[Don asbestos flame suit]
Face it, the open source community just doesn't find browsers "sexy" to
create.
Well, they better change their minds on that one. It's where Linux looses
the game if the only browser that's useful is IE.
That depends on the goals of the open source community.
Originally it had nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft bashing, and
if Bill Gates purchases the USA in order to fire the DOJ, the people who
were, and still are, in the middle of the "Open Source" movement rather
than the "Bash Microsoft" movement won't bat an eyelash. THEY DON'T
CARE. Read some of the stuff about and by Richard Stallman before anyone
had ever even *HEARD* of Microsoft Windows. (Hell, I coerced my boss
into sending him $100 in 1989, and I had never even seen a copy of
Windows.)
[...]
I'd encourage anyone who can write documentation or code to point your
browser at mozilla.org and see if you can help. Sexy or not, the browser is
the most important app on the desktop computer today, and Linux doesn't have
one.
If you care about Linux having a significant presence on the desktop, I
think this is about the most sound assessment of the situation today.
Like it or not, the corporate desktop is driven by the masses who *ARE
NOT COMPUTER GEEKS!* Those masses care about
1) the browser
and
2) HTML Mail {Help me! It burns! It burns! Take it away!}
Bill Gates may be a lot of things, but he is not stupid. And when he
integrated IE and Outlook into the Windows desktop he was exactly right. And
anyone who wants to compete *MUST* compete there. No amount of perl code
will unseat him.
But, again, what are the goals of the "Open Source" movement. To provide
a freely available set of tools to meet their own needs? Or to compete
capitalistically against a well heeled competitor who *IS GETTING PAID!*
I'll wager that the "savior" of Linux on the desktop will be the one who
can figure out how to make a profit on the browser and HTML mail reader.
It may be open source or it may not, but I'm confident it will be the
one who can make a profit.
MB
P.S. If you *REALLY* give a damn about Linux on the desktop, stop giving
the poor newbies such a hard time about the HTML tags in their email.
Get over it, that's where the world is headed.
[Remove flame suit. Claim you were drugged and forced to say it.]
--
Michael R. Batchelor
Industrial Informatics Instrumentation, Inc.
