Making Linux Catch On
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In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
Frankly neither of these are important imho. The key to Linux catching on is tied to small business. Once small businesses embrace Linux then, and only then, will it potentially challenge Windows. If Linux is to catch on it will require: 1) Their average home user knows (and more importantly) feels comfortable using it (this will only happen if they use it at home regularly). The average home user needs to be able to install it at home. That means decent easy installer, dead simple configuration, and hardware and software that is compatible. Using the command line is an instant death wish for Linux installations for the average home user. 2) Their employees are generally using all the same distribution / GUI. 3) It installs effortlessly on laptops 4) Doesnt require a network administrator to configure the workstation The exception to this basic generalization is the exclusion of Web Servers and servers in the DMZ (there is some penetration here). And corporately those businesses that, generally speaking, are higher tech or outside the North American markets. Adoption of Linux is also hampered by the many and varied distributions and variations of Linux O/S out right now. Everyone and their dog wants to make their $ selling 'their' unique ability to package and distribute their 'perfect' Linux platform. As a business owner I dont have time to spend researching all the various possible distriutions. Nor would I want to pay my employees $30.00 per hour to research them either. I need them generating revenue and the cost of Windows O/S is small potatoes for a small business compared to the cost of research, installation, configuration, and management of a Linux based office. Until Linux can address this it will, sadly, remain a niche O/S. Regards, David
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In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
Richie308 wrote:
make Linux become a real competitor to Windows:
What do you mean? Competitor in the desktop? Forget, it will never have the critical mass of developers/applications/users of Windows. And will always be playing catch-up with the inovations introduced in UI. Competitor in embedded systems, servers and computing grids? Look again, it already is a very strong competitor. Oh... and it already has an usable documentation. It is called Google.
...there is absolutely no significant idea that stupidity would not know how to apply; stupidity is active in every direction, and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage...
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities -
In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
I thought about making my application portable to Linux, but after figuring out how I can replace the Win32 code with portable libs I ditched the idea. All libs (like pthreads-win32, XPCOM etc.) are released under the GPL or similar license X| , which is not an option for me. So as long as Linux is not friendly for proprietary software I doubt it will ever be able to compete with Windows.
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In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
You should look at the manpages in linux, these contain a world of information on how to use linux and the api's. I think the developers of KDE and Gnome use them too for their api's. I only wish that the desktop eye candy programs were more consistent, it's getting one big spaghetti pile these days with compiz being split up and all that.
WM. What about weapons of mass-construction?
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In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
3. Don't produce hundreds of distributions with some (not mentioning Fedora Core 4) that are so badly broken you give up on them X| Elaine :rose:
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Richie308 wrote:
... reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN...
Hmm. Yes, there is certainly reams of documentation available on MSDN, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was good and consistent... ;) Jon
MSDN is more consistent than anything I've found for Linux so far.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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Frankly neither of these are important imho. The key to Linux catching on is tied to small business. Once small businesses embrace Linux then, and only then, will it potentially challenge Windows. If Linux is to catch on it will require: 1) Their average home user knows (and more importantly) feels comfortable using it (this will only happen if they use it at home regularly). The average home user needs to be able to install it at home. That means decent easy installer, dead simple configuration, and hardware and software that is compatible. Using the command line is an instant death wish for Linux installations for the average home user. 2) Their employees are generally using all the same distribution / GUI. 3) It installs effortlessly on laptops 4) Doesnt require a network administrator to configure the workstation The exception to this basic generalization is the exclusion of Web Servers and servers in the DMZ (there is some penetration here). And corporately those businesses that, generally speaking, are higher tech or outside the North American markets. Adoption of Linux is also hampered by the many and varied distributions and variations of Linux O/S out right now. Everyone and their dog wants to make their $ selling 'their' unique ability to package and distribute their 'perfect' Linux platform. As a business owner I dont have time to spend researching all the various possible distriutions. Nor would I want to pay my employees $30.00 per hour to research them either. I need them generating revenue and the cost of Windows O/S is small potatoes for a small business compared to the cost of research, installation, configuration, and management of a Linux based office. Until Linux can address this it will, sadly, remain a niche O/S. Regards, David
I completely agree.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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Richie308 wrote:
make Linux become a real competitor to Windows:
What do you mean? Competitor in the desktop? Forget, it will never have the critical mass of developers/applications/users of Windows. And will always be playing catch-up with the inovations introduced in UI. Competitor in embedded systems, servers and computing grids? Look again, it already is a very strong competitor. Oh... and it already has an usable documentation. It is called Google.
...there is absolutely no significant idea that stupidity would not know how to apply; stupidity is active in every direction, and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage...
Robert Musil, The Man Without QualitiesDiego Moita wrote:
and it already has an usable documentation. It is called Google
:wtf: :sigh:
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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3. Don't produce hundreds of distributions with some (not mentioning Fedora Core 4) that are so badly broken you give up on them X| Elaine :rose:
Trollslayer wrote:
some (not mentioning Fedora Core 4) that are so badly broken you give up on them
Was this homage to DOS 4?
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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I completely agree.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
Thanks, I never ceases to amaze me that the Linux community doesnt seem to grasp that the same O/S has to be present both at home and at work for it to establish traction. How many years has Apple been trying to increase their market share with minimal success. They *finally* grasped this only in the past year when they were able to get Windows to execute on the Apple. Time will tell how sucessful this will be but it does give options to the consumer... As much as it maligns some people, it is Marketing that drives Microsoft, not the developers. With Linux it is all about the developer community and frankly developers are perhaps the exact people you *dont* want to design the UI. I imagine a typical thought process for the Linux O/S developer when they run into a minor item might be... "I can whip up an command line tool to address this 'issue'... it's a waste of time to spend hours coding a UI for such a simple action. I only have so many hours a I can spend on this and I have other things to do. Command Line it is.." All I can tell you is that when my mother sees a black screen with a command prompt she immediately presses buttons... only they are not the keyboard. It is usually 604-555-DAVE or the power button if I am not home. And funny enough she really is pretty literate with the computer (no viruses or spyware in two years bless her techno 64 year old soul). Standardization is the key, and that will never happen, as long as the Linux Penguins all stand around, each with their own egg perched on their feet. Cheers, David
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In my opinion, there are two things that would make Linux become a real competitor to Windows: 1. Making the desktop and especially the fonts look as good as windows 2. Producing reams of good and consistent documentation comparable to MSDN for developers. Being forced to endure the ever tightening noose of DRM and license restrictions that comes along with Windows always makes me pine for some other OS. What is your opinion?
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
I think Linux distros maintaining their relaxed (non-existant) re-activation policy would put it right up there with "winner in my book".
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
