On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 19:46 +0200, Jochem Maas wrote: > Ashley Sheridan schreef: > > On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 18:35 +0200, Jochem Maas wrote: > > > >> why do the vast majority people keep buying M$? > > > > Well, do they really? > > yes and no, Office is a very big cashcow if you recall. > > > I mean, most sales of Windows come from the sales > > of computers, because Microsoft give very nice incentives to retailers > > who bundle their OS with a PC... > > M$ structure the market in such a way that retailers et al don't have any > choice in the matter, it's not so much 'nice incentives' as 'take the hint it's > good for you either that or we'll burn you' > > nonetheless people still buy the PCs. but that's not the point, the point is > that the concept of choice has been completely warped to the extent that people > generally believe that being offered 400 different cartons of milk equates to > freedom ... it's a marketing trick of the highest order ... niether freedom > nor choice come into it. > > applying such convoluted concepts to linux is actually counter-productive, the > only real beneficiaries to the linux distro holy-wars are the boys at M$. > would be interesting to know how much money M$ pump into various distros to keep > them finghting amongst themselves, I'm guessing that the figure is above zero. > > > It sounds a bit like when Microsoft announced how many people were > > downloading the IE7 browser, when in actual fact it had been forcing it > > on users with the automatic system updates, and was still counting those > > as user requested downloads! > > it's statistically proven that you can prove anything with statistics. > Microsoft are only remotely involved with Suse, although I think they did convince another distro to purchase licenses against their "intellectual property". Basically though, for people who know little of Linux, there are only a handful of distros to choose from, Ubuntu, Fedora and Suse, and Suse is aimed more at the server market than the desktop one. I've used many many different ones myself, just because I'm not so wet behind the ears now, and I know what I'm doing, and am even happy infront of the command line. There is little difference when you get to that level, and like I said, it's generally only those who are into Linux that are aware of quite how many distros there are. I don't think that having many distros is actually a problem, and it's something that has naturally arisen due to the nature of Linux rather than large corporations encouraging arguments between factions. Linux is largely driven by enthusiasts (and that's not to say that you can't have paid enthusiasts,) who will often develop along the direction they wish, rather than in one unified direction. Heck, if the Linux developers did that, then we'd be little better off than we are with Windows. It's innovation by individuals sometimes that achieves some of the greatest breakthroughs. Sorry about the rant, but I can't but help myself from defending them. They're the good guys after all ;) Ash www.ashleysheridan.co.uk -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
