I don't quite see the analogy between airplanes and Operating Systems,

Take your blinkers off :)

The analogy is not between airplanes and OSs. And I made no mention of an MS airplane. The analogy is between companies producing technically complex products for use by the general public without requiring the airplane passenger to have a degree in Aeronautics, or the computer user to have a degree in Computer Science.

Of course, the aircraft requires very expensive, highly trained pilots; enormous and hugely costly infrastructure; and an army of skilled technicians. I remember when computer systems were exactly like that. And I remember just how insufferable the EDP high preists were, walking around in their white coats in the airco'd, airlocked machine rooms with their haughty, superior grins. Thank dog for Altiar et al.

I would rather ride on the Open Source airplane.

Enjoy your next flight. The inaugeral flight of the OS DC-3 will depart Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bound for London, stopping at Boston, St. Johns, Nuuk, Reykjavik, Torshavn, Inverness. Departure antisipated 17:00 25th June 2020.

This is an alpha flight. Some features maybe missing. Bringing your own seat and toolkit is highly recommended. It is not recommended for production lives.

Note: I'm neither anti-OSS, nor pro-MS. I just wish people would think about the distinction between nerds that get their jollies by being the 3000th person to succeed in installing the latest version of their keyboard driver; and the millions of doctors, nurses, bus drivers, builders, florists .... that want to come home from their days work, switch their computers on and order some groceries, read a few emails or complete their tax returns; before condeming them as "dumb".

Note: I'm neither anti-OSS, nor pro-MS. I just wish people would think about the distinction between nerds that get their jollies by being the 3000th person to succeed in installing the latest version of their keyboard driver; and the millions of doctors, nurses, bus drivers, builders, florists .... that want to come home from their days work, switch their computers on and order some groceries, read a few emails or complete their tax returns; before condeming them as "dumb".

That's funny, my wife and I find using Linux just that easy, switch on the computers, fire up a browser and email client, and it all just works out of the box. :)

But you are ignoring everything you had to do to get you to that point.

The first of which is to become aware of Linux, or even "What an op-er-at-ing sys-tem is". You know, but do not take it for granted that everyone does. Nor wants to.

My sister joined a bank from college and worked her way through the system to being a senior manager. She has used computers in her work for the last 20 years, but she has enough to do with keeping up with all the legislation and changes in the financial field without being bothered with how to use a compiler and configure and make and all that other good stuff just to get her home PC running. With effort, it's perfectly possible to secure an MS system, and I have done that for her.

If she used a pre-packaged binary, Linux solution from a commercial CD, what would she have gained and at what cost?

She still would have to pay for the OS; still have no idea what was going on within the system; still be left trusting the company from which she purchased the OS; still require a firewall. Yes, she may be less vulnerable to virus infection by dint of Linux systems being less targeted, but if enough people start using Linux the crooks will expend more effort in targeting it. Just cos it's open source it won't stop them. Linux maybe less prone to vulnerabilities than MS, but they exist. And when there is enough incentive, the crooks will go looking. Just how many Linux users read every line of every piece of code they install?

However, if she moved to Linux, she would no longer have support from the PC manufacturer. She would no longer be able to work at home on spreadsheets, WP docs or presentations from work; or connect to her company network and trivially interchange programs and data with it; or do her husbands accounts (which his accountant needs to upload to his MS systems), or do the VAT returns (which the government accepts in MS format).

And her husband wants to be able to exchange the architectural plans he prepares on their PC with his customers and their architects. As things stand now, that means using programs that run on MS systems.

I'm not saying that all of these things cannot be done using a Linux solution, only that in their world, to do so would involve considerable extra time and effort in conversion to and fro. And that would require acquiring considerable additional computer skills that they do not have, currently do not need, and for which they have neither the time nor interest in acquiring. These are not "dumb" people. They are both very accomplished in their chosen fields, they just aren't computer geeks nor have any interest or incentive to becoming such.

It offends me when I hear them, and the millions like them, being written off as "dumb".

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

That's funny, my wife and I find using Linux just that easy, switch on the computers, fire up a browser and email client, and it all just works out of the box. :)

Same here. I put in the installation disk, booted, followed some prompts, and the OS was up and running in less than an hour. Works right out of the box.

The thing is, if I *want* to go digging around and get myself into trouble, it's very simple to do. Linux gives me the choice - easy to use, or dangerous toy that will blow up in my face as I boldly go where no (wo)man has gone before...

The analogy is between companies producing technically complex products for use by the general public without requiring the airplane passenger to have a degree in Aeronautics, or the computer user to have a degree in Computer Science.

Yeah, but what happens when that product is actually "inferior" to what is available for free, and the schools actively push using the inferior product? The inferior system is spreading viruses and rendering systems useless. If the end users are kept dependent on Microsoft, then they are being kept "dumb" as far as computers are concerned. And don't tell me the linux geeks spend more time configuring than running their systems, that isn't true. If anything the opposite is true, most Window's users I know, have to completely reinstall every 6 months or so.

"Captain, the passenger in seat 4a plugged in his Mp3 Player,and it uploaded a virus which has taken out our control system."

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I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh