Is is really wrong of me...

... to wish the stupid hippie fucktards would just shut the fuck up. If they want to spend the rest of their lives debugging their almost-finished-but-couldn't-quite-be-arsed-with-the=boring-bits applications on Linux then feel free. But stop bugging the rest of us about it.

FSF driver please

What these FSF people fail to mention in going with a OS like linux is that lack of drivers and API's. We havea lot of propriatary hardware that only runs on Windows. Sure, going open source would be great but only if every one else did. And thats not going to happen.

Missing the Point

The point is not that the FSF or Microsoft builds a better operating system. The point that is currently in order to be productive in a business environment Microsoft builds and supplies the OS that the software needs to run. The only point at which Linux or any other OS will be able to make a serious run at Microsoft is when SAP, Adobe, CA, and the other major software authors write their applications for Linux etc... Until that happens the status quo will remain.

FFS

Linux. Windows. Who gives a shit?

@Chika

"May you live in interesting times!"

Um, thanks - I think. Considering I'm testing 8-BETA3* on my build box, I'm not yet sure "interesting times" are preferable to dull, boring and stable rel^H^H^H times ;o)

* http://wiki.freebsd.org/8.0TODO

Windows 7

They need not bother about an anti-Windows 7 upgrade, it is so bad that corporates will NOT be installing it anytime soon.

@Kevin Bailey

"Having free access to the code IS important for a very simple reason."

"YOU may not have the ability to fix the C code on the underlying system - but some of the other millions of users will have - and they will fix it and then send the fix to the maintainers so everybody (including you) will benefit. And those with the neatest, cleanest fix will have their fix used. 'Given enough eyeballs - all bugs are shallow'"

I do not believe you. Want to know why?

I downloaded a copy of OpenOffice 3.1 and, as a first task, tried to import a CSV list of IP addresses into the Calc application. Preview looked okay, so I clicked the big button, and... OMG. It didn't know what to do with my data. Some IP addresses were treated as numbers, others as strings. This was a bug so obvious, that it was evident that nobody even tested the software.

So much for eyeballs.

At this point, I uninstalled OpenOffice and I reached for my notebook - which has a copy of Office 2003 on it, and I imported the data into Excel. Worked first time. You know, for all the FUD I hear from Stallman & Co. about Microsoft using its customers as beta-testers, I have to say to the FSF crowd, "You're worse." This is why I am (and will continue to be) a fully paid-up Microsoft customer.

@crazy operations guy

>>> "I received a copy of this letter from the CTO earlier this week, under the subject "Fanbois say the darndest things" It actually made everyone's day. Its funny how these people just don't understand why companies choose the OSes that they do.

The primary reason I avoid Linux-based OSes is the almost cult-like following." <<<

Completely well said, and I concur 100%. Obviously you've been slated by the bedroom-fanbois, but as someone also involved with a large number of servers, ranging from aix, svr4, sun, Hp/ux our free-unix of choice is freebsd.

It's been hard to persuade 'the suits' because of the negativity the linux camp have brought to the scene.

People don't see the logic in you avoiding Linux because of the cult-like following, but whilst I generally prefer Freebsd anyway, that too is a GOOD reason to avoid it.. If the suits hear that something runs on Linux, they are in horror due to the very fanboism they've heard about..... Why can't your flamers see that point?

This article got me thinking

About Linux's three phases of support:

self help, self help, and self help.

@AC - a few of you who haven't thought thier posts thru properly

"It's 3rd party add-ons that do that for you. How many MS-based networks don't have Novell or something installed..?"

Isn't it time you hung up your boots?

This might have been half-true 10 years ago on an MS-based network but it certainly isn't now.

What's the point of commenting if yuour understanding of IT is so wildly out of date, and just plain wrong?

I guess from the spelling of "thru" that you're an old COBOL jockey who never quite made the transition successfully.

Parade of the Wintards

As soon as something bad is said about Microsoft, especially by open source types, it's the parade of the Wintards, parroting all that stuff about how Linux is a "hobbyist" product and other guff.

For example, Doug Glass opined, "But the truth is, Linux simply isn't a fit with the corporations. It's not taken seriously and it never will be until and unless it can be moved out of the "hobby" room." So when Amazon run most of their cloud on Linux, Google run virtually everything on Linux, it's in a "hobby room"? Such a remark fails so hard it's painful to watch the cluelessness smearing the Internet in slow motion.

And the we have the opinions of Oliver Jones: "It's not the Linux / FSF kernel I'm worried about - it's their compiler. GCC sucks, big-time - and I would not put any trust in it at all. I would put even less trust in a kernel compiled with it." So despite a huge amount of software being built and run using numerous versions of GCC across numerous architectures for a range of different languages typically without any reliability problems at all, you don't trust it. Well, I'd consider your argument had you not also written the laughable "The fact of the matter is, Linux applications are for programmers, not users." Most of KDE or GNOME isn't for programmers, and despite the occasional configuration issue (which you also get with Windows applications, contrary to the mythology), it all works fairly well.

Again, it's like watching an astroturfing campaign triggered by some PR idiot saying that "you have to counter this bad publicity and make Linux look bad", except that the respondents apparently believe what they write, despite copious evidence to the contrary. And then they accuse the open source types of following a religion. Sheesh: the fail is so much on them.

One more funny thing

One more thing that's funny in this thread - all the people saying Linux 'isn't ready for primetime' or 'is just for hobbyists'. Here's a clue: almost every company in the Fortune 500 already runs Linux (we - Red Hat - have contracts with the majority of them). It really is worth getting a small fraction of a clue before dragging out the bats, guys.

Also, the guy who says he uses Windows XP because he wants his computer to just work. I got a good laugh out of that one. I've never met a computer _yet_ that 'just works'. Not running Linux, not running Windows, not running OS X. They're all a gigantic pain in the ass.

Change of UI

Changing from XP to Linux Mint is a far smaller change of UI than going from XP to Windows 7

@Tim Spence

"Aside from their extreme stance on things, I'm usually on the side of the FSF, in tune with their general principles, but I think they've picked a ridiculous battle here, and I can't believe someone higher up actually signed off on it."

If you knew Richard Stallman at all well, you would not have said that.

Wrong targets.

They should have sent these letters to startups, not massive companies. What sense does it make warning people that if they choose Windows in the past they will be locked in in the present? Unless they can get a time-travelling exec to read it there is no point.

Artist's impression of a time travelling CEO provided.

@Parade of the Wintards

"So despite a huge amount of software being built and run using numerous versions of GCC across numerous architectures for a range of different languages typically without any reliability problems at all, you don't trust it."

Actually, there *are* serious reliability problems with Linux, which blows a 6-metre hole in your argument. In my experience, a lot of machines with a Linux kernel and very heavy workload tend to panic after about 45 days. That does not, to me, say "stable". If a UNIX OS has to be used, I will opt for Solaris - or if free is a must, FreeBSD. Linux would be my last resort, not my first. I simply do not trust it with my apps any further than I would trust Joseph Stalin with my life.

On with your next point:

"Most of KDE or GNOME isn't for programmers, and despite the occasional configuration issue (which you also get with Windows applications, contrary to the mythology), it all works fairly well."

Does it? Then perhaps you can tell me why, after changing my network configuration from DHCP to static IP, via the GUI (Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, a derivative of CentOS), it doesn't actually do anything useful? (Being accurate, the new IP address *is* changed immediately upon bootup to the designated static one ... but shortly after sendmail is started, the old configuration is restored and the system fetches its IP address via DHCP anyway.) So I ended up having to dive into the startup files and editing the network config by hand. So much for the GUI!

Sure, it looks nice and friendly. The buttons seem to do stuff when you click on them, too - but it is a shame that the OS just doesn't know how to do what it's told. Gnome or no Gnome, you still have to delve into some configuration file to find out why your machine isn't doing what it is supposed to do, and in the meantime, it is eating time I do not have to waste on basic issues like this. Linux is a time sink. I do not need an operating system or GUI that works against me: Those sorts of things fall into the "chocolate teapot" category.

We're not talking about anything complicated, here. Just changing an IP address from DHCP to static and then rebooting - something even Windows XP handles without a hitch. Yet somehow, as soon as I sit in front of a Linux box, it is unreasonable for me to expect it to do what it says on the tin. This is my point! Linux simply does not work if you want to do anything on it that is even slightly advanced - and please do not feed me the bullshit line "No end user wants to change their IP address on Linux."

Let's try another example: Ubuntu on a Samsung notebook with NVidia graphics, and a beamer (projector to those of you outside mainland Europe). Simple task: Get the display to use the external VGA port, at the beamer's resolution (1024x768 will do nicely). Can you do it? Can you hell. When it did show something, the Gnome configuration utility refused to allow anything more than 640x480, which on a UNIX or Linux system, is a bit useless. Which leads me to the point I made a couple of paragraphs ago: Chocolate teapot territory. I'm sure that *some* people have it working on their graphics chipsets, but NVidia is hardly an obscure vendor, are they? After 2 hours of trying various config changes in the X configuration, I gave up, wiped the hard disk and had everything working under Windows XP in under 40 minutes. So much for all the hype about the Linux desktop...

I am a sysadmin by trade. I deal, daily, with Linux, Windows, Solaris and FreeBSD. I know very well the limitations of Linux on the desktop, and trust me, so do millions of important people in the trade, especially my boss - who, despite being an ardent lover of open source, recognises that if he put Linux on the desktop, his company would grind to a halt. There is no way in hell we would use Linux for anything user-facing or desktop-related. Linux just isn't there yet - and it likely won't be 10 years from now. In 10 years, Richard Stallman will have a longer beard, and he'll be singing the same song; Steve Ballmer will still be throwing chairs in demented fits of pique, Bill Gates will be buying another country - and the Fortune 500 will still be using Windows. End of.

I suppose that I'm missing something...

"The FSF has raised the issue that support for older versions of Windows begins to come to an end as newer versions of the operating system are released. Over time, end users are either forced to upgrade, pay for additional support, or fix things themselves.

"According to the FSF, Linux doesn't tie you into the Microsoft treadmill because the raw code is openly available so that you or third parties can keep systems going and not rely on one company."

So, rather than self-supporting/outsourcing support when the manufacturer EOL's your software N years down the road, you can do it from Day 1...? Is this REALLY their best argument?

...I dunno if that one's gonna fly, to be honest.

====================

@ Kevin Bailey

"YOU may not have the ability to fix the C code on the underlying system - but some of the other millions of users will have - and they will fix it and then send the fix to the maintainers so everybody (including you) will benefit. And those with the neatest, cleanest fix will have their fix used. 'Given enough eyeballs - all bugs are shallow'

"Without this you are stuck with merely waiting for (someone) to acknowledge the problem, care enough about it, (...) test out the fix - re-fix, re merge , find out someone else's branch has code which breaks your fix etc etc etc etc etc. (...)"

Of course that's silly... because apparently finding out what the bugfix breaks is the USER'S job! It's "The FOSS Way™"!

@Adam

It's a joke, son. Get over it.

(I run Fedora at home, by the way).

Linux people need to focus their attention inward

If the Linux crowd spent half as much time developing applications that their non-techy grandmothers could use as they do bitching about Microsoft, then Linux would actually be a viable alternative for the desktop market.

@deegee

I might be wrong, but I thought that the .docx format was Microsoft's move towards an XML-based file format, and AWAY from their more proprietary older .doc file format. In other words, just the sort of thing that you'd expect open-source proponents to be HAPPY about, not annoyed with.

@oliver jones

Picking out two problems you happen to have experienced at random does not a convincing argument make, unless you're seriously suggesting I couldn't pull out two random problems I've ever experienced with Windows (here's a hint: I can).

Not seen that problem with DHCP / static IPs, ever. And I've used enough static IPs in my time. Yellow Dog's a pretty obscure choice for anything but a PPC system, why were you running it?

External displays - this was a problem on most hardware for quite a long time. On hardware that supports RandR 1.2 (Intel and ATI chips for the last couple of years, basically) it's a lot nicer now. NVIDIA is trickier because of NVIDIA; their proprietary driver doesn't use RandR (though you can probably set up the configuration you want quite well from nvidia-settings, if you use the proprietary driver) and they haven't made open source driver development particularly easy. However, nouveau, which is standard on Fedora already and will be standard on other distros soonish, does do RandR 1.2 and supports multiple displays pretty well (I'm typing this on the right hand monitor of my two 20" monitors, being driven by nouveau in Fedora).

The other wrinkle is that projectors tend to be very bad at properly reporting their capabilities to the system; many don't provide proper EDID information, which leaves no standard way for the driver to know what resolutions they're actually capable of. As long as your projector isn't broken like this, though, it should work fine.

Again - just pulling problems out of a hat is not a great argument until the alternative you're proposing has no problems. Of course Linux has problems. So does Windows. That's why most of the readers of this site have jobs, after all; if operating systems just worked, they'd all be unemployed...

@Boris the Cockroach

>>So what happens when your next hardware cycle buys Windows 7 PCS

>>and your current range of apps that work perfectly on Windows Xp

>>suddenly dont work on Windows 7....

This seems to be a common question raised by the Linux crowd... my response is, what apps are these? I suppose there MUST be some problem apps, and I'd love to know what they are, but I've personally not seen them yet.

So far, EVERY SINGLE APP I've tried works just fine on Windows 7 RC. Several work better on Windows 7 RC than under Vista. I've heard of exactly ONE application that doesn't work on Windows 7 RC, and that was something I heard second-hand. The only significant compatibility issue I've heard is that some people using web-based applications that require IE6 as a thin-client will have to use a virtual machine running in VM Ware or Virtual PC. (If the Linux people can trot out the "run it in VM Ware" idea, so can I.)

In fairness, I have heard of a couple of older hardware devices for which there is no Win7-compatible driver as YET, but since the retail Win7 isn't actually available for another few months I think yelling about it too much right now is premature. Or possibly immature. Plus, I doubt Linux users really want to get into an argument with Windows users over who has better hardware support.

The problem with Linux is it's a pain in the ass

In my opinion and experience, unless Linux works first time it's a complete pain in the ass and just not worth the hastle of trying to edit hundreds of cryptic text files to get, for example, a monitor working.

Linux is also more inconsistent between different distros and even between versions of those distros than Microsoft and most Linux vendors seem to think it's a good idea to release a new version every few months which either requires a reinstall or several hundred megabyte downloads. Even Microsoft don't make you do that.

Case points. My netbook runs Fedora 8. Trying to upgrade to Fedora 10 or 11 was a complete failure as the webcam, sound, display didn't work. Case two, on my main laptop, Unbuntu installs and after a week of trying to get the wireless, graphics card and dual monitors working, the only option was to go back to Vista which worked first time on all hardware. Case three, it took me and my collegues three days to get my work computer working with dual monitors and to configure it to use the network correctly. With Windows it would have worked first time. Yesterday I installed Windows 7 on my home computer, which downloaded all the drives from the internet with the exception of the touchpad and worked, you guessed it, first time.

Like someone else said, the only option with Linux is self help and looking through forum posts ful of information as to which text files you should try and edit and which odd-sounding commands to try and HOPEFULLY you might get a working PC.

In the end it's better to pay for a quality Microsoft operating system than it is get a pile of crap for free.

wow, everybody sure likes me :-)

I see @deegee replies... :-)

Sorry, it would take me too long to reply to each comment individually.

The facts are people, there is more free software for Windows than Linux, there is a wider variety of hardware and software support for Windows, etc.

You can argue all you want, but the fact is that overall Linux is not a better platform when ALL things are considered. And any corporate CTO, IT, etc. worth half his salt will know this.

Check out SourceForge (~50/50), CodeProject, or just google it, and I guarantee you will find more free applications and code for Windows on a wider variety of application levels than for any other platform out there.

Re: all the thrashing I got regarding Linux source.

Let's say I have a small company with 5000 XP desktops running Office and SQL doing document and data processing, and 5 2k3 file servers. The hardware can be Dell or whoever you prefer.

Name me 1 (one) plausible, common, often-encountered reason why I would ever require the source code for the OS's. And I don't mean some made-up cr*p.

What "little problem" am I going to fix in an app like Word or Excel, let alone in the OS kernel? C'mon, put your code where your mouth is.

And even if you did come up with one half-crazy example, show me any regular office worker or joe-IT person who will be able to successfully patch anything in a Linux Kernel without years of prior coding experience.

The "oh but someone else in the community may have already coded it" is totally lame. If it is a common serious OS bug, then no doubt MS has addressed it; if it was a feature request for the apps, then use Office macros/scripts or for anything a bit more involved download the FREE VSExpress and throw whatever simple utility you need together in VB or C#.

Everyone in the Windows community seems to get along fine without the OS source code. I don't see corporations grinding to a halt because they don't have the OS source, and I've never seen that point listed on any feature request by companies looking to buy.

Since so many of the Linux-fanbois are stuck on OpenOffice, well you can get that for Windows as well. Most of what is available on Linux is also available on Windows also for free. So if I'm stuck on 'have-to-have' OO, then I pay $50 per workstation to get Windows OEM on it and run OO. I have a better OS with more overall support and a better GUI and user experience, and I can still run OO. And down-time is a non-issue for any good corporate structure regardless of OS, so don't bother trying that in the Linux vs Windows.

For the typical Linux comeback of "what can Word do as a wordprocessor that any other wordprocessor like OO can't, it's just text". Office has other apps as well...

Regarding the comment about the Linux apps getting tested before put into the distro. Is that supposed to also mean that it is good software? Sorry, but at least 90% of all of the Linux software I have looked at in more than 15 years of working with Linux is pure cr*p. I'm not saying that it is bad code or algorithms, I'm saying that the developer(s) need to learn about usability.

I agree that this does also happen on Windows apps, but my point is that this is a non-discussion as it is meaningless.

Regarding the comments of "I/my xxx switched to Ubuntu and now it loads and runs much faster than Windows".

This is not proof of anything... maybe in your specific case it was faster, that doesn't mean it will be for everyone else. I dual-boot W7RC and Ubuntu on an Atom 330 MiniCube system dedicated to surfing. Ubuntu is almost unusable on this since the UI is so terribly slow. W7 using its Aero acceleration is easily 4x faster. And looks better. And has more features.

"Free" is not free if the installation/deployment/maintenance is more time on Linux than on Windows. Time = Money. The Linux community so badly needs to learn this.

I'm not a newb people, I've been doing corp. IT and software dev for the last 15 years and before that I did 15 years of IC and hardware design, assembler OS development, embedded systems, HDA, etc. (yes, I'm an old guy)

The main software that I have been using on my desktops for the past few years are: MSOffice, 3DS Max 200x, Adobe Audition, CorelSuite, VisualStudio 200x (yes, all legal copies).

If any Linux person can show me free or even cost Linux platform software that is equal or better than all of these for features and usability, I'll not only switch completely to Linux, but I'll send them $1000.

If not, then STFU and GTFO because you just proved my point from my earlier post that you had flamed (I stated that Linux is limited on what you can do with it). Feel free to go up and read it again.

Two of the main reasons why Linux will never grow to a large user adoption are: the community is stuck on "free" and GPL so the majority of software developers won't touch it; the community is spending too much time and resources re-inventing the wheel over and over as each little dev group releases "their" version of this-or-that with the net result that forward movement takes years/decades.

I am not against Linux, I currently have it on one of my desktops, and have used it on previous systems as well over the years. It's use for me has been slowly retired to secondary basic desktop surfing as it has been easier and cheaper simply to move all other desktops and servers to Windows.

FSF Forever!

Ultimately if we need to fight the rise of the machines like in Superman 3 - Fight the NWO - Secure our childrens freedom.

gNew Sense adheres to the trust model which all security is based upon! : )

Go FSF!

@Schroeder Washere

"I'm guessing those FSF letters hit the mark, given the way Microsoft has to mobilised it's army of astroturfers to scream blue murder about how bad they they've been told linux is."

Do you have any idea how retarded you (and other open-source dingbats) sound when inventing these pathetic conspiracy theories? Do you even know what astroturfing is? Or does being an unhelpful zealot take up too much time for you to think and learn?

Hint: this is the real world, and intelligent people have different ideas to yours. As a Myers-Briggs trainer once said to me, "if you think there's only one way to make a decision, you've a very strong T preference" - ~50% of the world (no, not the female half) don't make decisions through logic. Of those who do, your (soi disant) logical arguments fail on numerous levels as this comment thread shows - no understanding of externalities, risk, training costs, support costs, rollout, legacy apps, testing, etc. etc. On that basis, you can perhaps convince enough people to get maybe single-digit-percent market penetration. Woo.

I first tried to use linux in about '95 (Slackware, onto a 386sx16 with a 40mb HD) which not only failed miserably but was so horrendous it put me off for years. I used RedHat 6 and 7 on a regular basis around '01, hating the unreliability of the filesystem and buggy apps. Since '04 I've had more or less daily contact with various different linux versions - Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL - and they're still ridiculously user-unfriendly, and they still manage to shit themselves on a regular basis (particularly when rebooting). Last year we had to abort RHEL installation on rather pricey rackmount systems on account of a critical bug in the OS installer - it required information at step 3 which wasn't set up until step 10, with no way to skip back/forwards to do that. Way to go, guys, that nearly cost us the contract.

Linux on the desktop? Maybe when pigs are airlifting people out of the blizzards in hell, but only maybe.

"What was it that Gandhi said?"

I'm sure he said lots of things... "Oi, did you spill my pint?!"? "[Western civilisation] would be a good idea"?

Sorry, if you're going to pretentiously quote a clichéd famous figure, it'd be a good idea to actually do so...

Rodents writing, school sins, zealots, etc.

@ AC 27Aug2009 15:07:

I read it as "the rodents apparently believe what they write".

A novel insult, even though I didn't agree with it - but, second glance showed I'd misread the word "respondents". Oh well.

@ James Butler:

"What's "sin" #1? Training school kids to use Microsoft products instead of training them to use computers in general."

I see your point, but it might be hard to implement.

Although I suppose if someone in the school district was tech-savvy enough (hahaha!!) they could set up some of their already-existing PCs to dual boot into some flavor of Linux, and rotate the kids around so that everyone got a shot at using each OS... and then I suppose you'd have to have equal representation for KDE and Gnome etc... and to be fair, you'd have to have at least one Mac sitting off in a corner someplace to give kids exposure to that... Where would one draw the line?

At least in the U.S., in many regions the people running the schools aren't noted for being particularly bright, so it's not surprising they pick just one OS and stick with it.

And if you have to have only one OS to indoctrinate kids with, it might as well be the predominant OS the kids are most likely to encounter in jobs after they graduate. Unless they're into art or newspaper publishing or something.

@ Schroeder Washere:

"Also note how many claim, in rude and abusive language, that linux supporters are unhelpful zealots"

Well, while this is merely anecdotal, all total I have posted 2 honest and (surprisingly) politely-worded questions on Linux forums. Apparently somehow my first question inadvertently crossed some unspoken Linux taboo because I received one non-helpful rude reply and they immediately closed the thread to further discussion. What had I done wrong? It would have been helpful if they'd at least explained which taboo I'd violated so I'd know what to avoid in the future.

Awfully paranoid and defensive they were, in retrospect (now that I know a bit more about them) far too quick to assume that people with questions are probably trolls out to cause trouble or something, even worse than some of the 'other' now-niche OS forums and BBS's I used to participate in back in the '90s.

My second attempt at asking a [different] question didn't result in any useful replies - obviously I'd *already* searched and searched for an answer to no avail; asking at the forum was a last resort.

Linux online support: nearly worthless. If you have a Linux problem, and if you can't find an answer by spending hours Googling it, you might as well just learn to live with the problem or switch OS's, because it's unlikely you'll get much more than snide unhelpful replies from the Linux community.

I now know better than to ever bother asking for help from Linux people again; it's not worth the put-downs and being made to feel like a total idiot.

I hope they enjoy their superiority and obviously vastly greater intellect - too bad they can't find it in their hearts to help the rest of us now and then when we have little problems.

So yes, I do use Linux (using it right now, in fact), but I certainly don't expect much help if I ever encounter any problems that I can't solve on my own.

I wish it was different.

For the record, no one tells me what to write here and I sure as hell don't get paid for writing either.

AC because this post has probably pissed off school administrators, Linux fans, Mac users, Windows users, believers in trolls, rodents, sinners, and everyone in the U.S. :)

Re: @Parade of the Wintards

"Actually, there *are* serious reliability problems with Linux, which blows a 6-metre hole in your argument."

Cuz you sez, eh? And that was a nice swerve around your unsupported claims about GCC.

"In my experience, a lot of machines with a Linux kernel and very heavy workload tend to panic after about 45 days."

And in my experience, they don't.

"Then perhaps you can tell me why, after changing my network configuration from DHCP to static IP, via the GUI (Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, a derivative of CentOS), it doesn't actually do anything useful?"

I don't choose to use Red Hat derivatives, typically. Yes, I've seen dodgy GUI tools which are supposed to work but don't. Generally, one exercises choice - you know, the thing that Windows users don't really have - and one chooses a distro with decent GUI tools if that's what you need to have.

"We're not talking about anything complicated, here. Just changing an IP address from DHCP to static and then rebooting - something even Windows XP handles without a hitch. Yet somehow, as soon as I sit in front of a Linux box, it is unreasonable for me to expect it to do what it says on the tin. This is my point! Linux simply does not work if you want to do anything on it that is even slightly advanced - and please do not feed me the bullshit line "No end user wants to change their IP address on Linux.""

I'm still wondering why you need to reboot.

"I'm sure that *some* people have it working on their graphics chipsets, but NVidia is hardly an obscure vendor, are they?"

No, but they are a *proprietary* vendor. This means that you have to buy into exactly what they think you need, and soon you've found that you don't have a choice about what software you're able to run. I'm sure you think that it's great to do what other people tell you, and to throw out hardware when the vendors decide you should be running the next Windows release, but this kind of thing was on the FSF's list, after all. (And I'm using Nvidia stuff with Red Hat just fine here at work, despite the undeniable complications that its proprietary drivers bring.)

Yes, I've filed a fair number of bugs against distros for the flaws in their tools. But the claims about Linux being unreliable and not enterprise-ready are just nonsense. People are too ready to ignore issues like hardware suitability when criticising Free Software offerings, thinking that highly proprietary stuff is just going to work when no-one outside the manufacturer has any documentation for it (and in some cases few people inside the manufacturer have any, either), and such people also tend to think that Linux is going to bail them out of the proprietary swamp they've wandered into or "it's that rubbish Linux thing's fault".

I suppose one cannot argue with such short-sightedness. As Linux dominates the supercomputing lists, runs Google and Amazon, is widely used across all sectors (contrary to some opinion), all we're left with is whiny business types who've coded themselves up the proprietary equivalent of shit creek. One has to admire the FSF for bothering to send such people a letter at all.

@Schroeder Washere: Obvious troll is obvious!

I'm impressed with how many straw-man arguments you can pack into one post... but like the character in The Wizard of Oz, they're in need of a brain.

"the more forward thinking of those companies go for platforms that support open standards preferably supported by multiple vendors" - indeed they do, which is why Windows remains the platform of choice for both users and vendors.

You blather on about "choice", but choice is fundamentally an abdication of design responsibility. So Linux gives you the choice of KDE or Gnome - shame that both suck - and a dozen different window managers, none of which do the job properly. And all the text editors. And so many clocks! Wow. I suppose you'd expect a condemned prisoner to be grateful for being offered the choice of being shot or being hanged, as the customisation will enhance his experience.

People don't actually want choice, they want the system to work consistently and cause them the minimum amount of hassle while they do their jobs. I'm always stunned by how open source zealots seem incapable of addressing this point, or even acknowledging its existence. I guess taking "choice is good" as axiomatic is easier, huh?

@geoffrey, @deegee

geoffrey: ah, sorry. In my defence, it's very hard to _spot_ a joke in this thread. There are other people making the same claim you did. I'm fairly sure at least one of them is serious :)

deegee: I have a patch in the kernel, and I can't code. Never took a coding class in my life. Couldn't write a hello world app if my life depended on it. Not a clue have I. The patch fixed support for a particular onboard audio chipset for a bloke I ran into at Linuxfest North West. http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=87488957a68293357a94c8142de7d0ae17914912 . Probably most geeks would be able to figure out what it does, after looking at it for a couple of minutes - it tells it to use a particular configuration of the sound driver in question (snd-hda-intel) for the chipset in question (identified by its PCI subv and subd IDs). Dead simple change, no actual coding knowledge required. It would be utterly impossible for me to make a corresponding change to Windows.

@Schroeder Washere

Can't hold off with the strawman arguments, eh? You ask where they are, but seemingly don't understand the term - it's a spurious and irrelevant argument, misrepresenting an opponent's position, thrown out to confuse and distract. You tried to justify allegations of astroturfing - another term you seem not to understand - on the basis of the DOCX standardisation process and I4I's patent claims, amid a fog of extraneous verbiage. Microsoft's behaviour in other areas, while a subject for debate, is not the subject of this one.

"I guess that's why there's only one global car manufacturer making one model [...]"

No, but it's why all cars have the left-to-right (clutch)-brake-throttle pedal arrangement and a wheel to control the steering, and very similar controls in general, so you don't need an aircraft-style "type rating" for each manufacturer.

It's why each country only drives on one side of the road, rather than leaving the choice up to the individual driver.

It's also why Boeing and Airbus would go bust without (illegal) government intervention: nobody wants the choice and its existence hurts all players.

"[...] And it's interface has never changed since version 1.0. Wait, you mean there's choice, even in the Microsoft world?"

You can choose to run Windows 1.0? On what? Where would you get a copy? It's not been sold for two decades and doesn't support any hardware you've been able to buy in about as long. Choice, you say?

So, to get back to the point, you're accusing people of being Microsoft shills on the basis of nothing more than your own prejudice and arrogance. You made the claim, but are completely incapable of backing it up. Ironically, you lobby for choice and, apparently, are incapable of seeing why anyone wouldn't want that... but say accusations of zealotry are unfounded?

Final thought on the matter: the FSF letters are unsolicited and have commercial implications; that makes them unsolicited commercial mail. How do you feel about spam?