People use "sucky" software all the time, because it runs their business. You have to use something. And the costs of switching, from whatever you have to anything else (no matter how "good" it is) are quite considerable, so you don't make any move casually.

But when the economics is there, or some truly-better piece of software or equipment is there, you can move. People abandoned Wang Corporation's dedicated word-processing machines completely, and in droves. They might well do the same with "the PC as we know it today." (Mobile electronics gear is really getting to be amazing...) We could, in other words, experience some kind of total paradigm-shift. (Try to sell a portable CD player these days, for example. Hell, try to sell anything but an Apple(R) iPod(R)!)

It might happen, but "suckiness alone" :) won't do it.

To an awful lot of people, "software is a tool for the job," and it's the job or the paycheck that matters; not the tool. The possibility that there might be a disruption in service (caused by that "improvement") could be, money-wise and business-wise, catastrophic to the tune of thousands of dollars per hour. And "one OS is very like another when your head's down over the PeeCees, brother." (with apologies to Chess: One Night In Bangcock.)

The word is: "I don't know (what you're carrying on about), I don't wanna know, and I don't care!" And, from their perspective, it makes perfect sense. They are using <<X>> because it works, period.

Actually the article is worth a read IMO - AFAI heard from comments - I still have to read it :D :) - but William Wallace - Braveheart style : "Freedom !" - :D

Linux will progress & progress & progress .... .

Except if some nasty legal things happen .. hmmm .

Just IMO :)

Mmmmh Flame Bait & grilling - yummy -:)

EDIT : Linux with all the OSS software around it ... as well that comment .. Linux is "just" the kernel - more OSS out there

ya a few days ago i read somewhere that 4 out of the 5 fastest supercomputers of 2005 were using linux. linux is very powerful but some dont need (or want) power really.

the way i like to think of things is that in the computer world there is always a trade-off between ease and power. the easy things are low power and the hard things are high power. linux is considerably harder than windows but it is more powerful. furthermore amoung different distributions the same principle applies: ubuntu is a fairly simple linux distro when in comparison gentoo is a very difficult one. despite the difficulty around gentoo the final product is a more powerful system that is compiled specifically for that system itself.

different people like different positions on hte ease-power scale. some like the windows position which is all the way on the easy end but low power, others like linux which is more powerful but more difficult to use and maintain, and some distros are even farther on the power scale such as gentoo (which is my favorite).