On Wednesday 28 July 2010 19:02:44 Rony wrote:
On Wednesday 28 July 2010 02:16 PM, steve wrote:
Linux no longer needs to prove itself. We've now have had more than half of a kickass decade of the linux desktop and clueless people still wonder when would be the year that linux would take off in the desktop market.
Maybe true in offices that have their applications working in Linux. Otherwise for desktops, doze still rules not because it is popular but because the user's specific applications run on it. The user does not have other options. One good thing that FOSS has done is that pricey closed software are now more affordable due to open alternatives.
Migration requires solution providers not service providers. The lower end market cannot afford solution providers and make do with service providers. A service provider can install LInux and even migrate cross platform data but for the limited time and returns, he cannot spend too much time on training, programming, and figuring out how to install hardware that the customer suddenly springs up, to work in Linux.
This is a characteristic of a market and has very little to do with competence (performance, training, cost etc). The characteristic is "unplanned, ill defined needs and worthless data".
Regarding affordability, the logic is the same as buying a good pair of shoes (or visiting a competent doctor) and preventing longterm ankle / knee / lower back problems. WITH ONE MASSIVE DIFFERENCE: while one cannot become a self tutored competent doctor / lawyer or self medicate, one can most certainly learn to use linux and obtain help from innumerable free sources (this list being one such).
The "poor suffering user swallowing his fix of morphine" is just a grim fairy tale.
I will give an example. A client of mine wanted to buy a netbook from me and I had told him about the advantages of Linux but the way he readily agreed to it and slowly gave me a list of things that should work on it made me feel that he is going to face problems with hardware that he might add later. I got him a netbook with XP pre-installed and he is using it happily without constantly calling me up for any help. Everything else in it is either freeware or doze based FOSS like OpenOffice, Firefox, VLC player, freeware anti-virus etc.
I am sure the value of his data is zero.
As an example, just recently installed a cifs server and a proxy + mail server. All data is on the server, all clients are doze with tally (versions 4 to the latest), all stuff from the net is scanned. All files closed_after_write are scanned. I maintain only one machine and dont give a damn how many times he formats his doze boxes. when he finally gets fed up he will switch. Obviously he valuse his data to have such a setup, i.e AFTER undergoing a couple of disasters.
There is a solution, provided you really need one. If he cant "afford" it who cares. After all we are not talking of business not starvation deaths or lack of medicare deaths.