Re: [DotGNU]Questions for NewsForge story

[Norbert Bollow]

Tariq,
  hi.  Great to hear from you.

> One small idea: You said MS windows has an unfair advantage
> over GNU stuff in respect of 'userfriendliness'. Of course,

No, I didn't say that.  MS windows has a head start because they
got started working on meeting the needs of the desktops/end user
market a couple of years before the GNU/Linux folks decided that
they want to compete with MS in this market.  In business, there
is nothing unfair about having a head start.  Bill Gates is a
brillant strategic analyst, and it is quite fair that his
company got a head start because of this.  (Microsoft is also
known to use unfair tactics when it suits them, but that is not
relevant to the current discussion.)

What I'm saying is that the power of the Free/Open Software
software movement is so big now that Free Software can become
the market leader both in the desktop/end-user market and in the
emerging webservices market.  If you have shares of Microsoft,
my recommendation is to sell them.

> it would be difficult to pursue someone to use a frame work
> (of dotGNU) that revolves around not-so-userfriendly Linux
> or something else.

GNU/Linux is not in itself "not-so-userfriendly".  I use it
every day (both on my desktop PC and on several internet servers), and
it's quite friendly to me.  But when I use MS Windows it happens that
it does things and I cannot easily find out what exactly is going on -
so I find that MS Windows is much less userfriendly to me than
GNU/Linux.  I know that there are other people who find MS Windows to
be more userfriendly.  And then there are many who have never
seriously tried GNU/Linux.

But there are areas where big improvements to the user-friendliness of
GNU/Linux are still possible.

> What comes to my mind is that the dotGNU
> can work on the lines that would let developers develop 
> simple programs in MS VB or any other RAD environment that
> use the backend of dotGNU which works over Linux/PostgreSQL,
> XML/SOAP based servers. This way, we will be turning the 
> tables right on Microsoft while still ensuring that the
> core of the computing network remains powered with Linux
> or some other GNU based operating system.

Hmm... yes, a MS VB clone or at least something that caters to the
same needs would be very good to have for DotGNU.  Will you start a
project to develop such a Visual Development Environment for DotGNU?

> Can you please forward this mail to any other platform
> where it might be relavent? Thanks.

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Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet  (near Zurich, Switzerland)
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