Well, first off, I know this is going to the wrong people, this is
more a suggestion for the Development Team rather than the webmaster,
but I really didn't want to put this message on a public forum
because...well.... I'm a little susceptible to public criticism on this.
I'll try to make this as brief as I can - The reason I'm writing is
because I wanted to have the opportunity to bring up a handful of
suggestions... I've spent a lot of time using several different
operating systems as I was growing up - Starting using Windows when I
was about 7 or 8, jumped into Linux/Mac in my late-teens, and as such
I've gotten a lot of exposure to a lot of different methods of system
management... And being the analytical bastard that I am, I spent a
lot of time figuring out what was wrong with each system and figuring
out methods of solve those issues.
I see a lot of flaws in Apple and Microsoft's general design... Not so
much Apple's as Microsoft, but the point being that they both try to
blur the line between the hardware and the software. (As any good OS
should do.) Apple does this much better than Windows because Windows
is...well...junk. But nonetheless, BOTH of these companies fail at
another FAR more important level - Customer satisfaction.
Apple fails because they work too hard to get everything THEIR way -
They rely on a lot of proprietary hardware, they tend to try and keep
developers locked out of their little secrets, and they tend to charge
an insane amount for systems, hardware, accessories, whatever... To
their credit, I happen to think this hardware is at least SOMEWHAT
worth their price (Apple DOES offer some impressive hardware, and
their OS is quite nice), but should you REALLY need $1000 minimum just
to get into this setup? And it's not like you can just install OSX on
any PC. (Not easily, anyway.) Thus it's difficult to convince people
to migrate - They get kind of "locked in" with Apple just as much as
Microsoft tries to lock people in as well.
Microsoft is a whole other story, though - Microsoft not only tries to
lock people in, they also try to charge people for the most redundant
crap ever. (CAL licenses? Seriously, WTF... As if it costs more for
their software to allow more than 2 connections... Ridiculous.) Add to
that the fact that what they DO market is absolute over-priced crap,
and you have yourself another lovely corporation built on greed.
Granted, I don't have to give you guys a history lesson here, just
trying to give some background as to why I'm writing you.
I have a TON of ideas for a new type of Operating System, and I would
love to pass some of these along to you guys. I am a HUGE fan of
Fedora, I absolutely love your Operating System. But I do think it
could use a lot of improvement. And what better place to bring these
ideas than to an Open-Source OS - The operating system I envision
would also be completely free... So why not try to work with you guys
on achieving this?
Anyway... My ideas are pretty irrelevant at this stage in the game,
though... I'm not writing to you right now to say what you should do
with the OS. I'd love the opportunity to share these ideas with you in
the future, but right now I think there's something else that should
be done, and would be much better facilitated by YOU guys than myself.
(Because, let's face it - In the, uh, scheme of things, I really am
just a nobody from Seattle, and getting anything started in this
current economy is SUCH a pain in the ass...)
I propose the foundation of a new Software/Hardware alliance, and I
think YOU guys should start it. Much in the same sense that Google
founded the Open Handset Alliance to try and bring together people
towards a common goal of an open platform for handsets and ultra-
portables, I think a similar thing needs to be done for computers in
general. And I think this alliance should focus on a number of factors
- The way these companies treat customers, for example. Then you guys
should start focusing on building an Operating System that isn't only
superior to Windows and OSX, but also easier to use and manage. I know
exactly how you get people to migrate from OS X or Windows - It's all
about the ease of transition. People are turned off by the unfamiliar,
so you have to find a way to circumvent that. But you also have to
focus on the development level - You have to make it easy for people
to integrate with your OS. "Programs" and "Applications" are kind of a
thing of the past - Nobody wants to open AIM to use AOL , Jabber, AND
MSN, they'd rather have ONE program that does all three. Seamless
integration is the new forefront of application development, so you
also need to focus on how you can facilitate other software plugging
in with yours, which I have a lot of awesome theories on.
Ultimately my ideas are pretty ambitious, I know... I even think a new
Desktop Environment should be developed. (One which Gnome and KDE
could both kind of become "Modules" to. but you could also create
modules that SOMEWHAT emulate a Windows or OS X environment.) I think
Linux suffers from a number of inherent flaws that make it difficult
to convince people to use it. The filesystem organization is confusing
(which Apple did a REALLY good job of re-organizing, a similar
approach would be easy.) Software is kind of difficult to find, but if
there were a real alliance towards this sort of open-source platform,
that would change... Hell, if you could get Blizzard to join, you
could even start getting the Gamer community to migrate... Can you
imagine if they started developing these games to run on Linux instead
of Windows? Gamers would be THRILLED by the idea of getting more FPS
out of their system since they don't have to run the system-intensive
Windows OS behind their games anymore.
...Ahem..... Well, I wasn't trying to turn this into an essay... Let's
just say, I can design an OS superior to OS X or Windows, but none of
it will mean anything if I can't get some bigger players involved...
I'd love the chance to chat with someone over there about some of
these ideas in more detail, should you actually be interested. Either
way, though, I hope I get the chance to work with you guys in the
future, I think you've got the best OS out there, so I'd love to see
it go places, and I truly believe I can help.
Thanks for your time.
-Ryan Asbert
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