lwn article on the death of Fedora Legacy

[Tim Thome]

At 03:32 PM 10/24/2006, Jesse Keating wrote:
>On Tuesday 24 October 2006 18:21, Mike McCarty wrote:
> > These are interesting stats, and indicate that Linux may now be
> > crossing the gap. I belive most offices are still firmly MS product
> > houses, and a move to Linux would not even be considered. I know
> > that every time I see a request for a resume, the format requested
> > is MS Word.


Just because it's MSWord doesn't mean it is Windows... and even OpenOffice 
can export as Word native... so if someone wants Word format, Linux can 
deliver, as is PDF...

It's funny that if you create a text file, and put that MS specific .DOC 
extension, Word can read it just fine... it has converters to do that, and 
most corporate installs have it already in place.

Try it, you'll see...


>Use on the desktop should not be tied to use in the server room.  You'll find
>a MUCH higher usage of linux in the server room.  However since the majority
>of the desktops are Windows, MS Word gets used a lot.  A really open cross
>platform format should be used, such as PDF, but that's not a here nor there
>question.

Linux is great in the server room/network closet. Linux runs every one of 
my servers on my home LAN, and I've been an advocate of Linux in the 
enterprise space to supplement/replace other platforms for servers. We can 
do it faster/better/cheaper (pick any three) in this arena...

On the desktop, it's another story... Sorry if I'm getting a tad bit into 
advocacy...

The KDE/Gnome folks have made excellent progress when you compare it to the 
shell or to CDE/OpenWindows... and it's a long way from NextStep (although 
OpenStep is working hard to resolve that vector).

The Linux Desktop - It's similar to where MacOS was in the early days of 
System6, and Windows 3.1 days... and those days weren't bad. The Windows 
Program Manager/File Manager was a good shell to launch modal applications, 
and Mac's Finder in System6 isn't much different as compared to what Gnome 
is using. MacOS6 plus MultiFinder

Win's OLE API's and Mac's Publish/Subscribe model at the system level is 
not really prevalent on the Linux desktop as of yet, however XMPP is a good 
step forward, if the desktop and apps folks buy into it...

There's a long way to go before Linux can really challenge WindowsXP and 
OSX on the desktop... challenge is good, it motivates folks, and that may 
be the bridge to resolving the main Linux desktop problem, which is the 
KDE/Gnome issue.

Until this is resolved, Linux will remain in the server room, where it is 
very suited, and will suffer on the desktop.

Just my $0.02 worth...

Tim
--
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind 
on the present moment."

-Buddha


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