[ILUG-BOM] a funny insident with me, gnu/linux debate.

[Devdas Bhagat]

On 18/09/06 01:39 +0000, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
<snip>
> Windows, as an OS isn't all that bad. What are its strong points are to 
> be acknowledged and incorporated into GNU/Linux.
> 
Hmmm, let see:

Active Directory as a concept. Still way too complex in Unix. Other than
the standards breakage from MS, a good idea.

Applications (particularly those dealing with closed formats -- AutoCAD,
Office). Open standards for such things would be nice, but at the moment
backwards compatibility would appear to be more important. Requiring
that all document formats be properly documented and released to the
public for unrestricted distribution would be the nicest thing the
government could do.

Hardware support. Broken by lack of manufacturer support, particularly
for cheap hardware.

> > the ms guy started to show me down by saying you un organised geeks
> > don't even know what Information Technology means to people.  and u
> > can only develop academic toys for college students who want to know
> > what is an OS like.  your system can't offer any thing except a toy
> > box.
> 
> Haha....so unguided missiles are toys? routers are toys? Oh not to 
> mention asterisk which is replacing CISCO's heavy duty VoIP boxes are a 
> toy? The OS running 70% of the web's infrastructure are toys? Haha. 

Linux does dominate the public webserver market *yay for cheap
webhosting). Internal websites tend to be on other operating systems
though. Asterisk isn't exactly replacing Cisco in the enterprise market,
though Skype is doing things to scare everyone else. Most non toy
routers run IOS or JunOS (not that Linux _can't_, it just doesn't have
the hardware support). Linux is primarily replacing Unix, but it faces
that nasty problem of Windows compatibility.

All that it takes is that Linux users start requiring that Windows users
stay compatible with them instead of the other way round. Stop using MS
office formats, and you break Microsft's dominance. Don't even bother
about IE compatibility, but write standards compliant HTML and CSS. If
IE can't handle it, sucks. 

If you aren't prepared to pay the price for it, don't complain. FOSS
isn't driven by non-paying users (pay in time, money, documentation,
support costs for some application(s) or the other).

Put up money for the OS and apps, and require that they be under OSI
compliant licenses. 

Devdas Bhagat