Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on February 19, 2004 04:13 AM
The railroad analogy is interesting. Could you imagine the damage that would be caused to the highway system if the current rail traffic was carried on the roads. It's much cheaper to keep the tonnage on the rails where it belongs.
Hang in there. Microsoft's success has become its own worst enemy. What's the biggest deterrent to Server 2003 upgrades? It's not Linux, but NT 4 Server and 2000 Server. It's the same for Office XP and 2003. Millions of people are happily running Office 97 and 2000.
Unfortunately, Linux is also becoming its own worst enemy in the Windows vs Linux battle. There are dozens of Linux distros out there each specializing in one area or another. Which one do you recommend to a company as a Windows replacement? The answer varies based on the company and the person making the recommendation. This is a big deterrent to commercial Linux application development. Imagine what would happen to Linux if the best of the different distros were pulled into one commercially supported distro. Linux would rapidly outpace Windows in terms of stability, security, and most of all usability.
Apply the same logic to the many office apps being developed and the basic KDE vs Gnome issue. If we could stop the religious wars and concentrate the development efforts on a single desktop and accompanying office applications you could also say goodbye to MS Office.
Unfortunately this approach is inconsistent with history of Linux and is offensive to a large part of the original Linux hacker community. If we Linux developers ever consolidate our efforts we will destroy Microsoft. Until then we can continue to complain about MS and its products while we argue over whose distribution is better, whose GUI is better, whose office package is better, etc.
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Re:Supply and demand
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 19, 2004 04:13 AMHang in there. Microsoft's success has become its own worst enemy. What's the biggest deterrent to Server 2003 upgrades? It's not Linux, but NT 4 Server and 2000 Server. It's the same for Office XP and 2003. Millions of people are happily running Office 97 and 2000.
Unfortunately, Linux is also becoming its own worst enemy in the Windows vs Linux battle. There are dozens of Linux distros out there each specializing in one area or another. Which one do you recommend to a company as a Windows replacement? The answer varies based on the company and the person making the recommendation. This is a big deterrent to commercial Linux application development. Imagine what would happen to Linux if the best of the different distros were pulled into one commercially supported distro. Linux would rapidly outpace Windows in terms of stability, security, and most of all usability.
Apply the same logic to the many office apps being developed and the basic KDE vs Gnome issue. If we could stop the religious wars and concentrate the development efforts on a single desktop and accompanying office applications you could also say goodbye to MS Office.
Unfortunately this approach is inconsistent with history of Linux and is offensive to a large part of the original Linux hacker community. If we Linux developers ever consolidate our efforts we will destroy Microsoft. Until then we can continue to complain about MS and its products while we argue over whose distribution is better, whose GUI is better, whose office package is better, etc.
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