If you read the article it actually makes the case that "Apple Macs are a niche market" ... is that the get out clause?

I agree it would be stupid to apply this idea only to current Windows-type machines and there would be major lawsuits from manufacturer's (not to mention MS) if Apple was exempt.

The question is WHO would buy Apple hardware just to run Windows - they would have to be seriously deranged to pay that price for a Windows box! Do Linux distributions run on Apple hardware (never heard of anyone doing it)? If they run Windows I shouldn't think there is a problem - but again who would pay the premium for a Linux box?

If it happened Apple would be stuffed in Europe unless they unbundle hardware and MacOS (very unlikely as bundled OS has been the rabid company philosophy since the beginning - and there have been many attempts to persuade them to release MacOS to other platforms without any success). If they do unbundle they would have to produce hardware at prices that could reasonably compete - which would be interesting.

Personally I think if Apple are forced they will simply move out of Europe and either not supply to Europe or just provide a shop from the US via the internet.

Apple are already coming under serious pressure from the EU because of the iPod/iTunes/iTunes Store near monopoly so it will be interesting to see where it all runs.

My own view is that we won't see it happen in our lifetime - MS won't let it. They will keep the EU in court until hell freezes over to stop it and probably have enough financial weight to force the US to impose trade sanctions on Europe!

Personally i would much rather wait for a new clean operating system than deal with *nix.

I stick with windows mainly because of the applications available.  But like switching languages, i'd be prepared to switch if i found something nice and clean and elegant.  linux is none of these (imho).  It's a mess and burdened with the baggage of it's history.  Both windows and linux are suffering severely under the strain of age.

I'll tell you

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mac OS X, but he'll deny it

I suppose if Windows 7 or 8 is the new OS from scratch that people is demanding, that would fit the bill. As for Linux, well, maybe they'll fix their way. They have really interesting ideas for the whole OS and its application catalog, but the gurus should start to think outside their world and get the big picture (particularly Mr. Stallman ), as I think it's quite possible to cater both newbies and power users alike (yeah, including terminal zealots ), as Windows proved through the years. KDE 4 is near, and so far it seems that it could bring a real advantage in (desktop) innovation compared with Windows, so I expect the other developers take advantage of this momentum to offer something really attractive to the rest of us (both users and developers).

Good point, Carol. I forgot Mac OS X is built on top of UNIX foundation code (even if that line was supposed to be a joke ).

So, what about AmigaOS 4? No wait, that one is also built on top of old code. So, what's left? The picture is turning pretty grim.

after spending a few days working with an open source linux project that seems designed to make people hate linux and having had much more pain and frustration fighting with server configuration and error handling on linux, and being currently in the middle of one of my angery fury fugues, you should probably ignore what i'm about to say, but allow me to vent and say linux is as much a complete piece of garbage as every other operating system.  it's a complete and unmitigated mess which i wouldn't wish on anyone.  i'm not saying something like windows vista isn't worse (or better), i'm just saying its a total mess which should have been drowned in a bathtub.

OS X is pretty and everything, but Apple are at least as DRM-evil as Microsoft, they artificially tie their OS to "their" hardware (even though nothing stops it from running on vanilla x86, except the restraints they've coded in), you need Objective-C to code for Cocoa (and how messy is that?!), etc...

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes summarised the most importants points about Linux lack of success before we started discussing the matter. Worth a read, even if everything mentioned there has been discussed here . Be sure to read the follow-up as well.

I could also put the link to the lengthy article that leaded me there, but I stopped reading it as I found the point the guy was trying to make was totally nonsensical. I should know that, as it starts with a bad understanding of one of the phrases that Mr. Kingsley wrote (it should be said that the sentence by itself means a completely different thing of what the author intended).

Hmmm, Steve Jobs would kill for Apple to be BMW

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes summarised the most importants points about Linux lack of success before we started discussing the matter. Worth a read, even if everything mentioned there has been discussed here smiley. Be sure to read the follow-up as well.

Yep - pretty much what I said early on in this thread. The trouble is for the average user a PC is an appliance these days, like the TV or fridge, and people don't want to have to install new firmware in their TV or fridge or try and convert their TV into a microwave any more than they want to spend hours tinkering with a new OS. People simply want to switch it on and do things!

OK if you have the right hardware so that Linux installs all the right drivers from the get go and automatically chucks you into KDE then it will probably be OK for the average user (except that they won't be able to buy games or software in their local store). Have a bit of hardware that needs a driver and you are in serious trouble - even assuming you can find a driver it is never terribly obvious how to get the damn thing installed and working.

Hell the first time I installed Linux (Mandrake as it happens - which was reputed at the time to have the best installer) I couldn't get any audio and my bog standard IDE CDROMs wouldn't work. After 3 weeks of emails to Mandrake I eventually got them working - but who needs that! At least on Windows if you need a driver you can put a manufacturer name and model into google and withion 0 seconds be downloading the correct driver - and all you need to do is double click.

link=topic=10052.msg79165#msg79165 date=1191382319]

How about ReactOS? It started off fresh, is based on the principles of nix and is binary compatible with windows

It's going to take a looooonnnng while... to even be somewhat compatible with... Windows 2000/XP... let alone Vista.

Well, http://www.reactos.org/support/index.php/comp/cat/id/2/, and look at the compatibility levels of the different apps...; doesn't seem very encouraging to me... 
I said "somewhat compatible" only because I didn't want to invent a fake quantitative figure.
I'm not saying ReactOS isn't a nice project. It is. 
But I wouldn't hold my breath. A very personal opinion, maybe.

link=topic=10052.msg79165#msg79165 date=1191382319]
How about ReactOS? It started off fresh, is based on the principles of nix and is binary compatible with windows

Ummm, "based on the principles of nix"? It's an opensource re-implementation of the NT kernel, how is that "based on nix"? (you could say based on VMS, though, considering who developed NT and how).

Although I don't share mouser's frustrations with GNU/Linux, perhaps it's because I've waded into it gradually over the past two years, and now there's only a couple of tasks that I reserve for a Windows machine in the background. At this point in my life, I'm much more agnostic toward operating systems than I ever was before. Perhaps it's because Vista is a Pandora's Box that lured lifelong Windows users like myself to try another OS and be surprised at how good it was. Now onto the question, which is only half of what I wanted to post in my little 'making the switch' series as a final post.
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WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT GNU/LINUX:
(01) Font rendering in some distros. For some weird reason, font rendering in the licensed distros are better in my experience, though they shouldn't be. I spend almost all my computer time reading and looking at type. The OS with the best fonts wins with the average user. Typographers don't work for free, and until someone spends a lot of money, GNU/Linux fonts will never be "as good" as those in the latest Windows version.

(02) Switching takes time (like anything else, immersion), and it took a while to find all the apps that could acceptably substitute for their Windows counterparts. That said, many Windows apps already have Linux versions, such as Nero, Opera, Filezilla, and so on. For other alternatives, visit osalt.com.

(03) Application availability. Windows has it, GNU/Linux doesn't. But it would be a smart thing for more vendors to make their mark on Linux.  File management apps suck. Period.

(04) Text Editors are too basic, or geared directly for programming. UltraEdit has announced a Linux version beta for late '08. Not soon enough.

(05) Most people don't like the lack of gaming and Photoshop, Autocad, and no enterprise-level accounting applications. It's not that GNU/Linux can't do certain things, it's just that those specific tasks were not written to be run under the Linux kernel, but written specifically for Win32.

(06) There should be a GUI for everything. Although it's more efficient, lots of newbies don't want to go to the command line. Still, I rarely ever open a command line. Really.

(07) I've come to dislike dual-booting and have opted for separate machines. It's easier to tear down and rebuild, experiment, and I tend to use one or the other for various background tasks, such as usenet downloading, gaming, or burning media. Dual-booting seemed like having both cable and satellite TV just to get a few extra channels the other does not provide.

(08) Linux has made incremental headway on the desktop for one obvious reason: it has no significant commercial backer on the desktop. The open source approach to software development usually produces products built by software developers for software developers, and often for specific tasks. As more apps become RIA (rich internet application/s), this becomes more irrelevant each day.

(09) As so many in this thread have noted, right now, ISVs [independent software vendors] have to certify their applications on a distribution-by-distribution approach. As such, Linux distros are competing on application availability now and not quality of code. GNU/Linux needs to somehow standardize the ISV certification process. The industry has a responsibility to have a program to make it easier for ISVs. Although it has LSB (Linux Standard Base), which is great, but more is needed for ISV certification.

(10) Finally, the whole "distro" scene is part and parcel of the nature of GNU/Linux which centers around ultimate customizability. I've installed and used over 40 distros in the past two years, and most of them aren't for me or my machine. But each distro is created for a specific philosophy — ease of use, speed with an old machine, multimedia, portability, research, video editing, mimicking Windows or OS X, etc. Beyond the simplicity of obtaining applications, this is often the most confusing element of switching to GNU/Linux. However, if you want a more cohesive and enclosed Windows-like entry experience into GNU/Linux, check out distros like SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop or Zenwalk or Fedora.

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PS: Sorry I'm late to the topic, but I've been nursing a sick wife for the past six weeks. She's all better now.

Vista got its window border design from SkyOS check it out u 'll be amazed to see the diffrence.