Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Roel Schroeven]

John Bokma wrote:
> joe at invalid.address wrote:
> 
> 
>>John Bokma <john at castleamber.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>"David Schwartz" <davids at webmaster.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Tim Roberts" <timr at probo.com> wrote in message 
>>>>news:a103l1tkejrc99s0385qjqqhm96d46dpc4 at 4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Part of their behavior really escape me.  The whole thing about
>>>>>browser wars confuses me.  Web browsers represent a zero billion
>>>>>dollar a year market.  Why would you risk anything to own it?
>>>>
>>>>    It really isn't that hard to understand that web-based
>>>>    applications that work in any browser on any OS threaten
>>>>    to make it irrelevent what OS you're running.
>>>
>>>And it's even easier to understand that your statement is nonsense.
>>>
>>>It doesn't matter which Linux distribution you pick, all use the
>>>Linux kernel. On all I can run OpenOffice, and get the same results.
>>>Yet people seem to prefer one distribution over one other.
>>
>>He was talking about the browser war, and gave a pretty good reason
>>why it was important. So you respond by pointing out that people
>>choose a linux distribution for personal (non-technical,
>>non-marketing) reasons. I think I missed the connection.
> 
> 
> web based applications that work with any browser make OS irrelevant ->
> not true, since for OpenOffice it doesn't matter which Linux 
> distribution one runs (or even if it's Linux), yet people seem to make a 
> point of which distribution they use.

You make the point yourself now: if web based applications work with any
browser, people can freely choose their distribution based on their own
preferences.

- An application works in IE, Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Lynx, Links,
Opera, ... -> users can use it with any browser on any OS
- An application only works in IE -> users are forced to use Windows (or
one of the other few OS's that IE exists on)

-- 
If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood
on the shoulders of giants.  -- Isaac Newton

Roel Schroeven