People would rather pay for windows than use linux?

tech stuff for a change...

I am reading http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30697177/people-would-rather-pay-for-windows-than-use-linux.aspx this, and most enjoyed the entry by "Stuart Miller posted on Sunday, September 09, 2007 3:10 AM".

Its not an easy subject, and OS wars used to be my favorite pass-time when in school. I was a vms artist and at the lab had this concurrent CP/M (CCP/M) that loved so much that I bought DRDOS, a multiuser/ multi-CRT-window OS. How many of you knew that? That was mid 80ś when M$ struggled to get rid of the IBM contract, that paid them much much more than what their product was actually worth. I know this cause at my first jon on route 9 we were rewriting the whole command.com from scratch within a week. (more details removed after some thought)


I was forced :) on sunOS and real-time-extensions Ultrix. Had to compile the ultrix kernel almost daily to get our functions working, and every time that it crashed, it was a nightmare. SunOS was crashing for nothing but rebooting happily on a 386 machine, within the hour. I was also forced to take long lunch brakes many times during the shift. Who wouldn´t.

After vms or rsx the unix world was the pits.
Since 2006, I am on Ubuntu. Today, I just cant live without it.
It pays of the Blue Screen of Death, or the Azure Screen of Discomfort of the latest versions. Its not as obvious, but its there.


I made a choice cause a lots of things got really annoying with M$. I have the feeling that I paid for hardware, paid for the right to use the software, and I am constantly monitored. Either from the remote registry, or the little icon that informs me that Iḿ connected to the internet (you know what this does? goes out to M$ to get a little tiny txt file, And you get an icon!) To me, as a security person, its a security breach. You people call it "just a little text file". U R the "Example, we have XP Pro on machines at work, I (and the IT guy)generally set them for "Classic" menu. One woman insists we need to get rid of that slow old thing because it only has Windows 98 on it, and despite it rebooting with the XP Pro screen she insists we are lying and it's really 98 because "She knows" what 98 looks like. :)" extract from the parent link that fired this blog entry. In my world you are (L)Users, Even if you have a ton (metric or imperial) of computer related degrees, you are. Liberal Arts and MBAs just hit the power button and get lost. If you have not Mastered at least 3 OS´s don't dare to have an opinion. Come to think about it, people have only seen M$ windows, and dare to speak of OS´s.
I tell them daily. They are using an application and not an Operating System. Good thing for Apple, that gives you the Aqua shell (windowed environment) but you can get full access with the shell to the OS. I own a G4 MAC. I run 100% open-source on it, had to compile it the most of the time, but I have the use of software thats 10s of 1000s of dollars worth in proprietary s/w licenses. To me its a toy. My machine has ubuntu (10,4lts currently), and its a real productive work platform. I have installed 100s of 1000s of files, testing applications and server s/w, rarely uninstall anything, and its as fast as the initial day of deployment. Using all these neat gnome Desktop Effects that windows users will probably see after the year 2020 and multiple desktop screens that windows will get by the year 2525. I see my fellow colleagues programming with the visual studio on a single CRT/LCD. Advanced programmers get a second vga card to connect, if their system and driver permits .... LOL.

I boot my usb stick with ubuntu to clean up their viruses hidden in recycle or system volume. Do the same to copy protected corrupt files, clone their disks and use my tools to debug their s/w IO accessing hardware devices and ports directly.
I see the trend lately, porting linux apps to windows. Gues what? The performance is not as close. The linux is a -above all- a network machine. I create tcp sockets from the command line in a count of thousands while they are still trying to figure our the call properties of a dot-net class. How productive can you be? YOU do not know unless you have done it in a few other OSs I repeat.
And I know, cause I´ve done it. Well... like vms more, its very solid, meaning, its so solid, that does not let you make a mistake. DONT confuse this with ADA. The reputation of ADA comes from integrating it under VMS, especially if you want to launch missiles and guide run the space shuttle. Satellites, rovers etc are easily run on CCP/M. But thats another blog entry.

Lets talk a bit more of linux. I care if my system is running, on its own, not to be verified, certified, authorized, controlled, possibly locked in full or in part, by a third party. I like to have the OS and 35000 (at least) pieces of software available on CD/DVD in my drawrer, using at (free) will. Not have to dig deep into my pocket, just for a word processor or an architectural drawing or even better an animation editor, picture enhancement application and movies editing. Or 35000 other possibilities.

My feeling for closed source, is by 27 years of observation, that they just watch extremely close the OpenSource community, get the code, recompile it to their closed source alternative, and sell it to you. Thats not capitalism. Its theft. And loyalties should be paid to the opensource developers. Its not easy to prove though. Its takes loads of money, and they got plenty. From you.
We are only a few million people, that are not directly monitored. They can live with it, I use google daily, and google is trying its best to get me, Its correlating all my searches and gmail accesses to blogs and sites. But in my linux box (or FreeBSD) I got so many tools to give them a cut down impression of my activities that does not make it worth while. Dont even have to try, most of the stuff are set and forget.

Corporations go under. M$ will not be there for ever, My linux will, at least for as long as I have the DVDs. Iḿ just unhappy that I had to be around the era of Bill Gates. He was the right person at the right place on the right time (with an aunt working for IBM - if the myth is correct, and with perfect dumpster diving skills at Garryś Kildall back yard).

The youth is not aware that programming in linux/unix is so much easier. The software makers that follow the trend do not realize that their product can be cost effective and sell the same price when they present the customer with a ´so called server' with the linux app and a thin client on M$ thats just a dumm interface machine. Users have lost their ability to learn, so let them use windows. They are pathetic. So what if the Vista or the 7 interface has maximized the calls to the IT department. The only similarity of XP and 7 is the theme and the colors. Maybe we should just make GNOME with a windows theme, LUsers shall not have a clue.