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This article was originally produced as part of my studies for a BSc degree in Computing, it is reproduced here in cse anyone is interested. If you have comments to make about this essay which you would like to be appended to the end of the article please email us via the link at the end of the article and we will review the comments and publish them if appropriate. Please be aware that this article was written with a 1000 word limit so is in no way definitive or a complete overview, also please read the question carefully as the discussion involves a hypothetical pre-suposition that is very different to the way the world actually is. Colin Olden: Horizon5 Development.
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Question: Discuss: The World's computer users would be better off if the open-source operating system Linux were the world's dominant operating system instead of Microsoft Windows. This essay will attempt to address the issue of whether the world's computer users would be better off if the dominant operating system were the Open Source Gnu/Linux OS rather than the proprietary closed source (Black box) Microsoft Windows. For the purposes of this discussion, due to the word limit, certain other assumptions about the computer industry will need to be made. Most importantly in the areas of support/help and application/hardware compatibility where the central hypothetical pre-supposition presumes Linux is dominant it follows that there would be much more help/support available due to the increased number of users and more software developers would compile programs for the linux platform (these are two powerful reasons holding back Linux in the real world situation at present). During the discussion then it will be easier to concentrate on the more fundamental and political issues that the question raises rather than getting bogged down in the technical details.
Central to this discussion is the needs of computer users and which OS better serves those needs and enables the user to do more with less. Presuming a fairly average computer user possibly the most important 'need' is that of ease of use, at the time of writing Windows is still an easier OS to learn to operate and much of it's interface has been simplified in order to be suitable for 'the masses'. The other side of that argument is that Windows has been over-simplified and it is much more difficult for a user to get beyond the interface and really gain control over their machine and that if users really learnt to use Linux they would in fact be much more computer literate and in that way 'better off' however it would be hard to say that that is what the average user actually wants. Another important need of users is standardization, presently Windows is Windows you can sit down at a computer and instantly recognize it and know how to use it whether you are at home, work at school or in someone else's home, office or school. Linux with its many differing choices of distributions from different companies, choices of graphical interface and command line interpreters makes it harder to carry your knowledge from one machine to another. This situation can also be seen to add considerably to the costs in time and money of training needed to operate or support Linux. This brings us neatly on to the issue of cost. Linux is can be had for free, if we stop right there then the world's users are undoubtedly 'better off' however on closer examination the costs, as we've seen before in respect to training, can be seen to rise. We need to consider that most users will want to buy a boxed distribution for a variety of reasons and will not be in a position through lack of knowledge and a fear of messing up their entire system/losing all their data to download and install updated versions of the Kernel. Each boxed distribution costs in the region of a third of the price of Windows but due to the pace of development of Linux, which does give it a great advantage in an ability to support advances in hardware and software much sooner, boxed distributions of Linux are released on average once a year whereas Windows has a general life-cycle of three years. So in order to retain currency the user will end up spending much the same money whether using Windows or Linux. In larger organizations where multiple licenses are bought and in-house support can be provided it is much easier to see where using Linux can save a lot of money. The next issue I'd like to discuss is hardware compatibility and portability between hardware platforms, presently it is possible to get a much wider range of PC hardware to work under Windows particularly 'straight out of the box' however as previously mentioned this is a situation that would change if Linux was dominant as there would be a greater impetus for hardware manufacturers to write Linux drivers. A more fundamentally important consideration is that due to the availability of the source code it is possible for any individual or organization to port Linux to any other hardware platform (old or new) whenever they like, this is in comparison to Windows where there is no option but to wait for Microsoft to decide to support that platform and only then if it suits them. And so we come to the real political and moral issues, Gnu/Linux gives you Freedom and Windows gives you only what Microsoft wants to give you or that which it can make a profit from. The collaborative development environment with it's free access to source code can greatly reduce costs and eliminates most of the 'duplication of effort' that is incurred under the closed source system thus much more time is liberated for true advancements in computer technology.
So would computer users be better off? Well I think it is unclear whether average computer users would really see a great deal of advantage in their daily work at least for some and on the PC platform but for 'Power Users' the ability to tailor their operating system to their own needs and to keep it updated for free will be a definite advantage. Linux could well enable a much faster development of new platforms (64bit Linux for the Alpha workstation has been available for 4 years now). However there are risks involved in the open source system including fracturing of the whole movement with major forks in the road if some companies decide to take one road and other companies decide upon another. Add to this the legal wranglings over elements of proprietry code within Gnu/Linux and a decline in the number of jobs in the software sector and the Linux path can appear rocky. So to finish off with my own opinion, I would suggest that the world is better off if software is seen as a tool that is freely shared so that we could achieve more work and advancements in our daily lives rather than a commodity that is traded at a high price which holds us back. However it is with a heavy heart that I point out that 'collaboration versus competition' can be simply translated to 'communism versus capitalism' and in the real world we all know who's winning that war.
There are no direct quotations within the text but the following books have been used for reference and as a framework for my own opinions as expressed in the connclusion: Williams. S:(2002): 'Free as in Freedom' . O'Reilly (GNU Free Documentation Licence) Moody. G:(2002): 'Rebel Code' . Penguin. Levy. S:(1984/1994): 'Hackers' . Penguin. Lessig. L.(2001): 'The Future of Ideas'. Vintage. Naughton. J.(1999): 'A Brief History of the Future'. Phoenix. Raymond. E. 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' [online-22/6/04] Click Here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ to submit comments or further text to this article please email us via this link:
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