Ubuntu blues

[Eric Dunbar]

> Now is the time a viable alternative for average-desktop-users is
> coming to age.
> 
> Ideally all children would grow up with an open-source desktop like
> Ubuntu.
> 
> The only way to gain marketshare on windows is if we nerds encourage
> everyone to try an open-source desktop like Ubuntu.

By the time these kids grow up, their desktops will be either OSS or
free close software. Linux, BSD, Mac OS X (BSD) and any other major OS
groups that pop up are about to change the way the world operates.

Microsoft has already had to create a "Windows Lite", sold at a marked
discount vs. Windows heavy in Asia & South American markets to compete
with piracy and with the threat posed by free (as in cost) OSS.
There's no reason to expect that MS won't have to do that in
"developed" markets in the near future.

Microsoft will have to become a services and software company, selling
software and support for their particular OS (because they'll have a
harder time selling their OS they'll have to make money from other
parts of their business), Apple will remain a hardware manufacturer
off in its own little *nix and PPC world, and *nix (GNU/Linux, *BSD,
etc) will become the defacto alternate to Windows' progeny on i86
machines (and, now that I think about it, Apple made a brilliant move
by moving its OS entirely to a *nix... *nix's start is rising and
Apple is riding high on its crest).

Eric.