Microsoft worked hard to earn the lack of respect that they enjoy today. What, with being a convicted monopolist in two continents and evading punishment in both, using OEM contracts and political leverage rather than giving customer satisfaction and sending how many "partners" broke...

Maybe it is childish and immature to call `em as I see `em but I for one will enjoy watching Microsoft squirm as Linux takes their market away by simply delivering a better product for less money.

The Apple Tax? Oh do explain please! :-)

Tel...you've made my point for me! Thank you!

Sahil, I've often used Apple Tax referring to their control of prices where you could buy similar products for less money but people will pay Apple for their style versus substance. For example, a Creative Zen was available with the same features (but less intuitive interface) as the original iPod for about 1/2 the money...but if you pay the Apple Tax, you can have an iPod instead.

LOL, okay I get it now!

No kidding, I'm sitting with a broken iPod, waiting impatiently for the next gen. I'd like to buy an iRiver instead, but all my accessories work with Ipoo'ed.

"Typical Mafia$oft apologist. Why is it that when Nix advocates argue their product, it's always about technology but when you MicroNazi types do it you always have to insult us. If it were up to me, MicroNazi's like you wouldn't even be able to have "U" "N" "I" "X" keys on your keyboard. Now go back and bow at the alter of Bill Gate$ and $teve Jobs"

All I did to write this was combine 5-6 of the phrases that have veen used against me every single time I tried to engage in any type of discussoin on Comp.Os.Linux.Advocy .

Like my Open source article mentioned, Open Source is cool, I just can't stand most of its advocates. Great post Shawn!

I think the attacks and derogatory statements are possibly a symptom of being passionate about what you do and how you organize your mind to accomplish it. If you put a lot of emotional thought into how wonderful or deplorable something is, regardless of the rationale (great implementation or new feature that saves you time, high prices that hurt, or low pricing that feels like a great deal) its very easy for this to carry over into conversations about that thing.

The cornerstone of the Apple brand seems to be its ability to tap into that passion emotion, and without an "insanely passionate" person like Jobs at the whelm the ship veered way off course for many years. Its no secret that like a lawyer manipulating a jury, selling on emotion instead of on dry facts is an effective way to win a lot of sales.

Open Source has matured a lot over the years, and some of the commercial open source vendors seem quite willing to make sure their products are providing value to their customers and delivering what they need. And the general public domain open source has created many nice products that fulfill a need that, when taken in context, are better than could be expected from Microsoft.

But while on that topic, Microsoft has had to position itself in the correct context for its products and features. It no longer has the luxury of being able to make everything easy if it means that the 'easy' comes at the expense of security or the perception of security. The open source people have a proverbial get-out-of-jail-free pass if there is a problem, the software was free and its up to you to configure it.

Also, the open source community tends to attract a slightly different personality type that could be likened to various political viewpoints like socialism or whatnot, and that tends to create arguements that are based largely on that perspective instead of objective thought from a neutral perspective that applies to a wider audience.

And my Sansa MP3 player has worked great for me even if the integration with WMPlayer is far short of the tight connection between ipod & itunes. I'll take the difference in cash and spend it at CD Warehouse anyday....'cause that makes me feel good, its my iPaid. :-)