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Ubuntu, Macintosh and Windows XP
LXer has an interesting look at the big three operating systems with some surprising results. From the article: "If you think that a Linux advocate cannot make an objective analysis of desktop operating systems, then you need to read this report. You may find yourself surprised with some brutal honesty that leaves out the free software philosophy."
Have there been any really good studies showing this? I'm aware of a few very small samplnigs that show something like this, but nothing that was statistically significant. I'd be grateful if anyone knows of a good study showing usages. Anecdotally, Red Hat dominates my group of friends -- if we knew about a survey, we'd probably skew it pretty good too.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I wonder if the /. editors are on the take from pharmaceutical companies that sell anti-hypertension drugs?
It seems like once a day there is an article like this that provides no real content, but may inspire limited skirmishes between hotheaded zealots. No doubt some of them are on these medications.
Or maybe the editors just like to see the ants fight after they shake up the bottle.
Franklin Hoenikker, is that you?
It's interesting to be since I have a fairly complicated return (including long and short term gains on taxable stock sales), I live in a sales tax state so I had that, I have accounts with interest income, my income is decent so I run it through the AMT (apparently I don't know what "decent" really is since AMT doesn't apply to me), I have a mortgage and school taxes. I'm reasonably smart but basically a "B" type not some superbrain.
My 2006 taxes took me about 100 minutes to complete from start to finish- by hand- without a program. The only thing I needed a calculator for was the sales tax thing (for the love of god could they have made it more complicated-- multiply the base amount by something like 1.337?).
Besides you only use tax software once a year as it is. Most people who would be interested in free software won't make enough that tax software would matter anyway.
Personally, I think the -government- should be required to produce a generic "C" program or web page that calculates your taxes according to the tax code and if it is wrong, you only pay interest- no penalties. Tax collection is a government function- it's insane that we have these huge industries built around calculating your taxes.
Sure-- 10% of the population would still need accountants and so on but 90% really don't need these things.
I'm moving pretty aggressively towards opensource software and mildly aggressively towards linix. It won't be because of the cost- I can buy a complete windows system at Fry's for $369 - slap in a hot video card and a cool quiet power supply and match 90% of the score of any single card $1800 system on the plant. How they do this when the operating system alone costs me $99 and the bloody hardware in the computer is worth over $369 purchased piecemeal is beyond me. Microsoft must be giving the OEM folks OS's for almost free.
No- the reason I will leave windows (and not go to mac) is because of DRM.
It's MY COMPUTER. Unless they are going to BUY it for me and give it to me free, I'm not going to give them money for a system that is going to snoop and report on what I'm doing, tell me what software I can and can't run, and tell me what content I can and cannot play.
Sure- I may have a $379 special version of whatever windows is out there the rest of my life- I also might have a PS2 or XBOX for the same reason- to play games (Tho there is a ton of MAME content out there these days for linux).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.