Operating system advocacy

Last updated

Operating system advocacy is the practice of attempting to increase the public awareness and improve the perception by customers of a computer operating system. The motivation behind this may be to increase the number of users of a system, to assert the superiority of one choice over another or out of brand loyalty, pride in an operating system's abilities, or, with open source operating systems, political or philosophical reasons, or to persuade software vendors to port specific applications or device drivers to the computing platform. It is generally done in support of increasing network effects for the platform.

Contents

Operating system advocacy can vary widely in tone and form, from seriously studied and researched comparisons to heated debates on mailing lists and other forums. Advocates are often regular users who devote their spare time to advocacy of their operating system of choice. Many have a deep and abiding interest in the use, design, and construction of operating systems and an emotional investment in their favorite operating system. One specific example is known as platform evangelism.

Operating system advocacy can be compared to advocacy in other fields, particularly browser, editor wars, programming languages, and video game consoles, as well as the "Ford vs. Chevy" and similar debates in car culture.

Usenet and other advocacy forums

Due to the often emotional nature of advocacy debate and its sometimes narrow appeal to the wider user population, forums for discussion of advocacy are often separate from those for general discussion. Under the Usenet comp.os.* and comp.sys.* hierarchy, there are often *.advocacy groups devoted exclusively to advocating their respective operating systems. Some of these groups, such as comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, can remain active even after their subject OS ceases to be a market force. The Guide to the Windows newsgroups exhorts Usenet posters not to "get involved in arguments about Windows vs. OS/2 vs. Macintosh vs. NeXTSTEP except in the comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy group." [1]

Operating system advocacy discussions, on Usenet and elsewhere, have spawned a variety of jargon describing commonly seen behaviour, including "MicroDroid" [2] and "Amiga Persecution Complex". [3] The emotional form and negative characteristics often associated with operating system advocacy have led some to create guidelines explaining what they consider to be positive advocacy, such as the Linux Advocacy Guidelines [4] and the Guidelines for Effective OS/2 Advocacy. [5]

Advocacy and specific operating systems

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is served by a mailing list specifically for advocacy discussion. Advocacy-related materials and links are provided on the FreeBSD website, including a page of logos.

Linux

As there are a large number of Linux distributions, there are many organizations involved in Linux advocacy, including companies directly involved in the development of distributions as well as purely advocacy-based groups, such as SEUL. Promotion takes on a wide variety of forms from Tux plush toys to t-shirts and posters, and even more unorthodox forms such as body painting and video games.

macOS

From the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement and "Test Drive a Macintosh" to the Apple Switch and Get a Mac advertising campaigns, Apple Computer has a long history of advocating its platform through traditional media. This also covers advocacy of the Macintosh hardware, peripherals and even lifestyle choices, with both fans and the company projecting an alternately hip, entertaining, liberating lifestyle, while negatively portraying Microsoft Windows, IBM, or other competitors as anything from awkward and dated to totalitarian and sinister Big Brother figure. [6]

Microsoft Windows

Neowin.net wrote editorials opposing Windows-bashing in the media. [7] Microsoft has attempted to boost popularity of Windows 7 with a launch party program. [8]

NetBSD

Like FreeBSD, the NetBSD Foundation hosts a mailing list especially for advocacy. This mailing list is automatically archived and made accessible online. [9] They also provide some official advocacy material, such as posters and flyers and an official "powered by" logo [10] with a license permitting use on any product running NetBSD.

OpenBSD

Like FreeBSD and NetBSD, the OpenBSD project provides a mailing list specifically intended for advocacy, advocacy@openbsd.org. It was created on July 21, 1998 for discussion of user groups, stickers, shirts and the promotion of OpenBSD's image and also to host all flame-worthy discussions. As a part of its advocacy, the project also maintains a list of consulting firms and individual consultants around the world on its website [11] [ non-primary source needed ] and has produced a number of slogans, including "Free, Functional & Secure", "Secure by default", and "Power. Security. Flexibility." Each OpenBSD release features an original song [12] and a variety of artwork. [13] [ non-primary source needed ]

OS/2

Team OS/2 was a grassroots organization conceived by an IBM employee and initially joined by other IBMers which quickly spread outside IBM. Whether IBM employees or not, Team OS/2 members initially volunteered their time and passion without official sanction from or connection to IBM. Members would promote OS/2 at trade shows, conferences, fairs, and in stores, participate in operating system discussions on CompuServe, Prodigy, Fidonet and Usenet, throw parties, help users install OS/2, contact media figures to explain OS/2 and generate interest, and in general exercise creativity and initiative in helping popularize OS/2. [14] [ non-primary source needed ] The industry dynamics that gave rise to such passionate[ weasel words ] advocacy were multi-faceted. Perhaps[ vague ] the leading cause was antipathy for the idea that Microsoft could and would establish a monopoly for Windows and DOS, widely deemed as far inferior to OS/2. Additionally, many users feared that IBM, who had proven eminently capable of developing a superior PC operating system, knew very little about consumer marketing in the high-tech marketplace or establishing even a superior product as a standard in the cut-throat, get-there-first-at-any-cost arena dominated by Microsoft.[ citation needed ] Finally, the mere fact that so many copies of Windows were shipping to users (whom OS/2 advocates viewed as uncritical and uninformed), coupled with the fact that so many in the industry had so much riding on the success of OS/2, created conditions ripe for so many trying to take matters into their own hands.[ citation needed ] The only spark that was needed for this combustible situation to ignite was an example of evangelism provided by the "new IBM" - a few employees who took "empowerment" seriously, able to coordinate their efforts through participation in TEAMOS2 FORUM, an internal IBM discussion group) - and passionate supporters outside IBM who adopted the ideas and modeled the behaviors of those who were early activists within IBM.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Operating system Software that manages computer hardware resources

An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.

The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interfaces (API), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility (portability) with variants of Unix and other operating systems. POSIX is also a trademark of the IEEE. POSIX is intended to be used by both application and system developers.

PowerPC RISC instruction set architecture by AIM alliance

PowerPC is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. PowerPC, as an evolving instruction set, has since 2006 been named Power ISA, while the old name lives on as a trademark for some implementations of Power Architecture–based processors.

Wine (software) Windows compatibility software

Wine is a free and open-source compatibility layer that aims to allow application software and computer games developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, named Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems.

In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.

In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.

A computing platform or digital platform is an environment in which a piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), even a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed with it. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries. A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run.

A/UX Early Unix-based operating system from Apple Computer

A/UX is Apple Computer's Unix-based operating system for Macintosh computers, integrated with System 7's graphical interface and application compatibility. Launched in 1988 and discontinued in 1995 with version 3.1.1, it is Apple's first official Unix-based operating system. A/UX requires select models of 68k-based Macintosh with an FPU and a paged memory management unit (PMMU), including the Macintosh II, SE/30, Quadra, and Centris series. It is not the predecessor to macOS.

This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computer operating systems from 1951 to the current day. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the History of operating systems.

fdisk Command line utility of DOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems

In computing, the fdisk command-line utility provides disk-partitioning functions, preparatory to defining file systems. fdisk features in the DOS, DR FlexOS, IBM OS/2, and Microsoft Windows operating systems, and in certain ports of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD and macOS for compatibility reasons. In versions of the Windows NT operating-system line from Windows 2000 onwards, fdisk is replaced by a more advanced tool called diskpart. Similar utilities exist for Unix-like systems, for example, BSD disklabel.

These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld operating systems. The article "Usage share of operating systems" provides a broader, and more general, comparison of operating systems that includes servers, mainframes and supercomputers.

Users group

A users' group is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually computer-related.

A kernel is a component of a computer operating system. A comparison of system kernels can provide insight into the design and architectural choices made by the developers of particular operating systems.

Unix-like Operating system that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. There is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about whether or the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.

Control-Alt-Delete is a computer keyboard command on IBM PC compatible computers, invoked by pressing the Delete key while holding the Control and Alt keys: Ctrl+Alt+Delete. The function of the key combination differs depending on the context but it generally interrupts or facilitates interrupting a function. For instance, in pre-boot environment or in DOS, Windows 3.0 and earlier versions of Windows or OS/2, the key combination reboots the computer. Starting with Windows 95, the key combination invokes a task manager or security related component that facilitates ending a Windows session or killing a frozen application.

Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.

References

  1. Tom Haapanen; Sean Graham. "Guide to the Windows newsgroups". Archived from the original on 2005-10-24. Retrieved 2005-09-20.
  2. "MicroDroid".
  3. "Amiga Persecution Complex".
  4. "Linux Gazette, issue 14 (1997)".
  5. "Guidelines for Effective OS/2 Advocacy". Archived from the original on 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2005-09-20.
  6. Grills, Chad. "40 Lessons from 40 Years of Apple Ads". Medium.com. Mission.org. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  7. "Neowin.net - Why Vista Will Not Be The Last OS Microsoft Makes".
  8. Warner Crocker. "Microsoft Getting Slammed for Windows 7 Launch Party Video". GottaBeMobile . Retrieved 2 Nov 2010.
  9. The mailing list archives are here
  10. The advocacy page is here and the logo here.
  11. "OpenBSD Support and Consulting".
  12. "OpenBSD release song lyrics".
  13. "OpenBSD Art".
  14. Christian Alice Scarborough. "Team OS/2 Frequently Asked Questions" . Retrieved 2005-09-20.