Cyan had two versions under their belt. Ubisoft only came in for the third release "Exile" and now this. Ubisoft has not been very Mac-centric in the past, so this is not a surprise. It's very wrong in so many ways, but not a surprise at all. I wonder if it will ever be ported to Linux or run under WINE?
Quite a while back I made suggestions like this indicating that this is the direction that most of the computer industry is moving in. I am certain that I am not the only one that was thinking this way and this project proves it. The natural language feature is something that surpasses my original concept of predefined end-user datatypes (movies, music, documents, mail, etc...). The only drawback I can see to this kind of system is the amount of horsepower needed to run it. But as long as the requirements stay below those of M$, I think all will be well.:)
Nice try, but I don't think it works (although it worked for me:) ) for most people. What most average users also want is name recognition. OO.o doesn't offer that. As someone else mentioned earlier in the replies, OO.o needs to have more publicity. If people were to find out that there is a free alternative that is nearly as good as MS Office, then there might be some more bites. The problem is the type of publicity. A lot of open sourcers don't get the aesthetics of proper publicity. Unfrotunately they would suggest OO.o "install fests" at local users group meetings. This really wouldn't help anyone since it would be preaching to the converted. People want to see slick packaging and full color glossies. Now, if OO.o was sent out like AOL CDs, I think it might have a better chance of getting recognized. (NO... I am not advocating the AOL approach) Why not do something more low key:
1. Start the web site: http://www.getopenoffice.org/. This site would be a place where people could either download OO.o or order a CD-ROM *for free*. All they have to do is fill out a form, print it and send it with a SASE. 2. Get some folks together in a grassroots effort to go door to door offering people a free OO.o CD-ROM. Make sure to let these people know that they will NEVER see anyone again regarding OO.o unless they call upon them us for help. 3. At the web site mentioned in step one, start up a donation box to create an ad campaign fund. The money from this campaign would be spent on print and/or television ads to publicize OO.o.
Just a few suggestions to mull over anyway. I'm no publicist or politician so I'm not any good at this sort of thing. But anyone feel free to jump in and claim this as your own...
Great point. But what would the "killer app" be? Different games appeal to different people for different reasons. However, there are always going to be people who just don't "get" games. For example, I love mystery/puzzle games like Myst, but I also enjoy a FPS like Quake or Unreal. I can't stand strategy or sim type games though. To me those games lack any appeal because of the involvment and complexity but the interface is piss poor. Now, if we were at a point where a sim or strategy game could be a fully immersive experience with VR, I would be more intrigued. We're just not there yet. I mean think about it. Wouldn't life really suck if you have to click on people and type in order to interact with them all the time? I'm sure some of you have eventually tolkd the person you were IMing to give you a call on the phone because it's much easier to communicate verbally rather than textually. SO I would argue that what needs to change to make games more appealing is to essentially move them into the realm of being alternate reality with very well rendered spaces and avatars. Until then, the only really fun games are same-gnome, tetris the puzzle game and Chicken Invaders (which runs well under WINE BTW...):)
You don't sound like Joe Average to me. Joe Average wouldn't know about PGP to begin with. The other thing is that what I proposed up above should be transparent to the user. They shouldn't feel like they are doing anything different from what they've done with MS Office before. But the entire underlying process should be completely different with the emphasis on security and stability.
I certainly hope the OpenOffice team will kick development into high gear. If there was a time we need a viable competitor to Office, it's now.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE OpenOffice.org. But I don't see how getting into "high gear" is going to do any good unless OO.o manages to completely revolutionize the office suite paradigm far beyond what MS has. OO.o is a great *alternative*, but it's not really doing much more than MS Office does and there are some features missing. To get "mind share" (profit can go to hell since that's not why most of us are here), OO.o is going to have to provide above and beyond what MS Office provides. Is that possible? I don't think it is.
Sure, some people might want to jump ship when they figure out that MS is going to hold them hostage with DRM. But that's only going to be a small fraction of office suite users. The majority will grudgingly hand the cash over to MS and upgrade. The only way to get more people to WANT to move over to OO.o or some other alternative is to provide exactly what most coders despise: features. This is what Joe Average is interested in. Yes, I am aware that OO.o has some features that distinguish it from MS Office, but it's not enough of a difference to really count.
An example of a feature that an average user would find "useful" no matter how stupid it might sound to a true geek, is say... self-contained executable documents. If a user could write something and then save it as a "self contained" document that was platform independent, I think it would be a feature that goes beyond MS Office. Think about it... the user saves the doc and then e-mails it to someone. The recipient can then just open the attachment WITHOUT needing to have OO.o installed on their machine... or MS Office... or ANY office suite. Instead the document itself comes with an exectutable that provides basic reader fearures, possibly an executable that will install a lightweight editor, or even contains an editor itself. Obviously it wouldn't have all the features that OO.o contains, but just enough to read and maybe edit.
Or... maybe the document would never get sent to the recipient. Instead the document would remain on an HTTPS accesible document store. The recipient would get an attachment that contains authentication to allow seamless access to the https document store and a path to the document. Along with this document store is the ability to "edit locally" which would give the user the option to run an editor over the HTTPS link or use a locally installed editor depending on the situation. This would go well beyond anything the MS Office suite does now and would appear to be far beyond MS's current mode of thought.
That's where things need to go if MS is to be usurped of the office suite mindshare that it currently posseses.
There's been lots of info spread around the internet about the possiblity that an unknown, unseen 10th planet is coming in for a pass of the Earth. We are already seeing the effects of this in climate changes and a slowdown in the grand circulator. Has anyone in the Nothern hemisphere noticed that it's been very hazy and slightly cooler this summer? What about the big chunks of ice that have been falling from the sky in Europe (20-40 Lbs. Smashing cars and houses)? What about the massively increased amounts of rain in the Northern hemisphere that can't possibly be accounted for by terrestrial water? What about the appearance of very visible auroras in the northern hemisphere that extend much further south than they used to. Add to that the fact that the aurora activity is NOT recorded by NASA even though it's being seen by much of the citizenry. I've even seen the auroras myself in northern Ohio, and I've NEVER seen any in this region my entire life. How about the freak power outages that recently hit northeastern US and London/Kent. "THEY" aren't telling us something. THEY=your government/space agency.
While this site looks cheesy and some of it may be suspect, I am beginning to think that these folks might be onto something. There's lots of historical and anecdotal evidence that seems to support what they are saying.
Finally, how many of you are just *feeling* that there is something massively wrong that goes beyond human matters? The feeling that something so tremendous and terrifying is looming that is beyond our civilzation's control?
Discuss...
Hmmmm... what was it that republicans were supposed to be opposed to? Wasn't it regulation, taxes and wasteful spending? (think this issue, the tax on LANs and the ever more expensive war on Iraq) As a rugged individualist liberal, I'd have to say that with Bush in office, we've hit the Trifecta where the Bush admin's reputation is concerned.:P Yeah yeah, I know it's somewhat off topic, but you've got to admit it's quite comical.
If the average Slashdot poster with an innocuous name like say... "Trolling4Dollars" where to use the words 'Billy' and 'Goat' in an article refering to the whole Linux vs. Windows issue, he'd surely get modded down to "Troll -1" Mod the post down to -1!!:))))
I think the whole Linux vs. Microsoft thing where security and stability are concerned comes down to the dilemma of the "soft" parent vs. the "hard" parent. Microsoft is the "soft" parent and *NIX/Linux distros are the "hard" parent.
Remember when you wanted to go out somewhere with some friends of yours and your folks didn't? They did that for your own security and wellbeing. In some cases, you probably had a parent that was easier on you. For example, my dad was the "soft" parent for me. If I asked him something, he'd cautiously say that I could do X as long as I was home beore my mom found out. If I asked my Mom, the answer was most positively one of the following:
1. No! 2. Only if you've done everything else you need to do to get some free time. 3. Why would you want to do that? Go do something useful.
So you can guess which parent I asked more often. I asked the parent that gave me what I WANTED, not what I NEEDED.
Microsoft is the "soft" parent. They give the average user what they want without thinking too much about what the implications are. Or they assume that the user will "do the right thing". *NIX/Linux distros are the "hard" parent since they don't (by default) allow the user to do anything they shouldn't be doing. It's a pain in the ass to have to switch over to "root" to take care of some administrative tasks in Linux. Newer distros make it a little easier, but they still throw up the password protection which would annoy an average Windows user to no end. Think of how many times a Windows user complains when they have to remember a password and they can't or they have to write it down somewhere. Windows doesn't do this kind of thing. Instead they thwart security by being the "nice guy" on the surface. I have plenty of friends who got pissed off having to deal with passwords on their boxes and logging out to become administrator. They eventually all asked me to reconfigure them so that they log in as admin by default automatically with no password. I told them what the implications were and they still wanted this. The real problem still comes down to lazy and uneducated users. The PC industry is giving them the keys to Ferarris and nukes even though they aren't qualified to handle them.
I think that eventually it will become necessary to give people what they need with no respect given to what they want. However, it doesn't have to be impossible to deal with from the end user's perspective. I think RedHat's root dialog box when trying to run an administrative command from the GUI is a perect example of how it can be made slightly easier, but still secure.
Until the average user understands why they SHOULDN'T run as root or Administrator, we are giving them loaded weapons pointed at their heads without telling them how to use them.
If you will present me with your name, address and phone number, I will find you and we can settle this whole spam problem mano a mano. Any takers?;) I suggest that the rest of the Slashdot community follow my lead.
That's why I made sure to make this statement first:
To get the most complete use out of your computer, you really need to interact with it on it's level. This means CLI and scripting.
For me, I think I will always prefer a text based system since it is how I get the most out of my machines. I use GUIs too, but only for very limited and rarely used tasks like reading Slashdot for instance.:) The other thing I'd like to point out is that I also meant to mention the possibility of speech interaction with machines as well. While this is nothing new, I think it really is *part* of the next interface popular interface. Studies in the past have shown that people don't like machines talking to them. However, if they see that they can talk to their machines and get them to do task by verbal commands, they might be a little more flexible.
I completely agree with you on this. The real issue is that computers are STILL not "easy to use". It doesn't matter what OS is on the box, there is a simple fact:
To get the most complete use out of your computer, you really need to interact with it on it's level. This means CLI and scripting.
Conversely:
To get the most ease of use out of your computer, it really needs to interact with you on your level. This means a user interface that is based on faulty human communication (verbal, facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc...) We're not there yet. However, this is what the Linux crowd should focus on instead of trying to imitate what's already been done.
1. Create new input devices that take advantage of these "human" modes of communication 2. Create support within the base OS for these new input devices
Will this be easy? No. Will it beat the pants off of all current OSes? You bet. Isn't that what we all want? Yes.
No no no! You're supposed to say "I'm sooooooooo naked!" to get the first Naked Post. First Naked Post!!!! Remember kids, you don't have to be first to get a Naked Post, you just have to be NAKED!!!!
Good point. Most users are total morons and think they need more power and storage than their work warrants. However, only time will truly tell if iSCSI will really be the "winner" in all of this. I couldn't find the link for an open source project the I'd seen before that would actually export SCSI, USB and Firewire over IP, so here's this
Whaa? This should have gotten a +1 Funny. Or at least the parent post should have! Again... more clueless moderation from people who have their heads up their ass.
I don't have any of that, but if you want some more pot, I have access to some pretty potent wacky tabacky that I can try and FTP to you. Just go here and log in as "gdubya":
Actually, I agree with you here. If the person maintaining the internet exposed Windows box is on top of every critical update and keeps aware of all possible exploits, then Windows can be secured almost to the point that Linux can. The major difference is that for Windows to be fully secure, you need to invest in additional hardware (DSL Router/Firewall) or software. Some of the software is free, but the better quality stuff always costs. In the land of Linux pretty much all of this stuff is free (beer) and can be tweaked to be even better. However, this is all based on the user. The plain fact is that the majority of Windows users and admins are just not THAT into their systems. They constantly talk about "having a life" and not wanting to dedicate their time to their computers that much. What they tend to overlook is that if they actually invested the time, the Linux platform would be no more difficult than the Windows platform to configure and secure. And with the experience, it really doesn't take any longer to do the same kind of things on a Linux box that you can do on a Windows box. I "have a life" and do plenty of other things besides work with my Linux boxes (bike riding, renovating my 100 year old house, road trips out west, etc...). The claim that "Linux is free as long as your time isn't worth anything" has no teeth. It should be "The value of my time increases with the gain in my knowledge and is inversely proportional to the amount of time I need to spend gaining knowledge on the subject of Linux". So... if you become more learned, your time is worth more, and you spend LESS time on maintaining your Linux boxes than anyone ever does on their Windows boxes.
Dude... I've been running a well secured Linux firewall and a separate Linux based Apache web server since 2000. I've patched and updated the systems so far from their default install (RH 6.2) that they are no longer really RedHat boxes. These boxes have not been cracked once. If you are vigilant and knowledgable, a Linux box is the most secure choice going with the most available software.
You know if I had a kernel for an OS that would suck my dick, I think I'd patent it since it would be bound to make me billions. Imagine if I could install that kernel into a RealDoll (tm) and sell it for $20,000. I know a lot of folks here on Slashdto would probably want to have a shot at one of those.;P
Slashdot Mirror
When reporters visited teh apartment last night, Brianna
Hey mate... would ya enable comments in your latest journal entry? I found it quite fascinating but couldn't reply.
Adolph? Adolph, is that you? ;\
Cyan had two versions under their belt. Ubisoft only came in for the third release "Exile" and now this. Ubisoft has not been very Mac-centric in the past, so this is not a surprise. It's very wrong in so many ways, but not a surprise at all. I wonder if it will ever be ported to Linux or run under WINE?
Funny that. I've been waiting for them to complete Outlook Epress for quite some time now... ;P
Quite a while back I made suggestions like this indicating that this is the direction that most of the computer industry is moving in. I am certain that I am not the only one that was thinking this way and this project proves it. The natural language feature is something that surpasses my original concept of predefined end-user datatypes (movies, music, documents, mail, etc...). The only drawback I can see to this kind of system is the amount of horsepower needed to run it. But as long as the requirements stay below those of M$, I think all will be well. :)
Nice try, but I don't think it works (although it worked for me :) ) for most people. What most average users also want is name recognition. OO.o doesn't offer that. As someone else mentioned earlier in the replies, OO.o needs to have more publicity. If people were to find out that there is a free alternative that is nearly as good as MS Office, then there might be some more bites. The problem is the type of publicity. A lot of open sourcers don't get the aesthetics of proper publicity. Unfrotunately they would suggest OO.o "install fests" at local users group meetings. This really wouldn't help anyone since it would be preaching to the converted. People want to see slick packaging and full color glossies. Now, if OO.o was sent out like AOL CDs, I think it might have a better chance of getting recognized. (NO... I am not advocating the AOL approach) Why not do something more low key:
1. Start the web site: http://www.getopenoffice.org/. This site would be a place where people could either download OO.o or order a CD-ROM *for free*. All they have to do is fill out a form, print it and send it with a SASE.
2. Get some folks together in a grassroots effort to go door to door offering people a free OO.o CD-ROM. Make sure to let these people know that they will NEVER see anyone again regarding OO.o unless they call upon them us for help.
3. At the web site mentioned in step one, start up a donation box to create an ad campaign fund. The money from this campaign would be spent on print and/or television ads to publicize OO.o.
Just a few suggestions to mull over anyway. I'm no publicist or politician so I'm not any good at this sort of thing. But anyone feel free to jump in and claim this as your own...
Great point. But what would the "killer app" be? Different games appeal to different people for different reasons. However, there are always going to be people who just don't "get" games. For example, I love mystery/puzzle games like Myst, but I also enjoy a FPS like Quake or Unreal. I can't stand strategy or sim type games though. To me those games lack any appeal because of the involvment and complexity but the interface is piss poor. Now, if we were at a point where a sim or strategy game could be a fully immersive experience with VR, I would be more intrigued. We're just not there yet. I mean think about it. Wouldn't life really suck if you have to click on people and type in order to interact with them all the time? I'm sure some of you have eventually tolkd the person you were IMing to give you a call on the phone because it's much easier to communicate verbally rather than textually. SO I would argue that what needs to change to make games more appealing is to essentially move them into the realm of being alternate reality with very well rendered spaces and avatars. Until then, the only really fun games are same-gnome, tetris the puzzle game and Chicken Invaders (which runs well under WINE BTW...) :)
You don't sound like Joe Average to me. Joe Average wouldn't know about PGP to begin with. The other thing is that what I proposed up above should be transparent to the user. They shouldn't feel like they are doing anything different from what they've done with MS Office before. But the entire underlying process should be completely different with the emphasis on security and stability.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE OpenOffice.org. But I don't see how getting into "high gear" is going to do any good unless OO.o manages to completely revolutionize the office suite paradigm far beyond what MS has. OO.o is a great *alternative*, but it's not really doing much more than MS Office does and there are some features missing. To get "mind share" (profit can go to hell since that's not why most of us are here), OO.o is going to have to provide above and beyond what MS Office provides. Is that possible? I don't think it is.
Sure, some people might want to jump ship when they figure out that MS is going to hold them hostage with DRM. But that's only going to be a small fraction of office suite users. The majority will grudgingly hand the cash over to MS and upgrade. The only way to get more people to WANT to move over to OO.o or some other alternative is to provide exactly what most coders despise: features. This is what Joe Average is interested in. Yes, I am aware that OO.o has some features that distinguish it from MS Office, but it's not enough of a difference to really count.
An example of a feature that an average user would find "useful" no matter how stupid it might sound to a true geek, is say... self-contained executable documents. If a user could write something and then save it as a "self contained" document that was platform independent, I think it would be a feature that goes beyond MS Office. Think about it... the user saves the doc and then e-mails it to someone. The recipient can then just open the attachment WITHOUT needing to have OO.o installed on their machine... or MS Office... or ANY office suite. Instead the document itself comes with an exectutable that provides basic reader fearures, possibly an executable that will install a lightweight editor, or even contains an editor itself. Obviously it wouldn't have all the features that OO.o contains, but just enough to read and maybe edit.
Or... maybe the document would never get sent to the recipient. Instead the document would remain on an HTTPS accesible document store. The recipient would get an attachment that contains authentication to allow seamless access to the https document store and a path to the document. Along with this document store is the ability to "edit locally" which would give the user the option to run an editor over the HTTPS link or use a locally installed editor depending on the situation. This would go well beyond anything the MS Office suite does now and would appear to be far beyond MS's current mode of thought.
That's where things need to go if MS is to be usurped of the office suite mindshare that it currently posseses.
While this site looks cheesy and some of it may be suspect, I am beginning to think that these folks might be onto something. There's lots of historical and anecdotal evidence that seems to support what they are saying. Finally, how many of you are just *feeling* that there is something massively wrong that goes beyond human matters? The feeling that something so tremendous and terrifying is looming that is beyond our civilzation's control? Discuss...
Hmmmm... what was it that republicans were supposed to be opposed to? Wasn't it regulation, taxes and wasteful spending? (think this issue, the tax on LANs and the ever more expensive war on Iraq) As a rugged individualist liberal, I'd have to say that with Bush in office, we've hit the Trifecta where the Bush admin's reputation is concerned. :P Yeah yeah, I know it's somewhat off topic, but you've got to admit it's quite comical.
If the average Slashdot poster with an innocuous name like say... "Trolling4Dollars" where to use the words 'Billy' and 'Goat' in an article refering to the whole Linux vs. Windows issue, he'd surely get modded down to "Troll -1" Mod the post down to -1!! :))))
I think the whole Linux vs. Microsoft thing where security and stability are concerned comes down to the dilemma of the "soft" parent vs. the "hard" parent. Microsoft is the "soft" parent and *NIX/Linux distros are the "hard" parent.
Remember when you wanted to go out somewhere with some friends of yours and your folks didn't? They did that for your own security and wellbeing. In some cases, you probably had a parent that was easier on you. For example, my dad was the "soft" parent for me. If I asked him something, he'd cautiously say that I could do X as long as I was home beore my mom found out. If I asked my Mom, the answer was most positively one of the following:
1. No!
2. Only if you've done everything else you need to do to get some free time.
3. Why would you want to do that? Go do something useful.
So you can guess which parent I asked more often. I asked the parent that gave me what I WANTED, not what I NEEDED.
Microsoft is the "soft" parent. They give the average user what they want without thinking too much about what the implications are. Or they assume that the user will "do the right thing". *NIX/Linux distros are the "hard" parent since they don't (by default) allow the user to do anything they shouldn't be doing. It's a pain in the ass to have to switch over to "root" to take care of some administrative tasks in Linux. Newer distros make it a little easier, but they still throw up the password protection which would annoy an average Windows user to no end. Think of how many times a Windows user complains when they have to remember a password and they can't or they have to write it down somewhere. Windows doesn't do this kind of thing. Instead they thwart security by being the "nice guy" on the surface. I have plenty of friends who got pissed off having to deal with passwords on their boxes and logging out to become administrator. They eventually all asked me to reconfigure them so that they log in as admin by default automatically with no password. I told them what the implications were and they still wanted this. The real problem still comes down to lazy and uneducated users. The PC industry is giving them the keys to Ferarris and nukes even though they aren't qualified to handle them.
I think that eventually it will become necessary to give people what they need with no respect given to what they want. However, it doesn't have to be impossible to deal with from the end user's perspective. I think RedHat's root dialog box when trying to run an administrative command from the GUI is a perect example of how it can be made slightly easier, but still secure.
Until the average user understands why they SHOULDN'T run as root or Administrator, we are giving them loaded weapons pointed at their heads without telling them how to use them.
If you will present me with your name, address and phone number, I will find you and we can settle this whole spam problem mano a mano. Any takers? ;) I suggest that the rest of the Slashdot community follow my lead.
To get the most complete use out of your computer, you really need to interact with it on it's level. This means CLI and scripting.
For me, I think I will always prefer a text based system since it is how I get the most out of my machines. I use GUIs too, but only for very limited and rarely used tasks like reading Slashdot for instance. :) The other thing I'd like to point out is that I also meant to mention the possibility of speech interaction with machines as well. While this is nothing new, I think it really is *part* of the next interface popular interface. Studies in the past have shown that people don't like machines talking to them. However, if they see that they can talk to their machines and get them to do task by verbal commands, they might be a little more flexible.
...don't miss the boat folks!
I completely agree with you on this. The real issue is that computers are STILL not "easy to use". It doesn't matter what OS is on the box, there is a simple fact:
To get the most complete use out of your computer, you really need to interact with it on it's level. This means CLI and scripting.
Conversely:
To get the most ease of use out of your computer, it really needs to interact with you on your level. This means a user interface that is based on faulty human communication (verbal, facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc...) We're not there yet. However, this is what the Linux crowd should focus on instead of trying to imitate what's already been done.
1. Create new input devices that take advantage of these "human" modes of communication
2. Create support within the base OS for these new input devices
Will this be easy? No. Will it beat the pants off of all current OSes? You bet. Isn't that what we all want? Yes.
No no no! You're supposed to say "I'm sooooooooo naked!" to get the first Naked Post. First Naked Post!!!! Remember kids, you don't have to be first to get a Naked Post, you just have to be NAKED!!!!
Good point. Most users are total morons and think they need more power and storage than their work warrants. However, only time will truly tell if iSCSI will really be the "winner" in all of this. I couldn't find the link for an open source project the I'd seen before that would actually export SCSI, USB and Firewire over IP, so here's this
Hahahaha! That was teh best laugh I've had all day. Welcome to my friend's list.
Whaa? This should have gotten a +1 Funny. Or at least the parent post should have! Again... more clueless moderation from people who have their heads up their ass.
I don't have any of that, but if you want some more pot, I have access to some pretty potent wacky tabacky that I can try and FTP to you. Just go here and log in as "gdubya":
ftp.whitehouse.gov
Password is: letsroll
Actually, I agree with you here. If the person maintaining the internet exposed Windows box is on top of every critical update and keeps aware of all possible exploits, then Windows can be secured almost to the point that Linux can. The major difference is that for Windows to be fully secure, you need to invest in additional hardware (DSL Router/Firewall) or software. Some of the software is free, but the better quality stuff always costs. In the land of Linux pretty much all of this stuff is free (beer) and can be tweaked to be even better. However, this is all based on the user. The plain fact is that the majority of Windows users and admins are just not THAT into their systems. They constantly talk about "having a life" and not wanting to dedicate their time to their computers that much. What they tend to overlook is that if they actually invested the time, the Linux platform would be no more difficult than the Windows platform to configure and secure. And with the experience, it really doesn't take any longer to do the same kind of things on a Linux box that you can do on a Windows box. I "have a life" and do plenty of other things besides work with my Linux boxes (bike riding, renovating my 100 year old house, road trips out west, etc...). The claim that "Linux is free as long as your time isn't worth anything" has no teeth. It should be "The value of my time increases with the gain in my knowledge and is inversely proportional to the amount of time I need to spend gaining knowledge on the subject of Linux". So... if you become more learned, your time is worth more, and you spend LESS time on maintaining your Linux boxes than anyone ever does on their Windows boxes.
Dude... I've been running a well secured Linux firewall and a separate Linux based Apache web server since 2000. I've patched and updated the systems so far from their default install (RH 6.2) that they are no longer really RedHat boxes. These boxes have not been cracked once. If you are vigilant and knowledgable, a Linux box is the most secure choice going with the most available software.
You know if I had a kernel for an OS that would suck my dick, I think I'd patent it since it would be bound to make me billions. Imagine if I could install that kernel into a RealDoll (tm) and sell it for $20,000. I know a lot of folks here on Slashdto would probably want to have a shot at one of those. ;P