From: kfogel@eniac.cs.oberlin.edu (Karl Fogel)
Subject: Re: Great marketing (Was Re: BYTE asks, is UNIX dead?)
Organization: Oberlin College Computer Science
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 01:50:17 GMT
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>In article <1992Sep28.195947.10212@uoft02.utoledo.edu> billp@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (Bill Parquet) writes:
>
>   Path: sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!bgsuvax!uoft02.utoledo.edu!jupiter!billp
>   Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
>   From: billp@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (Bill Parquet)
>   Date: 28 Sep 92 19:59:46 EST
>   References: <1a7gv0INNc35@almaak.usc.edu>
>   Nntp-Posting-Host: jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu
>   Lines: 26
>
>   ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>   : The leader of the Windows NT project is a guy named Dave Cutler
>   : who worked for DEC before this job.  He was asked how doing this 
>   : project was different from his earlier work.  He said ``it's the
>   : same OS, but I've never seen such marketing''.
>   : 
>   : Really: it's sickening to see the way the peasants are blindly
>   : believing that Windows NT is the ``OS of the future''.  This when
>   : it's as certain as plain daylight that Microsoft will never have
>   : a market share as large as what it had in 1987, ever again, even
>   : if Windows NT can ship before end-1993 and it can be free of bugs
>   : and it can be worth using for anyone.  Remember these guys tried writing
>   : DOS, Windows, OS/2.
>   : 
>   : I work hard on educating all the peasants I can find.
>
>   No doubt.  I like the way microsoft makes the idea of having a graphical
>   operating system that runs on a variety of platforms.  Sounds like
>   they're trying to re-invent X-Windows... except without a powerful
>   command line interface.  Dragging icons around is nice, but its not an
>   effecient way to get things done.
>   -- 
>
>   billp@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu
>   ---

	This is just IMHO, but I think the sad fact is that as
inefficient as we may feel Windows and the soon-to-be-crowned Window
NT are, most users would find Unix difficult to learn and risky to use
("What, rm * will PERMANENTLY delete everything? Ugh!"). Frankly, to
most people, Windows or Mac OS are as good as it gets in GUIs these
days. The issue is not whether they're right or wrong, but whether
they believe they're missing something. My father, who I consider more
computer literate than most DOS users, would find X Windows and Unix
unecessarily complex and painful to use, compared to DOS. With so many
options available, who can decide how to get something done? Better to
stick with safe old restrictive OS's where your data is safe and you
never have to look too far to find good software (good by whose
standards is another question).
	Before anyone cries that Unix makes much better use of the
computer's resources and is more efficient once you *have* learned it,
let me ask: How many of you out there have bothered to learn Dvorak
keyboard, having learned QWERTY first? It's unquestionably faster and
more accurate, but no one wants to change. And Dvorak isn't even the
best option out there (please write me asking about Maltron keyboards
-- I love any chance to plug the best keyboard ever made! :-) All I'm
saying is that people tend to stick with what they know unless there's a 
compelling reason to change -- and there isn't here, since people
can get done what they need to get done in DOS. They don't know how 
ugly their OS is on the inside, or that there's something wrong with 
having to copy all the files in a directory and then delete them just to 
move the directory somewhere else, and they don't care. Only a very few
will get excited about fee Unix. I agree that we should do what we can
to reach those few, but let's not expect everyone to come running...



--

 Karl Fogel ("Leg of Lark") :     Member, League for Programming Freedom.    
 kfogel@occs.cs.oberlin.edu : ***  Help stop the patenting of ideas now!  ***
 fogel@antares.mcs.anl.gov  :  Feel free to mail me for more info on the LPF 
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