14 DAY TRIAL // The operating system market is largely a three-horse race involving Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. So far, Microsoft is the clear winner in the face-off with Apple and the open source community in terms of audience. The Windows platform simply has no match when it comes down to the size of the install base, dominating the market with a presence of over 90%. Apple is runner-up with Mac OS X, also a proprietary platform just like Windows, but growing not as a standalone software product, but in combination with the Mac computers. The Linux operating system illustrates the great extent of fragmentation within the open source community with a great variety of distribution and diversity, a model that supposedly fuels innovation.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux platform, was at the linux.conf.au conference in Melbourne the past week. There, Torvalds managed to put down the over-hyped Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, revealing that in his perspective the product is inferior to the much-touted Windows Vista in some ways, while at the same time being superior in others.
"I don't think they're equally flawed. I think Leopard is a much better system. On the other hand, (I've found) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary. I think OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own (Linux). It's a race to second place," Torvalds stated as cited by the Sunday Morning Herald.
The father of the Linux platform opined that neither Windows Vista nor Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard should be at the center stage of the computing experience. But of course, this is a different tune that the ones played by Microsoft and Apple. Both companies have business models based on proprietary products. In this context, the marketing focus is designed to bring Widows and Mac OS X into the limelight, and to make the two brands synonymous with a unique end user experience.
"An o/s should never have been something that people (in general) really care about: it should be completely invisible and nobody should give a flying f*** about it except the technical people. It's stupid - when you make a big deal about something like Vista or Leopard a lot of it is about things I don't consider to be the operating system. It's about the visual shell around it. The fact Microsoft tied the two together so much actually caused them problems, not just the legal problems. If you manage a thousand clients, or a hundred thousand clients which is not at all unheard of, you sure as hell don't want to point and click at them. In many ways Microsoft has had to fix the design mistakes they made when they thought the graphical approach should be a very intimate part of (Windows). To Microsoft and Apple the o/s is important as a way to control the whole environment, from a marketing and money-making standpoint, to force people to upgrade their applications, and your hardware," Torvalds added.