Spooky Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 (edited) On the contray I did get the point. I'm not saying that free software is without its encumberances, however, you will notice that those companies support the product them selves, not systems from other companies, and thats what matters because thats what the masses see, they buy systems (computers) from Dell for example. The masses buy complete systems, they don't just call Dell and say "hey I want to buy an OS"...no...they call Dell and say "I want to buy a computer", or they walk into a store somewhere and do the same thing....and thats where the sustaining profit base is from and thats what the companies will support and develope for, what the masses buy. The tech support for a free product couldn't be aforded when you can't make any money on it.Sorry, but you are missing a point here, FREE SOFTWARE means "free as in freedom", not necessarily "free of charge".Support for FREE SOFTWARE is normally offered as a "pay for service", as well as the actual software can be charged for the services of compiling and integrating it, companies like RedHat and Mandriva actually "live" with that:http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/client/http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007/discoveryhttp://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?products_id=336The fact that the same or a very similar product is provided free of charge and WITHOUT support does not mean that companies cannot get paid for their work.jaclaz Edited December 20, 2006 by Spooky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bj-kaiser Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 (edited) ... It is popular because it comes on computers. The average PC user doesn't know the difference between Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac. The average PC user runs Windows because that's what came with their new Dell. It comes on their new Dell because Windows got popular right at the right time. And every new Dell increases Microsoft's market share. It is a viscous cycle. Linux, BSD, and OS X can't get popular because no one knows about them (well, maybe not OS X) and they don't come on computers. And they don't come on computers 'cause they're not popular.Next year will not be the year of Linux. Nor will 2008, 2009, or 2010. It probably will never be popular on the desktop PC. But not because it is inferior to Windows.I would like to second that. Experience from the people I know, most of them are would be hardly able to reinstall Windows from te standard CD. Or why do we have all this Recovery-Partitions and -CDs where the user has to do nothing (like partitioning the hdd, searching the drivers, etc.) except putting his name in some form. Edited December 20, 2006 by bj-kaiser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fizban2 Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 ok i think this has run its course,Closed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts