On 03/16/11 21:30, Jerry wrote:
On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 06:29:25 +0000
Matthew Seaman<[email protected]> articulated:
On 16/03/2011 00:37, Jerry wrote:
Microsoft has approximately 90% of the desktop market share with
everyone else dividing up the remainder. If you are on a Microsoft
platform you use their products. The same applies to other platforms
and their utilities.
Microsoft may once have had 90% of the desktop market -- but is that
still true? Macs seem to be everywhere nowadays.
Also, how important is 'desktop' nowadays, compared to mobile browsers
and the like? If the iPhone doesn't support Flash, then anyone with
any sense is going to provide an HTML5 alternative.
There are numerous sites with purport to state the latest statistics
on OS usage, etc. This is just one that I have used before. I obviously
cannot verify its accuracy. As far as I can tell, it is an impartial
assessment.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8
In an interesting side note, another article that I read recently and
am trying to locate at this moment states that 50% of users who
switched to MAC from Windows in the last 5 years are now seriously
considering dumping it and moving to a Windows 7 machine. Their biggest
complain was with the added complexity of doing routine tasks. A lack
of job specific software was also mentioned. Exactly what that entails
I have no idea. Apparently, keyboard users found Windows easier to use
and maneuver. I am a mouse person myself so I would not be able to
comment on that even if I used a MAC.
In any case, the subject declaring "HAL must die" if no longer
relevant. It is all ready dead, except on FreeBSD. Even its author has
declared it so. The real question is how long are the developers of
the fragmented open-source community going to continue to display
testosterone poisoning by refusing to come together and develop one
common interface/API or whatever they want to declare it to be that
works on all the competing distros and thereby helps to unite the
open-source community? The sad part is even if that did happen, each
distro would then refuse to use it because it was not licensed according
to their own specifications. Yes indeed, you have to love standards,
there are so many of them.
I may be just talking shit here, but shouldn't there be some posix (or
similar) specification for this? That would bypass the licensing
requirements- right? Then the coding would be done by the licensor
according to their own requirements, but the interface would be the same.
Hell, by that reckoning even Winblow$ and Mac could get onboard if they
chose too- not that anyone could see M$ coming to any open standards
party where they don't think they could gain the upper hand :)
Might diminish the pissing contest too...
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