Microsoft vs. Ximian

Kappelmeister writes "The open source movement gets some great mainstream press today as the Washington Post reports tht Ximian's Volunteer 'Army' Fights Microsoft on Open-Source Code. It mentions Linux progress in the server market, Shared Source, and how both sides are courting Mexican President Vincente Fox for use in his 'eMexico' initiative to get 98 percent of the population online. Best of all, though, it tells a lot of people that there is a decent alternative to Microsoft software."

Comments

Re:decent alternative

[Ami Ganguli]

Actually it is a decent alternative to M$ on the desktop. I've been using it for years to do my day-to-day work. Really it depends on what you're trying to do.

The only things that Linux is missing today are: 1/high-quality games, 2/quality educational software, 3/a good selection of "niche" productivity applications like tax software. For mainstream everyday use (surfing, word-processing, fiddling with a spreadsheet) Linux is fine.

Also, the productivity packages don't have the maturity of the MS or Corel offerings, but for most people that doesn't matter. The kind of people who would buy and be happy with Microsoft Works should find that OpenOffice meets their needs quite nicely.

If the Mexican government encouraged Linux for home use then they'd find that a lot of the shortcomings solved themselves. A hundred million Mexican Linux users would lead to a lot of specialized software in Spanish: Mexican tax software, educational software, games, etc.