Re: Linux users who like Wiindows (was: Drafts and the larger lea dership picture)
well, seems like none of the 3 camps is made of up people who want to use
the most user-friendly, full-featured, widely-used applications. Gee, those must be the Windows users.
[The above comment was made in response to this posting by my g/f who is a
programmer at an educational institution that doesn't do Windows]
I don't have any interest in getting into a tool war.
However, in the interests of debunking, I will say that you / your girl friend have one out of three right.
Anyone who thinks that Linux software isn't user-friendly or full-featured needs to become more familiar with the latest stuff that's available. It's true that Linux software hasn't been very user-friendly in the past, and it's also true that one tradition of Linux software development is a tendency to favor small, dedicated applications to one large one, but the present is very different.
In fact, in some cases,I'd even say that the Linux tools are superior the Windows ones.To give one example, I've been doing a lot of work with OpenOffice recently (which is cross-platform, but largely Linux-centered), and not only is it as user-friendly and as full-featured as MS Office, but in a number of ways it's superior. In different areas, one or the other of the office suite may outclass the other,but in about two out of three cases, OpenOffice beats MS Office,not the other way around.
The comment that you got right is that Linux software isn't the most widely used. But so what? Quality and performance are much more important in software than popularity, and in these areas Linux compares very favorably with Windows. Moreover, there are enough cross-platform file formats and enough decent translation filters that communicating with Windows users is no problem at all; I'm doing it now, of course.
All of which brings up another point: for many Linux users, the selection of their operating system is a personal choice. True, many want to see it become more popular (it may be the number two desktop operating system, but it's still far, far behind Windows).
But don't assume that,because some people have chosen Linux, they necessarily believe that you should. That's as false as the idea that those of us who have chosen Linux are handicapping ourselves in some way.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
"Looking back at the long years
All that happened this way and that
I think I liked most the rice and the salt."
- Kim Stanley Robinson, "The Years of Rice and Salt"
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