On 18/05/06 09:22 +0530, Nikhil Marathe wrote: <snip>
matter these days, its the software on top of it. I have always been one who doesn't give a damn about enterprise level software. its not a big problem if linux doesn't reach there, it is almost never seen by Average Joe. the place where it matters on the desktop, the DE's, the search tools, the browsers, the multimedia. That is what is going to reinforce linux on the
Bzzzt. People run at home what they run at work. Multimedia is a pain, but that is mostly because of DRM, mp3 and wma. If you want applications, you have to make inroads into business desktops. Home users are mostly a market that no-one cares about now (if anyone ever did).
The only way you will see hardware manufacturers change is if you buy hardware with Linux preloaded, and refuse to buy Windows at all. Make it clear to the vendor that "Linux is a free OS and you will not get full functionality" is not going to be acceptable. Vote with your money, that has far more effect than any amount of ranting on a mailing list. And remember that every rupee is a vote. The more you spend, the more your votes count.
Money, code, support, useful feedback. Take your pick of contribution methods.
desktop, that is m$ biggest threat since most of their revenue comes from windows. M$ seriously has to wake up and reassess the situation, they are still stuck in the OSS situation of say 5 years ago.
Microsoft's revenues from the desktop will stay assured until someone manages to beat Excel for functionality, and gets rid of MS Office in a work environment (without replacing it with Lotus Notes).
Don't bother about the user-friendliness. User friendly == what people know most of the time.
Devdas Bhagat