scienceblogs.com— Children have not yet learned to be selectively ignorant of technology or afraid of what they are told to be afraid of.
Aug 1, 2008View in Crawl 4
Agreed, Linux eventually surpassing Mac OS X in marketshare is inevitable, and it's also a good thing for Apple, and Mac OS X users. Outside the US especially, but here as well, governments, corporations and PC OEMs are dumping vast amounts of resources into Linux development, and given its obvious economic benefit, it's only a matter of time before usage skyrockets as a minimum threshold of usability and hardware compatibility is achieved, especially in countries besides the US. Once Linux does surpass Mac marketshare, and seriously eats away at Windows share, eventually becoming the "standard" OS for most consumer computers, niche players like Apple (who isn't even trying to actually dominate total marketshare as much as continue to be insanely profitable) will actually have a much easier time at competing and integrating with their competitors, as most common protocols and file formats will be open source and standards-based, allowing someone like Apple to integrate with them much more effectively than with the proprietary formats and protocols controlled by companies like Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and Oracle. Currently, anyone who's not selling a Windows-based solution is at an incredible disadvantage in the marketplace, including Apple. As Linux starts picking up marketshare, and the industry standards shift to Linux-based ones, then non-Windows-based vendors will finally be able to compete on equal footing, and we'll see some much greater progress in OS and software development as we remove these shackles of proprietary formats. I must stress that this will not harm a vendor like Apple, who has already been able to integrate all the open standards used by the Linux community into Mac OS X, and who will be able to target a much larger market of people who no longer require integration with common proprietary formats and protocols controlled by their competitors. The rise of Linux is a win-win, for both Apple and their users, and for Linux and their users. The only loser is Microsoft, who would no longer be able to print money with a new version of Windows or Office that doesn't bring any added end-user value, and would actually have to work for their money.
RE: "On a Mac, you get lynched as a developer if you have the misfortune of selecting a non-standard keyboard shortcut for one of your app's functions, and the result is that EVERY MAC APP uses the same exact keyboard shortcuts for common tasks... "When I switched, this keyboard shortcut consistency under OS X was something I noticed immediately.For eg. To go to the "preferences" for any app, it's ALWAYS the same shortcut key - this is FANTASTIC.
RE: "As Linux starts picking up marketshare, and the industry standards shift to Linux-based ones, then non-Windows-based vendors will finally be able to compete on equal footing, and we'll see some much greater progress in OS and software development as we remove these shackles of proprietary formats. I must stress that this will not harm a vendor like Apple, who has already been able to integrate all the open standards used by the Linux community into Mac OS X, and who will be able to target a much larger market of people who no longer require integration with common proprietary formats and protocols controlled by their competitors. The rise of Linux is a win-win, for both Apple and their users, and for Linux and their users. The only loser is Microsoft... "That is truly a well thought out comment +1.
@stinkingfish:You're right. sudo apt-get install is a great and simple way to install software when it works, which is 99.995% of the time. But when it goes wrong ... or when a dependency asks you a question about which version of "dialog" you want to install ... or whether you it should automatically update your rc.d scripts ... what do you do?If you're a techie, you know the answers to the above and you're fine.If you're technically-minded, you'll hop over to Google, do a search, find something that matches, and away you go (assuming the original poster was correct).If you're not a computer person, you're going to do one of two things:a) randomly click on the Yes or No button until the weird message goes away.b) ask your daughter/son/niece/nephew/kiddownthestreetthatknowscomputersc) call tech supportSince there are *very* few Linux tech support companies that offer support for personal Linux installs, you're not likely to get very far with option c (and don't even bother calling the computer manufacturer, even if they *did* offer Linux as an installation option).Now, if this happens a couple more times, Joe Average is going to take Linux off his machine, and put Windows back on - because at least when Windows screws up, he can take it down to Best Buy and have someone look at it (even if they don't know what they're doing and charge him 6x what they should to fix it)It's very sad, but it's true. As I said, one of the biggest barriers to mainstream Linux adoption is the lack of consumer-level Linux support for when things *do* go wrong. People want someone to fix their problems, and someone to blame when it can't be fixed.
squirlyblackAug 1, 2008
It's a wild throw here, but linux has become much more user friendly in the past years because everybody want to help improve the open-source community. You can now play games which aren't available on mac just because nobody is buying them, surf the internet with no problems what so ever and many other advantages. <a class="user" href="https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/index.jspa?ciscoHome=true?utm_source=blog+commenting&utm_medium=media&utm_content=Google&utm_campaign=International">https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/index.jspa?c ...</a>
wiseweaselAug 1, 2008
Agreed, Linux eventually surpassing Mac OS X in marketshare is inevitable, and it's also a good thing for Apple, and Mac OS X users. Outside the US especially, but here as well, governments, corporations and PC OEMs are dumping vast amounts of resources into Linux development, and given its obvious economic benefit, it's only a matter of time before usage skyrockets as a minimum threshold of usability and hardware compatibility is achieved, especially in countries besides the US. Once Linux does surpass Mac marketshare, and seriously eats away at Windows share, eventually becoming the "standard" OS for most consumer computers, niche players like Apple (who isn't even trying to actually dominate total marketshare as much as continue to be insanely profitable) will actually have a much easier time at competing and integrating with their competitors, as most common protocols and file formats will be open source and standards-based, allowing someone like Apple to integrate with them much more effectively than with the proprietary formats and protocols controlled by companies like Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and Oracle. Currently, anyone who's not selling a Windows-based solution is at an incredible disadvantage in the marketplace, including Apple. As Linux starts picking up marketshare, and the industry standards shift to Linux-based ones, then non-Windows-based vendors will finally be able to compete on equal footing, and we'll see some much greater progress in OS and software development as we remove these shackles of proprietary formats. I must stress that this will not harm a vendor like Apple, who has already been able to integrate all the open standards used by the Linux community into Mac OS X, and who will be able to target a much larger market of people who no longer require integration with common proprietary formats and protocols controlled by their competitors. The rise of Linux is a win-win, for both Apple and their users, and for Linux and their users. The only loser is Microsoft, who would no longer be able to print money with a new version of Windows or Office that doesn't bring any added end-user value, and would actually have to work for their money.
jolleyjoeAug 2, 2008
No.
chargersfan39Aug 5, 2008
Could this article possibly be more biased?
jmynameAug 5, 2008
actually I own two PC's and a vista laptop.. I just don't think it's gonna happen.. and I get laid lots thanks
mrbitchAug 5, 2008
RE: "On a Mac, you get lynched as a developer if you have the misfortune of selecting a non-standard keyboard shortcut for one of your app's functions, and the result is that EVERY MAC APP uses the same exact keyboard shortcuts for common tasks... "When I switched, this keyboard shortcut consistency under OS X was something I noticed immediately.For eg. To go to the "preferences" for any app, it's ALWAYS the same shortcut key - this is FANTASTIC.
mrbitchAug 5, 2008
RE: "As Linux starts picking up marketshare, and the industry standards shift to Linux-based ones, then non-Windows-based vendors will finally be able to compete on equal footing, and we'll see some much greater progress in OS and software development as we remove these shackles of proprietary formats. I must stress that this will not harm a vendor like Apple, who has already been able to integrate all the open standards used by the Linux community into Mac OS X, and who will be able to target a much larger market of people who no longer require integration with common proprietary formats and protocols controlled by their competitors. The rise of Linux is a win-win, for both Apple and their users, and for Linux and their users. The only loser is Microsoft... "That is truly a well thought out comment +1.
zorkonAug 9, 2008
@stinkingfish:You're right. sudo apt-get install is a great and simple way to install software when it works, which is 99.995% of the time. But when it goes wrong ... or when a dependency asks you a question about which version of "dialog" you want to install ... or whether you it should automatically update your rc.d scripts ... what do you do?If you're a techie, you know the answers to the above and you're fine.If you're technically-minded, you'll hop over to Google, do a search, find something that matches, and away you go (assuming the original poster was correct).If you're not a computer person, you're going to do one of two things:a) randomly click on the Yes or No button until the weird message goes away.b) ask your daughter/son/niece/nephew/kiddownthestreetthatknowscomputersc) call tech supportSince there are *very* few Linux tech support companies that offer support for personal Linux installs, you're not likely to get very far with option c (and don't even bother calling the computer manufacturer, even if they *did* offer Linux as an installation option).Now, if this happens a couple more times, Joe Average is going to take Linux off his machine, and put Windows back on - because at least when Windows screws up, he can take it down to Best Buy and have someone look at it (even if they don't know what they're doing and charge him 6x what they should to fix it)It's very sad, but it's true. As I said, one of the biggest barriers to mainstream Linux adoption is the lack of consumer-level Linux support for when things *do* go wrong. People want someone to fix their problems, and someone to blame when it can't be fixed.