Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: [News] Linux Has A Birthday

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chris Ahlstrom
<linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 wrote
on Mon, 6 Oct 2008 12:18:33 -0400
<CPqGk.42822$XT1.33544@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out
>   this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chris Ahlstrom
>> <linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>> Imagine that!  A "hobbyist" project surviving 17 years under that shadow
>>> of Mordorsoft.
>>>
>>> Not only surviving... flourishing.
>>
>> It's not dead; I'll give it that (and I hope it never
>> dies; AmigaOS is effectively out of the picture, for
>> example).  Also, Linux is rather popular with server and
>> to a lesser extent mobiles (Symbian still being tops in
>> that department).
>>
>> But Windows 95 had a far faster adoption rate, in 1995 or
>> thereabouts.  Of course it had a little help from MS-DOS.
>
> And from a marketing campaign blitz by Microsoft.

Hmm...was that the flitty butterfly campaign?  They run
together after awhile. ;-)  But you're right; they had
to have oodles of marketing budget to spend on the song
"Start Me Up (You Make a Grown Man Cry)"...

What song would Linux adopt?  An interesting question.
I'm not sure I like the concept espoused in the last post
at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=179874 , funny
as it otherwise is (it's the best I can do when searching
for the Tux image stomping on the Redmond campus).

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

(Not that NT/XP's adoption rate in the server realm
is anywhere near to warm, apparently, though Microsoft
and GoDaddy have been playing some interesting tricks
in that area.)

>
>> I'll admit to wondering as to Windows' rate of adoption
>> in the 1985 timeframe, when it first came out.
>
> Windows was pure crap until version 3.  Right about when
> Microsoft stuck a shiv in IBM's back.
>

Microsoft seems to have a lot of practice doing that:

- That AARD code in the 3.10 beta, which was disabled
  (but not removed!) in the final product.  This was
  apparently in 1991.

- OS/who?  Apparently the initial plan was for IBM
  and Microsoft to offer NT to the public, but
  Windows 3.0 took off like a rocket.  Microsoft
  saw an opportunity and jumped, breaking away from
  IBM to take all the marbles for themselves.

- Internet Exploder, erm, Explorer.  2 was horrid.
  3 was terrible.  4 was somewhat usable (better than
  Netscape, perhaps; I don't remember now), and usurped
  Netscape, which died, with Mozilla rising like a phoenix
  from the ashes -- or Godzilla from the waters of a
  conveniently-located bay, perhaps -- and now enjoying
  anything from a 15% to 30% browser share.  Even
  Microsoft has abandoned its own browser:
  http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mozilla-Recommends-Firefox-2-0-Microsoft-Recommends-Firefox-2-0-Too-Over-IE7-60864.shtml
  (Wow.)

[For clarification purposes: apparently a shiv or chiv is
an improvised knife or knife-like weapon; basically
it's anything sufficiently pointy, from a cloth-wrapped
glass shard, a razorblade in a toothbrush, a sharpened
spoon handle, or even a filed-off section of a pork bone.
Sounds very nasty, and of course shivs are popular among
prison inmates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_%28weapon%29
]

-- 
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Linux.  Because Windows' Blue Screen Of Death is just
way too frightening to novice users.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index