LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: <michaeld@senet.com.au>
  To  : <phil@hutton.sh>
        < Richard Russell >
        < linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 23:48:50 GMT

Re: linux is not GNU/linux [was RedHat 7.1 reliability?]

> > > Sorry, I think that's a lot of crap.  ;-)  It is never appropriate to
> > > consider Netscape to be the operating system.
> > 
> > If you are a web kiosk operator (or user), or a website designer looking at
> > consumers, then the browser choice is often more important than the
> > particular OS, hence, effectively, the browser IS the OS. Technically,
> 
> No, it is not.

Sorry, I'm with Richard.  What the user experiences is what they think the OS 
is from their perspective.

My parents have a computer.  If you ask what OS the computer is running, or 
what they use for mail and www they say, 'umm, Windows', despite the fact that 
they actually use Windows 98 SE as an OS, Outlook for email, and Netscape for 
browsing. They can't tell the difference, and when I try to do help desk over 
the phone for their problems, the first think I have to do is ask them to look 
at the Help|About box so I know what app their actually running. (ie. 
why is the address book empty?  You accidentilly started using NS mail instead 
of Outlook).

Computers are almost commodity products nowadays - it's the application that 
they recognise, so _that's_ what the user is "running" on his/her computer.

Likewise from a web designer's point of view, [s]he just cares about the API on 
the client - NS/Moz/IE not the OS underneath.  The browser is the computer.  
Larry Ellison would love me.

And extanding this concept only a little farther, I guess Geoffrey's computer 
is just the perl API :-)

Michael...
-- 
michaeld@senet.com.au
Every problem is a nail to a carpenter.
Every problem is a dereferenced null pointer to a hacker.


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