-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 05 March 2003 11:57, Eli Billauer wrote: > When will you guys understand, that Linux becoming OS #1 is our worst > nightmare? > > Being #1 means that the system needs to be adapted to grandma, not us. > If it has to sell to the masses, it has to be adopted to the masses.
If the masses are willing to receive an adapted linux, there will be profit in adapting and selling such a thing and companies like redhat will do it. Good luck to them, we'll cheer them on. This does not have to affect the existing projects, and the kind of systems we'll have. Remember linux is free. Free software development isn't a zero-sum game. The same people who developed gnu/linux software for the past twenty years will continue to do so for the same reasons - to be able to use free software, to have a program noone else has written yet, and for sheer intellectual pleasure. More people can join & write software for the masses, or adapt existing programs (which will still make up 95% of any linux-for-the-masses systems). Linux is free, as in choice - and there's already lots of diversity as far as distributions go, and it can only get better. The existence of a linux-for-the-masses can only help linux-for-the-experts develop and grow. If some software or distribution stops being developed/supported, and noone picks it up, that only means not enough people among the 'core' (ie developer, not just user) oss community really want to use it. Natural selection at work. AFAICS we already have the critical mass of developer-users to make sure any interesting software will stick around. Finally I'd prefer grandma and co. to use linux, not windows, because then all those support requests from my friends will be _much_ easier and more pleasant to handle :-) Also we won't have to deal with msword documents anymore, or broken websites. And linux skills will be in high demand. What's wrong with this picture? I'd give a lot to live in such a world. - -- Dan Armak Matan, Israel Public GPG key: http://www.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+ZgpVUI2RQ41fiVERAns4AKCHzLGt33sI1gjmgX8/YiFI8znfcgCdHW+u BkI+nd2geRB/OO9sm1RSOPM= =dX+g -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ================================================================To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
