[GLLUG] Semi-OT: Another BIG WinVista misstep
Charles Ulrich
charles at idealso.com
Thu May 10 10:53:49 EDT 2007
On Thursday 10 May 2007 08:39, Michael Rudas wrote:
> Another big hole for the hackers to drive through...
>
> "Driver signing is a failure for Vista"
> <http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070510/#story1>
>
> ...yet I continue to hear "WinVista is the greatest thing since
> sliced bread!" from people that SHOULD know better. I hope Linux is
> "ready for the masses" soon, or our entire computing infrastructure
> may collapse.
ESR seems to think so, and I mostly agree with him. He and Rob Landley
(co-founder of Penguicon for those who don't know) authored a paper
called World Domination 201 which outlines their reasoning behind the
claim that Linux is poised for World Domination in 2008.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html
They argue that 2008 will see the beginning of the end of 32-bit
processors. But despite having years to prepare, 64-bit Windows Vista
is still a bit of a mess. I typed "64-bit vista" into Google and nearly
half of the results are pages warning people off of the 64-bit version
due to driver issues and also arbitrary limitations imposed by
Microsoft. Not to mention the fact that Vista was almost universally
panned by critics on launch. Or the fact that its DRM imposes a bunch
of artificial restrictions on the audio and video content that you
already rightfully own. Eventually, there will come a point where users
and PC vendors will no longer put up it and will look elsewhere.
Linux and most open source software, on the other hand, have been
capable of running on 64-bit architectures practically from the
beginning. The only issues that I'm even aware of are things like some
proprietary web browser plugins not working right.
The main area where Linux falls down is catering to Joe User. It's been
a problem since the late 90's when everyone was talking about World
Domination and it's still a problem although it's gotten much better
and is now at least almost there. Commercial support (in terms of
publicity, not actual tech support) has pretty much fallen by the
wayside, though: Red Hat went completely commercial, IBM's big Linux
push died out, and Novell's in bed with their own competition.
But despite these setbacks, there are some advancements being made. Dell
has been shipping Linux as an option on their servers for awhile and it
looks like we'll see Linux on some of their desktops in the near
future. Michael Dell himself runs Ubuntu on one of his laptops at home.
Anymore, you're hard-pressed to find a computer user who hasn't at
least heard of Linux. Most I.T. professionals have tried a LiveCD once
or twice or installed it on a test system. At the very least, it's in
the public mind now.
Unless they shift into a different direction and/or abandon some of
their old ways, I think Microsoft have seen their peak of dominance
with XP. Without major changes to both the company _and_ the codebase,
they can't sustain Vista in the long term and the only thing that's
around to replace it is Linux. (If you're wondering why Apple isn't a
contender, ESR and Landy's essay explains why.)
--
Charles Ulrich
Ideal Solution, LLC -- http://www.idealso.com
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