Silly and Unnecessary ?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Mar 12, 2014 6:55 PM EDT |
That subject line is a statement from Jim's article, but to me it's a curly problem. There are plenty of business and government people whose networks are still running Windows and right now are upgrading to Win7 - not Win8 for some reason. If they use Android phones, then they certainly may have a very good use for a Win application and Wine running on Android. Another problem is legacy software that only runs on Windows. I have a crucial item like that.....I just looked at it and it's Quicken8 designed for Win95 and released in 2000 when I was still using WinforLin and Win98SE.......Oh horror !! BUT....it does everything I want in Crossover Office, it's brilliant. Why pay big bucks for a swingin' and dancin' upgrade that won't do anything I need any better ? Windows is probably past its best years (and I am the first to hope that is so), but for the moment it is still a big player and I think the pragmatic approach of "use what you need and try to get the packages to cooperate" is still the best approach. Jim's statement that " Windows has had its day in the sun as a dominant computer operating system, but many of us have moved on and no longer want to bother with it." may be totally correct for him, but it is simply not the case, as far as I can see, in the real worlds of commerce and government. PS..WinforLIn......memories.....It could be a pain to get going, but once set up and running properly, it was nothing short of brilliant. You couldn't fault it. It just ran as one of the first examples of a superb virtual machine on Linux. PPS......Of course, you COULD say that Jim's article is a "troll" for just the sort of response I have given above. In this case, I don't care.....it should be said anyhow. PPPS.....some hours later........Ooooops.......the software was ALWAYS written: Win4Lin.......slaps wrist, :-) |
| the_doctor Mar 12, 2014 10:16 PM EDT |
Ridcully is quite correct. No matter who's stats you look at, Windows is still the dominant OS. Mac can't break the 10% barrier and Linux has stagnated around 5% for the past three years. The idea that Linux will somehow single-handedly topple the evil Microsoft Empire is completely delusional. The empirical data does not support such a hypothesis. This myth is fueled more by hatred than facts. But then again, Linux is not in a popularity contest. Linux is like the Honey Badger. Linux doesn't care. Microsoft and Apple are driven by sales quantity. Linux is community driven by quality. Who is number one in popularity is unimportant. Who is number one in quality is what matters most. And that's what the debate should be about. |
| herzeleid Mar 13, 2014 12:32 AM EDT |
Are we on the same planet, the_doctor? Linux, thanks to android, is now the dominant platform on the internet in terms of sheer numbers. 1997 was a long time ago! |
| Ridcully Mar 13, 2014 12:59 AM EDT |
I think both of you are right. But it depends on the perspective. With respect to smartphones and tablets, I think herzeleid is spot on and Android/Linux is dominant....That's also why Redmond is so desperate to break into that market in any way it can, but so far is out of the running in my view. Business desktops and laptops, and probably the mass consumer of those two devices as well, are a different kettle of fish and that's where I think the_doctor is correct - at the moment. The laptop area is now under very serious challenge with Chromebooks and even pure Linux loaded notebooks and I would not be at all surprised to see slow but steady attrition of the Microsoft dominance of those devices, especially in business and government education circles. Give it another 5-8 years and I suspect Microsoft will be whittled down to the desktop as its dominant area.......and it will fight tooth and claw and use any method available to protect its cash cow of Office......OOXML is a classic case in point and a repulsive move by the Redmond giant in my opinion, but what else would you expect ? Microsoft dominance now has only three major advantages: vendor lock-in, user familiarity, and last but not least, widespread use so that data is easily exchanged - usually; what Office does on Tuesday is not necessarily what it will do on Wednesday. Against that are costs, security, lost documents due to Microsoft format changes and all the worries of an OS whose stability is unpredictable. |
| CFWhitman Mar 13, 2014 9:42 AM EDT |
It's certainly true that Linux users don't have to care about popularity. There are enough desktop Linux users right now to keep development and interest in the Linux desktop going indefinitely. However, according to statistics that I have seen, the percentage of desktop machines using Linux has climbed slowly but steadily for several years. Of course this can easily get lost in the rise of mobile platforms when looking at total percentages. |
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