RE: Linux users who like Wiindows (was: Drafts and the larger leadership picture)

Subject: RE: Linux users who like Wiindows (was: Drafts and the larger leadership picture)
From: "Gilger.John" <JGilger -at- acresgaming -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 13:13:37 -0700


You are both forgetting the OS/Software that makes Linux, Windows, and MacOSX as useful as they are: BSD.

There are probably more tools/applications that run on BSD than any of the above three.

John

------------------------------------------------
Bruce Byfield responded when jgarison -at- ide -dot- com wrote:
> well, seems like none of the 3 camps is made of up people who want to use
> the most
> user-friendly, full-featured, widely-used applications. Gee, those must be
> the Windows users.
>
> [The above comment was made in response to this posting by my g/f who is a
> programmer at an educational institution that doesn't do Windows]

I don't have any interest in getting into a tool war.

However, in the interests of debunking, I will say that you / your girl
friend have one out of three right.

Anyone who thinks that Linux software isn't user-friendly or
full-featured needs to become more familiar with the latest stuff that's
available. It's true that Linux software hasn't been very user-friendly
in the past, and it's also true that one tradition of Linux software
development is a tendency to favor small, dedicated applications to one
large one, but the present is very different.

In fact, in some cases,I'd even say that the Linux tools are superior
the Windows ones.To give one example, I've been doing a lot of work with
OpenOffice recently (which is cross-platform, but largely
Linux-centered), and not only is it as user-friendly and as
full-featured as MS Office, but in a number of ways it's superior. In
different areas, one or the other of the office suite may outclass the
other,but in about two out of three cases, OpenOffice beats MS
Office,not the other way around.

The comment that you got right is that Linux software isn't the most
widely used. But so what? Quality and performance are much more
important in software than popularity, and in these areas Linux compares
very favorably with Windows. Moreover, there are enough cross-platform
file formats and enough decent translation filters that communicating
with Windows users is no problem at all; I'm doing it now, of course.

All of which brings up another point: for many Linux users, the
selection of their operating system is a personal choice. True, many
want to see it become more popular (it may be the number two desktop
operating system, but it's still far, far behind Windows).

But don't assume that,because some people have chosen Linux, they
necessarily believe that you should. That's as false as the idea that
those of us who have chosen Linux are handicapping ourselves in some way.

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