Bill Gates' letter to hobbyists

[Alessandro17]

5 different architectures at home. What about your router or switch?

 

I think you have no clue about advantages and disadvantages of OSS or of UNIX, when I read the suggestion to change the UNIX dir tree I want to puke... changing to what? The crippled non-standard tree of OS X? No, thanks.

 

I also think all the bashing of OSS is funny, microsoft users wouldn't be in the net without OSS (freebsd tcp/ip stack anyone?). All the servers delivered with Mac OS X are OSS-projects. Strange my worthless free OS is able to read&write almost each and every filesystem, what about yours? There are so many points where your closed source software/os is ages behind... stop bashing OSS when you get so much out of it without even knowing.

 

Very good, pebcak.

[InorganicMatter]

All the servers delivered with Mac OS X are OSS-projects. Strange my worthless free OS is able to read&write almost each and every filesystem, what about yours? There are so many points where your closed source software/os is ages behind... stop bashing OSS when you get so much out of it without even knowing.

 

I'm not going to hit all your points, but I'd also like to point out that OSS isn't all advantages and no drawbacks. As an example, going to your file system argument: you will never be able to use the kickass ZFS. Solaris and FreeBSD already have it, and Apple is working hard to implement it in Mac OS X. The most your precious GPL permits in Linux is a lousy userspace implementation of it, which provides completely unacceptable performance for a desktop user. OSS does have a few great things about it, but there are several huge drawbacks, so don't take that "we are better, no exceptions" snobbery attitude.

[pebcak]

Most of you wrote about OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE, not Linux.

 

FreeBSD is not an opensource operating system?

 

And the "every os project is {censored}" attitude is so much better? I said there are many points, I never said overall... so many closed source software/operating systems benefit from opensource projects. People should stop being brats.

[snakeeyes]

Here is the problem with open source operating systems like linux, they r not known to offer something unique in the desktop market.

 

An example:

 

Windows for games, and microsoft office.

 

Mac OS X for video editing and microsoft office or website designing and maybe even iworks.

 

Linux for.........general use only, not known for something special other than servers. OpenOffice though good can't compete in quality with microsoft office or iworks.

 

Linux developers need to create something that makes them unique in the desktop market.

[Alessandro17]

Here is the problem with open source operating systems like linux, they r not known to offer something unique in the desktop market.

 

I am surprised to read that from you, snakeeyes. How about stability, security (my best friend is being driven nutters by a virus he can't get rid of), ability to configure your OS the way you want, no serials, no activation (nightmare!)...All these are huge pluses in my book.

 

An example:

 

Windows for games, and microsoft office.

 

MS office runs perfectly well under Wine/Crossover, and it is overkill anyway for most users.

 

As to games, Linux has more than people tend to believe:

 

http://www.linuxgamingworld.com/games-catalog/

 

http://icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php

 

http://games.linux.sk/

 

http://www.happypenguin.org/

 

(And tons more run under Cedega)

 

Linux for.........general use only, not known for something special other than servers. OpenOffice though good can't compete in quality with microsoft office or iworks.

 

See above. As to OpenOffice it is more than enough for most users. Actually older Microsoft Office documents open better in OpenOffice than in the latest Windows Office (it isn't even compatible with itself!)

 

Linux developers need to create something that makes them unique in the desktop market.

 

See my first paragraph. Besides openSUSE 11 is going to provide plenty of reasons to move to Linux.

Trouble is that people are lazy and ignorant.

[snakeeyes]

I am surprised to read that from you, snakeeyes. How about stability, security (my best friend is being driven nutters by a virus he can't get rid of), ability to configure your OS the way you want, no serials, no activation (nightmare!)...All these are huge pluses in my book.

 

 

 

MS office runs perfectly well under Wine/Crossover, and it is overkill anyway for most users.

 

As to games, Linux has more than people tend to believe:

 

http://www.linuxgamingworld.com/games-catalog/

 

http://icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php

 

http://games.linux.sk/

 

http://www.happypenguin.org/

 

(And tons more run under Cedega)

 

 

 

See above. As to OpenOffice it is more than enough for most users. Actually older Microsoft Office documents open better in OpenOffice than in the latest Windows Office (it isn't even compatible with itself)

 

 

 

See my first paragraph. Besides openSUSE 11 is going to provide plenty of reasons to move to Linux.

Trouble is that people are lazy and ignorant.

 

I didn't mean this in a negative way, stability and security is great but mac os x offers stability and security as well. No serials and activation is true, but then again its not some killer feature u would change an OS for right? I mean we all can afford vista and mac osx here, no one here is that poor.

 

Cedega is good, but the problem is that those apps don't run natively on linux, I can wait for suse 11.0 my self, I have a brand new desktop with suse 10.3 right now and a laptop I am going to switch to suse 11 when its out.

 

Linux developers have made alternatives no doubt, but the thing is when I show people Mac OS X, its something everyone wants, when I show them Linux I don't get that same reaction. There must be a reason for that.

 

I do all my gaming in consoles so I don't need or care about windows and as for video editing, I couldn't draw a circle properly in microsoft paint so u can't really expect me to edit videos.

 

All I am saying is that linux needs professional software that runs natively and they should stop making things like others for example openoffice looks just like older microsoft office versions and that isn't cool. They should make something thats unique, mac osx is unique, it doesn't act or behave anything like windows does and thats what makes people want to use it.

 

Linux devs on the other side think that if we make stuff similar to what people r used to they will be more willing to switch. Linux should have its own styles and way of doing things.

 

You might have seen some people in forums that complain that linux is too different from windows so they stop using it, whereas mac os x is very different as well, but no one dares complain its different.

[Alessandro17]

No serials and activation is true, but then again its not some killer feature u would change an OS for right? I mean we all can afford vista and mac osx here, no one here is that poor.

 

No serials and activation together with all the other benefits was more than enough for me.

Of course I can afford Vista, but why should I pay for {censored}?

 

Cedega is good, but the problem is that those apps don't run natively on linux

 

Yes, but I have a friend who is capable of running games under Cedega so well that you don't notice the difference.

 

Linux developers have made alternatives no doubt, but the thing is when I show people Mac OS X, its something everyone wants, when I show them Linux I don't get that same reaction. There must be a reason for that.

 

Here it is the exact opposite. I haven't been able to persuade one single person to have OS X installed on their computer, while there is a pretty large group of young people who use Linux.

[snakeeyes]

No serials and activation together with all the other benefits was more than enough for me.

Of course I can afford Vista, but why should I pay for {censored}?

 

 

 

Yes, but I have a friend who is capable of running games under Cedega so well that you don't notice the difference.

 

 

 

Here it is the exact opposite. I haven't been able to persuade one single person to have OS X installed on their computer, while there is a pretty large group of young people who use Linux.

 

Yeah I agree, no need to buy vista. Right now I can't wait for opensuse 11.0.

 

How come no body wants to use Mac OS X?

[Alessandro17]

How come no body wants to use Mac OS X?

 

Who knows? They are simply not interested.

It could be because they never see one anywhere.

I am different because I spent 15 years of my life in the UK. The first modern age computer I used was a Mac (it belonged to a house mate).

I could see Macs in every large computer store.

[mifki]

pebcak, i have cisco routers you nub. I was never totally bashing OSS, a couple of my servers are running linux, i have no problems with them apart from the fact that when i update one service all the others break because of the stupid dependencies. Sure OSS is great in some areas, but when people start saying that OSS is the alpha and the omega or trying to compare OSS on the desktop with other commercial operating syte ms i cant help but laugh at thier ignorance, nowsure some peoplemay like to use linux or freebsd or solaris as thier main OS, good for them. And your point about filesystems, seriously man, who gives a {censored}. How many times in your life will you have to read from some obscure filesystem? For the average user (which is pretty much 99% of the market) OSS based desktops still have no advantage over commerical systems (apart from the fact that they are "free"), and for the other 1% ofcomputer users everything is free, why would you continue to use {censored}, unstable linux when you can easily download os x or xp or vista for free, bypass activation for free, want to do photo-editing, why use crippled gimp when you can download photoshop or any other professional image editing software. same thing goes for openoffice and every other {censored} copy OSS has tried to make of professional commerical software. Clinging onto the idea of free == better is just totally ignorant.

[SDRacer48]

pebcak, i have cisco routers you nub. I was never totally bashing OSS, a couple of my servers are running linux, i have no problems with them apart from the fact that when i update one service all the others break because of the stupid dependencies. Sure OSS is great in some areas, but when people start saying that OSS is the alpha and the omega or trying to compare OSS on the desktop with other commercial operating syte ms i cant help but laugh at thier ignorance, nowsure some peoplemay like to use linux or freebsd or solaris as thier main OS, good for them. And your point about filesystems, seriously man, who gives a {censored}. How many times in your life will you have to read from some obscure filesystem? For the average user (which is pretty much 99% of the market) OSS based desktops still have no advantage over commerical systems (apart from the fact that they are "free"), and for the other 1% ofcomputer users everything is free, why would you continue to use {censored}, unstable linux when you can easily download os x or xp or vista for free, bypass activation for free, want to do photo-editing, why use crippled gimp when you can download photoshop or any other professional image editing software. same thing goes for openoffice and every other {censored} copy OSS has tried to make of professional commerical software. Clinging onto the idea of free == better is just totally ignorant.

 

I am not trying to disagree with your argument, or with your opponent's argument in that case. Everything you said is right, for you, and not your opponent.

 

What I am getting at, is it depends on the user. Yes, your statements may correctly identify with the mob (the 99% of the user base), but let's not forget that the 1% of the user base is still a lot of users.

 

For instance, there are approximately 6 billion people living on planet Earth, let's be conservative and say every 1 out of 6 people have some kind of access to a computer, whether it be their own or one they can just use. So, 1 billion people times .01 (1%) is 10,000,000 people. Now in the scale of the 1 billion people, the 10 million people are not an awful lot. But, if you consider the hundreds of people you will come in contact with each day, and that 1 out of every 100 of those people will not be the typical user, you can really see how it could be beneficial to a significantly greater amount of people than one may actually forsee.

 

With that said, I am usually a major supporter of majority rules and democratic ruling (what is best for the mob, is best for all), but in the case of computer software and operating systems, it does not apply. There is way way way too many choices out there to say, "Hey world, this is what is best for everyone, and you will all use it!"

 

My 3 cents. I had an extra cent to give tonight...

[mifki]

I am not trying to say that Open Source doesnt work, I understand that some people prefer to use it over commercial based products, i just prefer to use something which i find more functional and stable.

[SDRacer48]

I am not trying to say that Open Source doesnt work, I understand that some people prefer to use it over commercial based products, i just prefer to use something which i find more functional and stable.

 

Exactly.

 

By the way, I am not trying to call you out or anything, but shouldn't your signature say socialism. I understand the meaning of what you say, but my understanding leads me to believe that communism is were the state controls everyone and everything. So then, shouldn't communism be replaced with socialism, because socialism is were the state arranges and controls the equal sharing between everyone and everything (except the elite of course).

 

I may be wrong though...

[snakeeyes]

which linux distro do u find unstable? not all open source software is bad though, firefox is the best browser, vlc and mplayer r great movie players, the problem is that open source developers try to imitate commercial stuff rather than innovate and create something new.

[ulin]

Linux is not a specialized platform? Not to the very least. Linux is a de-facto production platform of choice in film (visual effects, 3D, compositing, rendering). It is a very specialized field formerly claimed by SGI Irix. There is tons of ultra high end systems out there running on _nothing_ but Linux. Sure Apple is "good for video editing" with Final Cut etc. but if you want a really professional solution you will opt for FFI (flame flint inferno) and I'm sorry to inform you but it runs _ONLY_ on Linux platform (previous versions were also running on Irix). Rendering? Pixar releases a 64bit renderer only on Linux (and you are going to need more then 4gb RAM if you are going to render production shots). Crowd sim? Massive is Linux-only 64bit release.

Sure you can set up a garage animation and editing system on Os10 or Windows but if you look at 90% of hard core _production_ facilities out there you will find out they are running Linux (ILM, Pippet Studios, Weta etc. etc.) and develop custom proprietary software for their own pipelines. Tippet studio actually ditched OSX in favour of Linux on Apple hardware You can argue that desktop experience is better on Windows/OSX but you can _NOT_ argue that when it comes to mission critical professional big-budget visual productions anything can even come near Linux.

Would those guys chose Linux if it was "unstable"? Please.. You could say "yeah they use Linux because its Unix" but in truth they actually use Linux because its the most stable and feature rich operating system in the world. Those guys couldn't care less if its oss or not they use it because its rock solid, its the only platform that delivers those 4k frames with least stability issues. Why aren't they running their rendererers on Darwin (don't forget Apple's OS is actually 100% open source!)? Because of _stability_ most importantly, and speed less importantly, not because Apple hardware is "expensive".

[Alessandro17]

By the way, I am not trying to call you out or anything, but shouldn't your signature say socialism. I understand the meaning of what you say, but my understanding leads me to believe that communism is were the state controls everyone and everything. So then, shouldn't communism be replaced with socialism, because socialism is were the state arranges and controls the equal sharing between everyone and everything (except the elite of course).

 

Of course people can put what they want in their signature, but this comparison between open source and communism annoys me no end. How about a comparison between open source and brotherhood of men?

 

Linux is not a specialized platform? Not to the very least. Linux is a de-facto production platform of choice in film (visual effects, 3D, compositing, rendering). It is a very specialized field formerly claimed by SGI Irix. There is tons of ultra high end systems out there running on _nothing_ but Linux. Sure Apple is "good for video editing" with Final Cut etc. but if you want a really professional solution you will opt for FFI (flame flint inferno) and I'm sorry to inform you but it runs _ONLY_ on Linux platform (previous versions were also running on Irix). Rendering? Pixar releases a 64bit renderer only on Linux (and you are going to need more then 4gb RAM if you are going to render production shots). Crowd sim? Massive is Linux-only 64bit release.

Sure you can set up a garage animation and editing system on Os10 or Windows but if you look at 90% of hard core _production_ facilities out there you will find out they are running Linux (ILM, Pippet Studios, Weta etc. etc.) and develop custom proprietary software for their own pipelines. Tippet studio actually ditched OSX in favour of Linux on Apple hardware You can argue that desktop experience is better on Windows/OSX but you can _NOT_ argue that when it comes to mission critical professional big-budget visual productions anything can even come near Linux.

 

This post should be put as a sticky somewhere, as we have so many kids who talk nonsense about Linux and they don't have a clue.

[snakeeyes]

Linux is feature rich and stable, I never said it wasn't. I don't think windows is good for any body, it sucks horribly, but linux devs should learn a few things from apple.

 

Apple knows how to offer a good desktop experience to people.

[pebcak]

@ kiko

 

If your services break whenever you upgrade you are the nub. Yeah, OSS is so {censored}. I mean Darwin is OSS, *BSD, OpenSolaris. Functional and stable? You ever worked on a windows machine? Everytime I have to sit on a windows computer I could run amok because it's many things but not functional and stable. Just because software is closed source or sold, it's not better. But at least 90% of the users work on windows machines, it has to be good, right?

 

There are advantages of Linux/*BSD on a desktop system too... e.g. a TRUE 64bit operating system and even flash works. Or maybe it's about not being limited? I mean you defend a commercial desktop which is not able to offer the choice about the focus system to it's users. Gimp may is hard to use for people coming from ps, but it's full 64bit and smp. You guys are still running 32bit binaries on 64bit machines, who is crippled? There a lot of apps using oss as a base Safari, Pixelmator, AdiumX or are open source, vlc, mplayer....

 

No advantages? More secure, more stable, more customizable, more user specific, free and truthfully for most people gimp, openoffice and firefox is enough. Yes, OS X is nice and pretty, OS X is stable but it's not the nonplusultra and it has one major flaw, most people aren't able to run it on their pc. Many people (that includes me) are not willing to buy a mac because of OS X, when they can have a decent desktop machine for half of the price. I won't discuss windows because it drives me nuts.

 

Not one of the desktops I used so far is perfect, I doubt there ever will be a perfect system. All of them have advantages and disadvantages.

 

In your last post you wrote a key sentence... you prefer something you think is more stable and functional, please do so. I prefer something I can mess with, something I can change and customize as deep as I want, something I can add something too till it suits my needs and wants and something that enables me to work on different architectures and with different filesystems.

 

I'm regulary pissed off by people who say it's all {censored}. I bet most of you use oss one way or another and I think it's very rude to be so "unthankful".

[Alessandro17]

Linux is feature rich and stable, I never said it wasn't. I don't think windows is good for any body, it sucks horribly, but linux devs should learn a few things from apple.

 

Apple knows how to offer a good desktop experience to people.

 

Don't worry. I didn't have you in mind.

 

In your last post you wrote a key sentence... you prefer something you think is more stable and functional, please do so. I prefer something I can mess with, something I can change and customize as deep as I want, something I can add something too till it suits my needs and wants and something that enables me to work on different architectures and with different filesystems.

 

I'm regulary pissed off by people who say it's all {censored}. I bet most of you use oss one way or another and I think it's very rude to be so "unthankful".

 

QFE

[Azurael]

See my first paragraph. Besides openSUSE 11 is going to provide plenty of reasons to move to Linux.

Trouble is that people are lazy and ignorant.

 

I find this quite offensive since my choice not to use Linux is just that. You need to learn to be a bit less insulting, especially when somebody mentions your darling Linux, which seems to automatically put you into defensive mode.

[Alessandro17]

I find this quite offensive since my choice not to use Linux is just that. You need to learn to be a bit less insulting, especially when somebody mentions your darling Linux, which seems to automatically put you into defensive mode.

 

I find your intervention in this matter very odd:

 

1)It was a discussion between snakeeyes and me. If anybody, he should have felt insulted.

2)In that sentence I didn't have in mind people who make an informed choice, of course. I had in mind the masses who use whatever OS is given to them, struggle with it (I had just talked by phone to a friend who has had problems for months because of a virus he can't get rid of) and yet they don't consider a change, exactly because they are too lazy and ignorant (to try and learn something new) and scared by any change in life.

Hardly anybody in this forum should feel offended, because we came here looking for a challenge and we wanted to learn (at least, if our motives were genuine).

[snakeeyes]

I actually agree with Alessandro17 that most people r lazy and ignorant. I know people who can't move the windows task bar back to the bottom if u move it to the top and with people that stupid its no wonder a majority of the people still use {censored} like windows.