Desktop innovation? Future of the desktop?

[Richmond Mathewson]

  On 07/04/2010 17:06, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Within 10 years I see a world whose market share eliminates any single 
> OS vendor holding a majority, instead becoming a plurality in which 
> Apple, Microsoft, and Linux each enjoy about a third of the market. 
> This would put Apple tripling its current share, with most of Linux's 
> new users coming from the increasingly disenchanted MS base.
>
I think it would be an awful pity if the OS market were held by 3 
equally balanced offerings.

To my mind it would be a lot healthier if:

1. There would be a constant 'upwelling' of new operating systems (c.f. 
Haiku) to 'threaten' anybody
      who was in danger of becoming complacent. The same could be said 
for software: I am sure
     (although they would fain to admit it) Microsoft's 'Office' has 
profitted no-end from being
     pushed about by Open Office; as, I am sure, Adobe must be doing 
some tooth-sucking in the
     light of SUMO:

         http://www.sumopaint.com/app/             and, to a lesser 
extent, GIMP.

2. Apple and Microsoft seriously thought about detaching their desktops 
from their operating systems
     and offering either a wide variety of desktop types for their 
systems, or allowing their desktops
     (and by 'desktops' I include file browsers) to be far more hackable 
(i.e. personalisable, not open to
     attack from nasty-minded people) than they are at present.

3. The computer market did not become fixated on one or two types of 
processor.

4. There would be a considerable amount of education to stop people 
mindlessly upgrading their hardware
     and filling holes in the ground with junk. Individuals, before 
buying "the next big thing" ought to be shown
     the advantages of sitting down with a pencil and paper and working 
out what they need and why they think
     they need it.

4.1. This leads into a far greater need for modularity in both computers 
and operating systems; and, ideally,
     a move away from where "the next big thing" is some sort of bloated 
monster requiring a bloated machine
     to work with it.