Death of the Desktop Take II

“What makes someone a winner and what makes someone a loser?
Linux on the desktop has tens of millions of users. While that
might not be double-digit market share it is still a significant
number of users. Anyone who looks at those numbers and calls them
losing must have thought the game was winnable to begin with. It
wasn’t. FOSS does not spend hundreds of millions on advertising and
billions on under-the-table deals with hardware makers… FOSS
simply does not operate on the same playing field. The free hand of
the market happens to be attached to a twisted arm.

“In reality there aren’t any winners and losers because it isn’t
a race. While those who are in it for money have certain ways to
measure success, in FOSS you just make the best software you can
and hope users will appreciate it. Of course the squeaky wheels
always make the most noise and there are lots of complainers out
there (see discussions on KDE 3.x vs. 4.x as an example) but that
doesn’t mean that vast majority of us FOSS users aren’t very
happy.”

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