On Wednesday 14 March 2007 18:03, Randall R Schulz wrote:
CPM and DOS were never used to run large e-commerce and other Internet services. There was nothing compelling enough about them to keep them going and they had too many deficits to continue in the face of rapidly advancing technology and requirements. That is not true of Linux and will not be true for the foreseeable future. Well, actually, Windows 3.1 kept DOS very much alive for several years and long enough to be used in plenty of e-commerce applications... (I was there) of course before they were called e-commerce... :-))) In fact, DOS was still very much evident in Windows 95, 98, and even... yes even W2000.
Linux will not die for the simple reason that it is absolutely essential to the likes of Google, Amazon and many, many others. Correct... and because (if you will) the genie (or cat, as you like) is out of the bag for the desk market as well... and growing strong.
We probably should not want any one operating system, be it proprietary, open-source or a hybrid, to displace all others. Monopolies and monocultures have bad consequences by their inherent nature. Also correct. No one really wants Coke or Pepsi to die... what we want is choice, freedom, and honest competition.
You claim that Linux's continued existence is contingent upon it satisfying the needs of non-technical users of computers. That's not true, nor will Windows disappear any time soon, and that's true regardless of how brilliantly Linux advances. Partially true... Windoze will die... and the first real nails in the coffin lid are M$ Fixta... this is definitely one of those times where giving them enough rope will eventually hang them... the competition will be among the unix-like OSs, and M$ will become unix-like or it will die. (My prediction)
Because Windows will continue to be a predominant OS for a very long time, I think computing professionals should pressure Windows to get its technological act together (especially regarding security). And institutional and government users, not to mention law-enforcement agencies, should be pressuring (or litigating) Microsoft to do business in a more honorable fashion. Hog wash... I read every day about one or two more corporations or governments dropping windoze for linux desktop... every day. Folks are just fed up, period. Fixta took five years, millions of people, and billions of dollars--- and its crappy eye candy with all the same old problems that have always plagued it... except that it required MORE memory, MORE CPU, and MORE money... folks are sick and tired of the M$ tax... or should I say FUD money.
-- Kind regards, M Harris <>< -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org