The Linux Revolution: What Happened 4328

Very interesting and intelligent discussion.

That is of course the all important question: what is the point?

Is the point to be "different" or to be "better". Just having a goal of being "different" for the sake of being different makes no sense in my mind. Sadly that is the case with many Linux fanatics.

Being different for the sake of being better is another matter. But that then begs the question of what we mean by better. Better means different things to different people. For some better means more control with less eye-candy. For others it means more control without giving up the candy. For still others - and I suspect these are the majority of today's computer users - it means more control without giving up the eye candy or needing to have a computer degree to use it. And I am sure there are still other definitions of better.

It seems to me that more control, more stability and security are what everyone would consider good things to have. I do not think that they automatically mean no eye candy for those who want it. Making these features accessible to those without a degree in computer science seems to be what today's Linux is trying to achieve.

The interface may seems similar - and that is because it is what most people want - but underneath the engines are different (hopefully). And the text interface is always there for those who feed their egos by their memory of arcane commands - all of which should be able to be just as well accessed with a good graphic interface. After all, even the text command is an interface. "Real men" would use buttembly language to enter their commands!

Just an opinion.