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Michael Robertson Interview about Lindows
unclegus writes "I ran across this article talking about Michael Roberston and Lindows. Says a "Sneak Preview" will be available in a few weeks. Release 1.0 will be $100 for single user ..." Dan Gillmor, the author of it, has said that it appears to be the real thing - I'll be interested in getting my hands on it.
"More choice is always better than less."
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Home users are unlikely to - most of them stick with the windows that came preinstalled & M$'s oem pricing is sufficiently good that i cant see system manufacturers changing. Not to mention all those clauses that stop them shipping non-ms OS's. After all lindows is unlikely to run games or edutainment software well.
The business community are unlikely to - why would a sysadmin decide to put his neck on the line switching 5000 systems to lindows. When one critical application doesn't work as it's meant to, it all come crashing down around him. Most sysadmins will just stick to windows even if it does cost more.
The geek community are unlikely to. For the past five years i've kept a linux machine and a windows machine and will soon be readding a mac to that collection. Bluntly windows rocks for games and multimedia - whilst i'd love to do these on linux the support just isn't there. I'll keep my linux pure and gpl'd thank you very much.
The education community might. Although schools tend to avoid anything that they dont know since they dont tend to have a dedicated sys admin to set things up (and in the uk most schools pay sooo far over the odds for computers that the price difference wouldn't care).
Universities and Colleges might jump, since art students will be able to stick with word and it of course gives tech students unix as well. However most uni's at least have some linux workstations, or windows machines with exceed and big linux servers.
Quite honestly i dont see the market for it. Although if they go bust i really hope they open their code to wine.
Ultimately microsofts approach to this problem will be obvious:
Windows costs $W
Lindows costs $L
Office costs $O
Simply create a new bundle which includes Windows and Office at a price less than $O+$L.
This OS, despite the near magical quality of Windows and Linux applications on one system, looks to be a nitch OS even if it succeeds. Here's why.
In the article itself, the opinion is voiced that there are about 10 major applications that Windows users use. OK, granted. Unfortunately, what we are discussing here is an OS switch, and it's not that simple.
Linux users are quite accustomed to the notion of things like using 8 different IRC clients as the situation warrants. Windows users, on the other hand, quickly grow accustom to even the tiniest quirk of their default system. AOL can't change anything, even on their website, without causing some of their users to be unhappy about the difference.
The point is, if Lindows runs Office and a few other major apps well, that's enough for some businesses. But for home users, EVERYTHING must work as they expect from previous experience, or they won't even consider switching. If their bizarre little propritary note keeper doesn't work, no dice. They ain't movin.
Linux users, who you might think logically would be more interested, will be put off by the commercial nature of the project and are far more likely to wait for/help the wine project. Also, VMware and WinforLin allow people to run Windows programs. There's already compeition out there.
So the only conceivable mass market for this system is business. Great. Unfortunately, we all know how keen the vast majority of the business world is on switching to something different and untried. Especially if it involves retraining. Linux applications won't intice them much - there are other ways to get those, using cygwin, vnc, remote Xwindows connections, etc. Lindows does most of this, let's say. It does it a little better than the above solutions. But will it do ENOUGH better to justify businesses upgrading? Unlikely.
Don't get me wrong - I hope it succeeds. It's just going to have a heck of a time doing so.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
> a) Windows is unstable. Period.
Which Windows? I know everyone loves to beat up the unreliability of the 16 bit Windows kernel, but with Windows 2000 and Windows XP it's a different story.
In a few years Microsoft won't be selling any of the Win9x series.. then the extra stability of Linux won't be such a novelty to users, and Linux folks will have to come up with a better line than a more stable kernel.
Or to say it differently, when most Windows users don't find Windows to be unstable, telling them that you've got a more stable OS isn't going to convince them.
- Steve
You missed nothing. They intend to throw a bunch of proprietary stuff on top of Linux (namely the Windows compatibility stuff and the installers) to make sure that you end up paying a $100/seat license for this. I don't know whether to cheer or jeer myself.
I guess I'll wait to hear whether they contribute money or code back to all the Free Software and Open Source projects they'll be taking advantage of in the process. I suppose they can't de-GPL anything, so that's a major plus.
The real question is, why for $100 would anyone switch off Windows for less than 100% compatibility with their Windows software? What guarantee will Lindows make that the next upgrade set from MS won't break Lindows, leaving users in the lurch with applications going stale?
I do not have a signature
Well, what it really does it is illustrate the power of open source. There was a recent study done on Debian Potato based on the amount of lines of code in it. It was estimated that commercially developing it all would have cost approximately 1.9 billion. They really aren't developing the OS, they are simply developing the translation layer.