scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> > They'd have to produce a new OS that was better then XP?

> I think that's the problem, it is pretty hard for MS to drastically improve 
> on XP, but I guess they tried, and thanks to OEMs and software/hardware 
> vendors we will all be forced to buy Vista at some point in the future.

  I think that's the main problem with Microsoft: They have to try to
release completely "new and drastically improved" versions of Windows
each 5 years or so. In pratice, they have to create new versions of
Windows which they can sell at full price every time.

  Free OSes such as Linux don't suffer from this problem. They can be
developed without any pressure, one feature at a time. There's no need
to create a new major version each 5 years. The OS is just improved
little by little, and most people just upgrade when they want, if they
want. There are no "big but bug-ridden major releases" of Linux. There's
no need for that.

  Of course there may be "big but bug-ridden major releases" of some
specific linux distros, but even with those the problem is not as bad
as with Windows. There just isn't the same kind of commercial pressure.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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