Methinks not. Read the article. There's a brief mention of the Linux market share at the end. It turns out the Linux market share was actually higher in September (.9%) than it is now (.83%). How does anyone except a diehard Linux user equate that with gaining on the Windows market? Coverage of tech events seems to be a lot like coverage of political events in that lies and filtering are used to produce desirable outcomes rather than report the truth. Will 2009 be the year of the Linux desktop? At this pathetic and uncertain rate of progress, you guys probably will never see that day. Unless Linux becomes incredibly better in the near future, it will always be The-OS-That-Never-Was-The-Successor-To-Windows-And-Had-No-Hope-Of-Beating-Microsoft-Either. The Mac Heads are in a little better shape. At least they made gains rather than lost ground since September. And they've earned it. When you make serious investments in your products and market them well, you should expect good results. The fact that the two best desktop operating systems in the world are eating away at one another is a good thing for competition and innovation. As usual, whatever goes on in the Linux world doesn't matter a peep to a vast majority of desktop users. Linux users aren't about to topple capitalism soon, and open source developers just aren't good enough or dedicated enough to rise to the level of excellence of their Microsoft and Apple peers. From a functional, ease of use, and performance point of view, Linux has a LOT of ground to make up.
I was beginning to think that no one in the geek community had anything bad to say about this horrible operating system. After the innards are reworked, how about subjecting it to some real usability trials involving actual users rather than having a bunch of developers incorporate only what they like best? Linux could use a lot of work in the documentation department, too. Get some competent tech writers to go over not just the help files but the entire visual design of the operating system itself. I'm sure Jakob Neilsen would have volumes to write about how to turn Linux into a product comparable to its better known and more widely used competitors. Good technology is technology that people can use and enjoy, and that involves more than purely unseen code improvements. If you guys want it to dominate the desktop, get the public involved and fix the things that are wrong with it from the standpoint of usability. If you can't find anything wrong with Linux then you are just a blind, preaching tech evangelist who can never be part of any serious solution. I'm pretty convinced that it is the Linux evangelists who are partly to blame for Linux's shortcomings. The last thing some programmers want to be told is that they are doing something wrong, and an evangelist merely reinforces an open source developer's sense of invincibility and his or her disdain for actually seeing whether or not the right decisions were made based on a user's reaction.
Whether it's Slashdot or Arstechnica, selective outrage from online geeks concerning subjects like this is a given. When companies or trade organizations slip up, the online community is convinced there's hell to pay. But when pirates continually steal products and rob content producers of their hard-earned revenue, there's barely a peep from you guys. If anything, there's outrage that developers, artists, and studios should expect be compensated at all. And to top it all off, some ISPs have the audacity to insist that the access it provides not be used to deliver stolen content. It's no wonder to me that PC gaming is in decline. If I wrote games for a living, the last thing I'd do is provide a product with a low level of return. So, guys, quit your griping. If you steal PC games, this is what you should expect. Long waits for tech support? Blame the pirates. Broadband caps? Pirates. Higher product prices? Pirates, again. DRM? Take a wild guess.
Other than pure greed and selfishness, it appears the reasons you guys applaud such behavior is that somehow it's equivalent to taking to The Man. The evils of capitalism with its faceless corporations and well-paid legal teams can't be trusted to do things in the consumer's best interest. I, on the other hand, would argue that it is a significant number of consumers who can't be trusted to respect the rules of the game regarding the consumption of goods and services. Yes, there are companies that break the law, but it's overshadowed by the enormous number of Joe Six-Packs who perceive it as their god-given right to committ theft via Lime Wire. If you think your side occupies the high moral ground, think again.
Who is The Man? Are they the companies that voluntarily provide products and services that you can choose to purchase or not? The same companies that provide jobs and attempt to deliver shareholder value over the long term? There's freedom to choose inside this context. There's mutually beneficially outcomes when the rules of the game are observed. That's not The Man. You know who The Man is. He's the one that reads your e-mail and monitors your communications. He's the one robbing you and others blind of your privacy and civil liberties. He tells you what you can and can't do and always manages to extract payment, regardless of the consequences. He started the Iraq War and conjured up a bailout package close to one trillion dollars. No freedom here, folks. No mutually beneficial outcomes that I can see. It takes guts to truly stick it to The Man, but it doesn't take any at all to be a simple, petty thief whining and complaining that his ability to rob and steal is somehow unjustly being intruded upon. Who is worse, after all? A drug dealer, the owner of a brothel, or your typical pirate? In the first two cases, products and services are being provided which should be legal in the first place. The pirate provides nothing in the context of the marketplace.
Slashdot Mirror
Methinks not. Read the article. There's a brief mention of the Linux market share at the end. It turns out the Linux market share was actually higher in September (.9%) than it is now (.83%). How does anyone except a diehard Linux user equate that with gaining on the Windows market? Coverage of tech events seems to be a lot like coverage of political events in that lies and filtering are used to produce desirable outcomes rather than report the truth.
Will 2009 be the year of the Linux desktop? At this pathetic and uncertain rate of progress, you guys probably will never see that day. Unless Linux becomes incredibly better in the near future, it will always be The-OS-That-Never-Was-The-Successor-To-Windows-And-Had-No-Hope-Of-Beating-Microsoft-Either.
The Mac Heads are in a little better shape. At least they made gains rather than lost ground since September. And they've earned it. When you make serious investments in your products and market them well, you should expect good results. The fact that the two best desktop operating systems in the world are eating away at one another is a good thing for competition and innovation.
As usual, whatever goes on in the Linux world doesn't matter a peep to a vast majority of desktop users. Linux users aren't about to topple capitalism soon, and open source developers just aren't good enough or dedicated enough to rise to the level of excellence of their Microsoft and Apple peers. From a functional, ease of use, and performance point of view, Linux has a LOT of ground to make up.
I was beginning to think that no one in the geek community had anything bad to say about this horrible operating system. After the innards are reworked, how about subjecting it to some real usability trials involving actual users rather than having a bunch of developers incorporate only what they like best? Linux could use a lot of work in the documentation department, too. Get some competent tech writers to go over not just the help files but the entire visual design of the operating system itself. I'm sure Jakob Neilsen would have volumes to write about how to turn Linux into a product comparable to its better known and more widely used competitors. Good technology is technology that people can use and enjoy, and that involves more than purely unseen code improvements. If you guys want it to dominate the desktop, get the public involved and fix the things that are wrong with it from the standpoint of usability. If you can't find anything wrong with Linux then you are just a blind, preaching tech evangelist who can never be part of any serious solution. I'm pretty convinced that it is the Linux evangelists who are partly to blame for Linux's shortcomings. The last thing some programmers want to be told is that they are doing something wrong, and an evangelist merely reinforces an open source developer's sense of invincibility and his or her disdain for actually seeing whether or not the right decisions were made based on a user's reaction.
Whether it's Slashdot or Arstechnica, selective outrage from online geeks concerning subjects like this is a given. When companies or trade organizations slip up, the online community is convinced there's hell to pay. But when pirates continually steal products and rob content producers of their hard-earned revenue, there's barely a peep from you guys. If anything, there's outrage that developers, artists, and studios should expect be compensated at all. And to top it all off, some ISPs have the audacity to insist that the access it provides not be used to deliver stolen content. It's no wonder to me that PC gaming is in decline. If I wrote games for a living, the last thing I'd do is provide a product with a low level of return. So, guys, quit your griping. If you steal PC games, this is what you should expect. Long waits for tech support? Blame the pirates. Broadband caps? Pirates. Higher product prices? Pirates, again. DRM? Take a wild guess. Other than pure greed and selfishness, it appears the reasons you guys applaud such behavior is that somehow it's equivalent to taking to The Man. The evils of capitalism with its faceless corporations and well-paid legal teams can't be trusted to do things in the consumer's best interest. I, on the other hand, would argue that it is a significant number of consumers who can't be trusted to respect the rules of the game regarding the consumption of goods and services. Yes, there are companies that break the law, but it's overshadowed by the enormous number of Joe Six-Packs who perceive it as their god-given right to committ theft via Lime Wire. If you think your side occupies the high moral ground, think again. Who is The Man? Are they the companies that voluntarily provide products and services that you can choose to purchase or not? The same companies that provide jobs and attempt to deliver shareholder value over the long term? There's freedom to choose inside this context. There's mutually beneficially outcomes when the rules of the game are observed. That's not The Man. You know who The Man is. He's the one that reads your e-mail and monitors your communications. He's the one robbing you and others blind of your privacy and civil liberties. He tells you what you can and can't do and always manages to extract payment, regardless of the consequences. He started the Iraq War and conjured up a bailout package close to one trillion dollars. No freedom here, folks. No mutually beneficial outcomes that I can see. It takes guts to truly stick it to The Man, but it doesn't take any at all to be a simple, petty thief whining and complaining that his ability to rob and steal is somehow unjustly being intruded upon. Who is worse, after all? A drug dealer, the owner of a brothel, or your typical pirate? In the first two cases, products and services are being provided which should be legal in the first place. The pirate provides nothing in the context of the marketplace.