Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 16:43:58 -0600 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: As usual, I disagree. Message-ID: <15368.2990.775120.843902@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <003801c179eb$2cd9ef00$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <15366.58396.746782.116282@guru.mired.org> <036901c17949$335163b0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15367.35596.70893.123850@guru.mired.org> <03fa01c179ac$e85cdba0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15367.40254.191788.665077@guru.mired.org> <040c01c179b0$c01ff790$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15367.44663.511557.67023@guru.mired.org> <003801c179eb$2cd9ef00$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> types: > Mike writes: > > Unix has enough applications to be flexible enough > > to get the job done. > Not for the desktop. For any desktop that doesn't require the ability to work with proprietary formats, there are. Getting locked into a proprietary format is a bad business decision, but if you don't know what that means, you're liable to do it because it's cheaper. > > That's true for only one of the users I know. For > > the rest, it only matters if they can download a > > copy from the net, or get one from a friend. > Your users must be mostly geeks. Non-geeks don't know how to download things > from the Net. Nope. None of them are geeks. My mother, who's a retired art teacher. A couple of truck drivers. An appliance repairman. An aircraft maintenance engineer. A sprint customer service rep. One handles commercial accounts for a local hotel. Another is the assistant manager at Borders. Only one of them deals with the computer as anything but an appliance, but most of them know how to download things from the net. The hotel guy bought his first computer less than a year ago, and has already cancelled digital cable TV to get a cable modem instead. That's how much he values being able to download things from the net. > > Since even heavy users seldom use more than a > > few hundred applications, having access to a > > few thousand is usually sufficient ... > The problem is that they don't all need access to the _same_ thousand > applications. Actually, they don't all need access to the same _hundred_ applications. That's why a selection of a few thousand is enough for most people. I'm sure there are some small niche markets for which usable software only exists for Windows. Of course, there are also small niche markets for which software only exists for Unix. The auto mechanic I used in the sf bay area ran all their accounting/ordering software on Sun workstations, for instance. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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