memes

Hmmmmmm...what force might have coerced Microsoft to behave more reasonably, in that situation? PERHAPS A SOLID COMPETITOR, WHO WOULD GAIN MARKET SHARE AGAINST THEM, IF THEY PISSED OFF THE MARKET BY BREAKING COMPATIBILITY, IN THE VITAL OFFICE SUITE SPACE?

Robust competition in the actual operating system market would be the solution, exactly like I said.

The problem with Linux is that, despite being fucking free, it's not robust competition. It always hovers somewhere in the 1-4 percent range, for desktop users. It's not fair or logical for that to be the case, really...but here we are.

I honestly think there's a parallel universe, quite close to our own, where IBM made a bigger push to establish OS/2 (or something else) as a general-purpose, consumer-targeted operating system, or maybe a whole other company made a compatible competitor OS. I'm talking, like, all the way back in the early 90s, when Windows was just getting on its feet.

In that world, where Microsoft had been forced to split the market with a genuine competitor, they wouldn't have been able to do all the crazy shit that a monopoly allows. The point is, they truly would have had to be forced into that position. No business is going to compete fairly out of the goodness of its heart, because it doesn't have a heart. It only has predatory instincts.

Of course, to belabor the point, that's why nobody's high-minded philosophy about "free as in free speech, not free beer" software was ever going to be the solution. That kind of homespun cringe shit is exactly how you get 1-4 percent market share, even though your product can be obtained gratis.

It's not my fault, but it's the truth.

Linux mint is Goooooood, man I love that OS.

Since Windows XP and especially since Vista/7, I spent a lot of my time with Windows re-learning how to do the same things. They kept moving controls, or lengthening the process to get to the same controls via onioneering. I switched to Linux, and it was about the same learning process as a new version of Windows. Then I upgraded to a new version of the distro I was using...and it was mostly the same, had a couple extra features and came with a different default icon set.

Result: The time I used to spend re-learning how to do things I already knew how to do was now spent learning how to do new things. Instead of treading water, I'm making headway.