Imagining a day without Microsoft

[worker201]

Or someone could set up a bittorrent tracker and it wouldn't come to a screeching halt ... (by the way only the servers hosting OpenOffice may experience this problem ... the rest of the internet (pr0n) will be just fine)

However, this does remind me of something from one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books (perhaps the 2nd), called the 'shoe event horizon'.  There came to be a time in a certain economy where it no longer made economic sense to make anything but shoes.  I suppose it is conceivable that this guy thinks that we will reach some kind of 'Office horizon', where the only purpose of the web will be as a distribution network for office suites.  At that point, all the pr0n dealers will switch to enterprise office solutions, simply because there is no market for anything else.  Once the 'Office horizon' has passed, then the pr0n dealers can get back to their normal business of selling 45 year old strippers "barely legal teens" (or selling 19 year old skanks as "horny housewives").

Whatever.

[Pathos]

[mobrien_12]

In terms of operating systems I doubt anyone new could enter the market (as in build a new operating system), its just too expensive. Linux would take off, Solaris would resurrect in the server market and Apple would just explode.

AMD would be screwed. Intel would be just fine with Apple.

Don't think I can agree with you on either point.

First of all, building an operating system is NOT all that complicated.  There have been many many of them, even not including BSD and Linux variants.  Why haven't they made a deep penetration?  Because MS has a freaking monopoly and has used very questionable tactics to squash them.  Where would OS/2 or BeOS be now if MS were gone?  What about Atheos/Syllable, which is not Linux or  BSD.  DrDOS/GEM?    GNU/HURD?  

Second, if there was no MS, there are plenty of OS to fill the void which can run on Intel and AMD, so AMD would not be "screwed" unless they couldn't create products that could compete with Intel.

Apple isn't the only other game in town, and would not become the next MS if MS were gone, despite the fact that (IMHO) that's Steve Jobs' fantasy.

[Jack2000]

I was thinking about this for a while
The open comunity should REALY
make theyr minds up
and make all new apps
OS independent + Hardware independent!
maby some kind of shell that will work on every thing
you jsut swap the shell on the OS and it is there... your shell
no MS no Linux
no Linux/Bsd/Mac fights
just SHell and different types of them
every thing should be standart compilant !

[mobrien_12]

Jack, I really don't understand what you are talking about here.

Hardware and OS independence:

Code: [Select]


./configure
make
make install


[7031]

I think those guy that wrote that article are being paid or something to say such bad things about open-source software and Apple. I think it would be more like people celebrating in the streets if Microsoft dissapears. Most programs run pretty well with Wine on Linux or Darwine on Intel Macs. Open Office and other alternatives have no trouble with Microsoft office files.

Most people can't tell the difference between Windows and any other OS. As long as the OS is easy enough to use, they'll be fine. It's only really the computer geeks who are going to care, and still, they would have no trouble learning how to use a new OS. Didn't take me long to learn to use Linux and it wasn't any harder to learn to use Mac OS.

I actually think that computers would be much more advanced if Microsoft didn't exist and I think it's Microsoft holding Linux and Mac OS back by making their Operating Systems too basic and Apple and Linux staying with the same out of date style for 'ease of use'. I think Apple has taken this one step further as Mac OS is pretty advanced anyway but I think Linux would blow it away.

Overall, I think that whoever made that article is totally biased and has probably never used any other OS. It's morons like them who shouldn't have computers.