The crux of the Apple marketing campaign right now is to accuse Microsoft of copying Apple's amazing "innovative" ideas that, on average, aren't really Apple's ideas.
As opposed to Microsoft's long-standing campaign of claiming everything it did as "innovative" despite various degrees of simularities to other-than-Microsoft examples.
Thats a moot point in this context. The issue was that Iraq had not been entirely forthcoming concerning the state of their weapons inventory. As it turns out, the reason for this was possibly less to do with hiding actual weapons inventory than fostering uncertainty about such an inventory and giving pause to any plots in Iran. The problem with such a ploy is that it doesn't negate UN (and US) concerns (which should have been given more gravity).
It should be noted that the whole business of inspecting weapons facilities was old hat by this point. The US and USSR had been going through the process with each other. And the same process was followed when certifying former Soviet states no longer held former Soviet nuclear armaments. There is a pattern of behavior that demonstrates a willingness to prove compliance with these agreements. Iraq was not showing any such behavior.
We need to stop refusing to do (non-military) things with China.
Pay close attention to the blury line is between military and non-military.
I think it's retarded that we can't share in scientific efforts with anyone who owns half our national debt. Hey China, you should tell us to pay up for being such jerks.
They get more mileage (and more money) out of maintaining that debt.
I've never wasted my mod points modding anything down. I've never metamoderated something down yet.
Isn't metamoderating moderating the moderator? My understanding is that you're not moderating a message "down" or "up". You're judging the accuracy of the moderator.
Re:My Linux Annoyances as a Hardended Windows user
on
Would You Date Microsoft?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
On KDE it's OK, but that's because they've just pinched Explorer
IMHO, KDE's Konquorer is superior to Windows' Explorer. Both provide standard context and drag-n-drop file management. Konq also provides some nice split windows options. But the real advantage comes from the KIO slaves. Its nice to grab an archive from a SMB fileshare, open it up, drop a few of the internal files over to a SSH server (via SFTP or SCP). Being able to use the KIO slaves within most KDE file dialogs is a nice added bonus.
I think if you go back over the case, you'll find that the letter of the license was violated as well. The issue of using sockets actually is a red herring. That method wasn't used. Now, whether sockets provides a loophole is open to debate and is arguably what the discussion is about (albiet not applicable in this case).
With that in mind, I would again stress that the premiss of your comment seems to be that this whole complaint is simply sour grapes. And again, I don't see it. You'd have to show some evidence to support your point. So far you've failed to do it. Maybe the "sour grapes" issue wasn't your intent after all?
Thanks for pointing that out. I had missed it. From the article:
In the end, IChessu did not use a socket, but produced its own client that Maryanovsky describes as "95% my code and 5% theirs." Rabinovitch agrees, writing in an email, "We never tried to hide the fact that our client is based on the Jin code." IChessU's addtions included an audio/voice over IP module, and several Java classes associated with the module. Some source code was posted to the site, but how much and whether it included the code for the module developed by IChessU is uncertain because, although the link to the source code remains on the IChessU site, the download page is now unavailable.
As an aside - the source code seems to now be available.
If that's all there is then there is clearly no GPL violation.. otherwise you'd be in violation of the GPL if you browsed to a website using a GPL webserver..
Note that the GPL is not a EULA. It has nothing to do with using the software. It has everything to do with developing and distribution.
The fact that Maryanovsky asked for money and Rabinovitch refused is irrelevent to the question of if this is or is not a GPL violation.
I agree. Absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Sure, it would be nice if Rabinovitch had paid up, it would have solved a lot of problems. But that's why many people don't use the GPL, they want to get paid. If you GPL your work, this may not happen even ifyour work is used commercially. This is why I said Maryanovsky should have chosen a different license...
Rabinovitch was offered two choices - a proprietary license or follow the GPL. He chose the GPL license. There would have been no issue as long as he followed the terms of that license. Whether Rabinovitch was using this software in a commercial venture or not is not at issue.
You seem to be rather hell-bent on making this an issue over sour grapes and commercial use of GPL code. However, the facts don't support your argument. You seem to be the only one talking about commercial use. The complaint is about compliance with the license granted. And damages for failure to follow that license.
But what it really comes down to is, once again, the Open Source people don't like the fact that someone is using GPL'd code to make money without "giving back" even when there is no real violation of the GPL.
Bull. From the article:
Rabinovitch has not refuted most of the details in the account on Maryanovsky's site when asked to give his version of events. According to Maryanovsky, Rabinovitch approached him in early 2006 for help writing a chess client and server for IChessU. Pleading lack of time, Maryanovsky suggested that IChessU could either use Jin or pay him $4,000 for a commercial license instead. After Maryanovsky gave Rabinovitch advice on technical matters and introduced him to friends with experience with startup companies, on March 27, Rabinovitch told Maryanovsky that he planned to use Jin under the terms of the GPL.
If this account is accurate - there has never been an issue with Jin being used for commercial interests. Granted - there are a contingent of folks who just don't understand that the GPL has little to do with commercial use of licensed code. I've met folks who bristle about "paying for Linux" or other such complaints. This does not seem to be the case at all. If Jin was used as the client-of-choice for the IChessU service without modification then there would be no issue. And your point would be valid.
IChessU use of sockets is an interesting point. You might have a valid point claiming Maryonovsky can't have issue with this. In doing so, you've clearly decided to dismiss the various details of this. The reader might want to look in to it a bit more.
Of course - there are more issues in the case. You're also ignoring IChessU's client EULA.
I know its more fun to poke at the GPL. But you're being misleading.
Wild guess - you're stirring up the GPL vs BSD debate, aren't you? You're pushing the gambit that the GPL is not actually free while the BSD license is. Unfortunately - the BSD license is also restrictive. So shall we just jump to the logical conclusion and call for releasing all code to the Public Domain?
Of course - that completely ignores the reasons behind the GPL and BSD licenses. But hey - let's not bother with such complexity.
Just keep this in mind the next time you firefox crowd goes crying about a site not working for you. Don't complain about standards and openness... it's the majority rule... the last time I checked that was Windows and IE for most of the world...
The question is... does the "majority rule" in this case follow standards or not? Would tailoring for IE require not following standards? If functionality requires a special hack to overcome some broken behavior in IE, then it simply highlights the complaint you're apparently quick to shrug off as hypocrisy.
The introduction of plug and play ushered in the era for average people to become interested in home computers. It allowed people to add on periphials and increased upgrade potential. This is the reason why Apple did so well for so long until MS ousted them by making their OS avaiable to OEMS. So what you consider a red herring is most likely a driving point for all personal computers today. Ease of use and the ability to change hardware/devices for the average user.
Apple's lead on the market had nothing to do with "plug and play" features. Apple lead the market because, frankly, they created it. They produced one of the first consumer-directed microcomputers. And the first killer app that made microcomputers important to business (Visicalc - the spreadsheet) was coded and first available for the Apple II. IBM came in and largely on name-recognition began to press in on that market. When IBM lost control of their platform and the "PC" became a commodity is when Apple was really in trouble and Microsoft's fortune climbed. This was all in the days of DOS and (to a lesser extent) Windows 3.x. Win95 is when we first start getting in to "plug and play" for Windows - which was often referred to as "plug and pray" due to it's iffy performance in early iterations.
That's not to say "plug and play" and usability in general aren't important. But they simply are not the drivers you're making them out to be.
I've been a IT professional for ten years and Windows IS much easier to support than Linux because the marketshare in the workd of computing is dominated by Windows and most people know how to use it. You don't live in the real world if you can't understand this perspective.
I've been an IT professional in one form or another for around 16 years. I understand Windows market share. I understand how important familiarity with the Windows platform is to power-users - I've seen them flail and get upset when dealing with a Mac or Linux system (I've been that person myself). But I also realize that in the average end user environment, the greater majority of end users are NOT power users. They know enough to do whatever tasks are required of them (or are interested in doing). The Windows environment changes on them and they adjust. Windows' "ease of use" environment fails them and they call for support.
I have also used Linux as a desktop environment for around 9 years and notice that the difficult tasks tend to be tasks that are not going to be done by the average end user. Once again - Linux isn't bulletproof... there are annoyances I wish didn't exist. But they are hardly insurmountable. And they hardly make Linux "unsupportable." That is - unless your sole support experience is limited entirely to the Windows platform.
You're right about apple but I was referring to Linux. If you read my next reply on the topic you'll see I also agree with you that other MS products being the key to unseating MS. So my assumption is really only based off of what I was replying to and not the entire topic.
Just the clarify the point... you began your post with:
What planet do you live on? There isn't an OS out there that can or will match Windows in todays marketplace. The original post says "No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system" and that is the cold hard truth.
I disagree that this is, in fact, a "cold hard truth."
As for Linux vs. Apple... I don't think you understand the point. You're saying Linux can't catch on because it isn't "supportable." And then you talk about "plug and play" and the bad old days of x86 computing. My point is that "plug and play" is a red herring. If the market cared, Apple would have regained the market years ago. Didn't happen. And therefore this "ease of use" marker that people use as a measure between Windows and Linux is a moot point. Or, at the least, the issue does not have near the weight some want to apply to it.
Again - I should stress that I agree that there are plenty of annoyances involved in a Linux desktop. I've been introducing myself to them for years. But I have a hard time justifying sweeping statements like Linux not being "supportable." It sounds too much like inexperience to me.
No matter how much you like Redhat or Mandrake or any other flavor of Linux, they're not as supportable as Microsoft or Apple. Remember what it was like before plug and play? Most people couldn't handle installing hardware like speakers and scanners. Driver/Hardware support sucked balls. And it still does for some OS's. And let's not get into the support for Dev's and IT professionals or the books and websites devoted to making peoples lives easier.
History does not agree with your premise. If ease of use was so important, Apple would be dominating the industry. MacOS had far superior "plug and play" support well before it came to any environment Windows ran on ("Microsoft" and "Apple" are not OSes). And even with the state that WinXP is in today, there is still a very large market for supporting end user desktops. It would seem that Windows (and even OSX) falls short of your ideal. Don't get me wrong - Linux (since you brought it up) as a desktop platform does have various short-comings. But I don't find "supportability" as much an issue as you make it out.
The only company that could topple MS is Apple and Apple continues to refuse or fail at opening up it's OS to other OEM's.
Apple lost in the early years because IBM lost. When IBM lost control of its "personal computer" architecture and it became a commodity platform, it set the stage for Microsoft's success and the demise for Apple who managed to "win" and keep control of its own platform. Tough break for Apple. They failed to bootstrap their own version of a commodity platform years later. And I'm not so sure any attempt today to support the x86 platform today would be successful (not that it wouldn't be interesting to see it attempted).
MS will never be challenged on the OS level until a company out there can bring a competitvie supportable OS to manufacturers.
You're assuming that Microsoft has to be unseated at the OS level. I disagree. What has to be done is to remove the OS as the lynch-pin to any given strategy. Web apps would be one piece to that - although I'm not convinced that alone will do it.
The effects in the original were bad at times and I am willing to except that; however, Star Trek is turning 40 and with that age come a great many people who have probably never seen all of the Original Series (or maybe not even parts of it).
This is the rough equivalence of saying movies like Casablanca should be colorized so more people get a chance to see it. And sure... there might be some superficial attraction by paving over the "old technology" with a more updated, flashy veneer. But such treatment also covers some of the art in the original piece.
Now, I'm not about to claim that a phaser beam visual effect is the same as film noir cinematography. But none the less, the techniques used in each work is part of the history those works represent. It's hard to get a perspective on that history if what you're presented seems to be entirely devoid of the things everyone talked about.
To put a fine point on it... the out-dated effects of Star Trek is part of what makes the show. Star Trek blazed new trails when it came to sci-fi on the screen (be it Silver or smaller). Those effects give perspective of what Star Trek was then... and where we are now.
What about those extra viewers? Anyone who has a hangup over technology is likely to also find fault in all the other differences between classic works and what is currently offered. These folks are not going to be watching a dressed-up Trek. And so what... exactly... is being gained?
Doing this would require IT support for two software applications (i.e. MS-Office and OpenOffice.org) which creates various complications. It's much simpler from the technical side to only give the users one application for each task the need to accomplish.
Keep in mind that we are talking about a group of disabled workers who use accessibility software to do their tasks. They have already diverged rather significantly from the standard IT environment. And I would suspect that supporting this particular group would require some degree of specialization as they can't always perform all tasks in the exact same manner any other random worker can. If this is true - would using (for example) MS Office when everyone else is using OpenOffice.org really levy that much additional effort on the support structure?
It doesn't matter whether or not you "buy" it -- it's a legal requirement.
This whole thing is just comical. Sun bought this sweetheart policy, various crews of open-source fanboys cheerlead for it, but heaven forbid anyone should have thought of this issue beforehand or lifted a finger to address it since.
First and foremost, I should note that I generally support this requirement. That it is law and needs to be followed is both a reality and a generally Good Thing.
Having said that...
I've worked closely with US Government entities and I'm quite familiar with "508 compliance" as well as other requirements not directly involving disabled workers. I suspect there are differences between Federal and MA state government. However, I also suspect all bureaucracies are inherently similar. And in my environment, requirements are simply something to either be followed or worked around. Sometimes requirements become tools to drive a specific agenda. And how someone interprets or applies requirements are often determined by the existence of any given agenda being pressed by the right individuals.
It's interesting that you portray this as a "sweatheart policy" which was "bought" by Sun... yet conveniently fail to note how much lobying Microsoft has done to oppose this policy. And you fail to note that this lobbying has, among other things, included this particular issue.
Again - that's not to say that this issue has no merrit. But let's be fair with our jaded views of just who's buying what. If this issue is, in fact, a real issue then it does need to be addressed. If it is a non-issue... that's a different issue entirely.
Such as invite you to take up residence in Guantanamo Bay with all the other dissid^H^H^H^H^H^H... crimin^H^H^H^H^H^H... terror^H^H^H^H^H^H... ah, TRASH.
It might be because you're trying to delve the thoughts and beliefs of a person based on paraphrasing of a reporter (one that sounds very much like an out-sider to Open Source at that).
It seems that ESR has started believing that "overthrowing Windows" is the end goal of Linux. It's not, it's having a completely open and Free Unix system. That group he talks about, they'll just use Windows or whatever, and be happy. I don't see how that matters for Linux' direction.
I'm curious - where did ESR state that "'overthrowing Windows' is the end goal of Linux"? Nowhere in the article, much less quotes within the article, is the word "overthrow" used.
I would say the theme of ESR's discussion is about Linux competing against other desktop environments - Windows included. And I support that. I don't know what you would do with a "completely open and Free Unix system" but I stick mine on my desktop. The more other people do the same, the more likely I'm going to find drivers and software options for my desktop. Market share, or at least perceived market share, is important.
As a side note - it's not just about Linux on the desktop. Anything being produced with desktop systems in mind may very likely have application in other environments.
Slashdot Mirror
As opposed to Microsoft's long-standing campaign of claiming everything it did as "innovative" despite various degrees of simularities to other-than-Microsoft examples.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Spiral spin.
Thats a moot point in this context. The issue was that Iraq had not been entirely forthcoming concerning the state of their weapons inventory. As it turns out, the reason for this was possibly less to do with hiding actual weapons inventory than fostering uncertainty about such an inventory and giving pause to any plots in Iran. The problem with such a ploy is that it doesn't negate UN (and US) concerns (which should have been given more gravity).
It should be noted that the whole business of inspecting weapons facilities was old hat by this point. The US and USSR had been going through the process with each other. And the same process was followed when certifying former Soviet states no longer held former Soviet nuclear armaments. There is a pattern of behavior that demonstrates a willingness to prove compliance with these agreements. Iraq was not showing any such behavior.
Pay close attention to the blury line is between military and non-military.
They get more mileage (and more money) out of maintaining that debt.
D'oh... that's what I get for not double-checking the URL until AFTER I hid submit. The article you'd want is actually:
6 27248
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/15/1
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/19/13 42256
Isn't metamoderating moderating the moderator? My understanding is that you're not moderating a message "down" or "up". You're judging the accuracy of the moderator.
IMHO, KDE's Konquorer is superior to Windows' Explorer. Both provide standard context and drag-n-drop file management. Konq also provides some nice split windows options. But the real advantage comes from the KIO slaves. Its nice to grab an archive from a SMB fileshare, open it up, drop a few of the internal files over to a SSH server (via SFTP or SCP). Being able to use the KIO slaves within most KDE file dialogs is a nice added bonus.
What you don't understand is the positive impact to TCO involved...
somehow...
it might involve IT elves.
I think if you go back over the case, you'll find that the letter of the license was violated as well. The issue of using sockets actually is a red herring. That method wasn't used. Now, whether sockets provides a loophole is open to debate and is arguably what the discussion is about (albiet not applicable in this case).
With that in mind, I would again stress that the premiss of your comment seems to be that this whole complaint is simply sour grapes. And again, I don't see it. You'd have to show some evidence to support your point. So far you've failed to do it. Maybe the "sour grapes" issue wasn't your intent after all?
As an aside - the source code seems to now be available.
Note that the GPL is not a EULA. It has nothing to do with using the software. It has everything to do with developing and distribution.
I agree. Absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Rabinovitch was offered two choices - a proprietary license or follow the GPL. He chose the GPL license. There would have been no issue as long as he followed the terms of that license. Whether Rabinovitch was using this software in a commercial venture or not is not at issue.
You seem to be rather hell-bent on making this an issue over sour grapes and commercial use of GPL code. However, the facts don't support your argument. You seem to be the only one talking about commercial use. The complaint is about compliance with the license granted. And damages for failure to follow that license.
Bull. From the article:
If this account is accurate - there has never been an issue with Jin being used for commercial interests. Granted - there are a contingent of folks who just don't understand that the GPL has little to do with commercial use of licensed code. I've met folks who bristle about "paying for Linux" or other such complaints. This does not seem to be the case at all. If Jin was used as the client-of-choice for the IChessU service without modification then there would be no issue. And your point would be valid.
IChessU use of sockets is an interesting point. You might have a valid point claiming Maryonovsky can't have issue with this. In doing so, you've clearly decided to dismiss the various details of this. The reader might want to look in to it a bit more.
Of course - there are more issues in the case. You're also ignoring IChessU's client EULA.
I know its more fun to poke at the GPL. But you're being misleading.
Wild guess - you're stirring up the GPL vs BSD debate, aren't you? You're pushing the gambit that the GPL is not actually free while the BSD license is. Unfortunately - the BSD license is also restrictive. So shall we just jump to the logical conclusion and call for releasing all code to the Public Domain?
Of course - that completely ignores the reasons behind the GPL and BSD licenses. But hey - let's not bother with such complexity.
The question is... does the "majority rule" in this case follow standards or not? Would tailoring for IE require not following standards? If functionality requires a special hack to overcome some broken behavior in IE, then it simply highlights the complaint you're apparently quick to shrug off as hypocrisy.
Apple's lead on the market had nothing to do with "plug and play" features. Apple lead the market because, frankly, they created it. They produced one of the first consumer-directed microcomputers. And the first killer app that made microcomputers important to business (Visicalc - the spreadsheet) was coded and first available for the Apple II. IBM came in and largely on name-recognition began to press in on that market. When IBM lost control of their platform and the "PC" became a commodity is when Apple was really in trouble and Microsoft's fortune climbed. This was all in the days of DOS and (to a lesser extent) Windows 3.x. Win95 is when we first start getting in to "plug and play" for Windows - which was often referred to as "plug and pray" due to it's iffy performance in early iterations.
That's not to say "plug and play" and usability in general aren't important. But they simply are not the drivers you're making them out to be.
I've been an IT professional in one form or another for around 16 years. I understand Windows market share. I understand how important familiarity with the Windows platform is to power-users - I've seen them flail and get upset when dealing with a Mac or Linux system (I've been that person myself). But I also realize that in the average end user environment, the greater majority of end users are NOT power users. They know enough to do whatever tasks are required of them (or are interested in doing). The Windows environment changes on them and they adjust. Windows' "ease of use" environment fails them and they call for support.
I have also used Linux as a desktop environment for around 9 years and notice that the difficult tasks tend to be tasks that are not going to be done by the average end user. Once again - Linux isn't bulletproof... there are annoyances I wish didn't exist. But they are hardly insurmountable. And they hardly make Linux "unsupportable." That is - unless your sole support experience is limited entirely to the Windows platform.
Just the clarify the point... you began your post with:
I disagree that this is, in fact, a "cold hard truth."
As for Linux vs. Apple... I don't think you understand the point. You're saying Linux can't catch on because it isn't "supportable." And then you talk about "plug and play" and the bad old days of x86 computing. My point is that "plug and play" is a red herring. If the market cared, Apple would have regained the market years ago. Didn't happen. And therefore this "ease of use" marker that people use as a measure between Windows and Linux is a moot point. Or, at the least, the issue does not have near the weight some want to apply to it.
Again - I should stress that I agree that there are plenty of annoyances involved in a Linux desktop. I've been introducing myself to them for years. But I have a hard time justifying sweeping statements like Linux not being "supportable." It sounds too much like inexperience to me.
History does not agree with your premise. If ease of use was so important, Apple would be dominating the industry. MacOS had far superior "plug and play" support well before it came to any environment Windows ran on ("Microsoft" and "Apple" are not OSes). And even with the state that WinXP is in today, there is still a very large market for supporting end user desktops. It would seem that Windows (and even OSX) falls short of your ideal. Don't get me wrong - Linux (since you brought it up) as a desktop platform does have various short-comings. But I don't find "supportability" as much an issue as you make it out.
Apple lost in the early years because IBM lost. When IBM lost control of its "personal computer" architecture and it became a commodity platform, it set the stage for Microsoft's success and the demise for Apple who managed to "win" and keep control of its own platform. Tough break for Apple. They failed to bootstrap their own version of a commodity platform years later. And I'm not so sure any attempt today to support the x86 platform today would be successful (not that it wouldn't be interesting to see it attempted).
You're assuming that Microsoft has to be unseated at the OS level. I disagree. What has to be done is to remove the OS as the lynch-pin to any given strategy. Web apps would be one piece to that - although I'm not convinced that alone will do it.
This is the rough equivalence of saying movies like Casablanca should be colorized so more people get a chance to see it. And sure... there might be some superficial attraction by paving over the "old technology" with a more updated, flashy veneer. But such treatment also covers some of the art in the original piece.
Now, I'm not about to claim that a phaser beam visual effect is the same as film noir cinematography. But none the less, the techniques used in each work is part of the history those works represent. It's hard to get a perspective on that history if what you're presented seems to be entirely devoid of the things everyone talked about.
To put a fine point on it... the out-dated effects of Star Trek is part of what makes the show. Star Trek blazed new trails when it came to sci-fi on the screen (be it Silver or smaller). Those effects give perspective of what Star Trek was then... and where we are now.
What about those extra viewers? Anyone who has a hangup over technology is likely to also find fault in all the other differences between classic works and what is currently offered. These folks are not going to be watching a dressed-up Trek. And so what... exactly... is being gained?
Some behavior seems to be timeless.
Keep in mind that we are talking about a group of disabled workers who use accessibility software to do their tasks. They have already diverged rather significantly from the standard IT environment. And I would suspect that supporting this particular group would require some degree of specialization as they can't always perform all tasks in the exact same manner any other random worker can. If this is true - would using (for example) MS Office when everyone else is using OpenOffice.org really levy that much additional effort on the support structure?
First and foremost, I should note that I generally support this requirement. That it is law and needs to be followed is both a reality and a generally Good Thing.
Having said that...
I've worked closely with US Government entities and I'm quite familiar with "508 compliance" as well as other requirements not directly involving disabled workers. I suspect there are differences between Federal and MA state government. However, I also suspect all bureaucracies are inherently similar. And in my environment, requirements are simply something to either be followed or worked around. Sometimes requirements become tools to drive a specific agenda. And how someone interprets or applies requirements are often determined by the existence of any given agenda being pressed by the right individuals.
It's interesting that you portray this as a "sweatheart policy" which was "bought" by Sun... yet conveniently fail to note how much lobying Microsoft has done to oppose this policy. And you fail to note that this lobbying has, among other things, included this particular issue.
Again - that's not to say that this issue has no merrit. But let's be fair with our jaded views of just who's buying what. If this issue is, in fact, a real issue then it does need to be addressed. If it is a non-issue... that's a different issue entirely.
"Guantanamo Bay" is fast becoming the new "Nazi".
It might be because you're trying to delve the thoughts and beliefs of a person based on paraphrasing of a reporter (one that sounds very much like an out-sider to Open Source at that).
I'm curious - where did ESR state that "'overthrowing Windows' is the end goal of Linux"? Nowhere in the article, much less quotes within the article, is the word "overthrow" used.
I would say the theme of ESR's discussion is about Linux competing against other desktop environments - Windows included. And I support that. I don't know what you would do with a "completely open and Free Unix system" but I stick mine on my desktop. The more other people do the same, the more likely I'm going to find drivers and software options for my desktop. Market share, or at least perceived market share, is important.
As a side note - it's not just about Linux on the desktop. Anything being produced with desktop systems in mind may very likely have application in other environments.