A pleasure to see an intelligent and sensible post on the subject...
I think maybe (And this is just personal opinion) that the naming
conventions maybe put people off. I mean Ubuntu? WTF is that? I have no
stats at all but I bet the "Name" influences a lot of people. I mean you
say "Windows" and unless you are selling double glazing you are
describing a function.
Rationally I think as OS go something like Debian is a good base,
Ubuntu, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS have more by default but that can mean more
to break. This is kinda like the problem Vista has. It is trying to
follow a system that evolved over decades but do it all at once, so
there is no stable "Base" to work with as such, IE and WMP and DRM and
all the rest have been "Integrated" to the extent that there is no way
to debug the core and move forward, you have to try and debug the core +
1001 dependencies all at once, that seems to me to be why
vulnerabilities crawl in everywhere.
As I have said before on the subject I have no problem at all with MS
protecting their rights, or those of their "Big" industry customers,
provided that this does not crap all over their smaller but equally
honest customers. Ignoring the little guy is bad business practice, seen
it happen several times in my career and guess what, when the little guy
gets big he tends to remember who looked after him and who just used
him, and when the sales team from the "Users" call him he doesn't want
to buy anything because he already got it from his smaller contacts who
helped him more in the past.
MS made some good moves in the past and cornered the market, which is
good for them, however abusing that position can rapidly result in the
discovery that the "Cornered" customers are less "Cornered" than you
thought
I would have thought the "One" Linux to do the job would be Solaris, but
despite several attempts I have failed miserably to get it to install
and run worth a crap on anything. By contrast I have not yet found a
machine that XP will not run on. Sure, memory is an issue but that aside
architecture has been well covered. I agree though that Linux suffers
from unclear functionality and confusion over naming conventions.
I also note that there is a very strong mythology in action. Dennis for
example commented that the Compiz Beryl wobbly windows were crappy
looking or whatever. In the video alias referred to they are, but that's
the video, and why on earth people choose to publish crappy videos I
don't know. In reality the effect is smooth and flowing, I'd say better
than anything in Vista because it's done with far less load on the
machine. The "Cube" presentation is actually useful, although again I've
become used to it and it suits my taste, probably would not suit others.
I have dual monitors and so get 2 cubes and can have one app on each
face easily without any overlaid windows, I find that very handy but
that's just my opinion. If this kind of competition to REAL productivity
is ignored Microsoft, as big as it is, could find some serious holes in
the boat a lot sooner than they think. They need to quit pissing people
off
Looking for something else I found this, amusing if nothing else... (A
little Whine)
http://books.google.com/books?id=6x...ts=CJYAqHx2F4&sig=jaKWPn1R2fRlU6WYWg2J3T9do8Y
Did you notice by the way that there was almost no (Zero) actual Vista
content in Microsoft's ads? Is it not a little odd that the world's best
known software house actually used no software to explain the virtues of
their latest product. Hmm.
Twisted Vista wrote:
> Too right Charlie, WPA, WGA, and especially DRM goes beyond the realm of
> protecting intellect property, and is a pain in the butt. My main gripe with Linux
> is it's marketing, MS is successful, too successful to the point where it's own
> products are it's competition. I am not too sore about that, they took advantage
> of the vacuum in the market. I have SuSE Linux, though I don't use it anymore,
> then again I have Vista Ultimate, and I don't use it anymore, I do not know how
> easily adaptable Ubuntu is, so as a consumer I will stick with familiarity,
> Windows XP. Ubuntu Linux is not popular, there are far too many distro's which was
> a point of pride for Linux but in my opinion it back fired. At one stage Linux was
> spoken about and maybe used more that MacOS, but it is too confusing, what's a
> distro? Which one should I have? There should only be one Linux, that has three
> flavours to it, home, business-office and ultimate. I say that so when someone
> says Linux, the consumer feels they know what is being spoken about, not get
> confused with additional names like Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu, Storm, Debian,
> Mandriva,...
>
> I really like Windows, but as a consumer I would very much like to pay a lot less
> for it, and there is only one way that can happen. That is MS has to be taken on
> by an aggressive competitor in the desktop OS market, I think (as in my opinion)
> ONE Linux would have much better hope at that. Linux needs to familiarise itself
> to the consumer, not as an alternative, not as something better than Windows, but
> as a Desktop Home-Entertainment Operating System I would **buy**, or get with my
> next PC purchase. (Or office system for that matter).
>
> - Twisted Vista
>
>
> "Charlie Tame" <charlie@tames.net> wrote in message
> news:eTtWcWuDIHA.3980@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> | Twisted Vista wrote:
> | > "Charlie Tame" <charlie@tames.net> wrote in message
> | > news:eeVxtutDIHA.5208@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> | > | Titus Pullo wrote:
> | > | >
> | > | > "Charlie Tame" <charlie@tames.net> wrote in message
> | > | > news:Ox5knJtDIHA.4584@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> | > | >> Titus Pullo wrote:
> | > | >>>
> | > | >>> "Carey Frisch [MVP]" <cnfrisch@nospamgmail.com> wrote in message
> | > | >>> news:2310431F-C7BB-4E38-B434-0DBDD5D790EB@microsoft.com...
> | > | >>>> People who advocate Open Sores Linux are truly miserable with their
> | > | >>>> choice.
> | > | >>>> It's obvious that they adhere to the old adage that "misery loves
> | > | >>>> company".
> | > | >>>> Every single arguement that offer to Windows users is blantently
> | > | >>>> false and
> | > | >>>> misleading.
> | > | >>>> If you'll notice, there are over five (5) times the number of poor
> | > | >>>> linux
> | > | >>>> users looking for help in the linux newsgroups vs. the relativity
> | > | >>>> low number
> | > | >>>> of Windows users who post to this newsgroup. Linux is for losers!
> | > | >>>>
> | > | >>>
> | > | >>> I wouldn't go so far as to say Linux is for losers, but it isn't for
> | > | >>> someone who isn't very technically savvy. Easy tasks like installing
> | > | >>> an application on Vista are much harder on any Linux distro. You have
> | > | >>> to worry about dependencies, libraries, etc... Plus hardware support
> | > | >>> with Linux is hit and miss. Maybe your graphics/sound/network card is
> | > | >>> supported, maybe not. If not, you have to try and track it down on
> | > | >>> the Internet, if it exists.
> | > | >>>
> | > | >>> I've tried a couple of Linux distros over the years and each time
> | > | >>> concluded that Linux isn't worth bashing my head against a brick
> | > | >>> wall. I'll stick with Vista.
> | > | >>
> | > | >>
> | > | >> How many years ago was that exactly?
> | > | >
> | > | > Since about 2004. I've tried a couple of times. Fedora Core, SuSE. I
> | > | > last tried SLED 10 about 2 months ago. No, it wasn't a shot at Linux in
> | > | > 1998 and nothing since.
> | > |
> | > |
> | > | I was genuinely curious because I've found in the last couple of years
> | > | the leaps forward in "Friendly" have been quite surprising, whilst at
> | > | Redmond we seem to have gone for the hostility factor
> | > |
> | > | Most of the live CD versions, although they take a while to load being
> | > | CD based, work remarkably well on a lot of hardware, including going
> | > | online. I actually like Vista although the "Novelty" color scheme gets
> | > | very tiring for work, but it does have some real competition coming
> | > | round the corner.
> | >
> | > Correct, in one corner there is Windows XP, in the other corner is the coming
> of
> | > Windows 7. Linux will need light year leaps and bounds to be considered a
> | > competitor to Windows, it is still not even an alternative to Windows in the
> | > market place. Linux does not seem to have the presence Windows has. You can
> even
> | > go to a local department store and buy a Windows CD, there are billboards, TV
> | > adds, radio commercials,... Say Ubuntu somewhere and people will say U Bum Who
> | > Too....?
> | >
> | > - Twista Vista
> |
> | I certainly am not arguing about the lack of publicity, but frankly the
> | experience with Vista and on top of that numerous encounters with
> | WGA/WPA calling you a thief and Microsoft installing back doors to
> | deliver stealth updates is not a good sign for the adoption of Windows
> | 7. Many businesses will not adopt Vista due to it's hardware
> | requirements, my company might only have a few hundred machines but they
> | won't see Vista at all, it is not needed for the work required.
>
> 
