jangell said:
Open source gives you the upperhand.
Nononononononono! Open source gives
you the upperhand. Doesn't give me squat. Nor does it do anything for 95% or more of computer users. The rest of us need a machine to do the things we need it to do. Microsoft is sometimes a PITA, although, For all my applications from this to Office 2000 suite (yes, I own the 2000 and don't want to pay for 2003, but my 2000 still does all that it ever has on XP), it runs all my navigational software and quite stabily. I can just load in software for applications I want and they work 97% of the time without a hitch, and when I do have a hitch I can figure it out by clicking around using my very limited knowledge. I haven't programmed a computer since I was like 11 and we had a Trash 80 with 2k and a cassette deck.
Microsoft ain't perfect and is an occassional PIMA, but nothing I've come across has been less. My Mac owning friends are always asking me to help with their PITA. Linux, I can't figure out if it'll run what I need it to run. It's like the Freemasonery of computing. I ain't got time for that crap.
For me personnally, Microsoft has always given me a good value, and no one has come forth and offered me better, so I go with what the Application writers of the stuff I need write to, and they overwhelmingly write to windows. I know, I can virtually run... blah blah blah... I've tried running my navigational stuff on a Mac Powerbook a Mate of mine had who swore his machine blah emulate blah virtual blah... he never got it to work right, you couldn't get to half the functions and it wouldn't interface the gps properly. I'm sure
you could get it to work. Heck, you may know how to work it on Linux
. I don't, and I haven't got the time or patience to figure it out. At least MS problems that stump me, there's 4 people in spitting distance who can tell me what to do.
I wish one of you geeks would step up and build a system that gives me what MS gives me with everything you guys always complain about fixed. Shoot, you'd get richer than...Bill Gates!!! Except you won't, because you'll be open source. Bill ain't a dummy, he keeps closed source, open source is how he stole it from Steve who stole it from, who was it, Xerox?
"Every O/S Sucks" is on my hard drive, it represents my opinion quite well, plus it's funny as hell.