...why not for Microsoft?
SuSE Linux and Red Hat both have open source versions of the OS for people to use. Now the idea as I see it is that the Linux community will either download OpenSuSE (SuSE Linux) or Fedora (Red Hat). The distro is installed and all the bugs are found by the user community and the finished product is released as the Enterprise version that businesses purchase.
"El Gee, MS already does that with Release Candidates (RC). The user community tests the software and the bug reports are given to MS and they fix them before the product is released." I know that, but you are comparing apples to oranges. In the two Linux flavors mentioned previously, you can continue using he code and even tweak it if you so desire. With MS, you are not allowed to tweak the code and the RC times out eventually. I can continue using Fedora Core 5 for example for as long as I want, although support for that specific distro would not be offered. I would have to hack together all my own support. With MS, you are borrowing it..."Free as in Beer" as they say. IIANM, the code for Linux is "free as in speech".
Why doesn't MS do what SuSE and Red Hat are doing? "El Gee, they sell their software, they cannot give it away..." SuSE and RH sell theirs as well, it is the open source version they give away. MS could make a lot more friends in this world if they did that. The release "Open Windows" or whatever and let the open source community play with it. Let them tweak it. Let them find the bugs, LET US KEEP THE SOFTWARE. When you get it fine tuned, box it up and sell it to corporations. If you want to put it in stores, so be it. Make a little money for your trouble ($50-75) on each CD you sell or offer it for download on the 'net free.
As you can tell, I am a fan of open source. I think it is the future. Eventually the OS's will be either free or very cheap and the support will be what you pay for. That is okay...there is nothing wrong with that.
Another issue is standards. There are a lot of open standards that get used but MS finds the need to make their own in the guise that it is better for consumers. It is only better for MS because the open source community has to hack something together to get the proprietary formats to work. we do not need asf, asx, wmv, etc. Ogg, and mpg work just fine.
The open document format is xml based and should be the defacto standard the world uses...not doc, ppt, xls. mbox files to hold mail, not unstable pst's that can only be opened with Outlook. If your products are so darn superior, then make them read open standards and SHOW us how superior your products are. I can bet you that if the open document format was a standard sales of MS Office would PLUMMET. the big reason people buy office is because the doc/xls/ppt formats are used everywhere, thanks to guerrilla marketing by MS. Yes people are hooked on Outlook, but Thunderbird with a few extensions can do what it does or you can just use Evolution. So there, you have a full office suite with free software if the world had a formal OPEN document standard that everyone used. Then if people wanted to buy MS Office for features, so be it. For me, I would stick with Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird and I would have a lot less problems.
1 comment:
While I'm firmly in the Windows OS world, I'm happy to say I use Firefox and Thunderbird for browsing and email. I avoid Windows Defender like the plague, instead going with software provided by CA Associates in a deal with Road Runner.
I'd like to use Open Office, but it chugs too slow on my computer. I know there are faster, more efficient alternatives out there, which I will soon explore and use. But for now laziness rules.
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