These things are no harder under Linux than they are under Windows.
I agree. However, this is where Windows' and OSX's interface standards help. There is an easy, consistent way to find one's way about, even on an alien system.
On Linux, the only way I do *any* administrative work is via the command-line. The GUI admin tools are just too inconsistent between distros, or between two releases of the same distro.
HAL is just another API... Hey, can you explain the difference between the "HAL" (wow, that sounds so cool) and just an ordinary API?
HAL's an API?? Well, if you wish to put it that way, it's an API for NT's kernel-writers. The kernel is mostly abstracted away from the hardware by the hardware abstraction layer.
The kernel itself (called "Executive" in NT -- now that doesn't sound so cool now, does it?), which is actually a hybrid (or bastard, depending on whether you took an advanced OS class:)) microkernel, implements its own API, this is actually reasonably documented for those without an NDA. These calls are NT's exact equivalent to system calls.
The Win32 API is an abstraction# that sits on top NT's `kernel API'. Most programmers never touch the kernel API (unless they're writing device drivers) and interact with NT solely through Win32.
The neatest thing is that Win32 is *not* soldered on to NT's kernel. It can just as easily support others: Win64 a case in point, but also POSIX (crippled for obvious reasons), OS/2 (support removed from WinXP afaik) and Win16.
WinNT4 was several years late and Win2K was several years late. Maybe - just maybe - Win64 will be late, too
NT 3.1 was late -- yes. Win2K was about 2 years late. NT4 was late? not the 32-bit one at least. My bet is, since Win64/IA64 is already here, Win64/Opteron isn't far behind. What will be late now is Longhorn, primarily because what little I've heard about their WinFS strategy sounds like yet-another-active-directory (i.e., ambitious) to me.
#And yes, this also means Win32 can be ported to Linux or BSD without too much trouble, provided the kernel underneath provides a reasonable set of services (of which a framebuffer is one).
Windows/Alpha couldn't adress the full adress space
I cannot verify if you are right or wrong on that, but I'll point this out -- 64-bit was never a goal in the NT 3.x development line (nothing that MS-leaning ISVs knew about, certainly). In fact, NT/Alpha and the short-lived NT/MIPS was more of a demo of NT's cross-platform readiness than anything else. NT/Alpha did actually see some sales, but I haven't used one so I can't comment.
The whole 64-bit shebang started with NT4 IIRC, when they started cleaning up Win32 to make it ready for 64-bit (from what I hear, that was the real challenge, cleaning up NT's "Executive" was comparitively tame).
> and a new Windows operating system at Version1.0 quality
Actually, if you look at the Windows source (from Windows 2000 on), you'll see that most of it is #ifdefs, not a lot of new code. There was a 64-bit transition guide available before Windows 2000 launched. In fact, according to this presentation, they did 56 IA-64 builds a week during the Win2000 development cycle alone. MS has had 3+ years since then to prepare for 64-bit, including Opteron. So most of your points sound a bit silly to me -- if this is v1.0 quality, then so is Linux for the Opteron. The only thing with NT/64bit is that it's been available mostly through special-order and not at dell.com.
And a small point -- there's no *technical* reason NT can't be ported to all sorts of architectures. In fact, given that you basically have to port the HAL (and recompile the rest), new architectures can be added pretty easily.
Windows will never be suitable for the average desktop user, because to install it they have to know about things like partitioning hard disks, and formatting and stuff. It's too hard for the average non-geek to understand how to install Windows. Guess what though? It doesn't matter. Non-geeks *don't* install Windows, just as non-geeks don't install Linux.
Ever tried installing Windows lately? It's actually quite easy, and getting easier with each release (of course, Microsoft's installers encourage you to create one large "C:" partition, but hey, with NTFS that's not a big deal). And yes, non-geeks *do* install Windows, before Windows 2000 and XP it was as necessary a skill as changing a flat tyre -- reinstalls seemed to be necessary often enough:-p
Btw, a dentist I know (about as far away from being labeled a 'geek' as possible) does all the things you mentioned (installing, formatting etc) just fine. So does a high school math teacher (who is savvy enough to install Ad-Aware on her friend's PCs). I'm sure there are quite a lot of others like them. The oft-repeated `users can't install Windows' smacks of faint elitism to me.
> I haven't had any problems at all with windowmaker
I like WindowMaker too, it is possibly the best (light + stable + aesthetics) window manager I've used on any Unix.
Problem is, again, where are the apps? Mozilla and Evolution are probably the best desktop apps (from a usability perspective) on Linux right now-- the others are in varying stages of alpha- and beta-ness.
Also, every app on Linux looks and feels like a different beast (different toolkit, different keyboard shortcuts, etc). This is great for feeding the app-developers' ego (gee, we wrote our own toolkit for our bitmap editor!) but it is *hell* for usability. Why was OO.o not written with Gnome? That way, with Gnome2, it too could have taken advantage of the accessibility + display features of Gnome2. Ditto Mozilla. (Yes, I know I can hack OO and Moz to use anti-aliased fonts now. Won't do it, no time.)Most OSS projects seem to thrive on re-inventing the wheel.
9 years after Win95, and and *19* years after the Mac, the most *usable* software on Unix (and Linux) are still the ones that use the command line and the console -- at least they present a consistent interface and are easy to learn.
> Actually, the Linux desktop has gained a lot of ground, as have the distro installers.
Actually, yes, 8 years after Windows 95, Linux now has desktops that resemble Windows 98 in stability. Try Windows 2000 and XP (minus the day-glo colors) sometime and then tell me Linux has come a long way. (Note: I have a Psyche system beside me, and Gnome2 is actually half-decent, imho (as soon as they put Cancel/Revert buttons onto their dialog boxes) but crap hits you in the face the moment you open a non Gnome2 app -- or god forbid an X app)
> If anything, public perception lags far behind the reality.
Actually, in most cases, the perception of fanboys who loudly proclaim "Linux is ready for the desktop" and "80% of people use 20% of features" lead reality by several years.
Linux is great as a cheap-ass desktop for extremely low-end tasks, like call centers, where no one gives a flying fuck about usability for the serfs, and for extremely high-end tasks, like academic workstations and film authoring, where users are so 733T that again no one gives a flying fuck about usability. Meanwhile, the great unwashed middle will continue using Windows, and if they have any money to burn, Macs.
> then all of a sudden a big hunk of SHIT BROWN right > in the middle of a window
It's only a beta. It's probably a placeholder for more work.
OTOH, what's the deal with blue and new MS products? The Office 11 screenshots seemed to be swathed in blue. Now, I like blue, but sometimes it feels like too much of a good thing.
> On a side note, are explorer, progman, litestep, etc., > really shells?
explorer is a shell. Post Win95, progman and litestep are very limited shells.
The last version of Windows to have a shell in the classic sense of the word was Win3.1: progman (default), winfile, norton desktop, etc.
But explorer.exe is a very *deep* shell, in the sense it provides a (rather rich) set of services (not in the NT services sense) to Win32 apps as well. For example, the FileOpen/FileSaveAs common controls use Explorer to enumerate the system namespace. IIRC, it manages the desktop as well, and show MRU history in dialog boxes.
There's no good way to *really* replace it short of re-implementing each of the shell interfaces, which no one will likely do because (a) it's too much work, (b) too little documentation unless you have access to MS' shell team (c) it probably won't sell very well because most people are so overwhelmingly familiar with explorer now (which is why you'll never see a Norton shell for XP).
Which is why running litestep doesn't take you away from explorer: it runs every time you hit File|Open in notepad.
Bottom line: post-Win95, Windows' shell was just not *designed* to be snap-in replacable (although it is very modular indeed) the way the Win3.1 shell was (or X is).
I think IBM's power4/5 chips are as well "unsuitable for real world"
Is it true that Apple plans to use the Power5 of these for their future line of Macs? I asked because quite a few Mac sites have been talking about Power for some time as the messiah that'll finally ensure that they have not just the best, but also the fastest platform on Earth.
But if the chips are as humongous, hot (and undoubtedly expensive) as they seem to be, then how will Apple get them into their machines? Is there a low-power version of Power5 in the works?
> What most people use Word for is basic text edition.
This is a pretty misleading, though oft-repeated argument. What happens when these users need extra functionality? Forget their investment in learning Word and move to Latex? Realistically, ain't gonna happen.
Most people probably use 20% of word's featureset regularly -- but
(a) the 20% is all different (e.g. a business user may often use WordArt, whereas a chem prof may often use equation editor)
(b) once in a while do go beyond their 'usual' featureset. (e.g. the guy using Word at home rarely uses revision tracking, except on the rare day he brings work home)
Another reason why the 80-20 rule ('80% of users use 20% of the features') doesn't work well for software: say I have a small car that's suitable for intra-city travel. If I want to do something unusual, like go driving through Death Valley, I'd rent another car, maybe an SUV. We can't do that with software yet for two reasons: software-on-demand, JWS notwithstanding, isn't there yet, and because interfaces for software vary so wildly that it's not practical for most users to learn.
For me it's background color ( who at MS thought that "teal vomit" was an attractive color?)
Yes! That shade of teal was horrible:-( I believe the reason that shade was chosen was that it was the best they could come up with from Windows' 20 reserved colors -- teal ("#008080") is one of them (although I wish they had chosen chosen navy ("#000080") or maroon, or even black).
At least Windows 2000 had a better shade of blue as the default ("#3a6ea5"), and Windows XP was the first version of Windows with a wallpaper on by default (it was also the first version of Windows to require at least 16bit-color in its default configuration).
> Can anybody explain to me why credit cards don't have PIN numbers like my ATM card does?
Most credit cards *do* come with a PIN (at least the ones here in India do) -- but you need it only if you're withdrawing cash at an ATM, not at shops.
Too bad our credit-card-readers aren't geared up to use the PIN as well. It would be interesting to design a card+reader combo that could be easy to use and yet be 2/3-secure using the (has, knows, is) metric.
The WebMatrix IDE (for ASP.NET) which the grandparent post mentioned was developed by Microsoft employees. I don't think they are worried it'll be competition for VS.Net anytime soon.
... don't remember the link, but office-goers in both the US and UK are working longer hours on average, thanks to an increasing number of firms allowing workers to 'dial in' from home. I think Mark Pilgrim put it very well:
Now there is no after work, there is no before work, there is no work day, no office, no clock. There is only one long continuous 24-hour day that is always work, always office, and I never punch in and I never punch out.
Given this, I think a little non-work browsing at work is only fair.
The problem is, barring a small majority of people, most people have to work together as a team: e.g., marketing, sales, management. And the tool the team (assuming the team is a reflection of the 'real' world, not a tech minority) standardizes on will usually not be an SGML editor or LyX, it will be something the entire team can use: Office, SmartSuite, or Wordperfect Office. And the reason Office et al will be chosen is not that they are the lowest common denominator, but rather, they are tools that target the median skill of computer users.
Yes, it would be very cool if we had real standards for such things as rich documents (i.e., spreadsheets, word-processing documents), or for such things as 'groupware' (i.e. Domino/Exchange) email. However, the reality of things is that we don't, and the standard-making process that once produced DNS and HTTP has now been sufficiently subverted by commercial interests that it has become a rubber-stamping ground for BigCos. It is very unlikely that we will see sufficient traction for groupware or rich document standards - ever. So, in such a Darwinian market, the biggest fish, i.e. Office, will always win.
The software is usually designed for the wrong reason in the first place: to fulfill a marketability niche seen by some buzz-word driven demand.
Yes! and I'll add another point: too much of 'enterprise software' and especially software for *inhouse* use is driven by management agendas and expectations, and are often directly anti-user. These are projects driven by suits who have no clue about what well-designed interfaces are and who could care less about how happy users are about their system.
A thumb rule I use to detect how lame (from the POV of a non-privileged user) a system is (ok, it doesn't work all the time, but still) the ratio of estimated man-days in planning the "reporting" module of enterprise software, versus the data-entry-screens.
I believe this is the reason portals like Yahoo, and apps like Photoshop and Excel are *popular*, while managers continue to scratch their heads while wondering why their spanking new Employee Management Portal (which they shelled out big $$$ for) isn't showing the ROI it was expected to show.
Not a Luddite screed; more an angry outburst asking why commercial software systems are often so wretched.
Heh, let's give 'em all Linux kernels to play with, and sendmail.cf files and procmail filters too while we're about it, and watch their eyes shine with joy as they appreciate the wonders of the non-commercial world...
oops. {reminds self to check on amazon before posting prices next time}
OTOH, since having an OEM copy of Win98/ME qualifies you for an upgrade, then windows *will* cost $99 undiscounted ($75-$90 elsewhere) for most people.
Further, most commercial linux distros will only make money selling systems pre-loaded, since only a tiny fraction of users upgrade their system anyway. And here, Microsoft will be hard to beat -- going by their recent 10Q filing, they may even reduce prices (which are already (relatively) low at the OEM level)
And make no mistake, a Windows and Office at half of today's price, while unlikely, will cause a lot of grief to commercial Linux providers: a lot of enterprises that aren't migrating from proprietary Unix are evalutating Linux for one and one reason alone -- they're tired of MS' high prices.
Windows has never been much more user friendly than Linux on desktop
Strongly disagree. I'd say, Windows has been yards more user-friendly. From visual appeal* to standardized installation techniques, to a reasonably standardized look-n-feel (that apps can break if they want to), to a standardized help system... oh, the list goes on and on.
Of course, the Linux community is unlikely to acknowledge this anytime soon -- for them, anyone who buys Windows is either a drone or a hapless victim of MS' evil monopoly. Guess it's much easier to play victim.
* Gnome2 with decent fonts (e.g. RH8) is a huge improvement. But try running OpenOffice on RH8 and you'll want to puke.
From the article: $99, give or take $20, seems to be the new price point for full-featured, consumer-level Linux distributions.
Incidentally, Windows XP Home's undiscounted price is $99 as well. And it comes with Windows Update for *free*. Add on OpenOffice for Windows and one's all set: very usable OS, lots of apps.
Given that an Office suite is the only chink in it's armor, I'd wouldn't wonder if an office-suite-lite was bundled into the OS soon. Three cheers for competition!
It's a common enough contraction. Lots of Sanskrit names start with Apu. Apurva ("Excellent / Without precedent") is a common one that comes to mind. Actually, Apu in the Simpsons was named after the title character in a rather well-known trilogy of films called the "Apu trilogy" made in the 1950s.
Slashdot Mirror
These things are no harder under Linux than they are under Windows.
I agree. However, this is where Windows' and OSX's interface standards help. There is an easy, consistent way to find one's way about, even on an alien system.
On Linux, the only way I do *any* administrative work is via the command-line. The GUI admin tools are just too inconsistent between distros, or between two releases of the same distro.
HAL is just another API ... Hey, can you explain the difference between the "HAL" (wow, that sounds so cool) and just an ordinary API?
:)) microkernel, implements its own API, this is actually reasonably documented for those without an NDA. These calls are NT's exact equivalent to system calls.
HAL's an API?? Well, if you wish to put it that way, it's an API for NT's kernel-writers. The kernel is mostly abstracted away from the hardware by the hardware abstraction layer.
The kernel itself (called "Executive" in NT -- now that doesn't sound so cool now, does it?), which is actually a hybrid (or bastard, depending on whether you took an advanced OS class
The Win32 API is an abstraction# that sits on top NT's `kernel API'. Most programmers never touch the kernel API (unless they're writing device drivers) and interact with NT solely through Win32.
The neatest thing is that Win32 is *not* soldered on to NT's kernel. It can just as easily support others: Win64 a case in point, but also POSIX (crippled for obvious reasons), OS/2 (support removed from WinXP afaik) and Win16.
WinNT4 was several years late and Win2K was several years late. Maybe - just maybe - Win64 will be late, too
NT 3.1 was late -- yes. Win2K was about 2 years late. NT4 was late? not the 32-bit one at least. My bet is, since Win64/IA64 is already here, Win64/Opteron isn't far behind. What will be late now is Longhorn, primarily because what little I've heard about their WinFS strategy sounds like yet-another-active-directory (i.e., ambitious) to me.
#And yes, this also means Win32 can be ported to Linux or BSD without too much trouble, provided the kernel underneath provides a reasonable set of services (of which a framebuffer is one).
Windows/Alpha couldn't adress the full adress space
I cannot verify if you are right or wrong on that, but I'll point this out -- 64-bit was never a goal in the NT 3.x development line (nothing that MS-leaning ISVs knew about, certainly). In fact, NT/Alpha and the short-lived NT/MIPS was more of a demo of NT's cross-platform readiness than anything else. NT/Alpha did actually see some sales, but I haven't used one so I can't comment.
The whole 64-bit shebang started with NT4 IIRC, when they started cleaning up Win32 to make it ready for 64-bit (from what I hear, that was the real challenge, cleaning up NT's "Executive" was comparitively tame).
> and a new Windows operating system at Version1.0 quality
Actually, if you look at the Windows source (from Windows 2000 on), you'll see that most of it is #ifdefs, not a lot of new code. There was a 64-bit transition guide available before Windows 2000 launched. In fact, according to this presentation, they did 56 IA-64 builds a week during the Win2000 development cycle alone. MS has had 3+ years since then to prepare for 64-bit, including Opteron. So most of your points sound a bit silly to me -- if this is v1.0 quality, then so is Linux for the Opteron. The only thing with NT/64bit is that it's been available mostly through special-order and not at dell.com.
And a small point -- there's no *technical* reason NT can't be ported to all sorts of architectures. In fact, given that you basically have to port the HAL (and recompile the rest), new architectures can be added pretty easily.
Ever tried installing Windows lately? It's actually quite easy, and getting easier with each release (of course, Microsoft's installers encourage you to create one large "C:" partition, but hey, with NTFS that's not a big deal). And yes, non-geeks *do* install Windows, before Windows 2000 and XP it was as necessary a skill as changing a flat tyre -- reinstalls seemed to be necessary often enough
Btw, a dentist I know (about as far away from being labeled a 'geek' as possible) does all the things you mentioned (installing, formatting etc) just fine. So does a high school math teacher (who is savvy enough to install Ad-Aware on her friend's PCs). I'm sure there are quite a lot of others like them. The oft-repeated `users can't install Windows' smacks of faint elitism to me.
> I haven't had any problems at all with windowmaker
I like WindowMaker too, it is possibly the best (light + stable + aesthetics) window manager I've used on any Unix.
Problem is, again, where are the apps? Mozilla and Evolution are probably the best desktop apps (from a usability perspective) on Linux right now-- the others are in varying stages of alpha- and beta-ness.
Also, every app on Linux looks and feels like a different beast (different toolkit, different keyboard shortcuts, etc). This is great for feeding the app-developers' ego (gee, we wrote our own toolkit for our bitmap editor!) but it is *hell* for usability. Why was OO.o not written with Gnome? That way, with Gnome2, it too could have taken advantage of the accessibility + display features of Gnome2. Ditto Mozilla. (Yes, I know I can hack OO and Moz to use anti-aliased fonts now. Won't do it, no time.)Most OSS projects seem to thrive on re-inventing the wheel.
9 years after Win95, and and *19* years after the Mac, the most *usable* software on Unix (and Linux) are still the ones that use the command line and the console -- at least they present a consistent interface and are easy to learn.
> Actually, the Linux desktop has gained a lot of ground, as have the distro installers.
Actually, yes, 8 years after Windows 95, Linux now has desktops that resemble Windows 98 in stability. Try Windows 2000 and XP (minus the day-glo colors) sometime and then tell me Linux has come a long way. (Note: I have a Psyche system beside me, and Gnome2 is actually half-decent, imho (as soon as they put Cancel/Revert buttons onto their dialog boxes) but crap hits you in the face the moment you open a non Gnome2 app -- or god forbid an X app)
> If anything, public perception lags far behind the reality.
Actually, in most cases, the perception of fanboys who loudly proclaim "Linux is ready for the desktop" and "80% of people use 20% of features" lead reality by several years.
Linux is great as a cheap-ass desktop for extremely low-end tasks, like call centers, where no one gives a flying fuck about usability for the serfs, and for extremely high-end tasks, like academic workstations and film authoring, where users are so 733T that again no one gives a flying fuck about usability.
Meanwhile, the great unwashed middle will continue using Windows, and if they have any money to burn, Macs.
> then all of a sudden a big hunk of SHIT BROWN right
> in the middle of a window
It's only a beta. It's probably a placeholder for more work.
OTOH, what's the deal with blue and new MS products? The Office 11 screenshots seemed to be swathed in blue. Now, I like blue, but sometimes it feels like too much of a good thing.
> On a side note, are explorer, progman, litestep, etc.,
> really shells?
explorer is a shell. Post Win95, progman and litestep are very limited shells.
The last version of Windows to have a shell in the classic sense of the word was Win3.1: progman (default), winfile, norton desktop, etc.
But explorer.exe is a very *deep* shell, in the sense it provides a (rather rich) set of services (not in the NT services sense) to Win32 apps as well. For example, the FileOpen/FileSaveAs common controls use Explorer to enumerate the system namespace. IIRC, it manages the desktop as well, and show MRU history in dialog boxes.
There's no good way to *really* replace it short of re-implementing each of the shell interfaces, which no one will likely do because (a) it's too much work, (b) too little documentation unless you have access to MS' shell team (c) it probably won't sell very well because most people are so overwhelmingly familiar with explorer now (which is why you'll never see a Norton shell for XP).
Which is why running litestep doesn't take you away from explorer: it runs every time you hit File|Open in notepad.
Bottom line: post-Win95, Windows' shell was just not *designed* to be snap-in replacable (although it is very modular indeed) the way the Win3.1 shell was (or X is).
I could try it out on my linux box and give feedback if you wish. Please see my user bio for more info.
I think IBM's power4/5 chips are as well "unsuitable for real world"
Is it true that Apple plans to use the Power5 of these for their future line of Macs? I asked because quite a few Mac sites have been talking about Power for some time as the messiah that'll finally ensure that they have not just the best, but also the fastest platform on Earth.
But if the chips are as humongous, hot (and undoubtedly expensive) as they seem to be, then how will Apple get them into their machines? Is there a low-power version of Power5 in the works?
> What most people use Word for is basic text edition.
This is a pretty misleading, though oft-repeated argument. What happens when these users need extra functionality? Forget their investment in learning Word and move to Latex? Realistically, ain't gonna happen.
Most people probably use 20% of word's featureset regularly -- but
(a) the 20% is all different (e.g. a business user may often use WordArt, whereas a chem prof may often use equation editor)
(b) once in a while do go beyond their 'usual' featureset. (e.g. the guy using Word at home rarely uses revision tracking, except on the rare day he brings work home)
Another reason why the 80-20 rule ('80% of users use 20% of the features') doesn't work well for software: say I have a small car that's suitable for intra-city travel. If I want to do something unusual, like go driving through Death Valley, I'd rent another car, maybe an SUV. We can't do that with software yet for two reasons: software-on-demand, JWS notwithstanding, isn't there yet, and because interfaces for software vary so wildly that it's not practical for most users to learn.
For me it's background color ( who at MS thought that "teal vomit" was an attractive color?)
:-( I believe the reason that shade was chosen was that it was the best they could come up with from Windows' 20 reserved colors -- teal ("#008080") is one of them (although I wish they had chosen chosen navy ("#000080") or maroon, or even black).
Yes! That shade of teal was horrible
At least Windows 2000 had a better shade of blue as the default ("#3a6ea5"), and Windows XP was the first version of Windows with a wallpaper on by default (it was also the first version of Windows to require at least 16bit-color in its default configuration).
> Can anybody explain to me why credit cards don't have PIN numbers like my ATM card does?
Most credit cards *do* come with a PIN (at least the ones here in India do) -- but you need it only if you're withdrawing cash at an ATM, not at shops.
Too bad our credit-card-readers aren't geared up to use the PIN as well. It would be interesting to design a card+reader combo that could be easy to use and yet be 2/3-secure using the (has, knows, is) metric.
The WebMatrix IDE (for ASP.NET) which the grandparent post mentioned was developed by Microsoft employees. I don't think they are worried it'll be competition for VS.Net anytime soon.
> So, yes, slashdot should be a required reading at all firms that are in the tech field.
So, folk at your shop are the local expert on hot grits and goat-rutting?
The problem is, barring a small majority of people, most people have to work together as a team: e.g., marketing, sales, management. And the tool the team (assuming the team is a reflection of the 'real' world, not a tech minority) standardizes on will usually not be an SGML editor or LyX, it will be something the entire team can use: Office, SmartSuite, or Wordperfect Office. And the reason Office et al will be chosen is not that they are the lowest common denominator, but rather, they are tools that target the median skill of computer users.
Yes, it would be very cool if we had real standards for such things as rich documents (i.e., spreadsheets, word-processing documents), or for such things as 'groupware' (i.e. Domino/Exchange) email. However, the reality of things is that we don't, and the standard-making process that once produced DNS and HTTP has now been sufficiently subverted by commercial interests that it has become a rubber-stamping ground for BigCos. It is very unlikely that we will see sufficient traction for groupware or rich document standards - ever. So, in such a Darwinian market, the biggest fish, i.e. Office, will always win.
The software is usually designed for the wrong reason in the first place: to fulfill a marketability niche seen by some buzz-word driven demand.
Yes! and I'll add another point: too much of 'enterprise software' and especially software for *inhouse* use is driven by management agendas and expectations, and are often directly anti-user. These are projects driven by suits who have no clue about what well-designed interfaces are and who could care less about how happy users are about their system.
A thumb rule I use to detect how lame (from the POV of a non-privileged user) a system is (ok, it doesn't work all the time, but still) the ratio of estimated man-days in planning the "reporting" module of enterprise software, versus the data-entry-screens.
I believe this is the reason portals like Yahoo, and apps like Photoshop and Excel are *popular*, while managers continue to scratch their heads while wondering why their spanking new Employee Management Portal (which they shelled out big $$$ for) isn't showing the ROI it was expected to show.
Not a Luddite screed; more an angry outburst asking why commercial software systems are often so wretched.
Heh, let's give 'em all Linux kernels to play with, and sendmail.cf files and procmail filters too while we're about it, and watch their eyes shine with joy as they appreciate the wonders of the non-commercial world...
Er, maybe not.
Which is why /. does the right thing and writes HTML 3.2.
oops. {reminds self to check on amazon before posting prices next time}
OTOH, since having an OEM copy of Win98/ME qualifies you for an upgrade, then windows *will* cost $99 undiscounted ($75-$90 elsewhere) for most people.
Further, most commercial linux distros will only make money selling systems pre-loaded, since only a tiny fraction of users upgrade their system anyway. And here, Microsoft will be hard to beat -- going by their recent 10Q filing, they may even reduce prices (which are already (relatively) low at the OEM level)
And make no mistake, a Windows and Office at half of today's price, while unlikely, will cause a lot of grief to commercial Linux providers: a lot of enterprises that aren't migrating from proprietary Unix are evalutating Linux for one and one reason alone -- they're tired of MS' high prices.
Windows ... less friendly than Mac
Agree.
Windows has never been much more user friendly than Linux on desktop
Strongly disagree. I'd say, Windows has been yards more user-friendly. From visual appeal* to standardized installation techniques, to a reasonably standardized look-n-feel (that apps can break if they want to), to a standardized help system... oh, the list goes on and on.
Of course, the Linux community is unlikely to acknowledge this anytime soon -- for them, anyone who buys Windows is either a drone or a hapless victim of MS' evil monopoly. Guess it's much easier to play victim.
* Gnome2 with decent fonts (e.g. RH8) is a huge improvement. But try running OpenOffice on RH8 and you'll want to puke.
From the article: $99, give or take $20, seems to be the new price point for full-featured, consumer-level Linux distributions.
Incidentally, Windows XP Home's undiscounted price is $99 as well. And it comes with Windows Update for *free*. Add on OpenOffice for Windows and one's all set: very usable OS, lots of apps.
Given that an Office suite is the only chink in it's armor, I'd wouldn't wonder if an office-suite-lite was bundled into the OS soon. Three cheers for competition!
> Apu is not a common Indian name, of course.
It's a common enough contraction. Lots of Sanskrit names start with Apu. Apurva ("Excellent / Without precedent") is a common one that comes to mind. Actually, Apu in the Simpsons was named after the title character in a rather well-known trilogy of films called the "Apu trilogy" made in the 1950s.