The recent news that several major players in the desktop/laptop are going to sell Linux pre-installed is a perfect storm of activity that will finally break the monopoly. Around 2001 there were some similar moves, but this is much bigger. Major time, energy and money is being invested in making GNU/Linux a choice in selecting an operating system for an OEM product. Dell was the first big OEM in the pool and some of its actions were tepid, like aiming for a market with Linux “enthusiasts”. Certainly that market exists, but many of those folks build their own machines to avoid “the tax” or to obtain features they want. The larger market are businesses and consumers. That is where the OEMs will create new markets and break the monopoly on the desktop.
These moves by OEMs are not the whole story. M$ has failed miserably to produce a major release of that other OS since 2001. The Vista is clouded with driver and application issues as well as the re-training and forced obsolescence. Of course, the world has reason to look for alternatives. Longhorn/Vista was vapourware freezing the market for years. The market will finally go its own way. The SCOG saga is winding down. The patent FUD is obviously hollow. There is nothing left to hold back LInux on the desktop now that millions of ordinary folks will have an opportunity to use Linux at work and to choose Linux in the market.
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Your have been very good at giving examples. Now I ask you to please stop, take a look, look at the software at the following sites
http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/
http://www.garritan.com/
http://www.soundsonline.com/EastWest-Quantum-Leap-Symphonic-Choirs-pr-EW-165.html
Consider the capabilities of software here and answer me this.
Can you provide me pointers to the equivalent FOSS software?
Do you think that anyone who uses software like this is going to move to Linux any time soon?
I know little about music except listening to it. If the examples given have no peer in FLOSS, I will accept that. I have never claimed Linux was the answer to all needs. I have posted several times that those who most benefit from a migration to Linux on the desktop are the 80% of us who do fairly routine things like browsing and word-processing. The absence of apps like the ones listed above in Linux is not a comment on Linux but just a fact. Linux could run such apps if they were written for Linux. Many producers of instrumental and synthetic music do use FLOSS but I doubt they are into symphonic music.
There was news this week that Linux on the desktop is moving ahead smartly and some intend to use XP in a virtual machine on Linux to make migration possible for such apps. Insofar as XP is reasonably stable that may work and it may be a viable option indefinitely as long as the machines are not exposed to updates or malware that disable the system and if the I/O requirements do not require drivers that do not work in a virtual machine. For a studio application that should be possible except for collaborative works spanning remote locations.
I have seen many XP installations run fairly well indefinitely with lots of lock-down and decent firewalls. There is no reason a user of particular apps that run well now on XP should not stay with XP until a system cannot be found that runs XP. Considering the longevity of XP, that is not an imminent crisis. If the producer of that app folds it may be impossible to port to other architectures or to maintain the software. If the producer of that app insists on an upgrade of some kind, there is no guarantee, usually, that the software will continue to work with existing data. FLOSS is a better approach for anyone intending to produce a durable, flexible product.
I had an encounter with an “irreplaceable” app for that other OS once. It was a bulletin board system that had evolved since the early days of the Internet into a GUI/client/server thing. The server hardware and software were upgraded and we had to buy every version of the app released since our installation in order to use our existing data. The cost was enormous and a good e-mail system would do all the essential functions of it but the PHBs insisted nothing else would do. Along the way some keys for the app were found to be invalid so this conversion process took months while we kept calling for support and got put on hold for hours at a time. With a FLOSS system we could always get our data and use it in any other system simply and with no further expense except copying data. FLOSS would have saved us many thousands of dollars more than the server hardware or a single licence cost. We were locked in by a poor decision made years ago and perpetuated. There was no benefit whatsoever of continuing a relationship with the offending company and the longer we stayed with them and with our growth the lock-in just kept getting deeper. I recommend FLOSS wherever it can be made to work even if conversion/migration is difficult and expensive because that cost is one-time only whereas the lock-in is a perennial bleed.