(OT) Re: Unity ROCKS!!!

[Isaac Hummel]

On 05/02/2011 07:48 PM, Justin Stanczak wrote:
> Just wanted to jump in here. I want to say first free alternatives for 
> windows applications are great. They work just fine for me. However I 
> have a hard time getting windows users to use them. To that end, the 
> single thing keeping Linux from pulling an Android on Windows is 
> applications PERIOD. Linux is ready, but we have a hairball clogging 
> the drain, and it's called MS Office, Adobe, and video games. You can 
> pretty much put video games at the top of that list. When games go, 
> Unity I'm looking at you (the game dev ide, not ubuntu), others will 
> follow.
Actually, applications /aren't/ the only thing keeping Linux from 
pulling an Android on Windows. PC operating systems being a mature 
market is the real killer.

In the era of (true) smartphones ushered in by the iPhone, Android was 
the only competitor for a long time. Windows Phone 7 is around now, but 
it's still behind both Android and the iPhone (in marketshare, 
functionality, and apps) and only kept from falling into irrelevance by 
buying Nokia's huge, but decaying, marketshare.

As for the iPhone, true to the Apple model, they made the hardware and 
the software and wouldn't license either one to third parties. Android 
is to iOS what Windows was to Mac, essentially. If Linux wanted to pull 
an Android on Windows, it would have to go back to 1984 and establish 
itself as the open alternative to Apple ahead of Microsoft to do it.

-- 
Isaac Hummel
isaac at daedaleus.com
http://daedaleus.isaachummel.com