Thread: Stephen Fry.....

Meh, hardware and the OS of choice are one thing...but the main problem is with commercial software. Until every single game, popular application and so on is released for both Windows and Linux to work flawlessly under each, I just don't see Windows losing its overbearing position.

Price isn't as important as comfort. People are willing to pay money for being comfortable.

(Let's not have arguments on the use of Wine...especially since I'm very uninformed of it anyway, heh.)

I have checked OpenOffice out, and I must say it is a very comprehensive software suite. It works just as well as MS Office, but has extra features and programs and generally is good to use. As for web browsers, let's not forget Opera. I liked Opera (though I use Firefox out of habit), and it, again, has some great features and is extremely customisable. Not so much can be said for IE7.

MS is afraid... and for good reason. People are starting to release free software that is of higher quality than it's own range of programs, and unless it changes it's business model, they will soon be left behind. If anything, Microsoft needs to embrace the Open Source community, as opposed to fighting it.

Vista, though okay, is not really a revelation. A few more features here and there, and a graphical 'facelift'... but that does nothing to change that it has become a lot more bloated than before. I can see myself using Vista, but that is because I'm a gamer, and eventually, games will be tied down to DirectX 10 (which is tied into Vista, annoyingly), and so I will have no choice but to upgrade.

Now, if consumers are able to pressure MS enough, we might see a version of DirectX 10 released to work with XP. That is my pipe dream, but like Stephen Fry said, I'm also allowed to dream.

However, should more games be made to work on Linux, as in given proper support, then I will be more tempted to go to Linux completely. At the moment, I'm more likely to only dual-boot my PC. For example, have Vista for my games, but then have Linux for day to day use.

I would like to see a drive to at least get more games to use OpenGL, or at least create a version of DirectX with Linux support. But of course, as the latter is owned by MS, that probably won't happen.

My mate has an EEE PC (and he's a computer geek obsessed with open source), and to be honest, I would prefer one of those to an Apple Air anyday.