[vox] Windows 7 to Kill Linux?

[Bill Kendrick]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 11:13:32AM -0800, Richard S. Crawford wrote:
> I read this article earlier this morning. I'm not convinced the Linux
> desktop is at all in danger from Windows 7.

I'm unclear what the danger would be.  There have always been so many
philosophical reasons to avoid using Microsoft products that enough people
have been putting effort into making NUMEROUS Linux desktop environments on
COUNTLESS distros...

There is NOTHING Microsoft could do to simply 'kill' the Linux desktop using
mindshare.  (I think even open source'ing Windows wouldn't work, since
there's so much bad blood.  I also doubt it'd be possible, considering how
many hands-in-pockets there are out there between Windows, OEMs and other
proprietary software developers.  An OSS Windows would probably require
months of porting open source drivers over from the Linux kernel :^) )

OSX won't kill Linux on the desktop, either, since it's expensive and
requires expensive hardware to run.  Folks who can afford it seem to enjoy
it a lot more than people stuck with Windows, though.

-bill!