Firefox is supporting Windows domination ?

Aaron said that making OpenOffice, Firefox, etc available on Windows is a mistake, because it helps people to stay on (using) Windows.

He missed one thing though – whether Joe Home User uses Windows or Linux is (in most cases) not his decision; it’s Dell/HP/Walmart/etc’s decision.

So, to gain the home user market, opensource community need to make Linux an offer that those company can’t refuse. We need to make them make Linux as their main OS in their computer – instead of Windows.

I think Linspire is doing a pretty good job in this regard. I hope others (Mandrake, RedHat, Ubuntu, etc) can follow their lead. Only then we’ll start seeing Linux making it to our homes.

In the meantime, do please keep making Firefox et al available for Windows users – let’s help enable them to use their own computer, without fear of problems due to sloppiness in Microsoft’s part.

Also I love seeing OpenOffice available on Windows – I can picture Ballmer screaming from the pain of losing the US$300+ per seat on Office license 😀 ho ho ho

Have a great holiday everyone !

4 thoughts on “Firefox is supporting Windows domination ?

  1. > whether Joe Home User uses Windows

    Joe Home User wasn’t the demographic I was blogging about, actually. It was primarily corporate adopters, and for a variety of reasons (including that’s where most of the interest in Open Source desktops is these days).

    Note that I wasn’t considering governmental use, either, since there are several _other_ factors that come into consideration there (national security, invigorating local economies)

    > Linux is (in most cases) not his decision; it’s
    > Dell/HP/Walmart/etc’s decision.

    ignoring the fact that this is starting to change, particularly in the case of Walmart, you’ve taken a far to literal view of “the user” here. If your vendor or IT staff decide on Windows or Linux or MacOS or the reasons are largely the same. There have been anticompetitive practices in the past used as pressure on vendors, and I purposefully strayed from discussing the impact of that.

    In most corporate environments, the IT decision makers and/or staff make the decision as to what software to use. They are less beholden to Dell than they are to their own decision making.

    You’re dismissal of the topic because “home users don’t pick their OS” is therefore not a plausible defense, as it’s not a requirement or a central point to the ideas presented in my blog entry.

    > without fear of problems due to sloppiness in
    > Microsoft’s part.

    and this is where I and many others part. I respect MS’s ability to compete. They are one of the best (as in efficient, not as in “to be emulated”) competitors ever to enter the capitalist corporate system.

    Feel free to dismiss them as incompetent, but please look at history and then look hard at what they are doing now.

  2. Hi Aaron,

    Joe Home User wasn’t the demographic I was blogging about, actually. It was primarily corporate adopters, and for a variety of reasons (including that’s where most of the interest in Open Source desktops is these days).

    Apologies, I just assumed that from the general tone of your post.

    Big corporate users are indeed may be able to dictate their needs, because their purchasing power gives enough incentive for vendor to customize their offerings.
    However, smaller ones may still have problems – an example: if an SME decided to standardise on Fedora instead of Windows, but Dell/etc doesn’t officially support it; then they’ll have to load it themselves, or change vendor.

    Note that I wasn’t considering governmental use, either, since there are several _other_ factors that come into consideration there (national security, invigorating local economies)

    And then there’s always politics *shudder*

    > without fear of problems due to sloppiness in
    > Microsoft’s part.
    and this is where I and many others part. I respect MS’s ability to compete. They are one of the best (as in efficient, not as in “to be emulated”) competitors ever to enter the capitalist corporate system.

    “Sloppiness” in that paragraph is about the torrent of security problems that plagueing Windows users — most noticeably in relation to Internet Explorer. Hence the plea to keep Firefox available for them.

    Back to the Desktop issue – I really think that making OSS (Open Source Software) available on Windows won’t deter people from moving to open solutions. From what I’ve seen and heard, it seems to be making people aware of the non-proprietary concept, and the fact that such thing exist.

    And I know big companies who still plan to move away from Windows anyway, since there are many more reasons for it despite various OSS available on Windows — freedom from vendor lock-in (especially the incidental ones, “hey let’s use exchange – oops, you gotta use ActiveDirectory for it”), freedom from forced upgrades, freedom from being a hostage to a vendor’s will, etc.

    Many IT managers have started to realize these, and I think we must thank various OSS on Windows (among others; Nimda ? Spyware ? 😀 ) for that.

    cheers,

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