I was wondering what you guys think on this: Why should I a Linux fan care if someone else is using Windows or Mac OS X etc??? The only reason for me personally, for larger Linux adoption, would be so that all those oss developers can get money for their excellent work and recognition etc.. but after trying to convert people myself and actually saving their data from dead pcs they still go back to windows ... and I should care because??? I cannot force people to make a choice, and yes if I was a Novell exec I would know that I have to provide something for a customer that looks and works almost the same and better than what they have at a substantially lower price. This would reduce the training and other expenses the company would incur in a possible move to Linux. As a Linux fan I don't really care what the interface is that works for everybody and that it made 85.657% of the people happy and they were all smiles and productive even I am the 0.0001% on the chart I still like my FVWM or whatever window manager because that is what I want period. For me Linux is about choice and choice is always better then no choice and it is what will prevail on the long term. If you had 5 browsers you have a better chance of finding one that works than just 1. Someone posted here how MS had ignored good advice and they would not admit their errors/problems etc. this is exactly what kills a company and if that company has a monopolistic hold on a market this is the only killer. We are talking about software here where the step from idea to innovation is not that far or expensive i.e. it is not build a ship for billions test it etc. and send it to Mars. It is more: I have an idea, I have tools, lets make it happen. Turn around is quick, change is the nature of things and innovation happens quickly and is driven by collaboration and exchange. I watched a movie about MS and Bill and it specifically stated that the first GUI interface with email and a netwrok was created by XEROX, but their management did not think this was in any way important. Steve Jobs and Bill did though so they made some money of that idea. I think that is exactly what is going to happen to MS at one point they will loose site of the importance of things. Read the release decision for Vista you will see that they canned a lot of excellent ideas just to get it out ... this is not a life saving product we are talking here ... you could take time and make it better because if you just add a new background I would not want to pay more for it. Would you buy juice because the box changed and you can drink from two ends and pay more for it just because. You wouldn't right... so what do you do if you are MS well if you cannot provide features and you don't need to then you add hooks and punishments. You cannot see the lates 3-d effects for your movies on the old version, your new card performs worse etc. etc. Big companies are ruled by politics and internal career moves are not always benefitial to the product and when you have low competition those tendencies are increased. i.e. you think less and less of your customers cause they will by anything you have to sell, because everyone is doing it. Until one day they pissed them off ;) and they try linux and start advocating for an operating system :) My 0.001 % cent. george -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com