I believe that competition drives innovation

It’s been dissected, analyzed, and pretty much beaten to death by the blogosphere at large, so I understand if yet more talk about the subject might seem a bit tired and played out. I’m not going to debate the fine points, however. I won’t give you my top ten reasons why Google will team with the makers of Ubuntu to release a Linux distribution (Title: Gubutnu) within the next twelve months. Those are predictions I simply don’t have the information or the desire to make right now. Instead, I want to delve into the higher, more conceptual end of the discussion for a little while, if you’ll indulge me. I believe that competition drives innovation. This is one of the fundamental concepts that drives the machine of capitalism onward, and has been something sorely lacking in the OS marketplace.

I would submit that most of us don’t think about this when using our respective computers, we just want everything to function properly so we can go about surfing the web, playing games, or whatever else our little hearts desire. The truth is, however, that all of our computer activities are mostly subjugated to the functionality of the operating system of our machines. If you play World of Warcraft, you’re pretty much stuck with Windows (or OS-X for Mac users). Blizzard has announced no plans to develop a Linux friendly version of the game, although data suggests that more people are switching to the open source operating El campo de batalla platform. So in essence, you’re relegated to choosing whether or not to play a game based on whether it’s supported by Windows.

 Shouldn’t it be the other way around; should I be able to choose which operating system I use based on whether or not it supports the activities in which I want to take part? Perhaps the argument is not that simple, but regardless one has to admit that hardware and software developers rarely take into account any kind of product support other than what is offered to Windows users. It’s the OS that everyone uses anyway, right? Until now, that’s essentially been the case.