I actually disagree with the question. Why should someone use Linux? The answer should be because they want to. It seems that choosing computers has become a fashion statement as of late, in which case Apple pretty much has that market sewn up. I am of the opinion that trying to woo people into FLOSS who do not care about Freedom is a wasted effort.
I prefer Linux, but if PC-BSD is successful then great. The rising tide raises all boats and all that. I doubt that PC-BSD (or any real BSD, Darwin need not apply) is or will be any more successful than Ubuntu has been. We should get used to Ubuntu as having set the bar. This is not necessarily a bad thing, unless we waste time and effort trying to be something we are not. There are enough people cranking out awesome projects that I do not fear the competition from Apple and Microsoft. I expect that everyone involved will be making new and even more awesome stuff in the future. The Linux kernel has more people working on it than any other kernel (I just made that up) so I am not worried about the technical future. The only threat is that of dumb legislation and even then it is unlikely that such legislation will have global reach. The recent Internet blackout demonstrated who holds real power. No, I believe that instead of trying to woo the mythical average user who just wants something shiny instead of something that is actually a quality product, is just wasted effort. The only real alternative is to learn how to make stuff yourself. In this digital age we need to teach ourselves how to use the tools to make the future ourselves. That is the real lesson here. It doesn't matter if you learn Ruby, TCL, Bash, Perl, Python, C, Java, Smalltalk or any other language, what is important is that you pick up that hammer and make something, anything. It does not have to be good, popular, or even useful. Just make, then make some more, then do it all again. This is not to say that only code matters, but learning how to make stuff yourself is the only real path to guaranteeing Freedom. I have babbled enough for one day. Good night. On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 7:17 PM, caziz <ca...@cuug.ab.ca> wrote: > Not like me. I'm simple and like things that work. > Torvalds thinks Gnome 3 bites too. (bad pun?) > > I think the root problem is the imperative to do new exciting things. > Gnome 2 has good functionality but (I understand) the guts are a mess. > So why not clean up a proven design? Because it ain't a new 'n bold thing > to do? > > > Microsoft has top notch power designers. > > > > On 12-05-01 02:52 PM, Lance A. Brown wrote: > >> On 05/01/12 15:56, Greg Saunders wrote: >> >>> Here is why Linux on the desktop is a failure: It's designed by >>> developers >>> like you and me. Get a top notch design agency engaged, people that >>> understand >>> "user experience" and UI design, it could be a different story. We, >>> developers, haven't come up with any UI improvements since the mid 80s. >>> >> Just don't hire whomever did the UI work for Gnome3 or UNITY. Oy! >> >> --[Lance] >> >> > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > clug-talk@clug.ca > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying >
_______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list clug-talk@clug.ca http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
