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What? The responsibility for Linux being a "bad desktop platform" is entirely that of whoever made it. Between KDE, GNOME and the various alternatives, none of

What? The responsibility for Linux being a "bad desktop platform" is entirely that of whoever made it. Between KDE, GNOME and the various alternatives, none of their issues were caused by Microsoft. Microsoft may have been plenty evil under Gates/Ballmer, but it's hard to argue that they did much actual damage of consequence. If anything, they energized the open source community, and lost developer mindshare as a result.

gonvaled 9y ago
They FUDed the market out of existence. The workpower left was not enough to produce a competitive product. Linus on Desktop is improving, but the damage is done. It happened long ago, but tbe ripples will be felt for centuries. They bear a huge responsibility, and it will not be forgotten.
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  What market? What kind of progress did Microsoft kill, exactly? Not to mention that back in the late 90s and early 00s when Microsoft was actively FUDing Linux, it was the server market they were afraid of. The LAMP stack was threatening IIS; the whole Mindcraft debacle, for example, was about the supposed superior TCO of Windows NT Server. Linux on the desktop was not a threat to Windows then. Microsoft wasn't talking about how Word and Excel were better than OpenOffice or whatever. They didn't need to. Microsoft's business was IIS, Exchange, SQL Server and so on, and they needed to FUD Linux to avoid losing enterprise market share against an upstart that could run lots of powerful Unix stuff at a fraction of the cost.
  - gonvaled 9y ago
    M$ was fighting the GPL, which was a license that users were freely choosing. And it was fighting it, in great part, by actively lying.
- mdekkers 9y ago
  tbe ripples will be felt for centuries hah, seriously? "centuries" as in "hundreds of years"? Do you have _any_ kind of half-way decent argument to back up that -frankly outlandish- assertion? I'm not a big MSFT fan, but you make a lot of statements in this thread, non of which are backed up by anything else except emotional knee-jerk comments. I'd be happy to engage in a reasonable discourse, based on supportable factual statements. Spare me the "M$ is teh (sic) evil" stuff, it doesn't help us as a technology community with being taken seriously.

gonvaled 9y ago

They FUDed the market out of existence. The workpower left was not enough to produce a competitive product. Linus on Desktop is improving, but the damage is done. It happened long ago, but tbe ripples will be felt for centuries. They bear a huge responsibility, and it will not be forgotten.

lobster_johnson 9y ago
What market? What kind of progress did Microsoft kill, exactly? Not to mention that back in the late 90s and early 00s when Microsoft was actively FUDing Linux, it was the server market they were afraid of. The LAMP stack was threatening IIS; the whole Mindcraft debacle, for example, was about the supposed superior TCO of Windows NT Server. Linux on the desktop was not a threat to Windows then. Microsoft wasn't talking about how Word and Excel were better than OpenOffice or whatever. They didn't need to. Microsoft's business was IIS, Exchange, SQL Server and so on, and they needed to FUD Linux to avoid losing enterprise market share against an upstart that could run lots of powerful Unix stuff at a fraction of the cost.
- gonvaled 9y ago
  M$ was fighting the GPL, which was a license that users were freely choosing. And it was fighting it, in great part, by actively lying.
mdekkers 9y ago
tbe ripples will be felt for centuries hah, seriously? "centuries" as in "hundreds of years"? Do you have _any_ kind of half-way decent argument to back up that -frankly outlandish- assertion? I'm not a big MSFT fan, but you make a lot of statements in this thread, non of which are backed up by anything else except emotional knee-jerk comments. I'd be happy to engage in a reasonable discourse, based on supportable factual statements. Spare me the "M$ is teh (sic) evil" stuff, it doesn't help us as a technology community with being taken seriously.