Thread: Unix Popularity
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Old 6th July 2008
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ninjatux ninjatux is offline
Real Name: Baqir Majlisi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunnz View Post
I don't claim to be a "complicated" desktop user, from what I have seen though, there are little things that make people switch back to Windows... it is those funky custom smilies in MSN; that other super cheap prepaid VoIP plan that they have joined that happens to use their own proprietary protocol and client software that only runs on Windows; they brought a new web cam without any checking with compatibility with the OS... it is the "what is an OS" type of people, and it is just getting them to use Linux, it is not even BSD.
Do we actually want those people to use Unix? When I created this thread, I didn't intend for it to become this huge discussion, and people have raised a lot of good points. One of them, which I believe was implied through the criticism of OS X, is that if there were to be Unix for the masses, then it would have to sacrifice or hide much of the Unix functionality, like OS X has done. Yes, I love OS X, but it did take some work to reveal much of the Unix functionality that I'm so used to. If someone can happily fulfill his or her needs with Windows, then there is no point even introducing that person to Unix. The keyword there is happily, which implies that that person doesn't care too much about the operating system. That's not the audience for Unix, and it should never be, because it requires too many changes in Unix.
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