[OT] Windows dying

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2017 at 07:08:51AM +0000, codephantom via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Wednesday, 1 November 2017 at 18:42:07 UTC, Bo wrote:
> > Linux as a market that is so fragmented on the desktop level.
> 
> This demonstrates an all to often misunderstanding of the purpose of
> Linux, and open source in general (depending on what licence is used).
> 
> Fragmentation is an important, necessary, and inevitable outcome of
> open source.
> 
> Open source provides the freedom for the user to adapt the software to
> their own environment. That's the whole point..to enable that kind of
> 'fragmentation'.
[...]

Yeah I'm not sure 'fragmentation' is the right word to use, but
certainly 'customizability' is a big, *huge* factor in my choosing to
use Linux instead of Windows. And I don't mean just customization in the
way of choosing "themes", which is just purely cosmetic.  I mean
reaching into the guts of the system and changing how it works,
according to my liking.  In fact, I despise the so-called "desktop
metaphor" -- I think it's a silly idea that doesn't match how the
machine works -- so I reconfigure my X server to use Ratpoison instead,
a "window" manager that eliminates the mouse and basically maximizes
everything into single-screen, single-window, no toolbars, no title
decorations, nothing. And keyboard controls for everything.  But almost
every other Linux user (needless to say Windows user) won't even be able
to *breathe* in such a setup, but that's OK, because Linux is not tied
to a single UI, whether it be GUI or something else.  You can use
whatever GUI or "desktop" environment you wish, and it will still all
work.  This flexibility allows everyone to customize their environment
to what suits them best, rather than have some predefined, unchangeable
default shoved down everyone's throats.

With Windows, there is no way to go that far... even what it *does*
allow you to do can cause random stuff to break, 'cos programs are
written with the assumption that you *never* change how things work.
(Try changing mouse focus to lazy focus sometime...  and watch how many
applications malfunction, behave oddly, or just plain break. And this is
not even a major customization!)

Understandably, though, most non-programmer types prefer the familiarity
and comfort of Windows' default environment.  That's why Windows will
still be around for the next little while. :-P


T

-- 
I see that you JS got Bach.