Heater, I fail to see how you can fail to see how anyone gets anything done on Windows ..
Hmm...Install Windows and boot machine.
C:> vim hello.c
C:> gcc hello.c
C:> cc hello.c
C:> python
C:> perl
C:> ssh heater@192.168.0.101
Hmm...no luck with any of that. No decent editor no compilers or other languages. Seems this is not a computer operating system at all, you can't use it to compute!
Did they ever fix that problem that it was pretty much impossible to find a file in the system? Or a file containing a particular string?
UNIXes vary. Sometimes a lot. The overall approach is similar, but there are lots of things one has to know. Cross platform means that stuff too. Sometimes UNIX has a package manager, sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's not, sometimes it only works with some stuff.
When it comes to the graphical environment, UNIX varies a lot there too. We've got X, the frame buffer, and whatever thing is being worked on right now. Window managers abound! And I could go on.
If you are on a Mac, it's going to be necessary to get some tools, not much different from how one gets them on Windows. If you've installed an older, smaller Linux, sometimes dev tools were not in the default, run time installation. Sometimes you would have had to get them via a package, sometimes a tar ball, etc...
I get it as far as Linux being open, supplying a ton of stuff, works in ways that are appealing, etc... but it's a big world out there kids.
On Windows, you can do a basic installation, go and snag the Visual Studio stuff, get a PERL, PYTHON, JAVA, whatever, and in the course of about an hour, be doing lots of stuff you want to do, often how you want to do it, barring some annoyances like drive letters and the slashes being borked up.
I've written here a ton of times how awesome it is to build up some skills on open software, data and operating systems. All true!
But what pays the bills? And what costs what and is available on what?
All the open skills in the world won't enable me to do what I do. And it pays well too! Sometimes those skills augment it, but they really don't pay the bills. So I, and a lot of other people, make sure we've got skills on what does pay the bills.
When you frame it in simple, silly terms, you do open tools as well as yourself a disservice. Looks a lot like that annoying bumper sticker politics more than it does some meaningful thing people should think more about.
That all diminishes how effective an advocate you are too, and it's a shame really. People tend to respond to favorable advocacy and that's probably the biggest asset open stuff has.
Reconsider damaging that asset so that we may all see the benefit of solid open advocacy and see more use cases for open tools.
There is nothing worse than having to deal with a bunch of people who think they get it, but really just don't.
And that's relative right? Right. So then, realize other people have their reasons, and they may and likely are often just as valid as your reasons are.
I have never owned a Windows PC. (I have lots of experience with the product though - you have to, if you're a computer person and friends are using Windows. They need assistance. And I need to keep up with it too, these days having to handle Japanese versions as well.. that does create some extra hurdles, as you can guess.)
And I don't know how I would go about installing Windows in a VM - not because I can't install VMs, I do it all the time, whenever I need some special-purpose Linux variant. But I would have to buy Windows from somewhere, and there's the rub. I don't know how all those people installing Windows in VMs here and there do it. Do you somehow have a storage of Windows licenses lying around? For corporate users I assume the answer is "Yes", but all those home users claiming to do the same? I don't get it. "Just install 7 or XP in a VM". No, can't see how I can.
Not that I actually need it. I'm a programmer and I have worked with software development all my working life, starting with minicomputers and micros, workstations, PCs, and gone through various operating systems. I have never needed Windows (the closest thing would be an OS/2 driver I wrote once, and some X.25 software for same), and none of the customers (world-wide) have ever asked for a Windows version of anything. These days nearly all of them want Linux versions, with a few strugglers on Unix. In the past it would be various other Unix variants (particularly IRIX, possibly the best traditional Unix ever), and before that e.g. VMS. Windows? No demand. Sure, customers have Windows PCs in their offices and read and write email and documents on them. But that's all. The serious stuff is done on Linux these days (and some Unix).
More back to the topic - for the Windows personal support I've been doing it looks to me that I'm on the same page as e.g potatohead. Some specific tools to clean up the system (including Malwarebytes), out with most of the traditional anti-virus (often there are layers of them.. the original pre-installed one, then something extra that somehow gets added, all bogging down the system and introducing their own pop-ups). Then in with MSE. There's one commercial AV that I leave in place if the person has already paid for it, it works OK.
One commercial product that I actually have found to be worth the money is crashplan, it makes backups continuously (to cloud and any local storage you can connect, even other computers). The paid version lets you back up (parts, or all) your data to the cloud, and you can access that data from anywhere with a browser (encryption level as you decide - the strongest one has a local password component and can't be recovered by the provider.) Useful when you're away and need a file. With the paid version you can restore backups from a continuous timeline, and that's very relevant for Windows virus infections: In case of gradual data corruption (the BST story?), or accidents, or if you're hit by ransomwere.. you can get to an earlier copy of your files from before the bad thing happened. With just normal one-version backups your backup may be worthless after a ransomware infection at the time you notice it.
I love CrashPlan. It does revisions, and that's worth a TON, particularly when people are working in unmanaged ways and on complex / interdependent data.
Very highly recommended.
The only reason I'm not on it for personal computing is I scored a lifetime, no cap storage account on a special promo a while back. Don't need revisions, but I do need some bulk retrieval. (and no, I'm not gonna be mean and stuff big VM's in to the system for those guys to deal with) I will just copy, do it, and then spend some time sorting out the mess when it's done. There isn't much of this as I have program and CAD management most of the time.
Yes, in general, buying a windows license makes the best sense. One thing you can do here is score a cheap OEM license. I'll leave doing that to the reader, but it's not hard.
You don't have to do that though.
For Server, evaluations for lab purposes are available for download. Easy to use, and that eval can be reset a couple of times. For workstation, just do an install with any Product Key you can find and don't activate it for roughly the same purposes. If I have to test something odd, I'll do this and move on.
What I do for myself personally is get one activated, then clone the VM for various things. Mine are never online, but for the rare case, and I can always use the original one for that case too. The clones are purpose built and I can toss 'em after some period of time without polluting the one I started with. Snapshots do this too. YMMV I prefer snapshots, but those VM images can get really big, really quick! For me, they often have larger datasets in them, which makes it all the more painful.
In my particular case, being in a formal sales channel, I get these supplied sometimes too. I'm not allowed to share them, and they are specific purpose. (show 'n tell on their product) If I get one of those, it's a freebie to use for whatever the contract specifies. I keep 'em for a while just in case I need to revisit something.
Some software is expensive and keyed to workstations. A bit of clever VM configuration can result in that software in the VM, both the OS and the software activated. For those cases, getting good at a VM is worth it just for the insurance and ability to run that software longer term. YMMV here. IMHO, play fair and it's all good.
I typically use VMWARE as it's got some great configuration features, can support real clones, robust snapshots while a machine is running, and it can ignore the workstation clock, which can be really handy for all sorts of tests and such.
And to put my above post into some other context, I would personally love to see more things move off the "windows only" path. Seems every single year we are "just this close" to a more viable non-windows scenario. Seems every single year, Office, Exchange, and a few core applications (MCAD, Access, Quickbooks, etc...) keep it from making any kind of sense.
There are plenty of art departments off Windows though. They, like embedded people, are largely data sources and can get away with it. Good for them.
Sadly, engineering seems as locked in as sales / business is, and that's due to the level of communication / collaboration needed and expected. As mentioned here by others, a nice chunk of that could be worked around with a little work. Some companies do that. I'm impressed by the number of new / small / startups in the Valley doing Mac only. They will even do the work to run Windows VM's.
And if you are on a Mac, I have to recommend Parallels. It's graphics performance and overall integration with a Mac is currently superior to VMWARE. There are successful users who do business and product development on MAC OS with this path. Some of the names you would recognize too.
Little steps. Good steps.
But people gotta make money and they need to use their time in optimal ways. It's just hard to see the near constant assumptions. "If you are using windows... [insert bad thing here]"
Those are not warranted way more often than we think, and maybe that's my somewhat unique set of experiences leading to visibility on this stuff speaking. Pre-sales type work tends to expose those who do it to a lot of working scenarios, groups, processes, companies, technologies. So take those posts as just shared perspective. That is the intent they are offered with.
A real cross platform person would understand how those things get done on various platforms....When you frame it in simple, silly terms, you do open tools as well as yourself a disservice. Looks a lot like that annoying bumper sticker politics more than it does some meaningful thing people should think more about....That all diminishes how effective an advocate you are too...There is nothing worse than having to deal with a bunch of people who think they get it, but really just don't....So then, realize other people have their reasons, and they may and likely are often just as valid as your reasons are.
Wow, Potatohead, that was quite a slapping. Perhaps I deserve it. I was hoping that by opening my post with "C:> vim hello.c" people might guess that I have my tongue poking through my cheek and am being playful. Clearly that is not enough and I should always remember to add a smiley.
Certainly I know how to get things done on various platforms, or if not I have confidence that I can find out how to do it. That list of tasks I presented is of course trivially easy to achieve. All the code I have created in the last God knows how long is usable on Windows, Mac, Linux. Much of it also works on other operating systems, Solaris, VxWorks, PSOS, VMS etc. I might have difficulty getting back into the old OS4000 from GEC though
Certainly I realize why people use what they use. Unless they are just being fanatical a lot if it comes down to getting the job done, making a living, keeping the business running.
Do I even want to be a "advocate"? I have not been waiting for Linux on the desktop neither do I recommend it as such for most people. Those people don't want a computer, they want an appliance that gets things done at the push of a button. Others have no choice as the apps they require don't work anywhere else.
That does not mean I have to be happy about the vast amount of computing infrastructure of companies, governments and other organizations around the world being dependent on a single corporation over which they have no control and is for most in a foreign country.
I would personally love to see more things move off the "windows only" path.
Wanting to be an advocate and being one are two different things much of the time.
In very simple terms, others seeing the general success of their peers is basic advocacy in action. Those enjoying that success may not actually have the intent to advocate, but their actions do form advocacy all the same.
It is this I'm getting at as much as I am also referring to people who speak about open code and data when I wrote, "[advocacy is] probably the biggest asset open has"
And that is true because open really depends on the perception of use value being enough to justify or present as a sound return on investment for those who choose to contribute to the body of open code and data. [refer to ESR: The Cathedral and the Bazaar]
Secondly, a whole lot of that use value perception centers on conversations too. [Cluetrain Manefesto] If you want to know the truth, Parallax is a text book example of the value of conversations. We have moved from a closed, useful, friendly product set to an open, useful, friendly product set and a big part of that was the ongoing dialog. Open is as potent in this context as it is for code and data.
When that dialog ends up creating excessive friction, and make no mistake, there is always some friction or other we depend on our sensibilities to get past, it's all quite simply worth less!
This might be illuminating:
"Windows sux" compared to, "Hey, I can save you a few hundred bucks."
Both of those lead to the same place, but the path is very different. Some people may ask, "why does it suck?" and that dialog could lead them to see use value in open code and data, or it could lead them to turn away from the negatives too. Opportunity costs in the form of friction are high. On the other hand, people will very often ask, "how?" in response to a savings and that moves right to a low friction, "here, try this" type dialog. Opportunity costs are low in terms of friction.
Maybe that helps clarify some of the above. It wasn't so much of a slapping as it was a counter perspective, framed to get people to think. Nothing personal intended or implied. Think about what?
Other people and where the use value may lie. That's always the best open data and code dialog. Never fails. Always good. Happens every day, and we want it to happen so that open happens and grows and we get the use value sum of all our individual contributions in return for that dialog playing out.
And also about how friction presents itself. That post was high friction. Kind of ugly really. Does it have to be? Maybe that question is worth thinking on too.
And we are on the same page Heater. Absolutely. I'm just a bit more pragmatic and I've got exposure to dynamics that are somewhat outside the norm. This whole thing can sometimes chap my Smile.
Sorry for and about that. Happens! I have good intent for it.
The good news is our windows running friends have more options today than they've ever had! People can start actualizing the use value open code and data has in their personal and professional lives today by starting with open data, or open tools. Maybe they replace, or augment their current tools or environment with an application they do not have to pay a license for, can share, etc...
Do it again and again, and suddenly, they are seeing real benefit! At the same time, they are more and more able to jump onto a Linux and get meaningful stuff done.
Good as it gets, IMHO.
Re: government, infrastructure, and other public / civic things
Oh yeah. You and me both. Open has absolutely huge potential in this space. I've actually been politically active on this front, and every closed vendor on the planet knows of this potential and will work very hard to make sure it's not a consideration of any kind. Once it starts and takes hold, the savings and utility of it would be very compelling and difficult to undo. For them, the single biggest worry, aside from the diminished revenue potential governments currently present, is the ripple effects into business. It's a very negative end game for them, and because of that, the ROI on politics / lobby efforts / law is always favorable. The bigger entities are basically all in, do what it takes on this front. People have no idea. I didn't, until I saw it all play out some years back.
When it's framed in basic ways, most people favor and want more open in this space. Support is actually quite high. However, most of us have no idea, and often no inclination, on how or whether to contribute. In some quarters, this is a difficult to resolve, vexing problem with no real solutions on the table.
I've some other opinions and experiences to share, but not here and now as that whole discussion goes to P&R, which are not a focus here. And that's great too. I do not mean that as a negative at all.
potatohead,
Only a few posts back here http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/comment/1337649/#Comment_1337649 I basically spelled out your pragmatic point of view.
Sometimes I despair, used to be that MS was the master of every ones machines. In recent times not so much. There is Apple!
Mostly the "desktop" is dead though. Increasingly the world is forgetting about old fashioned desktops and their lives and businesses are moving to the "cloud". Facebook, Google, AWS, etc. Again getting locked in and siloed into single vendor solutions.
History repeats itself with the current wave of "Internet of Things". A lot of players vying to lock your "things" into their systems.
What to do?
Comments
Heater, I fail to see how you can fail to see how anyone gets anything done on Windows ..
Hmm...Install Windows and boot machine.
C:> vim hello.c
C:> gcc hello.c
C:> cc hello.c
C:> python
C:> perl
C:> ssh heater@192.168.0.101
Hmm...no luck with any of that. No decent editor no compilers or other languages. Seems this is not a computer operating system at all, you can't use it to compute!
Did they ever fix that problem that it was pretty much impossible to find a file in the system? Or a file containing a particular string?
Where is the package manager?
I could go on for a long time....
Here's something for perspective: https://www.talisman.org/unix/rosetta.shtml
UNIXes vary. Sometimes a lot. The overall approach is similar, but there are lots of things one has to know. Cross platform means that stuff too. Sometimes UNIX has a package manager, sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's not, sometimes it only works with some stuff.
When it comes to the graphical environment, UNIX varies a lot there too. We've got X, the frame buffer, and whatever thing is being worked on right now. Window managers abound! And I could go on.
If you are on a Mac, it's going to be necessary to get some tools, not much different from how one gets them on Windows. If you've installed an older, smaller Linux, sometimes dev tools were not in the default, run time installation. Sometimes you would have had to get them via a package, sometimes a tar ball, etc...
I get it as far as Linux being open, supplying a ton of stuff, works in ways that are appealing, etc... but it's a big world out there kids.
On Windows, you can do a basic installation, go and snag the Visual Studio stuff, get a PERL, PYTHON, JAVA, whatever, and in the course of about an hour, be doing lots of stuff you want to do, often how you want to do it, barring some annoyances like drive letters and the slashes being borked up.
I've written here a ton of times how awesome it is to build up some skills on open software, data and operating systems. All true!
But what pays the bills? And what costs what and is available on what?
All the open skills in the world won't enable me to do what I do. And it pays well too! Sometimes those skills augment it, but they really don't pay the bills. So I, and a lot of other people, make sure we've got skills on what does pay the bills.
When you frame it in simple, silly terms, you do open tools as well as yourself a disservice. Looks a lot like that annoying bumper sticker politics more than it does some meaningful thing people should think more about.
That all diminishes how effective an advocate you are too, and it's a shame really. People tend to respond to favorable advocacy and that's probably the biggest asset open stuff has.
Reconsider damaging that asset so that we may all see the benefit of solid open advocacy and see more use cases for open tools.
There is nothing worse than having to deal with a bunch of people who think they get it, but really just don't.
And that's relative right? Right. So then, realize other people have their reasons, and they may and likely are often just as valid as your reasons are.
And I don't know how I would go about installing Windows in a VM - not because I can't install VMs, I do it all the time, whenever I need some special-purpose Linux variant. But I would have to buy Windows from somewhere, and there's the rub. I don't know how all those people installing Windows in VMs here and there do it. Do you somehow have a storage of Windows licenses lying around? For corporate users I assume the answer is "Yes", but all those home users claiming to do the same? I don't get it. "Just install 7 or XP in a VM". No, can't see how I can.
Not that I actually need it. I'm a programmer and I have worked with software development all my working life, starting with minicomputers and micros, workstations, PCs, and gone through various operating systems. I have never needed Windows (the closest thing would be an OS/2 driver I wrote once, and some X.25 software for same), and none of the customers (world-wide) have ever asked for a Windows version of anything. These days nearly all of them want Linux versions, with a few strugglers on Unix. In the past it would be various other Unix variants (particularly IRIX, possibly the best traditional Unix ever), and before that e.g. VMS. Windows? No demand. Sure, customers have Windows PCs in their offices and read and write email and documents on them. But that's all. The serious stuff is done on Linux these days (and some Unix).
More back to the topic - for the Windows personal support I've been doing it looks to me that I'm on the same page as e.g potatohead. Some specific tools to clean up the system (including Malwarebytes), out with most of the traditional anti-virus (often there are layers of them.. the original pre-installed one, then something extra that somehow gets added, all bogging down the system and introducing their own pop-ups). Then in with MSE. There's one commercial AV that I leave in place if the person has already paid for it, it works OK.
One commercial product that I actually have found to be worth the money is crashplan, it makes backups continuously (to cloud and any local storage you can connect, even other computers). The paid version lets you back up (parts, or all) your data to the cloud, and you can access that data from anywhere with a browser (encryption level as you decide - the strongest one has a local password component and can't be recovered by the provider.) Useful when you're away and need a file. With the paid version you can restore backups from a continuous timeline, and that's very relevant for Windows virus infections: In case of gradual data corruption (the BST story?), or accidents, or if you're hit by ransomwere.. you can get to an earlier copy of your files from before the bad thing happened. With just normal one-version backups your backup may be worthless after a ransomware infection at the time you notice it.
Very highly recommended.
The only reason I'm not on it for personal computing is I scored a lifetime, no cap storage account on a special promo a while back. Don't need revisions, but I do need some bulk retrieval. (and no, I'm not gonna be mean and stuff big VM's in to the system for those guys to deal with) I will just copy, do it, and then spend some time sorting out the mess when it's done. There isn't much of this as I have program and CAD management most of the time.
Yes, in general, buying a windows license makes the best sense. One thing you can do here is score a cheap OEM license. I'll leave doing that to the reader, but it's not hard.
You don't have to do that though.
For Server, evaluations for lab purposes are available for download. Easy to use, and that eval can be reset a couple of times. For workstation, just do an install with any Product Key you can find and don't activate it for roughly the same purposes. If I have to test something odd, I'll do this and move on.
What I do for myself personally is get one activated, then clone the VM for various things. Mine are never online, but for the rare case, and I can always use the original one for that case too. The clones are purpose built and I can toss 'em after some period of time without polluting the one I started with. Snapshots do this too. YMMV I prefer snapshots, but those VM images can get really big, really quick! For me, they often have larger datasets in them, which makes it all the more painful.
In my particular case, being in a formal sales channel, I get these supplied sometimes too. I'm not allowed to share them, and they are specific purpose. (show 'n tell on their product) If I get one of those, it's a freebie to use for whatever the contract specifies. I keep 'em for a while just in case I need to revisit something.
Some software is expensive and keyed to workstations. A bit of clever VM configuration can result in that software in the VM, both the OS and the software activated. For those cases, getting good at a VM is worth it just for the insurance and ability to run that software longer term. YMMV here. IMHO, play fair and it's all good.
I typically use VMWARE as it's got some great configuration features, can support real clones, robust snapshots while a machine is running, and it can ignore the workstation clock, which can be really handy for all sorts of tests and such.
And to put my above post into some other context, I would personally love to see more things move off the "windows only" path. Seems every single year we are "just this close" to a more viable non-windows scenario. Seems every single year, Office, Exchange, and a few core applications (MCAD, Access, Quickbooks, etc...) keep it from making any kind of sense.
There are plenty of art departments off Windows though. They, like embedded people, are largely data sources and can get away with it. Good for them.
Sadly, engineering seems as locked in as sales / business is, and that's due to the level of communication / collaboration needed and expected. As mentioned here by others, a nice chunk of that could be worked around with a little work. Some companies do that. I'm impressed by the number of new / small / startups in the Valley doing Mac only. They will even do the work to run Windows VM's.
And if you are on a Mac, I have to recommend Parallels. It's graphics performance and overall integration with a Mac is currently superior to VMWARE. There are successful users who do business and product development on MAC OS with this path. Some of the names you would recognize too.
Little steps. Good steps.
But people gotta make money and they need to use their time in optimal ways. It's just hard to see the near constant assumptions. "If you are using windows... [insert bad thing here]"
Those are not warranted way more often than we think, and maybe that's my somewhat unique set of experiences leading to visibility on this stuff speaking. Pre-sales type work tends to expose those who do it to a lot of working scenarios, groups, processes, companies, technologies. So take those posts as just shared perspective. That is the intent they are offered with.
A real cross platform person would understand how those things get done on various platforms....When you frame it in simple, silly terms, you do open tools as well as yourself a disservice. Looks a lot like that annoying bumper sticker politics more than it does some meaningful thing people should think more about....That all diminishes how effective an advocate you are too...There is nothing worse than having to deal with a bunch of people who think they get it, but really just don't....So then, realize other people have their reasons, and they may and likely are often just as valid as your reasons are.
Wow, Potatohead, that was quite a slapping. Perhaps I deserve it. I was hoping that by opening my post with "C:> vim hello.c" people might guess that I have my tongue poking through my cheek and am being playful. Clearly that is not enough and I should always remember to add a smiley.
Certainly I know how to get things done on various platforms, or if not I have confidence that I can find out how to do it. That list of tasks I presented is of course trivially easy to achieve. All the code I have created in the last God knows how long is usable on Windows, Mac, Linux. Much of it also works on other operating systems, Solaris, VxWorks, PSOS, VMS etc. I might have difficulty getting back into the old OS4000 from GEC though
Certainly I realize why people use what they use. Unless they are just being fanatical a lot if it comes down to getting the job done, making a living, keeping the business running.
Do I even want to be a "advocate"? I have not been waiting for Linux on the desktop neither do I recommend it as such for most people. Those people don't want a computer, they want an appliance that gets things done at the push of a button. Others have no choice as the apps they require don't work anywhere else.
That does not mean I have to be happy about the vast amount of computing infrastructure of companies, governments and other organizations around the world being dependent on a single corporation over which they have no control and is for most in a foreign country.
I would personally love to see more things move off the "windows only" path.
Seems we are the same page after all.
In very simple terms, others seeing the general success of their peers is basic advocacy in action. Those enjoying that success may not actually have the intent to advocate, but their actions do form advocacy all the same.
It is this I'm getting at as much as I am also referring to people who speak about open code and data when I wrote, "[advocacy is] probably the biggest asset open has"
And that is true because open really depends on the perception of use value being enough to justify or present as a sound return on investment for those who choose to contribute to the body of open code and data. [refer to ESR: The Cathedral and the Bazaar]
Secondly, a whole lot of that use value perception centers on conversations too. [Cluetrain Manefesto] If you want to know the truth, Parallax is a text book example of the value of conversations. We have moved from a closed, useful, friendly product set to an open, useful, friendly product set and a big part of that was the ongoing dialog. Open is as potent in this context as it is for code and data.
When that dialog ends up creating excessive friction, and make no mistake, there is always some friction or other we depend on our sensibilities to get past, it's all quite simply worth less!
This might be illuminating:
"Windows sux" compared to, "Hey, I can save you a few hundred bucks."
Both of those lead to the same place, but the path is very different. Some people may ask, "why does it suck?" and that dialog could lead them to see use value in open code and data, or it could lead them to turn away from the negatives too. Opportunity costs in the form of friction are high. On the other hand, people will very often ask, "how?" in response to a savings and that moves right to a low friction, "here, try this" type dialog. Opportunity costs are low in terms of friction.
Maybe that helps clarify some of the above. It wasn't so much of a slapping as it was a counter perspective, framed to get people to think. Nothing personal intended or implied. Think about what?
Other people and where the use value may lie. That's always the best open data and code dialog. Never fails. Always good. Happens every day, and we want it to happen so that open happens and grows and we get the use value sum of all our individual contributions in return for that dialog playing out.
And also about how friction presents itself. That post was high friction. Kind of ugly really. Does it have to be? Maybe that question is worth thinking on too.
And we are on the same page Heater. Absolutely. I'm just a bit more pragmatic and I've got exposure to dynamics that are somewhat outside the norm. This whole thing can sometimes chap my Smile.
Sorry for and about that. Happens! I have good intent for it.
The good news is our windows running friends have more options today than they've ever had! People can start actualizing the use value open code and data has in their personal and professional lives today by starting with open data, or open tools. Maybe they replace, or augment their current tools or environment with an application they do not have to pay a license for, can share, etc...
Do it again and again, and suddenly, they are seeing real benefit! At the same time, they are more and more able to jump onto a Linux and get meaningful stuff done.
Good as it gets, IMHO.
Re: government, infrastructure, and other public / civic things
Oh yeah. You and me both. Open has absolutely huge potential in this space. I've actually been politically active on this front, and every closed vendor on the planet knows of this potential and will work very hard to make sure it's not a consideration of any kind. Once it starts and takes hold, the savings and utility of it would be very compelling and difficult to undo. For them, the single biggest worry, aside from the diminished revenue potential governments currently present, is the ripple effects into business. It's a very negative end game for them, and because of that, the ROI on politics / lobby efforts / law is always favorable. The bigger entities are basically all in, do what it takes on this front. People have no idea. I didn't, until I saw it all play out some years back.
When it's framed in basic ways, most people favor and want more open in this space. Support is actually quite high. However, most of us have no idea, and often no inclination, on how or whether to contribute. In some quarters, this is a difficult to resolve, vexing problem with no real solutions on the table.
I've some other opinions and experiences to share, but not here and now as that whole discussion goes to P&R, which are not a focus here. And that's great too. I do not mean that as a negative at all.
Only a few posts back here http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/comment/1337649/#Comment_1337649 I basically spelled out your pragmatic point of view.
Sometimes I despair, used to be that MS was the master of every ones machines. In recent times not so much. There is Apple!
Mostly the "desktop" is dead though. Increasingly the world is forgetting about old fashioned desktops and their lives and businesses are moving to the "cloud". Facebook, Google, AWS, etc. Again getting locked in and siloed into single vendor solutions.
History repeats itself with the current wave of "Internet of Things". A lot of players vying to lock your "things" into their systems.
What to do?