Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1695 mails)

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> You can skip this if you don't want to read more. But it gives what I
> think is a good example from PC history about how this has bitten other
> vendors.

I don't accept that this is comparable.  Someone 'joe-six-pack' buying a
PC more than a decade ago to selecting an alternative Operating System. 

We need to be realistic,  *zero* non-technical users wake up in the
morning and think "I'll try an alternative Operating System today".
They do go buy PCs. If you even know what an "Operating System" is you
are in a small minority and at least a PC Jockey.

> And a few years later, they were in deep trouble, primarily because
> former repeat customers became non-customers, and led others away with
> them. Not just because of my experience, but because they began to get a
> reputation as just another vendor, and one who didn't get it, at that.

I do not accept the correlation of your experience to the failure of
Gateway.  Gateway failed for an entire assemblage of reasons, a number
of which were related to corporate governance. For one, they spent an
enormous amount of their capital trying to buy into the enterprise
market [they purchased ALR among other companies] an effort with failed
catastrophically.  Their initial success can also be attributed to [at
the time] minimal competition.

Aside from that this entire argument seems centered around the notion
"[openSUSE] is a step backfrom where it was," which is the part I just
don't see or accept.  I think there is a vocal minority of 'minimalists'
who don't like the direction of the modern desktop, but they'd dislike
other current distributions for the exact same reasons.  They wouldn't
like OS/X or Windows Vista/7.  Some of them see adding modern features
as "emulating" those [despised] platforms [which it isn't].  I have no
issues with their choices I just disagree that their wishes should
hobble the experience and usability for everyone else.

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