On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 12:57:26PM -0400, Travis Walls wrote:
> Heres how i feel about the whole thing. I grew up on Microsoft. Maybe in
> another life, I'll be fortunate enough to have parents who use UNIX and not
> MS-DOS. So anywho, I feel more _comfortable_ with microsoft software, and it
> makes sense too. 10 years with MS vs. 4 yrs with linux on and off. MS has
> indeed gotten to the point where no one wants to upgrade. either they are
> happy with the current software or they suffered from a previous upgrade and
> never want to do it again. but once one has an os installed its gonna take
> alot for them to throw it all away and start fresh. Linux is nice, but not
> perfect. I can ignore the bugs like broken fonts and occasionally
> disappearing windows. and the fact that you have to use three different
> progs for every task to get all the features you want.... and occasional
> system lockups. I can put up with it, i did for windows. but howsa bout
> hardware. when i buy hardware i dont rant and rave if theres no linux
> support. i just get an os that supports it. now most of my stuff works with
> linux. but it just so happens the really expensive stuff doesnt. which means
> im not throwing away anything. i guess what im trying to say is linux is
> great and getting better, but until the industry openly accepts it aka
> writes drivers for it, and more quality software is made i think i am goin
> to stick with windows on my desktop. of course my server will still be
> powered by redhat and my laptop just might stay with caldera, but i think im
> gonna go back to MS. afterall, an amazing thing has happened. MS is actually
> trying to listen to people, and people are tearing into them. and if youve
> ever beta tested windows you kno what i mean, every dialog ask was this
> dialog necessary why or why not. and there are tons of user surveys being
> conducted who have used XP. so as far as im concerned im a happy MS user
> because finally a balance has been found and its called linux
>
Microsoft's _always_ listened to its customers. This isn't anything
new. They're getting ripped because people are tired of their arrogance.
Some people, like you, Travis, come into Linux and just want things to
work and do what they want. No mucking about, no hacking things. Most
of the people who use Windows are like this, and Microsoft has
rightfully encouraged it. And there isn't particularly anything wrong
with this approach. I don't like working on my car. I just want it to
work, and I pay a mechanic when it doesn't. I don't want to mess with
it.
Fortunately or unfortunately though, most of the people in the Linux
community are interested in mucking and hacking about with it. It's
nice if it works out of the box, but they're more than willing to
fiddle with things until they do work. They're willing to put up with
the lack of bleeding edge hardware support, and they're willing to try
different programs or distros when the original one doesn't act quite
the way they want.
So the Linux community has more than its share of geeks in it. Not a
condemnation of anyone, just a statement of fact. But despite
complaints about Abiword, StarOffice and the like, the geeks are trying
to make things more non-geek friendly. And they're getting a lot of
help from IBM, HP and others. And at some point we'll see this same geek
community, and then a separate group of people who used to use Windows
and have migrated to Linux. And then, instead of bitching at Microsoft,
they'll be bitching at _us_.
Oh wait a minute, it's already happening. Hmm. ;-}
Paul
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