Google to employees: 'Mac or Linux, but no more Windows'

ok so I guess those of us who have not been sheeple will now be screwed like windoze users... way to go. ps apple is just linux, quite how this liver-hopping guy (have you seen what they do in china - on standby dissident 'donors') manages to patent and sell gnu code is beyond me. my mum just got a mac - i have been running 'nix for years and the only diff i can see is that jobs has taken something free, restricted it (try running any sensible linux commands in it) and put a (very heavy) price on it....

I would suggest Ubuntu Lucid - save yourselves money and frustration.

B.

The article only addressed Google upgrading it's desktops to Ubuntu, but failed to address the approximate 10,000,000 servers Google has deployed around the world running Ubuntu, Suse, and other flavors of Linux.
Now, that's a real bite out of Microsoft and their high premium product, Windows Server.

Where do you live that this is true?

"The iPhone has grown to be a huge platform used by millions of people so you can’t claim its only yours anymore"

And to this "(and even if not, come on, 90% of the users prefer to us Windows…)" Are you sure "prefer" is the right word? Or just that it is what they are used to and have no choice on the matter at work? Just asking.
https://twitter.com/slatermicha

you know why macs are so secure? Because people don't give a shit about making viruses for them. They're so addicted to the OS that they don't care about making viruses for computers that run UNIX software. Deal with that!

That is very sad, Google share price will drop a lot. Can you imagine how much productivity Hoogle will lose?

What's cool about big companies ditching Windows is that you know, for the most part, such companies are guided by research, analysis, and what's ultimately best for the business, not personal preference and visions of "de-throning" MS. IOW, LinuxMac/*nix just "makes sense".

What's also funny is how many people assume Unix-based OS's like Linux and OSX are less virus-ridden (correction, viruses are practically non-existant on these platforms) solely because they are not as popular as Windows. There's no denying that for the average PC user, getting a less popular OS is going to expose you to less threats. But this is only a sidenote to the real story. Anyone who has even a rudimentary understanding of OS architecture and multi-tiered account privileges understands that Windows has a uniquely and inherently vulnerable way of doing things. And it's not just the OS itself, but the very culture surrounding its development, userbase, and third-party app development. In fact, one of the approaches MS takes to make the OS more "secure", by "hiding" things about the OS's operation, makes it LESS secure, by making it difficult-to-impossible to properly audit and inventory the system as a whole. Example: have you EVER seen ANY Windows app in the history of computing that includes a manifest of every single file it installs, changes, or removes, AND every single registry entry it adds or modifies? This is standard practice in the *nix world. Except that in *nix, there is no registry foolishness (I would hope it's common knowledge by now that the entire Windows registry is a convoluted steaming pile of poo and needs to just go away).

Overall MS is a great software company that sucks at Operating Systems. Their other stuff is ok, MS Office, Games, and some other tools they make are really great. But Windows has surfed a long way on the IBM(x86) alliance wave. Now its time to actually be a good OS, and they aren't up to the task.

Ignore the gtd comment, 1password autofilled and submitted too fast

Google can't stop testing in Internet Explorer, so they will still need to be running virtualized Windows. MS still gets to sell some licenses, though not nearly as many.

I wonder how long before one of the really good GTD apps for desktops allows syncing over the net. AFAIK, they seem to require wifi on the same network, which doesn't help if you forgot to sync or had WiFi turned off to save the battery. RTM is online, sure, but Things and Hitlist work better on the desktop.