SourceForge top ten for this week: http://sourceforge.net/top/mostactive.php?type=week None of them play to Linux strong points. If they are "commodity" type projects then the largest user base will be on the system with the largest user base. Ask any MAC developer to explain the financial realities. At this time Linux is reduced to playing catch-up to windoze. At the risk of starting a nuclear flame war, IMHO most of the Linux development time is just making windoze stuff available on Linux for free. If the only thing Linux has to offer is price then we have a major problem. Why? For a majority of user (think of Joe-six-pack or your mom) windoze "come for free" on the system. They don't understand how Bill gets his cash. Unless (Until?) there is a "Must Have" Linux only "killer app" Linux will remain a hobby system on the desktop. A very cool hobby system, well tailored to my needs, but a hobby system. Times change. Microsoft can see the writing on the wall. The reason MS flipped out at netscape and Instant Messaging is that with fat pipes and thin clients you don't need an OS or local processing. Look at Bills current focus, the x-box and data tablets. The world is becoming net-centric. By failing to come to grips with the evolution of the desktop we (the Linux community) are at great risk of being irrelevant. As I see it, we are coming to a "play at the plate" situation. This is the .net ploy: A thin client with a requirement for MS at the client end. Micro$oft is trying to make a MS only version of the LAMP delivery platform. See: http://www.onlamp.com/ For the commercial environment, this is a primo delivery platform. The high performance server, serving apps to a browser based thin client. Some questions: What are Linux strong points? What can Linux do that XP can't? Are these relevant to Joe-six-pack or your mom? Mark Browne ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Tanner" <tanner at real-time.com> To: <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 2:39 AM Subject: [TCLUG] 8 out of 10 SF Top Ten Downloads Anyone notice that 8 of 10 Top Downloads on SourceForge are Win32 only projects? All 10 project offer Win32 versions? Somehow it seems ironic. -- Minneapolis St. Paul Twin Cities MN | Phone : (952)943-8700 http://www.mn-linux.org Minnesota Linux | Fax : (952)943-8500 Key fingerprint = 6C E9 51 4F D5 3E 4C 66 62 A9 10 E5 35 85 39 D9 _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list