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Onideus Mad Hatter

That's true, Microsoft has already proved that they are the best at creating a rip-off of Apple's--formerly Xerox's--GUI. That's what technology is about; standing on the heads of giants. Everyone does it. Where do you think KDE came from? The thing looks almost exactly like Windows. Only Bill Gates can take credit for that (or at least the Windows team that he led for so many years).

I'm not trying to "fight the good fight" here. I'm writing this post in Windows. Windows is the most popular desktop OS and despite its problems, it does its job well. Hopefully, with Vista, even better than before.

Despite all of this, it's people like the fellow who wrote the OpenGL GUI for Linux that end up being courted by companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sun, and IBM. Some go on to create the components that go into great commercial software like Windows. A hacked-together OpenGL GUI for Linux is, by and large, worthless, but it's this type of personal project that spawned 80% of Google's new technology (thanks to their 20% personal project time rule).

As for what you said about Beta and VHS, absolutely. The free market will determine which format suits the people better because more people will buy it. Right now the same thing is going on between the two competing high-density DVD formats, Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Inevitably, the right combination of marketing, features, and the attention of videophiles will allow one of these two formats to win out over the other. But compebreastion is GOOD for business, and it's GOOD for consumers. The more choices we have, the more good ideas that get out there into the world, the better off we all are.

All I'm saying is that even if Linux NEVER makes it to the mainstream (and they are decades off, if it even seems possible), a lot of the great ideas they have are integrated by the major players into their systems, which benefits us, the users of those systems. It was a big step for Apple to decide to build their next-generation OS on top of a FreeBSD system. That's only one example of the work of the minority benefitting the majority. So, thanks to the work of the open source developers who originally wrote OpenGL, we can all play Counter-Strike at high framerates and play with Maya (and 3DSMax) on our desktops.

-- Aaron

"Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest." -- John Stuart Mill