Verily I say unto thee, that chrisv spake thusly:
> My comment was based on your hypothetical "even *if* M$ was
> technically superior, you wouldn't use it" scenario, which the troll
> tried attacking as irrational or something.
It constantly amazes me how these people fail to grasp the rationality
of dissenting against a multiple convicted monopolist, even if they're
completely unmoved by Microsoft's other debase behaviour, which they
commit with absolute impunity, and usually escape prosecution.
> Regarding actual "sacrifice", it must be admitted that there is quite
> a library of Wintel software that, for many people, would be
> difficult to give up...
I'm sure the extent to which that is true is greatly exaggerated by the
Microsoft apologists, for the purpose of supporting an agenda (Guerilla
Marketing). I see nothing essential in the Windows catalogue that is
especially irreplaceable. I do, however, see a great deal in GNU/Linux
that is not currently replicated in Windows - primarily the element of
Freedom (something which has very practical implications beyond idealism
- e.g. architectural support).
The clichÃd example always used by these "evangelists" is Photoshop, the
status of which is greatly overstated, since it is neither irreplaceable
nor even capable of being deployed on all the architectures supported by
GNU/Linux. Add to that its ridiculous price, and equally ridiculous
bloat, and the net result is something of highly questionable value.
And this application is just a single rare example of something
reasonably good on Windows (even if grossly over-hyped and overpriced).
If you only consider the quantitative aspect of Windows software, you
might be inclined to conclude it must be "better", but the fact is that
once you prune away all the considerable dross, what's left is a very
small (and expensive) portfolio of marginally useful software (or what
Windows sheeple like to call "Killa Appz"), that still suffers Windows'
inherent failings on licensing, security and bloat. Even Free Software
running on Windows inherits much of this - it's difficult to avoid the
failings of the underlying system.
But of course the masses are largely ignorant that a solution exists to
these problems, since they are force-fed Windows by OEMs, then believe,
with unquestioning faith, the marketing propaganda that is fed to them
by Microsoft, via their channel of "partners" (and Guerilla Marketers).
This ignorance is then capitalised on by those "evangelists" to make
false claims that "people demand Windows" and "people demand Photoshop",
when the reality is that people are simply accepting a de facto
condition out of ignorance, and not making any "demands" in particular.
Exposing this "demand" as a lie is important, since a Free Market
Economy depends on the principle of supply and /demand/, so if that
"demand" is actually a faÃade to a monopoly enforced through
partnerships (i.e. racketeering) then the market is no longer Free, and
requires regulation to redress the imbalance (and hopefully prosecution
of the racketeers).
Liberating oneself from this protection racket is not a "sacrifice" ...
other than to those who support it.
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "Seek not the favour of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest
| and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not
| voices, but weigh them." ~ Immanuel Kant
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.26.8-57.fc8
17:32:19 up 86 days, 21:30, 5 users, load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00
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