What an odd message. I would normally interpret something like this as a troll.
And I would not normally respond. But, what the hell, as long as there's plenty to go around ... I bash MS for its dishonesty and blatantly oppressive market practices. If it only produced a poor-quality product, there would be no big deal, people would just exercise their right to choose and be done with it. This model breaks down when "right to choose" has been attenuated, either directly (you are not allowed to use something else) or indirectly (someone is prevented from selling you something else). It would have been something quite else had, oh, Digital Research stayed in the game and produced a competing GUI that had any siginificant market share -- but that was actively sabotaged (matter of court record) and the public was fed FUD to undermine the competitors. The greatest contribution of Linux to the marketplace is the re-introduction of choice. It helps that Linux is a real 32-bit multi-user multi-tasking OS. It helps that there is a broad support community. It helps that there is a low entry cost. But choice is the real benefit. When I go to the store to pick video games for my son, I have no religious axe to grind. I look at the different games from competing publishers on *merit only* without any regard to the size of the company or its popularity. When I think about what OS to install, my hackles rise at the idea that my preferences might be irrelevant. I like Windows for many of the things it's made possible. There's a small army of very talented guys in Redmond who pour their souls into the product, making it as good as they can in spite of stupid deadlines and unreal goals handed down the management tree. I like Linux and BSD because they let me be involved in the way things are set up. I can once again stick my fingers in the gears. They're not toy operating systems and I am allowed (even encouraged) to gain understanding of the guts of things. I may like Windows, but I don't trust its publisher. I do, however, trust the Unix/Linux community. I can talk to them and get the answers I need. I like that I will be able to use my old computers for useful things because there's an OS I can run that will actually run well on a 486 because the guys writing it cared enough to tune it right, and they didn't have a bunch of corporate "leaders" pushing them to shortcut stuff in order to make some artificial deadline. The commercial development community may not yet be on board, but it turns out that commercial-grade software is being written by people for whom freedom of choice is more valued than skinning the public. Yes, I know Windows will be with us for some time to come, but it doesn't need my love and care to succeed. It grows like a weed. I'll still use it, but my love and care will go to the garden that actually needs it: I want to make sure that in the future I still have a choice. Regards, Garry [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- Date sent: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 07:00:51 -0600 Send reply to: Older PC and DOS Internet Forum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Nicholas C. Dalzell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I have noticed a lot of survpc is going from a small > flame into a towering INFERNO against Microsoft!!! > While I know linux (whatever distro) is also a great > OS, there are faults that I have experienced from it, > that I haven't experienced with the NEWEST AND BEST, > Windows XP (My windows XP systems has never "Blue- > screened, and it is the BETA version!). Also there > are some things that windows can do that linux just > can't do! > [ snip snip snip snip ] To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
