Time for everyone to leave now..... 3280

Erik Funkenbusch

I'm sure the claim will be that they are not scared of Vista. At the conscious level I don't think any of them are up at night worried about Vista but to some degree I can understand their frustration. Linux *IS*

Am I some Linux power user or anything like that? Not even close. But on nights and weekends 95% of my time and posts have been made from Linux machines. It's a very usable OS and I'm not going to make some ridiculous claim how it burned down my house. (Referencing the "Linux burned down my house" thread.)

So back to the frustration part.... So here you have a solid OS and tons of free software for it that's more than adequate for most users. But outside of the datacenter and server room you're basically Rodney Dangerfield... No respect. Who wouldn't be frustrated?

Think what the computing landscape were like if everything were reversed. Imagine for a moment that Microsoft "owned" Linux and was selling a scalable, secure OS that can basically run on anything from a remote control to a cluster of super-computers. You think that Microsoft dominates the software industry now!!! Just imagine how they would pulverize their compebreastion if they owned something like Linux.

But things aren't reversed and outside of the data center Linux is basically idle. Hey, some people will hate me for saying that but at this point in time it happens to be the truth. The problem IMO is that "advocates" and the Linux community at large basically care about the technical issues. Solid modular kernel, client-server display model, layered driver architecture and stuff like that.

That's nice for the server-room but you need marketing, co-branding, relations with hardware makers, partner programs, etc, etc. to succeed. Technical excellence is nice but it is only one piece of the puzzle. Somehow all the other stuff gets discounted as "fluff" or that it's somehow unimportant. Microsoft isn't beating Linux with technical excellence, it's beating Linux on all the other issues.

Side note - Technically Windows isn't half as bad as many of the posts here would have you believe. I've said this at least a dozen times so why not repeat myself again. Windows has a problem with security and viruses. But a clean virus-free Windows machine is extremely stable and reliable. I saw a post a few minutes ago about "turn off your monitor and XP will BSOD or crash overnight." Complete BS. At work I've been leaving my Win2k-XP machines up and running for the past 5 years. So do the 100+ people I work with and nobody has this problem.