Please Reinstate the OS Wars

All the glass clicking and cheers of late surrounding the apparent conversion of Microsoft to the open source fold needs to stop. We need the Cold War. We need Communism. And, yes, we need the OS Wars. Like any war, the OS Wars stimulate creativity, spark religious battles and divide the wannabes from the true innovators.

Give me back the days of the Linux zealots who hate Microsoft so much that they remove Washington state from the US Map. Return me to those days of all Microsoft shops that threaten firing to anyone even uttering the word 'Linux' on company property. Send me back in time to the days of "Ken, why are you wasting your time with Linux?" I want to hear Microsoft bigots pronounce Linux with a long I.
Where are the days before every Windows desktop ran a Linux virtual machine? Where indeed.

I want to wax nostalgic about the strange days of Microsoft's open source strategy to kill Linux and how it didn't work. The annals of history recorded that their attempt was a failure. Reminiscing about how every open source company shook hands with Microsoft and became a collective force against nothing is what I want.

We need an enemy. We need for Microsoft to be the Spain and Britain of colonial times when planting your flag on a land and oppressing its people meant something. It meant competition. It meant conquering new territory and claiming it for your own--natives be damned!

I want our victories to be victories of valor and of painful wounds--and most of all to be victories of a distinct belief system. I want real victories not Masada-esque ones. My dream is for Steve Ballmer to send a messenger to Linus Torvalds demanding that he and his merry band of 300 developers surrender their code to him and for Linus' response back to be: "Come get it."

We need Microsoft. We need for them to be our enemy--our sworn enemy. They and their kind are evil. They represent the evil empire. We need the OS Wars lest we fall prey to their evil-undoings and become part of their evil plot to destroy all that is good in the world.

May the best OS win.

[rich3800]

Those were the the good ol' days when Microsoft was bad and needed a spankin'.

[khess]

@rich3800.

I wish I'd said that--that's funny!

[apexwm]

You'll be happy to know there are some out here that still want this too. In fact, I didn't really pay much attention to the OS wars that have been going on for years even though I have been using Windows and Linux for the past 12 years. Finally one day I became fed up with Microsoft products, and they made the choice for me easy: I chose to solely use Linux moving forward, and I have been ever since. In my frustration, I wrote a lengthy article describing my frustrations and how I'd like for Linux to jump up and go after Microsoft:

http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux

[Alex_]

It's always good to have in mind the things that drive you towards success. But let's not be over dramatic on hating someone.

Cheers for open sources! ;)

[NicAx64]

actually we need Microsoft was a challenge , not as a enemy.
Because any open source programmer is reading always go and read
the MSDN and using their API's and even their free tools to develop
open source solutions for the microsoft windows. Ture there are OSes
like ReactOs that are comming handy in this case.

Actually we can't bug the bill gates for this , because he is like a father
of us. If not him there will be no x86 or Personal computer like this.But
their technology is very high cost, which is breaking their main strategy
of "Technology should be accessible" how can it be accessible if it is
cannot not playable for a ordinary man?

and I really hates one thing that M$ is doing , that is they want to incorporate with other hardware/software vendors and they need to
stop one dig into the computer hardware or operating systems. They need to show us computer as a black box that only runs microsoft windows. and windows is a essential fixed component of the computer. and there isn't a world without windows. It's actually bad for a curious
hacker who need to dig up and see how it is working ? how to write device drivers and so on. how to modify the code etc. These days
they introducing technologies like .Net , even they need more abstractions than this even. They need 3rd party generation of programmers who only knows programming in C# , who don't have a
baby knowledge about what is a 'logic gate' even.

[ov3rcl0ck]

Problem with microsoft is they aren't good programmers but they are good at marketing. Thing with linux is its programmed well but obviously marketed bad, but thats not an issue because Linux needs no funding and it spreads through the word of its users. Linux isn't gonna die by the hand of microsoft. Only way i see linux going down is if it does become popular and then all the less experienced users demanding more and more user friendly interfaces, thus removing some of Linux's flexiblity and basically ruining every thing that was once the reason we gave up Windows, but hey we got BSD and other Unix OS's to fall back on. The truth is Microsoft trying to take Linux down and trying to keep users away from it is actually doing more good to the Linux than it does harm.

[Alex_]

actually we need Microsoft was a challenge , not as a enemy.

Very positive and objective thinking!

Only way i see linux going down is if it does become popular and then all the less experienced users demanding more and more user friendly interfaces, thus removing some of Linux's flexiblity and basically ruining every thing that was once the reason we gave up Windows.

Wow, that's a total different side of the story: stopping the history cycle to repeat itself! You have a good analytical thinking there.