[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Tim Ottinger]

Bexley Hall wrote:
>
> The "problem" is people bemoaning Linux's 1% (?) share of the
> desktop 
Right.  Stop bemoaning, people!  It's unbecoming.

No more bemoaning or it is coming out of your allowance.  And I mean it, 
young man.

> Think about it.  It's ''Free'' yet The Market is saying "No thanks".
> It "works" yet The Market is saying "No thanks".  No matter how
> hard you try, you just can't realistically rationalize away The
> Market's disinterest!  
>
> "All those people just *can't* be 'wrong'! (?)"
>   
heh.  You make it sound past tense.  Linux doesn't have to hold the 
imagination of the masses.  It doesn't have to be profitable this 
quarter, this year, this decade. It doesn't have to capture a market or 
drive out its "competitors".  I doesn't have to compete.    It doesn't 
have to "win" by any traditional measure of "winning".  It might come to 
totally own the market in 90 years.  Or 70.  Or 50.  But that won't 
matter.  It's cool when you see it starting to happen just the same.

If the people using it are happy, it is successful.  If they can change 
it so that they're more happy, then they are successful and Linux is 
also. The fact that there are other successful and popular (or even just 
prevalent in M$ case) desktops is neither here nor there.   If a handful 
or a million people like other desktops better, it still successful.  
FOSS doesn't play a zero-sum game.  That's why it's inevitable.

And if a linux company goes out of business, the rest of the world 
hardly cares.  I miss Libranet, but I use Debian and Ubuntu just fine.  
RedHat is still in business, and lots of people get their opinions of 
Linux from redhat (a pity), but we don't have to have a RedHat and I 
don't even *like* Fedora.  And yet I love using Linux.

My kids like Linux. My wife uses it.  I used to have rooms full of kids 
enjoying it for no cost.  I didn't have to monitor licensing and buy 
seats.  I simply wiped and reinstalled contributed computers and all was 
well.  That was winning to me, too.  It was sweet to not have to fight 
or police the users.  Whatever one liked, I gave to all.  It was *fun* 
in ways that windows boxes are clearly not.

If you're mad because Microsoft isn't dying or "losing", then you were 
backing Linux for the wrong reasons. 

It has won. It just hasn't won the game you wanted it to play.

-- 

Tim ---------------------------
http://agileotter.blogspot.com/
http://tottinge.blogsome.com/
-Tim speaks only for himself---