[Wolves] Now I know what Vista hell is!!!!

[Zeth]

On 18/01/2008, Chris Fox <chris at robotninja.net> wrote:
> I disagree. "Venting" about other OSes - especially in the form of
> purile M$-bashing - is probably setting back the Free software movement
> by a good 5 years in terms of mainstream recognition and non-enthusiast
> adoption.

I agree that unfounded MS-bashing is pointless. However, I don't think
that your assertion can be proved. What does it mean to "set.. back ..
 by a good 5 years"? I think the problem is not perception but total
obscurity. It is not that people are perceiving the free software
movement as being a bunch of angry losers, the problem is that they
have no idea that we exist at all.

I think the process of adoption is going well, perhaps not as well as
Windows 95 was adopted, but the trend is there and we are slowly
gaining momentum, however it is still an exponential problem. If we
say that the free software movement started with a few people and then
doubled at a certain rate, it still takes a long time to get out of
the shadows. Going from 0.1% to over 5% (6.4%), takes 6 doubles. While
going from 5% to over 50% only takes three doubles.

> It makes the Linux community look like unprofessional, childish idiots,

Early Microsoft operating systems had a reputation for being a hobby
toy used by children for computer games. The looks are rather
irrelevant, it's what the software can do that is important. Does
Microsoft care what it looks like when it ends in court every other
week? It seems not.

>those behind the various Linux desktop projects (Gnome,
>KDE, etc, as well as distro teams) should focus on implementing features
>based on their own merits rather than "well OS X / Vista does it, so we
should too"

I agree 100%. Windows finally got corporate adoption because of one
'killer app', the graphical spreadsheet. The problem for Linux is that
every time there is some cool new open source application, the first
thing that happens is that it is ported to Windows. So Linux can never
have the 'killer app'.

So I think what will happen is that Microsoft and Linux won't really
lock horns all the other large software vendors have either joined the
free software/open source community or been bought/killed by
Microsoft.

Best Wishes,
Zeth