We all know about the damned hype about Windows Vista.
“Oooh! Flip3D!” … ok…. Fedora has the compiz/beryl cube that rotates workspaces showing all your stuff.
“New Aero Glass!” Got me there, however there are better stuff out there, and WindowBlinds produces the exact same effects on XP because Stardock developed the theming engine for Windows XP and Vista. Fedora yet again can produce these effects with Beryl and compiz.
“User Access Control!” Umm, ever heard of limited and root accounts? Linux and UNIX have had them for years, decades before Microsoft even thought about multiuser environments!
Here, though, it is proven that most people don’t see Vista as anything worth a grain of salt. We can see that Microsoft has had it coming. I agree that Microsoft is failing because they don’t hold all the cards anymore. Mac OS X is now officially available on the Intel core, and many have gotten Tiger to work on a regular PC. Linux has been around for years, and recently, Ubuntu Linux (now at Feisty), has many headway on the desktop Linux platform with high usability and flexibility.
More people are seeing the alternatives available. For instance, Microsoft Internet Explorer held complete dominance until Firefox 1.0 came out. It spilled through the internet in waves, more and more people downloading and using it. I remember saying that I would never use Firefox back at its 0.9 release, and here I am now, using Firefox 2.0 to type up this post.
As long as there is demand for more quality, with the consumer in mind, Free/Open Source Software will always be around to try to satisfy these desires. WordPress, the software I am using now for blogging, is considered FOSS software. Many people use WordPress because of its simplicity and extensibility.
People wanted a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office, and StarOffice was created from this desire. Sun Microsystems purchased StarOffice company and took it under its wing. It was extended, enhanced, and finally, released as FOSS code to improve. Now, we have OpenOffice.org 2.2, which the latest StarOffice suite is based on.
It is only a manner of time before people realize that there are alternatives out there, cheaper and free, just ripe for the picking.
