Benefits, Issues (2)

• Not everyone agrees with these points:

  • Strategically, operating systems itself are becoming irrelevant for users: e.g. about half of the world didn't upgrade to winXP
  • It's applications integrated within desktop environment what counts
  • Smooth transition with smaller steps is important on desktop (see Firefox and OpenOffice.org story)
  • Many users give up if they couldn't quickly switch to a single FOSS application they want, keeping their current environment
  • It's no more just FOSS vs Proprietary: it's FOSS vs FOSS vital competition