel Pentium II/III machines with 'nowadays' old hardware.
I don't know how much they complain, but the same is true of Linux with KDE or Gnome. My 500Mhz machine groans worse under Linux than it does XP.

...it will be a matter of time before GNU/Linux distributions will be able to support all games just as Windows...
Um, yeah, right. Unless you mean through Wine including ActiveX games, no... Alone because Microsoft owns a lot of those games, and because the market for Linux games just isn't there in significant proportion. The Mac has 3-4 times the Desktop market share, and not a significant amount of games. But things will likely improve significantly in time.

...GNU/Linux is based upon a capitalistic / economic model...
Huh? I'm sure Richard Stallman would be surptised to hear that, considering that he started it for the exact opposite reason. If anything, an egalitarian Socialist model.

[cantormath]

I'm interested in what folks around here think about the future of Microsoft.

I remember when I got into this computer thing around ten years ago, people were predicting its demise, or the certain demise of MSN, IE, etc. It has never happened. Where do you think it will be in two to three years? (I guess I would prefer you to be as sincere as possible :( )

I think M$ is gonna have to do something very drastic. NOw that mac is x86 its even better, and people are finding out.
Mac is (can be) the biggest threat. I think that if M$ had not had the issues with antitrust, they would have bought up alot more of mac then the have already. Vista is gonna suck, it already does, and people are finding out.
I see MS trying to control more of mac or trying to enter the nix market with there own spin. I think them aquireing mac is their best move, but who knows and what do I know?

[sidlinux]

What I mentioned below are my suggestions, not my claims. Use at your own risk.

In order for Microsoft to survive, they must address the following issues below. This is based on Michael Porter's Five Forces Model of Competition.


Rivalry among competitors
Power of suppliers
Bargaining power of customers
Barriers to entry
Threat of substitutes


Who's going to stop Microsoft from surviving? As long as people will continue to be sold to Windows, Microsoft Office, its family of Visual Studio products, and its family of server products like Exchange and SQL Server, it will be difficult to bring down Microsoft. Yes, I totally agree that Linux is putting a dent, in the market share of Windows and its Office Suite, by providing the OS and OpenOffice.org for free, it's far from brining down Microsoft in these categories. Exchange and SQL Server alternatives are gaining maturity in the collaboration and database server products, but more marketing needs to be done so that every business manager can at least be aware of its presence. To get business managers to want to go alternative, you must convince them that the alternatives will provide a good return on investment. Furthermore, most companies that have bought software have to depreciate througout an average of five years or whatever a law-abiding body prescribes. So it's unlikely that upgrades or switching vendors will be performed until they exhaust its useful life.

Who are Microsoft suppliers? Mainly programmers. They're the ones who labor to produce the code that makes Windows' heart beat and that goes for its products as well. Some programmers consider developing for Microsoft is a good stamp on their resume, thus if given the opportunity, they would do it for the experience. However, they would be performing development under deadlines, so it's possible that when Microsoft releases a product on the market, it would remain imperfect. Those that have experience developing code for Microsoft tend to move on to other jobs, usually offering more pay and benefits. This also goes with developers for other operating systems and packages.

As far as customers bargaining, this is what they would first think about. Why buy Microsoft products if Linux-based products can be made available for reasonable costs (I'll stop short of saying it's free since there is no such thing as free lunch or free ride) or at least freedom to share. Since Microsoft is preferably closed source software, customers will have to wait to get the bugs fixed. Furthermore, MS charges enourmous fees for technical support. Because Microsoft has limitations on what its users can do with the software purchased, there is a movement to sway existing Windows users to Linux-based desktops, such as Ubuntu Linux since the Ubuntu package already has the Linux OS, the OpenOffice Suite, Firefox/Konqueror Web browser, and other nifty tools like GIMP, gtkpod, which allows you to synchronize your iPod with Linux (works for me using Ubuntu's Dapper Drake), using Internet Explorer with Codeweavers (http://www.codeweavers.com - has 30-day trial), and yes, games.

However, if Microsoft is ever going to be successful in keeping its customer's bargaining power in check, they would need to address the customer's requirements. So far they've been doing a good job in maintaining most of its users' loyalty to Windows and Company.

As far as barriers to entry is concerned, Microsoft will continue to be strong and is backed by billions of dollars to be deployed at its disposal. You must be a David (small software company) to bring down a Goliath (Microsoft). If anything, it will take a lot of money to bring down Microsoft and it will come from spreading the word. Networking with other people spreads the word. Advertising. Marketing. Marketing. Marketing. This is where Microsoft excels. Millions are spent on marketing.

The Linux philosophy could provide the people power to take away a big piece of Microsoft's market share. Is Linux an excellent substitute for Microsoft Windows based software? You bet. If you haven't tried Ubuntu or any of the other packages, I encourage you to do so. Since Ubuntu provides live CDs, which means you can boot off the CD/DVD (whichever one you have) and run it. You can run the OpenOffice Suite off the live CD, but you better save those files on a USB pin drive or it's forever, GONE. Like other Linux-based packages, it has the Office Suite, Web browser, GIMP (manipulate images) and it provides security/performance updates for the next three years. If you like it, you You get that with Microsoft, but yeah, you have to pay for it. If it doesn't meet your needs, at least, your Windows configuration stays unharmed.

Customers in all walks will try to cut costs to look good financially. So yes, there is a viable substitute and the way it's set up now, it can take a large chunk of the market shares away from Microsoft.

I'm sure Bill Gates would have some strong influence to ensure that Microsoft remains profitable.

The above mentioned are my opinions about how Microsoft would manage its future. I'm sure there are other avenues, but if you have different opinions, let's hear it. USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Sidney

[dimatrod]

I think Microsoft should've dropped the whole idea of just updating code and should have overhauled the whole Vista project, and write a whole new OS. Apple did that when they made OS10, and see where they are now. Vista is going to be even slower than XP and will require much higher system reqs, forcing people to buy a REALLY good computer to get Vista's eye-candy going, while they can do what Vista does on Ubuntu with 1/10th of the reqs (XGL-Compiz). Ubuntu is doing a great job for making a useable and full system, which will some day convert masses from the monopoly MS has established.

Edit: Hell, even XP can't be run on it's potential now. You have to use nLite and cut down many services to do so, while being almost impossible to load things as inmediately as you do on Linux.

[otherMark]

I'm sure people are going to hate me for this, but this is how I as a Linux noob honestly see it:
Until Linux gets it's act together to specifically make it more user friendly for people to change to from windows, MS is going to keep 95% of Desktop users (or gain more, if Mac people change to windows too now).
Noob, IT manager and hardened *******rs all want KISSASS (Keep It Simple, Stupid, And Super Safe):rolleyes: .
Ubuntu seems to have made small steps towards this but I can see loads of things that could be improved.

Suggestions:
1) Get rid of console use. The vast majority of people don't have time or inclination to learn to use it, and no-way-ever will.
Cut and paste commands is like asking someone to service their own car, most puter user are too ignorant/have more productive things to do to fiddle around finding out what/where/why/how even to paste to get something working.
For example, I ended up typing cryptic stuff from the Ubuntoguide site to get all the stuff that should come with Firefox because the Firefox "get plugin" thing wouldn't work. Took me hours to find and do coz I'm a noob.


2) "Synaptic package manager" doesn't mean anything to most, my package is fine. Call stuff what it does first, like "Program installer" or "Program Manager".
"Repository" > "Program bank"
"Gaim" > "Messenger: Gaim"
etc.

3) Some kind of a rating system on how stable and reliable stuff is and how easy it is to install. I'm scared to install new stuff because it might upset the puter's (and hence my own) stability. I wouldn't have a clue how to sort it if it goes **** up.
If Linux ever becomes a threat to MS, I wouldn't put it past them to specifically write duff Linux programs to put people off. So a rating system might come in handy.

4) How about some kind of troubleshooting search engine, where you type your problems like with google but without google's chaff?

5) Hardware support:
How about a popup (when something is incompatible) that tells you how to email the manufacturer to hassle them for a Linux driver?;)

6) Can't find any intelligible information on what hardware Ubuntu has detected in my puter (like system properties in windows) and what it's having problems with.

I'm generally pleased with what little I have seen of Ubuntu so far, it's refreshingly uncluttered. It looks like it could one day take on the bully.

[ComplexNumber]

othermark
1) its a bad idea to get rid of the terminal. its where linux gets a lot of its power for those that want it. even microsft will have a terminal in vista. OS X has a terminal too for those that need it.

[aysiu]

They're never getting rid of the terminal.

Even Mac OS X has one, and I've heard Windows Vista will have a more powerful one than XP's DOS.

If you don't want to use the terminal, use PCLinuxOS, Mepis, or Linspire. Ubuntu is not the distro for you (at least installing and configuring Ubuntu isn't).

[ihavenoname]

Suggestions:
1) Get rid of console use. The vast majority of people don't have time or inclination to learn to use it, and no-way-ever will.
Cut and paste commands is like asking someone to service their own car, most puter user are too ignorant/have more productive things to do to fiddle around finding out what/where/why/how even to paste to get something working.
For example, I ended up typing cryptic stuff from the Ubuntoguide site to get all the stuff that should come with Firefox because the Firefox "get plugin" thing wouldn't work. Took me hours to find and do coz I'm a noob.

Firefox's get plugin thing is not a Linux issue, it is something that needs to be pointed out to the firefox devs. Yes, that it is annyoing and yes it should be fixed. However the reason it does not "come with" Firefox is that alot of those plugins may not be GPL, which means that on a distro like Ubuntu which tries to stay both free (in both senses of the word) those plugins will not come with the distro. (Unless the get rereleased under a free license such as GPL or BSD etc.)



2) "Synaptic package manager" doesn't mean anything to most, my package is fine. Call stuff what it does first, like "Program installer" or "Program Manager".
"Repository" > "Program bank"
"Gaim" > "Messenger: Gaim"
etc.

Check the applications menu, it says Add/Remove Programs, I'm not sure if it gets any more straight forward then that.



3) Some kind of a rating system on how stable and reliable stuff is and how easy it is to install. I'm scared to install new stuff because it might upset the puter's (and hence my own) stability. I wouldn't have a clue how to sort it if it goes **** up.
If Linux ever becomes a threat to MS, I wouldn't put it past them to specifically write duff Linux programs to put people off. So a rating system might come in handy.

What packages have made you so paranoid? It's doubful that Microsoft would do that as they would have to release under GPL (or other Free license) in order for their packages to be accepted into the Ubuntu repos. If what you mean is that they will sell their "duff" apps, or encumber them with their usual EULAs then people will blame them and it will make them look even worse.



4) How about some kind of troubleshooting search engine, where you type your problems like with google but without google's chaff?

Have you suggested this to the Ubuntu development team? It's a farly good idea. I belive there are already similar tools but perhaps they are not know to new Ubuntu users. In which case an effort should be made to do that.



5) Hardware support:
How about a popup (when something is incompatible) that tells you how to email the manufacturer to hassle them for a Linux driver?;)

A good idea, put it in to the dev team. Look in the development forum to find out how.


6) Can't find any intelligible information on what hardware Ubuntu has detected in my puter (like system properties in windows) and what it's having problems with.

Their is the hardware manager in Ubuntu. If you can't understand that perhaps it is because you are too used to the Windows one. Stare at it for a little bit, it will start to make sense eventually. ( That is a serius suggestion, it's what I did). Also such an app is not something that many newbies would need, that is more for someone looking to troubleshoot the system.



I'm generally pleased with what little I have seen of Ubuntu so far, it's refreshingly uncluttered. It looks like it could one day take on the bully.
I am glad you have enjoyed it, keep learning about linux and the command line. Give it time. You never realize the true power of Linux till you start learning the command line.

[aysiu]

What packages have made you so paranoid? It's doubful that Microsoft would do that as they would have to release under GPL (or other Free license) in order for their packages to be accepted into the Ubuntu repos. If what you mean is that they will sell their "duff" apps, or encumber them with their usual EULAs then people will blame them and it will make them look even worse. If you stick with Ubuntu repositories (even the extra ones), you should be fine.


Their is the hardware manager in Ubuntu. If you can't understand that perhaps it is because you are too used to the Windows one. Stare at it for a little bit, it will start to make sense eventually. ( That is a serius suggestion, it's what I did). Also such an app is not something that many newbies would need, that is more for someone looking to troubleshoot the system. For the record, it's System > Administration > Device Manager

[otherMark]

A noob or average user should NEVER have to use a terminal. Haven't used one since windows 3.11 (and now Linux). If anyone other than a hobbyist needs to use a terminal, Linux can never make inroads into MS, fullstop.
Most people aren't interested in "the power of the operating system", they just want to do eveyday tasks without distraction.

[aysiu]

The "noob" or average user doesn't install operating systems, and most of the terminal commands you "need" in Ubuntu are for configuring it after installation. Give that average user a System76 computer (http://www.system76.com), and she won't need terminal commands.

That said, Ubuntu is probably the most command-line-reliant of all the major desktop distros (Mandriva, SuSE, Fedora, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, Linspire)--it got a point-and-click installer only two months ago. Other distros have had that for years.

The need for the command-line to fix screen resolution and such isn't what's stopping the "average user" from using Linux.

Read more here:
http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktopmyth

[Yossarian]

Posted by otherMark
...
2) "Synaptic package manager" doesn't mean anything to most, my package is fine. Call stuff what it does first, like "Program installer" or "Program Manager".
...


I disagree with your post, but I found the comment about your package pretty funny.

Come on, am I the only one here?

[aysiu]

Funny because Add/Remove Applications has already existed for the last two versions of Ubuntu?

[otherMark]

The "noob" or average user doesn't install operating systems, and most of the terminal commands you "need" in Ubuntu are for configuring it after installation. Give that average user a System76 computer (http://www.system76.com), and she won't need terminal commands.

That said, Ubuntu is probably the most command-line-reliant of all the major desktop distros (Mandriva, SuSE, Fedora, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, Linspire)--it got a point-and-click installer only two months ago. Other distros have had that for years.

The need for the command-line to fix screen resolution and such isn't what's stopping the "average user" from using Linux.

Read more here:
http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktopmyth
Well yes, it is stopping them, since you can't buy computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. Ergo, any noob would have to install it themselves (or beg/pay someone else to do it). The command line may be what Linuxers enthuse about but it's exactly what's stopping the other 95%+ of users changing. We are not interested in programming. From a business angle, our time is far more expensive than using a more complicated Operating system is worth, even with Linux's many other advantages. A noob will go for what he perceives to be the simplest. A manager will go for what he perceives to be the cheapest.

All these these things I'm told should be typed to get something to work, how about some kind of gismo where, instead of cut+paste, you just click on the line and it at least magically goes into the blasted console? Call it "auto-paste" if you like.
I'd rather not need it at all.

[otherMark]

I disagree with your post, but I found the comment about your package pretty funny.

Come on, am I the only one here?


A "Synaptic Package Manager" sounds like a pair of underpants to me.
Quite a few people assume a "repository" is something medical and definately not the place to put a program. The terms certainly invoke thoughts of the nether regions...

[PenguinMan]

My prediction is that Mac OS X Leopard is going to hurt Windows Vista so incredibly bad. LOL The release of 10.5 is basically going to be a broadside into the Vista ship.

[aysiu]

Well yes, it is stopping them, since you can't buy computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. I guess you're not really paying attention are you?

[otherMark]

???
Here in GB virtually no one sells desktop computers with ANY Linux pre-installed. It's just not a significant Market. Given a choice between windows and Linux, a noob will almost certainly go for windows.
Bottom line is, until Linux actually becomes easier (and hence cheaper in a time and business sense) than windows, it's not going to catch either noobs or existant *******rs.
You'll probably say "there's more choice in Linux", well choice=confusion. "Linux is more powerful", well if a noob wants more computing "power" they get a faster computer.
The whole point is that *necessity* to use the console in Linux is what holds it back. The problem is that it is only people who actually LIKE the console who write Linux.
Fortunately some of them have twigged that the vast majority of computer users hate consoles.

[kinematic]

but who's to say wich one is easier?
if you've used windows for years and switch to linux there is a learning curve i agree but i got my first pc in september 2005 and switched to linux in december(just imagine a first time pc user fed up with windows after 4 months).
i didn't have unlearn years of using windows wich made it a lot easier for me.
if someone buying there first pc is gonna buy one pre-installed with ubuntu they'll also have it a lot easier.
(i actually find windows much harder to use)

[otherMark]

but who's to say wich one is easier?
if you've used windows for years and switch to linux there is a learning curve i agree but i got my first pc in september 2005 and switched to linux in december(just imagine a first time pc user fed up with windows after 4 months).
i didn't have unlearn years of using windows wich made it a lot easier for me.
if someone buying there first pc is gonna buy one pre-installed with ubuntu they'll also have it a lot easier.
(i actually find windows much harder to use)
100% of switchers would have been using another operating system first :-).
Changing within 4 months makes you an exceptional minority. Virtually no one sells/buys a computer with Linux pre-installed, never mind Ubuntu.
Undeniable bottom line is that console use is the biggest obstacle to new users switching.

[EdThaSlayer]

I think that Microsoft will lose market share as more people start to use opensource software. Firefox for example, was unknown 3-4 years ago but is now widely used, and is gaining ground quite quickly. I dont think that Microsoft will exist in 10 years or so...well...if it does it would be more into the servicing part of software instead of operating systems.

[Gijith]

My 2 cents:

Microsoft isn't going anywhere any time soon. I can't think of any many examples from the past few decades where a such a colossal company has been completely marginalized. Microsoft has 2 major things going for it: 1) They have enormous cash reserves, 2) they have complete and total control over how 95% of people use their computers. That market share allows them a very unique ability to gauge new trends, respond to those trends by offering 95% of people an 'integrated' default version (IE7 as opposed to Firefox), or just snuffing out the competition (making the search box in IE MSN, as opposed to Google).

Anothering good thing for Microsoft is that they now seem to have a sense of their 2 greatest problems: 1) Their looong release cycles, 2) That web based advertising is the first legitimate threat against them, aside from judges, in the past 10 years. So, in the near future, they will have to transition (downsize) as they try and put as many eggs as possible into the Windows Live brand. I think that if they can figure out advertising, and keep pointing their users toward that advertising while they still have control of the desktop, they should stay in good condition for a while.

[xpod]

n december(just imagine a first time pc user fed up with windows after 4 months).


MOI....;)

[gruffy-06]

Who knows? Maybe Microsoft will open up the source code for Windows Vista. Maybe not.

[oskarloko]

Maybe Microsoft will open up the source code for Windows Vista

Maybe not...

But it seems they're here to stay...

GNU/Linux, wine, FireFox, OpenOffice; that are real weapons against Redmon indavers :)

[the.dark.lord]

I'm interested in what folks around here think about the future of Microsoft.

I remember when I got into this computer thing around ten years ago, people were predicting its demise, or the certain demise of MSN, IE, etc. It has never happened. Where do you think it will be in two to three years? (I guess I would prefer you to be as sincere as possible :( )

I think MS is over in a few years mainly because of Linux and Open Source.

And as of IE ... ever heard of Firefox??!!
I'm sure MSN is digging its grave...

[the.dark.lord]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

Ubuntu proves ye wrong :D

[pompeyjohn]

A long time ago Bill Gates got very lucky in a meeting with IBM.

He sold them the idea of MS DOS, and they took it without asking for any form of exclusive licensing contract. If IBM had asked for one, Bill would have had to take it.

Then IBM would have been able to do what M$ has done - namely innovation through mafia like software house assimilation.

IBM didnt though, and that left them with a platform with very little software leverage.

M$ are in a very similar position right now.

It is interesting to see how they are approaching this problem. On the one hand they are suggesting that the future could be any [suitable DRM'd device] connected to M$ Live.

On the other, they are doing all they can to embed applications into the local kernel. Just look at how they are mangling SQL server for example.

Attacking the problem from both sides as it were.

In both cases M$ are trying to sell a "people ready" [ie not linux] and trusted [DRM licensed] solution.

Which is exactly the same as what Apple are doing.

It is my personal belief that M$ will continue to do all they can to make Free software alternatives difficult to run and use on their platform.

Sooner or later though people will come to realise that the Free software packages on their M$ system are the best applications they have.

For that to happen though there needs to be some form of Free Software repository for M$. I am amazed that there is not a M$ version of synaptic already. Even if it just managed native ports to begin with - it would blow the average Windows user away. I call this idea WindowFloss.

So this is why I liken M$ the software provider to IBM the hardware vendor. Try as they might they will be legally obliged to allow free code to exist in some form on their platform. As long as it exists, it will grow. The more it grows the less relevant the M$ platform will be.

To get there though we are going to have patiently sit through all the scare mongering adverts about how they can be trusted and no one else can.

My local school use the money they save from implementing Linux to pay for a new teacher. The school children grown up learning about computers and not M$ application shortcuts.

Is M$ a business ready for the people?

[3rdalbum]

I've thought of having a kind of package manager for Windows, but it wouldn't solve the biggest problem with Windows installers: Their size. Program developers always static-link their binaries or at least include all the dependancies inside the installer.

I think the reason why Apt hasn't been ported to Windows is because the people who know about its existance are Linux users, and they don't want to give up an advantage that Linux has over Windows.

[Sukarn]

I would agree with 3rdalburm.
People who use Linux are the ones who know about apt and its graphical front ends like synaptic. Why would they give this potential advantage (if advertised correctly) away to windows?

Maybe some animated (maybe flash? I know adobe isn't doing much to help here) ads should be made showing something like "A couple of clicks on synaptic and your software is ready to use. No searching on the internet, free softwares and no restarting the computer. What else could you want from a software manager?" And while this is being said/written on the screen, a video could be shown with the mouse clicking on a packing, and then clicking on accept to install the software.

[Reshin]

Ubuntu proves ye wrong :D

How? Ubuntu devs are PAID staff.

[cunawarit]

Ubuntu proves ye wrong :D

Canonical Ltd. is financed by a billionaire.

[cunawarit]

My prediction is that Mac OS X Leopard is going to hurt Windows Vista so incredibly bad. LOL The release of 10.5 is basically going to be a broadside into the Vista ship.

I doubt it, Apple has a huge share of the market considering that you have to purchase their often overpriced hardware in order to run their OS.

[Reshin]

Canonical Ltd. is financed by a billionaire.

and donators

[mysticrider92]

Microsoft's monopoly will last because free software developers don't have money! Everything in this world needs money. You can't make software without having money.

You can in some ways. Many Linux users would be willing to make and help develop software for it, and if people don't like Microsoft (me):-), they will always support the things they do like (Linux), so that won't matter.

[turkenator]

i remember reading microsoft is going to ditch the nt code line after vista bcoz its 2 big and bloated to re write over 50 million lines of code i tink
i reckon instead of re inventing the wheel they could take for example BSD and build on top of it and not release the changed/added codes ( i tink bsd licence allows this not sure) or they could take a non bloated version of nt perhaps nt 4.0? and re write that without the bloat

[Antarctica]

We all know that Microsoft is a multi-billionaire company. Any company with that money will take a long time before terminating or seeing any sort of downfall.

The reason why Microsoft is the leading operating system is because of mass propaganda, mass distribution, and mass advertising. Think about it. The Coca Cola company and McDonald's corporation are leading beverage and food companies in the world because they expand throughout the world and advertise a lot. The three factors in Microsoft's success rely solely on consumers. We (the consumers) are supposed to believe that Windows is the only choice. We believe that Microsoft is successful because of its advertising and worldwide distribution. Many people in this world are not computer literate and choose Microsoft because they are brainwashed to do so. It's like going to one of those old soda vending machines to buy a Dr Pepper only to press Coca Cola because Coca Cola is the biggest button there.

I'll admit that Microsoft is trying very hard to keep its hold on the consumer market. The Achilles Heel to Microsoft's empire is the consumer's choice. Microsoft is trying to tell us that no other alternative exists. Slowly, they are losing to Linux and the open source alternative. In the United States, according to Microsoft, Windows XP Home costs $199 USD and Windows XP Professional costs $299 USD. Along with the Windows operating system, the consumer may want to buy an anti-virus as well. Symantec Corp. produces leading computer security software exclusively for the Windows operating system. Norton Internet Security costs $109 USD. Then, you need an office suite. Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 costs $149 USD and for the businesses, Microsoft Office Professional 2007 costs $499 USD. Basically what I'm trying to say is that Microsoft puts a hole in your pocket if you obtain the software legally.

Now on the other hand, three words... Linux is free. OpenOffice.org is free. Linux doesn't get as many viruses or security holes as Windows. It's the better alternative in terms of satisfaction and success. It just doesn't shout like Microsoft. Linux... spread the word and watch Microsoft's revenue drop a few bucks a day. Hehe.

[Sutur]

Actually, I believe Microsoft's reign over the market is a good thing. As long as everyone is farting around in Windows it means that Linux stays relatively free of malware, spyware & the like.

I'm quite happy with the way Linux is right now. The only thing I miss is Photoshop, and it's only a matter of time before I either learn how to use Gimp effectively, Photoshop is released on a linux-native basis, or support for CS2 becomes better in wine or the like.

World: Stay in Windows, I'm happy where I am.

[pompeyjohn]

World: Stay in Windows, I'm happy where I am.

The only reason this software is available to you now is because other people do not think like you.

[Sutur]

The only reason this software is available to you now is because other people do not think like you.

I managed before Ubuntu.

[kallu_be]

We all know that Microsoft is a multi-billionaire company. Any company with that money will take a long time before terminating or seeing any sort of downfall.

exactly right M$ has huge cash reserves which is sufficient enough to acquire a couple of adobe size companies.


The reason why Microsoft is the leading operating system is because of mass propaganda, mass distribution, and mass advertising.

I beg to differ that i have been seeing lots of linux propoganda too. Name a place, u can see a lot of linux and mac fanboys bashing any M$ product even before trying. What do u mean by mass distribution ?? distributing Windows CD's free. Apple do lots of advertising but it doesn't become as popular as windows.


Think about it. The Coca Cola company and McDonald's corporation are leading beverage and food companies in the world because they expand throughout the world and advertise a lot. The three factors in Microsoft's success rely solely on consumers. We (the consumers) are supposed to believe that Windows is the only choice.

U mean customers are ignorant, U mean multinational companies are also ignorant and choosing MS as their operating system.


We believe that Microsoft is successful because of its advertising and worldwide distribution.

Linux is free and can be downloaded anywhere and i dont think any country is isolated from internet ... then why it is not successful.(less than 1% of desktops)


Many people in this world are not computer literate and choose Microsoft because they are brainwashed to do so.

who brainwashed them ? who brainwashed U when u use windows.


It's like going to one of those old soda vending machines to buy a Dr Pepper only to press Coca Cola because Coca Cola is the biggest button there.

I'll admit that Microsoft is trying very hard to keep its hold on the consumer market. The Achilles Heel to Microsoft's empire is the consumer's choice. Microsoft is trying to tell us that no other alternative exists. Slowly, they are losing to Linux and the open source alternative. In the United States, according to Microsoft, Windows XP Home costs $199 USD and Windows XP Professional costs $299 USD. Along with the Windows operating system, the consumer may want to buy an anti-virus as well. Symantec Corp. produces leading computer security software exclusively for the Windows operating system. Norton Internet Security costs $109 USD. Then, you need an office suite. Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 costs $149 USD and for the businesses, Microsoft Office Professional 2007 costs $499 USD. Basically what I'm trying to say is that Microsoft puts a hole in your pocket if you obtain the software legally.

Now on the other hand, three words... Linux is free. OpenOffice.org is free. Linux doesn't get as many viruses or security holes as Windows. It's the better alternative in terms of satisfaction and success. It just doesn't shout like Microsoft. Linux... spread the word and watch Microsoft's revenue drop a few bucks a day. Hehe.

The above matter is the good example of propaganda. I just conformed from newegg that Windows xp Home edition costs 90$ and professional edition costs 140$. U can get avg for free and spyware for free and firefox too. ;)

Ur whole reasoning here is just based on ur personal assumptions. In my school windows usage has been discouraged from the last three years by organizing linux workshops and stuff like that,but no body wants to use linux. The main complaint was it was taking hell a lot of time in configuring the things to get them work properly. A couple of months before existing linux users also ditched linux as M$ has started giving free versions of all M$ stuff (except office). Its the whole strategy of M$ give development tools for free, keep ur user base.


PS: I am not biased to any operating system. I just replied based on the facts. Posting through edgy :)

[steven8]

The only thing I miss is Photoshop

Runs through Wine:

Photoshop 5.5
Photoshop 6.0
Photoshop 7.0
Photoshop CS
Photoshop Elements 2.0

[pompeyjohn]

I managed before Ubuntu.

Interesting. And yet earlier you wrote...


I'm quite happy with the way Linux is right now.

So either...

a. you dont know the difference between the two.
b. or you are a moronic troll with an inability to form cogent sentences, and grasp the concept of logic.
c. or finally there a fundamental flaw in your own argument.

I like to think it is the last one, which quite wonderfully you proved. However I suspect it is a combination of the previous two.

[steven8]

Always the master of tact, eh Columbo? :-)

[cantormath]

I doubt it, Apple has a huge share of the market considering that you have to purchase their often overpriced hardware in order to run their OS.

Mac Rocks now that it is on x86 hardware, but the only reason its still alive is the ipod. Also, compared to linux, mac is nothing, especially in regard to graphics.

[cantormath]

Actually, I believe Microsoft's reign over the market is a good thing. As long as everyone is farting around in Windows it means that Linux stays relatively free of malware, spyware & the like.

I'm quite happy with the way Linux is right now. The only thing I miss is Photoshop, and it's only a matter of time before I either learn how to use Gimp effectively, Photoshop is released on a linux-native basis, or support for CS2 becomes better in wine or the like.

World: Stay in Windows, I'm happy where I am.

You truely do not understand linux(which is ok) if you think that malware and spyware work the same way on linux compared to windows. The fact that Microsoft, being the best funded computing company in the world, still makes a truely crappy, insecure product, is mind blowing and rediculous.
I conjecture that you still have alot to learn about linux(which is also fine, we all start in the same place), being that I have photoshop, illustrator and a few other windows apps, installed on one of my linux boxes. Furthermore The Gimp is better then photoshop all the same.

[steven8]

The fact that Microsoft, being the best funded computing company in the world, still makes a truely crappy, insecure product, is mind blowing and rediculous.

They perpetuate the insecurties to create the market for anti this and anti that. But now, from what I read about Vista, they want to swallow that business up too by not allowing third party (ie: Norton, et al) access to the kernel.

[cantormath]

They perpetuate the insecurties to create the market for anti this and anti that. But now, from what I read about Vista, they want to swallow that business up too by not allowing third party (ie: Norton, et al) access to the kernel.
I agree, another comment:
Microsoft has no chance at taking business, linux/unix owns the server world, and with linux/MAC(running x86 hardware kicking MS's 4$$ in performance) Microsoft is seriously scared of loosing the desktop market; of course in the longterm.

If we all just keep fighting the good fight against MS, I think we are good.

[steven8]

Mark Shuttleworth:

The more you tighten your grip, Gates, the more star systems will slip through your fingers

Or some such. . .

[kallu_be]

You truely do not understand linux(which is ok) if you think that malware and spyware work the same way on linux compared to windows. The fact that Microsoft, being the best funded computing company in the world, still makes a truely crappy, insecure product, is mind blowing and rediculous.
I conjecture that you still have alot to learn about linux(which is also fine, we all start in the same place), being that I have photoshop, illustrator and a few other windows apps, installed on one of my linux boxes. Furthermore The Gimp is better then photoshop all the same.

So what Microsoft has to do ... verify 100 million lines of code using formal verification methods or what. Its just Microsoft usability and popularity that attracts hackers.

[cantormath]

Mark Shuttleworth:


Or some such. . .

lol.....

[Sutur]

So either...

a. you dont know the difference between the two.
b. or you are a moronic troll with an inability to form cogent sentences, and grasp the concept of logic.
c. or finally there a fundamental flaw in your own argument.

I like to think it is the last one, which quite wonderfully you proved. However I suspect it is a combination of the previous two.

I hope, for your joy alone, that insulting me on an Internet forum I barely visit is going to hurt my feelings. You have clearly misunderstood my posts, had I known that it was that time of the month I would have been more tactful, but then, you weren't either.


You truely do not understand linux(which is ok) if you think that malware and spyware work the same way on linux compared to windows. The fact that Microsoft, being the best funded computing company in the world, still makes a truely crappy, insecure product, is mind blowing and rediculous.
I conjecture that you still have alot to learn about linux(which is also fine, we all start in the same place), being that I have photoshop, illustrator and a few other windows apps, installed on one of my linux boxes. Furthermore The Gimp is better then photoshop all the same.

Is this website really so underdeveloped that people like this have to post? Just as I have said before, and as kallue_be after me, "Its just Microsoft usability and popularity that attracts hackers."

By the way, the fact that you think that The GIMP is better than Photoshop makes it an opinion. I don't have anything against GIMP I'm just used to Photoshop, and I said already - if you had bothered to read it properly after you quoted it, that I am trying to learn how to use it. Belittling my skills in Linux is just beside the point entirely.

[kallu_be]

I agree, another comment:
Microsoft has no chance at taking business, linux/unix owns the server world, and with linux/MAC(running x86 hardware kicking MS's 4$$ in performance) Microsoft is seriously scared of loosing the desktop market; of course in the longterm.

If we all just keep fighting the good fight against MS, I think we are good.

proof ?? stats ??

[cantormath]

So what Microsoft has to do ... verify 100 million lines of code using formal verification methods or what. Its just Microsoft usability and popularity that attracts hackers.

WHA.......?](*,)
K, you have totally lost the point, forget missing it. I think you are mixing up the word hacker with cracker as well. Another thing....What the hell are "formal verification methods"....? A better question: Are they using informal verification methods.

The big attraction to windows as you put it is the fact that windows is one Giant loop hole......ie) not secure. Linux has this permissions concept that isnt so attractive.

[cantormath]

I hope, for your joy alone, that insulting me on an Internet forum I barely visit is going to hurt my feelings. You have clearly misunderstood my posts, had I known that it was that time of the month I would have been more tactful, but then, you weren't either.



Is this website really so underdeveloped that people like this have to post? Just as I have said before, and as kallue_be after me, "Its just Microsoft usability and popularity that attracts hackers."

By the way, the fact that you think that The GIMP is better than Photoshop makes it an opinion. I don't have anything against GIMP I'm just used to Photoshop, and I said already - if you had bothered to read it properly after you quoted it, that I am trying to learn how to use it. Belittling my skills in Linux is just beside the point entirely.

hahahahaha
YOU have to work for microsoft, where is my t-shirt, I found him.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A HACKER IS.](*,) If you did know, you would not use it in such context. YOU MEAN CRACKER...or something else.
but you are really funny to listen to......please say something else.

[kallu_be]

hahahahaha
YOU have to work for microsoft, where is my t-shirt, I found him.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A HACKER IS.](*,) If you did know, you would not use it in such context. YOU MEAN CRACKER...or something else.
but you are really funny to listen to......please say something else.

Can u please explain the meaning of hacker and bring us out of ignorance. Next time u post please be precise what u r upto.

[cantormath]

Can u please explain the meaning of hacker and bring us out of ignorance. Next time u post please be precise what u r upto.

Here is a start.....::grin::
The History of Hacking Video....
http://tinyurl.com/ybsrw5

[kallu_be]

Here is a start.....::grin::
The History of Hacking Video....
http://tinyurl.com/ybsrw5

I have seen that video long back, but that video covers one perspective of hacker. refer to this URL for more info _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker . From tech encyclopedia "During the 1990s, the term "hacker" became synonymous with "cracker" ".

[kallu_be]

WHA.......?](*,)
K, you have totally lost the point, forget missing it. I think you are mixing up the word hacker with cracker as well. Another thing....What the hell are "formal verification methods"....? A better question: Are they using informal verification methods.

The big attraction to windows as you put it is the fact that windows is one Giant loop hole......ie) not secure. Linux has this permissions concept that isnt so attractive.

I got a bad feeling that i might be wasting my energy arguing with some ignorant kid.

Info
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification

[cantormath]

I have seen that video long back, but that video covers one perspective of hacker. refer to this URL for more info _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker . From tech encyclopedia "During the 1990s, the term "hacker" became synonymous with "cracker" ".

by people who were NOT hackers....
That video defines hackers, by hackers.

[cantormath]

I got a bad feeling that i might be wasting my energy arguing with some ignorant kid.

Info
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification

I assure you first cup, I am not a kid....but even a kid would know what I am telling you.

[cantormath]

proof ?? stats ??


It is a well known fact that Microsoft does not have the business market. There are more *nix servers in this world then there are window machine running today. Look it up.
If you are not aware that Mac is several times faster then anything microsoft has ever offered, then you have never owned a mac. Go Down to the mac store and see what is new, or LOOK IT UP... Anyone knows that Mac (which runs on unix) KILLS microsoft at every avenue of computing.
Finally:
If microsoft was not scared......they would not be making friendly with Novell.

One only need google the internet alittle bit to verify that the FACTS I have stated above are completely on point.

I hope this clears any confusion for you in the future.](*,) ](*,)

[Narzuhl]

Ok I did not read all the posts yet...I will....but I will drop my .02.

Ok will MS last who knows? They may they may not....but they will for a few years yet.
Until hardware manufacturers embrace Linux completely (hello Dell) MS will be around.
Companies like Dell who turn out all PCs with MS inside do not help. With their change to AMD from INTEL this might be a good thing for the Linux user as well. Shows that they will change.
I could not buy a PC off Dell site without having Windows installed (I still do not think you can). Server are different….you can buy them without an OS, why not desktops.
But look at it, 99% of PC manufactures ship with MS inside.
People buy into it because they do not know any better or they use Windows at work.
Gamers buy it as 99% of PC games are windows configured.
Wine, Cedega just do not give good enough emulation, or are not compatible for some games…..look at the World of Warcraft fiasco of late.
Regardless of how Linux is or how MAC is, MS has money, and will spend it. Forget their business practice (yes it sucks)
MS (windows/office) remids me of Volkswagen of the past. The peoples car. Or the Peoples OS in MS's case.
When was the last Linux add you saw on TV? MS spends money on advertising like it is going out of style. so try a survey, ask 20 random people if they know what linuix is. most will say huh? (USA anyways) ask the same people what Windows XP or Vista is and they will tell you. (or depeding on the part of the US they might go HUH? as well)

As for MS products...most people just look at Windows or Office..yes this is their biggest market, but they have SQL as well. Their SQL is becoming a great program.
Their Servers, Exchange, 2003 for example are very good. Sure they stole some ideas from other places. But anyone who tells me that a 2003 server is not as stable as a Linux server needs to look again. I have about 75 I have not touched in about a year, you just need to keep things like AV up to date and like any server protected behind some sore of firewall.

Now with that said, I am not as happy with MS as I use to be and I have switched at home to Ubuntu. At work I am tied to the corporate rule…but I have managed to squeak in now 5 Linux servers (2 Ubuntu Server).
Now I am trying to learn how to program in Linux so I can contribute to the cause.
Just my .02 that’s all.

[Narzuhl]

It's here to stay in America. Too many people think Linux sucks without even remotely knowning ANYTHING about it besides the name. Since Mac is getting more popular, that may bring the number of Linux users up. People who need to move on.

Exactly. It took me over a year and a half to convince my Boss that Linux would work for some of our applications and it is free. It was not untill our budget was cut down that he agreed.

[justin whitaker]

I forsee Windows going modular: some sort of core Vista based kernel package, with various other modules around it for desktop, media, gaming, etc.

The real issue with Windows development is that you have this massive bunch of code: they need to be more agile in their development.

I also think that for the home user, the PC will become basicially a thin client. There really isn't a need, from the Microsoft perspective, to have disks of the OS and Office floating around when they can extend an online service (with a subscription fee of course) to you instead. They can also create lock in and lock down that way.

You don't need discs for gaming anymore either, just the hardware drivers and software to render the games: Steam, Gametap and other online game services have rendered the pile of CDs/DVDs a thing of the past, assuming you jumped on board.

And with wireless becoming more and more common, I don't see that resistance to software as service being much more than a speedbump in Microsoft's inexorable path.

[lyceum]

I think that they are trying to get some of the money that Mac is looking at. Mac's are more ecpensive, but the OS is cheaper. They have their low end to high end of Vista. They are trying to make too many people happy. I think they are putting too much out there. But they may be testing the water. If the low end sells, they will focus there, if the high end sells more great! But they are trying to be the next PS3, everything in one package at a price that requires a lean on your house to get. You can see them moving that way with Zune, Microsoft Live!, their virus package and so on.

[Sutur]

hahahahaha
YOU have to work for microsoft, where is my t-shirt, I found him.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A HACKER IS.](*,) If you did know, you would not use it in such context. YOU MEAN CRACKER...or something else.
but you are really funny to listen to......please say something else.

Glad I amuse you so much :)

cantormath, I am well aware that the term hacker actually refers to an individual that hacks code for a non-malicious purpose. However, you fail to realise that with the English language any given word often has more than one meaning. The word hacker is one of these, and in this American dictionary, both terms are specified: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hacker.

It appears you are a little touchy about this subject so I won't be posting my thoughts on the matter any further. But for god's sake, learn how to use the language before going public with it, it's embarrassing for everyone else.

[cantormath]

The word hacker is one of these, and in this American dictionary, both terms are specified: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hacker.

It appears you are a little touchy about this subject so I won't be posting my thoughts on the matter any further. But for god's sake, learn how to use the language before going public with it, it's embarrassing for everyone else.

You are flat Wrong, there are multiple meaning because sooooooooooooooo many people used the word incorrectly soooooooooooooo many times that now they call crackers hackers.......and there is nothing else to say.

[Eddie Wilson]

The future of Microsoft is in no danger. I use Ubuntu at all times when possible. There are times that I have to use Windows. Linux may pose a danger to some server business but not in the desktop market. As long as linux is a mish-mash of distros, packages, and bickering the average computer user is not going to bother. Why would they? Microsoft is not free, the programs are not free, but most people today do not care. They want something they can use without much efford. Everybody knows about viruses, spyware, DRM, slowdowns, BSOD, and I've told them they don't have to put up with any of that crap. But people don't want to have to search the internet for a driver or package update so their system will work. The future of Microsoft is bright and always will be if people can't get on the same page and develop a standard for linux. Thats my 2 cents worth and does stay on the title of the thread.
Eddie

[lyceum]

http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/009061.html

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/French_MPs_dump_Windows_for_Linux/0,130061733,339272395,00.htm

the future...I can see it now!

[the.dark.lord]

The future of Microsoft is in no danger. I use Ubuntu at all times when possible. There are times that I have to use Windows. Linux may pose a danger to some server business but not in the desktop market. As long as linux is a mish-mash of distros, packages, and bickering the average computer user is not going to bother. Why would they? Microsoft is not free, the programs are not free, but most people today do not care. They want something they can use without much efford. Everybody knows about viruses, spyware, DRM, slowdowns, BSOD, and I've told them they don't have to put up with any of that crap. But people don't want to have to search the internet for a driver or package update so their system will work. The future of Microsoft is bright and always will be if people can't get on the same page and develop a standard for linux. Thats my 2 cents worth and does stay on the title of the thread.
Eddie

Are you saying, my dear fellow, to create a single Linux distro :-k but the freedom of the Linux kernel is that it allows everyone to create their own distros. By the way, I fully support a main Linux distros with everyone's ideas. Cheers.

[Eddie Wilson]

Well what we were talking about was the Future of Microfsoft. We can never give up the freedom of people making their own distros or apps. It would be great tho if we did have sort of a linux standard. I feel that too many apps will run on one system but not on another system. That just makes it a little hard to become mainstream. This is just my opinion and is of no real importance.
Eddie

[ardvark71]

The future of Microsoft is in no danger. I use Ubuntu at all times when possible. There are times that I have to use Windows. Linux may pose a danger to some server business but not in the desktop market. As long as linux is a mish-mash of distros, packages, and bickering the average computer user is not going to bother. Why would they? Microsoft is not free, the programs are not free, but most people today do not care. They want something they can use without much efford. Everybody knows about viruses, spyware, DRM, slowdowns, BSOD, and I've told them they don't have to put up with any of that crap. But people don't want to have to search the internet for a driver or package update so their system will work. The future of Microsoft is bright and always will be if people can't get on the same page and develop a standard for linux. Thats my 2 cents worth and does stay on the title of the thread.
Eddie

I would have to agree. I have said for years that if the Linux "community" wants to seriously compete with Microsoft, there is going to have to be at least ONE distro that is completely and totally "point and click" and requires absolutely no command line for ANY of its operations, including installation of any type of software or drivers. Most folks are NOT going to take even a second learning basic terminal commands and really, why should they?

Package (or software) installation programs like Synaptic are an excellent start but honestly, in Windows, do you see any messages routinely that inform you that you either don't have the correct dependencies or none at all? Or that you have to follow complicated directions to compile and install the program, which usually turn out problematic or disastrous? No, you point and click through a few questions, it installs and *bing* you run the program. The problem is not Synaptic or any like programs, it's how Linux is constructed to handle software installations.

Also, even though it's not the fault of Linux but rather a lot of software manufacturers, people are going expect seamless compatibility with Microsoft programs where Linux versions are not acceptable. WINE needs a whole lot more work and refinement in this area. Again, point, click, it works.

Although major improvements have been made, Linux remains as an OS for the technically proficient and gifted.

My rant for the day has ended, please don't all clap at once! :-D

Best Regards...

:KS

[RockinRob2258]

I haven't even read a tenth of this thread, but...this thread came up in a result for "World of Warcraft in Wine". Hopefully, over the next few months, that's all Microsoft Windows will be for me, an operating system to play World of Warcraft...if that.
:p

[56phil]

Microsoft has money and momentum. So did GM. Look at GM now, struggling to remain afloat. I believe the same fate awaits Microsoft.

[Eddie Wilson]

Really its up to end-users and third party vendors. As far as the connection of Microsoft to GM goes, GM could be hardware and Microsoft could be software. I don't see a connection. Maybe thats just me.
Eddie

[jan]

I read an article a few months ago saying that Vista could be the last MS OS and that they may be concentrating on the services market hence all this Windows Live stuff.
This might not be far from the truth and I guess it is gonna be good because everyone will forget Micro$oft by then! ;););)

[jan]

yes, but money doesn't last forever. MS can't fight linux because there is nothing of substance to fight. linux will overtake MS....guaranteed. its not a case of if, but when.
Exactly.

[holylucifer]

Piece of Poo windows is,although easy to use unless you get infected in 10minutes,windows is designed to be insecure, Thats why they use slower methods than LINUX,and Get your hands of free software microsoft, your os is poo,i want the most out of my hardware, not rubbing intels,and amds back.

Plus windows will slow down to since that poo of a os collects dust, such as spyware as designed to, unlike linux, it feels yea, this still runs fast,

[Amurko]

Personally, Microsoft's EULA reminds me of laws in a Police State. Especially the ones limiting the number of times Vista can be reinstalled, not allowing Vista to be run using VMWare even if you own a legal copy, etc.

If you plot the % of Linux users over time and the % of Windows users over time, you'd find the % of Linux increasing and the % of Windows decreasing. However, even at the current rate, it'll take at least a decade for Linux to catch up, assuming Microsoft does nothing about Linux (which isn't going to happen.)

Ideally, I don't wish to see Linux (or any OS) dominate the computing market.. having a diversified collection of OS's on the world's computers will make it more difficult for viruses to make a large scale impact.

[lyceum]

I just found this and thought others might enjoy...

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54507.html

[holylucifer]

I would have to agree. I have said for years that if the Linux "community" wants to seriously compete with Microsoft, there is going to have to be at least ONE distro that is completely and totally "point and click" and requires absolutely no command line for ANY of its operations, including installation of any type of software or drivers. Most folks are NOT going to take even a second learning basic terminal commands and really, why should they?

Package (or software) installation programs like Synaptic are an excellent start but honestly, in Windows, do you see any messages routinely that inform you that you either don't have the correct dependencies or none at all? Or that you have to follow complicated directions to compile and install the program, which usually turn out problematic or disastrous? No, you point and click through a few questions, it installs and *bing* you run the program. The problem is not Synaptic or any like programs, it's how Linux is constructed to handle software installations.

Also, even though it's not the fault of Linux but rather a lot of software manufacturers, people are going expect seamless compatibility with Microsoft programs where Linux versions are not acceptable. WINE needs a whole lot more work and refinement in this area. Again, point, click, it works.

Although major improvements have been made, Linux remains as an OS for the technically proficient and gifted.

My rant for the day has ended, please don't all clap at once! :-D

Best Regards...

:KS

heh Sue microsoft over risc if thats even possible,

welcome to 1980's point click fire up risc os , on those old acorns http://www.riscos.org/

http://riscos.blog.com/302013/

[Canis familiaris]

I can see Steve Ballmer selling pairs of socks called 'Microsocks'

[ihavenoname]

I can see Steve Ballmer selling pairs of socks called 'Microsocks'
haha, actually, I think micrsoft will survive for a while, it just won't be AS strong. you can already see it weakening. Just look at all the people buying macs nowadays.

[Jolzath]

Seeing Ubuntu Linux (And other Linux/Unix Based OSes) gaining popularity, and the hit Vista has taken from user's dislike for the new system, Dell trying to offer Linux as a alternate OS. China uses Linux, Munich uses it, the EU has a few scores with Microsoft that are not going away anytime soon. Will the Microsoft Empire Last?

I want to hear your opinion on the matter, even if your Pro-Windows, Pro-Apple, or even A Lets bring back DOS person. I Wanna hear the idea's of Microsoft's future, or lack there of

Pro-Linux your welcome to post to. :lolflag:

[aysiu]

People will obviously keep posting replies, but you can start by reading the 213 posts in thread I merged yours with.

[prizrak]

It very much will last. Windows is not the only product they have (even if it gets to the point where Windows is no longer there). They make very good Office product, their SQL server is a very powerful product, the IDE is also very nice to work in. Also don't forget that they are making money on hardware now and there is also the Xbox line that is actually bringing in profit. I'm also pretty sure that Windows Mobile is doing quite well on smartphones.

[hessiess]

the way i see it people use whatever comes on computers, as the majority of them are Microsoft, people use windows. if thay came with ubuntu people would convert to Linux.

im learning Linux becose i disagree with some of the features of vista and i HATE eyecandy. i will never buy a pc with vista on, will not use it if the school converts to vista. i can be extremly stubben! as xp wil loose support i need to prepare for the future!

[Simran]

I think that Dells move to put fiesty on some desktops and a laptop is the beginning of the long road to a more widespread use of open source and free software. I think Microsoft may realise and slowly move into other market sectors to monopolise them, but i doubt it will just disappear from the face of the earth. :)

[q1nch0]

Maybe you guys don't see it much in developed countries but over here in South America is very easy to get a pirate copy of windows just for few cents, and everywhere in the streets.
And looks like the government or M$ itself don't do much. My point is that they are using us as free guinea pigs for they massive world conspiracy!!
Seriously many people use windows just for inertia, loving the "next, next, restart" applications.
Cheers from Venezuela :)

[B. Gates]

Maybe you guys don't see it much in developed countries but over here in South America is very easy to get a pirate copy of windows just for few cents, and everywhere in the streets.
This, my friends, is the reason why Windows will be difficult to eliminate. Why bother moving to a free operating system like Linux, when you're already using a "free" OS? You don't gain anything in financial terms, just more to learn to do what you were doing before (or less, depending on the task).

[zheepeez]

Hmmmm....

Open Source competition will increase, forcing them to innovate as some of their most profitable areas evaporate (Office -> Google Docs, etc)... Currently, Microsoft is a monopoly sitting on billions in profit, so the incentive (wow, i sound like a real economist!) to innovate is pretty low... that'll change when competition (us) comes up.

Eventually they will realise that patent lawsuits and aggressive policies won't get rid of open source, and they'll innovate until they're better than us. And it all starts again.

Or, in other words:

Microsoft did not become a monopoly by being lazy and uninnovative.

[steven8]

Hmmmm....

Open Source competition will increase, forcing them to innovate as some of their most profitable areas evaporate (Office -> Google Docs, etc)... Currently, Microsoft is a monopoly sitting on billions in profit, so the incentive (wow, i sound like a real economist!) to innovate is pretty low... that'll change when competition (us) comes up.

Eventually they will realise that patent lawsuits and aggressive policies won't get rid of open source, and they'll innovate until they're better than us. And it all starts again.

Or, in other words:

Microsoft did not become a monopoly by being lazy and uninnovative.

Lazy, no. They worked hard to purchase, tweak, and call their own, other people's work. QDOS, became MSDOS, Windows was borrowed from Apple via Xerox, and directX was not created by Microsoft but made their own as well. Lazy, no.

[ihavenoname]

Apple to stole from Xerox. Companies steal from each other all the time. Microsoft does have some good products. But it's a shock when you come to Linux and realize that you DID NOT have to pay $USD 300 for an office suite or an Operating System. Linux is the answer to pirating. It's safe, secure, versatile and it is better than have to worry that your going to loose your stuff because Microsoft is bringing down the hammer.

[steven8]

Apple to stole from Xerox. Companies steal from each other all the time. Microsoft does have some good products. But it's a shock when you come to Linux and realize that you DID NOT have to pay $USD 300 for an office suite or an Operating System. Linux is the answer to pirating. It's safe, secure, versatile and it is better than have to worry that your going to loose your stuff because Microsoft is bringing down the hammer.

Yep.

[NJC]

I didn't wade through the whole thread so it's possible this may have been posted. Link is >2yrs old now: Is Microsoft dying (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=508399)


Longhorn's Delayed Release
There are other clues as well. Microsoft has always had trouble with stand-alone applications, but in its core business it has been as relentless as the Borg. Now the company seems to have trouble executing even the one task that should take precedence over everything else: getting "Longhorn," its Windows replacement, to market. Longhorn is now two years late. That would be disastrous for a beloved product like the Macintosh, but for a product that is universally reviled as a necessary, but foul-tasting, medicine, this verges on criminal insanity. Or, more likely, organizational paralysis.

[cprofitt]

the bigger MS becomes, the less quickly it can adapt to what is, essentially, a fast moving market. with vista, we will see MS start to go downhill. how much so is a moot point. it depends upon how quickly it can adapt and how many dirty tricks it can pull out of its inexhaustable bag of dirty tricks.

Hmm...

Not a huge fan of MS right now, but I would not call them "dirty tricks" as the "tricks" they use appear to be standard practice in the US among big business.

I am also not sure if they will truly go down hill. The market may move fast, but the OS is not one of the things that needs to move fast. It needs to be easy to install and have applications and drivers for it. Windows has the largest pool of applications and drivers of any OS... and due to the number of installations that will likely continue.

The real question is one of the software industry as a whole -- will it move from proprietary software (OS included) to an open-source free software with pay-for-support model. Personally of the two major pay to use OSes OSX and Apple appear to be much less friendly to open source and free use. Microsoft does not tell you what hardware you can load their OS on; Apple does. Apple exploits open source solutions to create their own, but macify them so they control functionality to only fit with OSX/Apple proprietary stuff (BLOGSOM on OSX server only allows you to upload Apple media files)

The real question is how does one make money off of Linux -- answer support; period.

How does one make money off of Windows/OSX -- answer selling the OS and letting Microsoft/Apple worry about support or selling the OS and providing support as well.

I don't mind making nothing off of the OS and just making money providing support -- but I am not sure the "industry" feels the same way.

[cprofitt]

Lazy, no. They worked hard to purchase, tweak, and call their own, other people's work. QDOS, became MSDOS, Windows was borrowed from Apple via Xerox, and directX was not created by Microsoft but made their own as well. Lazy, no.

Its a little more complex than that... Microsoft co-wrote OS/2 with IBM and borrowed from that for their Windows OS. The current Apple OS resulted from a stagnant Apple buying up NeXT from Jobs and incorporating their OS in to OSX.

[hessiess]

Microsoft does not tell you what hardware you can load their OS on; Apple does. Apple exploits open source solutions to create their own, but macify them so they control functionality to only fit with OSX/Apple proprietary stuff (BLOGSOM on OSX server only allows you to upload Apple media files)

that's why i dont like apple

[init1]

I'm interested in what folks around here think about the future of Microsoft.

I remember when I got into this computer thing around ten years ago, people were predicting its demise, or the certain demise of MSN, IE, etc. It has never happened. Where do you think it will be in two to three years? (I guess I would prefer you to be as sincere as possible :( )
I think that (unfortunately) mircosoft will be around for a while. There are many people that will never use or want to use anything else than what they already know

[zheepeez]

The real question is how does one make money off of Linux -- answer support; period.

If someone offered you a "desktop-ready" version of Linux which attached Google ads to your desktop based on an analysis of the files found on your computer and your Firefox history, would you use it? (privacy concerns aside)

[tgalati4]

Microsoft made billions by selling mediocre software to several million people. Now they will sue these people as they leave Microsoft behind and load alternative, patent-busting, open-source software on their machines.

It's an interesting process that's going on. MS is getting hit from all sides. Google Apps, Firefox and Safari that run better than Explorer, Open Office suite that is improving and free. Over time, a typical user will have so many open-source and third-party applications running on top of Windows that they will have to ask: can't I run all of these same apps on Ubuntu? And the answer is yes, and they will run better.

So users that are familiar with how Windows works and where everything is, are slowly being trained to use web-based Google apps and open-source apps (Audacity, Open Office, Firefox, etc) and all of these apps look just the same under Ubuntu.

Of course Apple is trying to do the same thing. I would not be surprised to see iLife apps running on Windows soon. A Windows users will have to ask, why do I need Windows when all of the apps that I use can run better on Mac hardware or on an Ubuntu machine.

[dca]

MS is not going anywhere. They'll be fine. I was kinda' hoping they'd end up in the same boat Sun is in w/ Solaris and stocks hovering at about 5.50/share but what do I know...

[Ultra Magnus]

Vista will likely become the last microsoft operating system - as we know it - apparently they are looking to be able to update bits on the fly - a bit like linux - in fact they already have a patent for this. I guess they'll start charging a time based subscription to windows.

The thing is, given how long it takes our pals at redmond to do anything, and the lack of quality of what comes out I can only imagine how horrendus their first go at this will be

[BoyOfDestiny]

Vista will likely become the last microsoft operating system - as we know it - apparently they are looking to be able to update bits on the fly - a bit like linux - in fact they already have a patent for this. I guess they'll start charging a time based subscription to windows.

The thing is, given how long it takes our pals at redmond to do anything, and the lack of quality of what comes out I can only imagine how horrendus their first go at this will be

Microsoft tests Pay as you Go Software
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8907.html

This one basically, you must watch advertising to use a "free" computer (i.e. hardware is free)
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WFYHFHXQBYXISQSNDLPSK HSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=191502430

This just bugs me. As you'd need a heavily DRM'd system for this to work, and likely a lot of closed parts (heck all of Windows as is and as it has been is a "black box" Regular users don't know and can't truly check what it's up to.)

Now the GPLv2 is old, 1992. As GPLv3 roles around, I sometimes wonder about it's "anti-drm" measures. My feeling is they can see a bit ahead, as they did with the GPLv2. I will take Free Software. If personal computers turn into an impersonal PC (an iPC if you will...) I'd be sad.

I know some of this sounds ridiculous, however I find these "features" ridiculous:

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

As for the machine deciding if you have permission to install and run an OS, you can see this with OSX.

A computer that you can just sort of "use" and rent, is not an impossibility.

I want Free. It's my computer (which in Vista funnily enough is called "Computer" now...*hint* *hint*)

[Quillz]

Vista will likely become the last microsoft operating system - as we know it - apparently they are looking to be able to update bits on the fly - a bit like linux - in fact they already have a patent for this. I guess they'll start charging a time based subscription to windows.

The thing is, given how long it takes our pals at redmond to do anything, and the lack of quality of what comes out I can only imagine how horrendus their first go at this will be
Vista will certainly not be Microsoft's last operating system, but it may be the last that grasps the current model of how we understand operating systems. My guess is the next major Windows OS may do away entirely with the taskbar philosophy, and hopefully the registry. We are fast moving into new ways of interaction with machines, largely through touch and 3d models. I think the Surface is a good example of what the next consumer OS from Microsoft may look like.

[cunawarit]

Vista will certainly not be Microsoft's last operating system, but it may be the last that grasps the current model of how we understand operating systems. My guess is the next major Windows OS may do away entirely with the taskbar philosophy, and hopefully the registry. We are fast moving into new ways of interaction with machines, largely through touch and 3d models. I think the Surface is a good example of what the next consumer OS from Microsoft may look like.

Agreed.

According to rumours/sources it will be a complete departure of how people interact with computers. Making me think that Surface, is part of that new interface.

Vista may be merely a gap filler, between highly developed and supported XP, and Microsoft's vision for what a new generation OS should be like.

[blastus]

Microsoft tests Pay as you Go Software
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8907.html

This is something I posted last year...

At some point or another, Microsoft will start a program where you can subscribe to a license to use Windows for a monthly or yearly fee, as opposed to buying a perpetual license. When Microsoft is ready to phase out perpetual licenses, they will make it cheaper (and therefore more attractive) for consumers to subscribe to Windows rather than buy it, by either increasing the cost of the perpetual license and/or reducing the cost of the subscription.

There may also multiple levels of subscriptions each offering a certain subset of functionality in Windows. This will be likened to the fact that different versions of Windows (for example Home vs Professional) offer different features and are priced differently. The subscription model will allow for finer control over the features of Windows that are available to consumers--this like is a divide and conquer strategy where features in Windows will be itemized and have costs attached to them (like on a telephone or bank statement) in order to *justify* the cost to the consumer.

Microsoft will aggressively market the subscription idea as the ultimate way for the consumer to *save* money on Windows. The selling points will be;

1. The consumer will no longer have to pay upfront for the cost of Windows when they buy a new PC.

2. The consumer won't have to pay for upgrades to Windows anymore since they are simply renting the product instead of owning it--however Microsoft will never use the word "rent" to market subscriptions.

3. The consumer will only have to pay for the features of Windows that they *need* instead of paying for everything (a.k.a. the *complete* product.)

[smoker]

Microsoft will aggressively market the subscription idea as the ultimate way for the consumer to *save* money on Windows. The selling points will be;

1. The consumer will no longer have to pay upfront for the cost of Windows when they buy a new PC.

2. The consumer won't have to pay for upgrades to Windows anymore since they are simply renting the product instead of owning it--however Microsoft will never use the word "rent" to market subscriptions.

3. The consumer will only have to pay for the features of Windows that they *need* instead of paying for everything (a.k.a. the *complete* product.)

will people actually go for this? well, i suppose if it's hard-sell advertised, some will be persuaded. personally, i think it will drive pc users to apple, or linux, in droves:D

[dca]

I think pay for use non-perpetual licenses will be here sooner than you know but it will be called, 'Google Linux'....

[karellen]

I think pay for use non-perpetual licenses will be here sooner than you know but it will be called, 'Google Linux'....

it's already here, with google apps (the premier editions for business/enterprise)

[kamaboko]

This is what's going on at MS at the moment. Well...a few other things as well, but....

http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2007/06/12/release-candidate-goes-live.aspx

[racso39]

Microsoft will last, not sure if Vista will be last OS, probably will past a long time before they release a new OS, something must happen before they can do this, something good for them.

I know Windows OS has a lot of trouble, but lets admit is EASY to use. If you are a Windows users and you are confortable with the assitance to do all the work for you, then you are going tohave a hard time adapting to Linux (Ubunu in my case), I just can't remember all the codes to use in the terminal, I HATE THE TERMINAL, but that is what makes Linux a great OS, or at least that is what already acomodated users says.

So my conclusion, if Linux doesn't get any easier to use, Windows and Mac will always be there for you :popcorn:

[mr.farenheit]

from what i've discussed with others alot ot people say that with the release of vista they pretty much shot themselves in the foot. a friend of mine found in a forum some graphs that show'd a drastic jump on people switching to linux and mac os after seeing vista. people are getting alot smater now and are willing to take the time to work on configuring linux rather than deal with years of frustation with windows.

[kamaboko]

from what i've discussed with others alot ot people say that with the release of vista they pretty much shot themselves in the foot. a friend of mine found in a forum some graphs that show'd a drastic jump on people switching to linux and mac os after seeing vista. people are getting alot smater now and are willing to take the time to work on configuring linux rather than deal with years of frustation with windows.

The funny thing is that I've been hearing the same thing for a long time. Windows ME was the end, then it was 2K, then it was Media Center, then it was XP Pro, and now it's really gonna be Vista. The bottom line is that if MS goes down the tube, it has to start in the business sector. It won't move from the household to business. And for that to happen the Linux community MUST develop enterprise software on par with what is available in Windows.

[rudeboyskunk]

Ok. The future of Microsoft. Apart from being an extremely vague, general, GIGANTIC question, it is still valid. And maybe even answerable in a 1,000-page book format.

My first computer experience was in 1996 when I was 12 and we got a 200 MHz Quantex Pentium 2 computer with Windows 95 and 32MB EDO RAM (which I later upgraded to 96MB for the Win98 upgrade and decided to get into gaming). Man oh man, I loved that thing. I could do ANYTHING with Windows 95. Anything I wanted! I learned more about computers in those first few months just by screwing around with Win95. And any time I screwed up, it was great! I could format the hard drive, and Quantex had actually supplied the Win95 cd, so I could reinstall(and I learned how to do it all on my own, because Win95 was so simple, even a 13-year-old could do it!)! I always kept backups of my files on floppies, so I never really lost anything. And once we got internet...oh man, words cannot describe how far I could take my computer then.

Then, Christmas 1998 I got Windows 98. It was at the top of my Christmas list. I couldn't believe it. All the amazing things of Win95, and so much more. It was faster, looked better, better support for the games and hardware I was buying. It was like I was in Heaven before, and this was 100000x better.

But over the next three years it started to take its toll. There was never any real upgrade that MS offered. Sure, SE came out, but that was just if you didn't upgrade from 3.x or 95. Nothing free to upgrade the entire system. Same old, same old. It started to get slow. Formatting and reinstalling was starting to get annoying rather than an adventure. Spyware started to give me pop-up ads galore. Viruses were getting worse, and I couldn't afford the latest anti-virus software.

Then, we finally got a new computer. A 1.2 GHz HP Pavilion Celeron (don't ever get Celeron, by the way) with 256MB RAM. Windows XP. I could do so much more, but all the freedoms I had with Win95 and Win98 were gone. So many restrictions.

And then a friend showed me Debian.

I could do anything. ANYTHING. If there were problems, small little problems, I could find somebody else online on a forum that had the same problem and figure out how to fix it. I decided to do a dual boot, so I would use Linux for everything I could with Debian and if it was something that I -had- to use XP for I wouldn't have a problem. With the addition of Service Pack 2, I was beginning to get really irritated with Windows. And I continually found out more and more about what I could do with Linux.

And then the final moment came. The same friend had discovered Ubuntu right when it first appeared, and shared that treasure with me. While installing I somehow screwed up LILO and destroyed XP. Rather than going through the channels of Best Buy and being told my computer wasn't under warranty anymore so I'd be SOL, I decided to install my old version of Win98 for what I needed (World of Warcraft, nothing more, nothing less). After I found wine and Cedega, I got rid of Win98 two and a half years ago. Ever since then I've been running Linux and haven't looked back. I don't miss Windows, I don't need Windows, I don't want Windows. If there is something that people say I need to do and can only do in Windows, I find a way in Linux. At my work I try weekly to convince them that everything we do could EASILY be run in a Linux environment (or even Solaris). After all, we can only install so many versions of Word and Excel and Outlook because we only have so many licenses. I preach OpenOffice.org, and they are still skeptical.

So what's my point? What does this have to do with the future of Microsoft? Everything. Microsoft keeps on restricting its users more and more (cf. DRM). Linux has always allowed its users to do anything and everything, so there's never been a "now you have more freedom." All the freedom possible has always been present. In the end, it will be the users who decide what is better. Not "how much market share" Microsoft has. They can put Windows on every computer in the world, but it's up to the user whether or not they'll keep it. The user will decide Microsoft's fate. I'm already one user who will never use a product of theirs again (although I must give Bill Gates props for his charitable donations to AIDS relief). And I think that's how it will be. More and more people becoming more in tuned to the idea of Open Source over corporate restrictions and copyright, who will permanently choose an Open Source alternative.

[smiggs]

This is something I posted last year...

At some point or another, Microsoft will start a program where you can subscribe to a license to use Windows for a monthly or yearly fee, as opposed to buying a perpetual license. When Microsoft is ready to phase out perpetual licenses, they will make it cheaper (and therefore more attractive) for consumers to subscribe to Windows rather than buy it, by either increasing the cost of the perpetual license and/or reducing the cost of the subscription.

There may also multiple levels of subscriptions each offering a certain subset of functionality in Windows. This will be likened to the fact that different versions of Windows (for example Home vs Professional) offer different features and are priced differently. The subscription model will allow for finer control over the features of Windows that are available to consumers--this like is a divide and conquer strategy where features in Windows will be itemized and have costs attached to them (like on a telephone or bank statement) in order to *justify* the cost to the consumer.

Microsoft will aggressively market the subscription idea as the ultimate way for the consumer to *save* money on Windows. The selling points will be;

1. The consumer will no longer have to pay upfront for the cost of Windows when they buy a new PC.

2. The consumer won't have to pay for upgrades to Windows anymore since they are simply renting the product instead of owning it--however Microsoft will never use the word "rent" to market subscriptions.

3. The consumer will only have to pay for the features of Windows that they *need* instead of paying for everything (a.k.a. the *complete* product.)

I think this is a viable model for business, infact I wrote an entire business plan around such a similar idea for a unit on my degree. However the hardware will change they will rent you a thin client type unit with storage based 'online' and the vendors won't be Microsoft but ISPs who will then hook you straight into their network. Microsoft will then have users subscribe to software packages but I suspect the Microsoft money making end of the the scheme may be short lived as ISPs push Open Source applications as a cheaper option, they'll still charge a subscription of course but the money will be all theirs.

[Lacrimstein]

Apple on the computer market in the 80's was exactly what Microsoft is now - and yet it fell.... only time will tell

[kulturloseramerikaner]

will people actually go for this? well, i suppose if it's hard-sell advertised, some will be persuaded. personally, i think it will drive pc users to apple, or linux, in droves:D
Remember DIVX, the pay-as-you-go DVD system from Circuit City? It was a system whereby you payed to view your DVD's; you got them much cheaper at the time than normal DVD's, and if you rented, you didn't have to return them, you just stopped paying to view them. You'd get a bill for watching your media. This looked great on paper and Circuit City advertised it hard. It also brought them lawsuits and almost forced them out of business because it flopped so badly. People want to have ownership over their computers, even the intangibles like the programs. If you get a bill in the mail for using your PC to do the things you expect to be able to, I don't think you'd go for that at all. It's the same thing Steve Jobs realized with iTunes - people want to feel like they own the music on their computer, and want to take it with them when they go out. You can bet MS would be hit hard if they pulled this; people are already quite sick of having to spend an additional $50 a year to pay for virus and spyware protection, and to spend the $300+ to pay for Office so they can actually do something useful with their system, etc, and that's why our community is growing faster now than it ever has.

[troy1of2]

I think Microsoft will always be there but over time their market share will erode as their heavy handed tactics to extract money from it's customers will drive more and more people to FOSS.

[kulturloseramerikaner]

I think Microsoft will always be there but over time their market share will erode as their heavy handed tactics to extract money from it's customers will drive more and more people to FOSS.

MS will probably try that rental BS for 1 or 2 releases, and people will head over to 'nix and Mac in droves. Then they'll learn their lesson and stop doing it that way, but will never recover quite fully.