Like most things, both posters reflect truth as they see it. Perhaps the same for me:)
Microsoft happened to be in the right place at the right time to buy an OS from a third party to allow IBM 808x chips to at least work at a rudimentary level. Cassette tape loading, that sort of thing at first. I give them credit for making a usable OS that tried to remain backward compatible. Microsoft made almost every decison in the most practical manner possible. What does the customer want and how can we do it for a super competitive price? Unix developers were perhaps the greediest, if you want to use that prejorative term, since they kept the price of their OS at an insane level (typically $1000) while MS sold theirs to OEM's for maybe $40 and retail for a relative modest amount. But that was 25+ years ago. Today, Linux and the entire FOSS movement have moved the entire world in a new direction, and will continue to do so at what is now appearing to be an accelerating pace toward free and libre software. Especially in developing countries. It appears that Vista will ironically accelerate that trend. Partly because it requires a very, very, high end computer to even run moderately well, and partly due to DRM issues and copyright protection. For many of us, myself included, we have the best of both worlds. We can get commercial software on Windows if we have to have it, but we can get most of the better FOSS software as well. Many of us are moving as much as we can to FOSS. For a year or two my wife and I have moved to Open Office, Firefox browser, etc. I also have the Windows versions of Audacity, GIMP, Picasa, VLC media player, XnView, and all of my ham radio programs, most of which are not available on Linux OS, e.g., the DX Lab suite of programs, Multipsk, WinDRM and Hampal, WSJT, N1MM logger, ICOM Memory Edit, Ham Radio Deluxe. And with MS OS I can use my peripherals, such as my new 22" widescreen Samsung that no Linux OS seems able to run at 1600 x 1050 native mode at this time as a Live version. But long term, Linux is clearly going to be the right choice for most people in the world due to its stability, power, incredible resources from many more programmers now and drastically more programmers in the future. The MS/Novell Linux arrangement was probably one of the sea change shifts in the ripples of time that we will look back upon someday. And now MS is going to be at the Asian Linux Conference. What is the world coming to:) 73, Rick, KV9U kd4e wrote: > >> 7. While Microsoft made a passing attempt at retrofitting security > >> into its early operating systems, they didn't get any money for >this. >> So, we should be extremely grateful that they actually fixed >security >> problems for 8 years for Windows 98. Other companies would not > >> support any software for that length of time. > > > > >>Thanks Jim for what is, to me, the most intelligent post related to >>operating systems that I've seen on this list. >> >> > >Except that it is not entirely accurate. > >Unix was *always* secure and Linux flowed out of Unix >as did BSD. Unix is very old. > >MS *chose* to not implement security due to profit >considerations and the impossbility of security because >of the wide-open-everything-executes-in-root structure. >It was a marketing and technological nightmare -- I >remember it well as a systems manager and consultant. > >"extremely grateful"? You have to be kidding! > >Bill Gates marketed and promoted secure and stable >and while he raked in billions he shipped insecure >and unstable. > >How soon we forget. > >It would be enlightening to read a list of what is >worth doing, for 99% of average users, that is not >available free under Linux. > >OS = Free >Office apps = Free >Internet apps = Free >Music processing = Free >Video processing = Free >Games = Free > >And to get this back on topic ... > >Ham digital apps = Free >Ham antenna calculators = Free >Ham logging = Free >Ham DX spotting = Free >Ham HT programming apps = Free > >Now I donate to many Linux developers because I >want to support them. It is not about Free to me, >it is about choice and integrity and freedom from >abusive OS contracts and limitations. > >Back to digital radio. > > > >
