Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 22:26:48 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> To: "FreeBSD Advocacy" <freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD on the desktop (was: TheRegister article on Hotmail) Message-ID: <02d701c29337$08749e60$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <200211232029.gANKTOs50088@flip.jhs.private>
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Julian writes: > Expanded Reality ;-) > UNIX is a poor choice for the intellectually > lazy, or incompetent; Usually than 50% of PC > users are intellectually lazy, or incompetent; > So UNIX is a poor choice for these people's desktop. The last statement is true. The previous two are not. UNIX is a poor choice for people who are not interested in computers _per se_, but instead only in computers as tools. UNIX requires too much technical knowledge to exploit usefully on the desktop. The ideal desktop for the non-specialist in IT is a desktop that requires minimal knowledge to use successfully in the accomplishment of whatever tasks the user has in mind. This tends to favor the Mac much more than Windows, except that the Mac has other compensating disadvantages that prevent it from reaching a position of dominance in the market. The next in line is Windows; and in fact, Windows is the leading desktop OS by far. The various flavors of UNIX are far, far behind. > Microsoft get paid heavily to support their > choice market sector: the mostly intellectually > lazy, ignorant, or hopelessly incompetent. Your disdain for people who happen not to share your interests or obsessions is an excellent illustration of precisely the attitude that impedes the advocacy of operating systems such as UNIX. Microsoft knows better than to call its customers lazy, incompetent, or stupid--but you, apparently, have not yet learned this essential fact. One reason FreeBSD and many other operating systems remain only marginally present in many environments is that their primary supporters are socially naïve and gratuitously aggressive young males. > Many MS users would be an unpaid liability for BSD. Worry not ... no mass migration from Microsoft operating systems to FreeBSD is likely in the foreseeable future; and even if all other obstacles were overcome to such a migration, the attitudes of people like yourself would still prevent it. > Dumb fumble & click lazy losers are best left > to their MS rip off prices, bootlegs, viruses > & crashes. See above. > Those prepared to exercise their brain learning > are worth recruiting to BSD though ... Many people with brains are not interested in BSD, however; and those who might be are likely to be put off by the puerile behavior of many of the operating system's advocates. Clubs of thirteen-year-old boys tend to be attractive only to thirteen-year-old boys. > ... if they realise that though BSD requires no > purchase price, it does require time to read docs > & think. If they are given the impression that they will be surrounded by rabid teenagers prone to violent and ill-considered religious tirades should they undertake to use BSD, however, they may well abandon the project before it has begun. > 6500 ported FreeBSD packages inc. many window > managers gives a wide choice of desktops ... People don't want a wide choice of desktops. They just want a machine that does the job, and then they're done. > ... but never would I try to recruit all classes > of MS-users to BSD. If any of them are reading this thread, I'm sure you've scared them off pretty effectively--more so than I can realistically counter with my own meager dose of unemotional rationality, I'm afraid. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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