Microsoft: Linux on desktops a threat

[slave]

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-976122.html

 

quote:Microsoft Chief Financial Officer John Connors said on Wednesday that the software giant's future growth would be hurt if the rival Linux operating system was to establish a foothold on desktop computers.

It's true!  It's true!  Microsoft cannot stand one bit of competition.  Also what baffles me is how can a monopoly have "future growth?"  MS is as big as it can get!

[Stryker]

quote:Originally posted by Linux User #5225982375:
 Also what baffles me is how can a monopoly have "future growth?"  MS is as big as it can get!

That's good news then, they can only go down.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Stryker ]

[Doctor V]

All that need to happen now is for more people to start trying Linux out.  As soon as they do, Linux will start spreading like a wildfire.

[voidmain]

There's only one word that popped into my mind upon reading that quote:

DUH!

What a stupid quote. I mean that's like saying "I am afraid if I put a few ice cubes into this full glass of water some of the water is going to spill out."

[PsysicTV]

Most excellent! However, I still think Linux will always have some trouble until more companies start writing commercial Linux-native games for the masses . . alas, Loki, we mourn for you . . .  

[voidmain]

Ah, but that's inevitable. You see companies don't find it profitable to port their applications to an OS that claims 1% of the desktops, yet because those companies haven't ported their software it's hard to  get any more market share. The nice thing is there are *enough* free applications to start the climb.

Now, if Microsoft stops shooting themselves in the foot then maybe it will be a tougher climb but so far there is no indication of them slowing down in the "Rape the Consumer" department. Once Linux starts creeping onto the desktop, more vendors will port their code. Then it will be like a dam breaking. You just wait, it's going to be extremely fun to watch! When the dam breaks just keep an eye on the Microsoft stock ticker because it'll be moving very fast in one direction, down.  

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Doctor V]

quote:Originally posted by PsysicTV:
Most excellent! However, I still think Linux will always have some trouble until more companies start writing commercial Linux-native games for the masses . . alas, Loki, we mourn for you . . .    

Or if Wine evolves to the point to where it can play all windows based games (and its almost at that point now).

[lazygamer]

Nonono it has nothing to with Wine running most wind0ze games, it has to do with them running the games "out of the box". When I tell Wine "pretend to be wind0ze 95" and run my wind0ze 95 game, it should know everything to do(such as configuring) on its own. What good if comptability if you have to struggle to get it to show up?

Lazygamer would drasticly drop his logged windows time if that happened.

[Doctor V]

Hopefully future versions of wine will work alot better than the current wine.  That would make this all necessary.  Although I would like it if game makers released their games on linux, a stronger wine would certainly reduce the "I need windows cause I play games" syndrome.

V

[Doogee]

i would rather see Wine/WineX and all other shit like that crash and burn. if wine evolves to the point where it can play all games then what is the point of developors making linux native version of games/software. After all it would still be a windows game/program, the fact it can be used in an emulator means fuck all. then other developers will do the same they wont make linux versions cos it can be run in wine or similar and continue to develop for windows. DEVELOPING FOR WINDOWS IS NOT A GOOD THING. what we want is native versions!!!!!!!

[Scotty]

quote:Originally posted by The artist formerly known as Doogee:
i would rather see Wine/WineX and all other shit like that crash and burn. if wine evolves to the point where it can play all games then what is the point of developors making linux native version of games/software. After all it would still be a windows game/program, the fact it can be used in an emulator means fuck all. then other developers will do the same they wont make linux versions cos it can be run in wine or similar and continue to develop for windows. DEVELOPING FOR WINDOWS IS NOT A GOOD THING. what we want is native versions!!!!!!!

I Couldn't agree more with you!! Eventhought I appriciate very much those who develop wine but I want to stay away as far as I can from m$. Why would I want to emulate mickey-dickey-ware on my linuxbox? To get games work? Not going to happen.    I'm aware that at the present not all of my favourite games will work in linux but it's the price I will pay gladly for not being fooled by m$.

If winex gets much ground we may end up with no linux ports at all when publishers say "what..a linux port?.. well.. use winex, We've heard our product is fine with it." Emulation!=native port

Have you guys and gals read about this notorious licencing scheme around transgaming and winex?

[choasforages]

hehehe, games arn't the answer. high end apps like photoshop/*or if gimp get wayy better, hell, howabout a wine hack taht lets you use photoshop plugins?*/ illustrator, and a few others. i think its going to be after 2.6 stabilizes that lots of stuff gets ported, cuase if you develop, you would have had to heard about alsa and oss, and the switch thats going on. they are not going to dev for a moving target, only the makers of wine do that./*or any other win32 developer*/
on the subject, is there any alsa native version of quake3, or way to enable it?

[Scotty]

quote:Originally posted by choasforages:
hehehe, games arn't the answer. high end apps like photoshop/*or if gimp get wayy better, hell, howabout a wine hack taht lets you use photoshop plugins?*/ illustrator, and a few others.

Very true indeed. Photoshop, CAD-proggies and other stuff are crucial what it comes to GNU/linux desktop. In that point of view, wine is utilizable.

[Calum]

because the wine and winex things are games oriented, they will never be taken as seriously as they need to be in order for them to take part in the future win -> linux revolution.

gamers will not settle for second best. Say for instance that 15% of the computer users used linux, just for arguments' sake. also, say winex is pretty damn good. then imagine that 20% of game manufacturers make native linux versions as well as windows/mac versions and 80% of game manufacturers make only non-linux versions because they feel that people will run their program in winex.

the 20% who make linuc games will get more money once everybody compares their frame rates. people will see that performance goes down noticably in an emulator and they will say '20% of you make linux native games with relative ease, why are the other 80% of you dragging your heels?'

the other side of the coin is that for all other applications (CAD, sound and so on and so on) the wine projects are much worse than they are for gaming. i don't know why this is, but it seems to be the case from what i hear. the failings of games on the wine platform (as mentioned above) might have been overlooked if wine could run other windows applications well, but since it doesn't much of the time, and since there are many viable alternatives (and will be even better ones by the time it becomes a crucial market factor) there is little to no point of wine hanging around. The walls are closing in on it from both sides and while i think it should try to stay alive for as long as possible, i think it's doomed in the end.

the crest of the revolutory hill has yet to be crossed, but i think that what with the amount of momentum that the open source movement has, it will definitely be crossed at some point.

i agree with void main's inspiring words back up the page.

[lazygamer]

Sounds like shortterm pain for longterm gain.

Wouldnt native Linux games happen anyways? Two years down the road Linux will be even more popular. Suppose Wine/WineX does a really great job then, how do you know native development won't happen? What if Linux means higher framerates over the native windows version(and especially over the Wine version), in addition to less bugs and more stability in the game. This, combined with Linux eventually being too widespread, should cause native Linux game development no matter how good Wine is.

It is shortsighted to point the finger at Wine over Windows games. That indicates it being used for recent games. Consider all the excellent native windows games out there. Then consider all the DOS games out there, great dos games, that W95 could run GREAT more often then not. So if you emulate W95, you get proper wind0ze compatibility and proper DOS compatibility. Both of these areas XP sucks at.

Just imagine the selling point:My non-windows OS is far more compatible with older windows programs and DOS programs, then your XP is or ever will be.

It may be sort of true. What if Wine simply keeps having too much trouble with very recent or future games, and MS really is altering stuff to throw Wine a curveball? So if it is proven that Wine simply cannot keep up with the newest games, perhaps native Linux development would be more favorable.

Perhaps Wine could keep both camps happy, so they work on better past and current compatibility, while sacrificing near-future compatibility(giving companies a reason to make stuff for Linux).

@calum:No offense, but WTF?! What do you mean Wine is doomed, walls are closing in etc.
What proof do you have?