This will likely become a separate section title ‘Development Environments’ or something.
For the meantime it’s simply a rant.
The usability of Linux as taken great leaps forwards thanks to the afore mentioned operating systems.
However I can’t help but think that these innovations were not done for the reasons the average columnist or blogger believes.
Search the net and you’ll find more than enough articles titled something along the lines of, ‘If you were thinking about switching to Linux…..Now is the time!’. Which [insert: I believe] misses the point.
It suggests that Linux is in someway switching focus from productivity to mainstream appeasement.
[warning: mixed analogies]
Linux has gone from a marathon runner to a lean mean tri-athlete. Fully able to complete in a wide range of contests and even dominate more focused opponents.
Windows on other hand is playing dress up with clothes that don’t fit. Making the committed leap into circus clown territory.
I love Microsoft.
Windows still has small business and gaming. It has always had small business and gaming. It gave the world small business and gaming on terms it could accept.
However, instead of trying to incorporate it’s highly appealing offerings into the larger menagerie it continues to try to redefine an industry it knows little about; using an drafted army of supporters who know even less.
Which I think is where Microsoft gets confused. It created and cornered a market of computing. Namely personal computing. However, computing isn’t personal anymore. If you think it is then go ahead and cancel your broadband and forget you ever heard the names Digg, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, or Myspace.
Computing is global and it’s social.
In short what I’m trying to say is this:
Every Windows update or upgrade only helps or hurts itself. Allowing Microsoft to make some very selfish and short sighted decisions recently.
Every Linux update or upgrade helps or helps the industry. This wider audience insures that decisions are made for the good of the group. Case in point: Gnome and KDE are examples of competing techs which happily coexist. Users are able to pick the GUI which best suits their needs without sacrifice to the stability of the system.
This goes for any number of software available for Linux. Open Office Word Processor contends with Abiword just as Amarok contends with Banshee.
If you were thinking about switching to Linux….now may indeed be the time.
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followed up in my next post in this series: I’m a DOS baby.
