[Tfug] Smoke detectors for the deaf > Developing apps for the Linux desktop.

[Malcolm Schmerl]

Bowie J. Poag wrote:
> Hmmmmm.....
>
> http://theappleblog.com/2008/12/03/november-operating-system-share-numbers-should-microsoft-be-scared/ 
>
>
> Like I said a few weeks ago...maybe it's time we start paying less 
> attention to Linux, and more attention to Darwin/x86. We'll get more 
> done, quicker, by putting pressure on Apple to open OS X up to 
> non-Apple hardware than it would be to continue doing what we're doing 
> collectively farting around with desktop Linux.
>
> It should be pretty obvious by now that Linux on the desktop is dead. 
> It's had 10+ years now to take root, grow, stabilize, and be truly 
> competitive...and it simply hasn't.

Not true! The entire Indian government is on Linux. I'm not sure which 
disto.

>   Even worse, the whopping 0.83% of Linux's "world domination" 
> marketshare is fragmented among more than one desktop. No mainstream 
> software developer in their right mind is going to line up manpower 
> and capital to develop for a target audience that small, and even 
> worse, that target audience is generally adverse to spending money on 
> software. You'd be better off getting out of the software business and 
> starting a company that makes smoke detectors for the deaf at that 
> point. 0.8% of the public > 0.8% of the public that use a desktop 
> computer regularly.
>
> It just seems like it would be easier to pressure Apple into 
> conforming to what the public wants, via Darwin/x86, than it would be 
> to continue trying to crowbar Linux into something acceptable to the 
> mainstream. I mean, think about it... If the number of Hackintosh 
> installs out there dwarfed the number of "legit" OS X installs, any 
> move Apple would make would first need to appease the masses, else be 
> considered broken...legal or not. If people are using a free kernel on 
> commodity hardware, but *buying* OS X, Apple's bottom line would still 
> increase. How is this a bad thing for anyone?
Going with Apple in lieu of Microsoft might be like jumping out of the 
frying pan and into the fire. When a farmer practices monoculture, he 
gets serious problems with pests and must spray. This is Microsoft's 
problem. Virtually everybody uses Windows, so virus designers design for 
Windows which then must be layered with protective software. If OS-X 
becomes popular, it will have the same problem. The beauty of Linux is 
that it is not mainstream.
>
> Cheers,
> Bowie
> CEO, Hellen Keller Pyrotronics, Inc.
>
>
>
>
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