> rather appreciate the symbiosis that has developed within IT in general.
Microsoft has been a bully for very long. Whether that has been beneficial or detrimental to IT cannot be proved, of course, but whichever you believe, one must acknowledge the other side.
Personally, I think Microsoft held personal computing back by at least a decade. The Amiga 1000, in 1985, was better at Graphics, Sound, Games, and even multitasking than the PC of 1995, and was way cheaper (for the same functionality) then the PC of 1985[0]. Amiga died because of mismanagement, mostly, but might have succeeded if MS did not commoditize the PC market. (Amiga wasn't the only player at the time -- commoditizing the PC killed most of the variety)
Also, BeOS, in 1995, was way better than Windows 95 for all home uses; At the time, windows was popular but not dominant (DOS was still king), and BeOS actually was a competitor; Microsoft flexed their muscles and killed BeOS by forcing vendors to pay full Windows price for any unit sold (on one hand), and disallowing selling dual boot machines (on the other).
> Without Microsoft and Apple, how many of the generations that have contributed to open source, be were they are now??
Why, running Amiga 16000s, Atari ST 5200s, Sinclair QLs and Acorn Aristotles. There was once a thriving echosystem that comprised a lot more variety. And it died ~20 years ago, in no small part thanks to Microsoft.
[0] An Amiga cost less than an 8Mhz PC+EGA (best you could get back then) + EGA monitor + sound card, and delivered more - but the basic Amiga did cost twice as much as a PC+CGA+Green CRT which was the common setup at the time.
Microsoft has been a bully for very long. Whether that has been beneficial or detrimental to IT cannot be proved, of course, but whichever you believe, one must acknowledge the other side.
Personally, I think Microsoft held personal computing back by at least a decade. The Amiga 1000, in 1985, was better at Graphics, Sound, Games, and even multitasking than the PC of 1995, and was way cheaper (for the same functionality) then the PC of 1985[0]. Amiga died because of mismanagement, mostly, but might have succeeded if MS did not commoditize the PC market. (Amiga wasn't the only player at the time -- commoditizing the PC killed most of the variety)
Also, BeOS, in 1995, was way better than Windows 95 for all home uses; At the time, windows was popular but not dominant (DOS was still king), and BeOS actually was a competitor; Microsoft flexed their muscles and killed BeOS by forcing vendors to pay full Windows price for any unit sold (on one hand), and disallowing selling dual boot machines (on the other).
> Without Microsoft and Apple, how many of the generations that have contributed to open source, be were they are now??
Why, running Amiga 16000s, Atari ST 5200s, Sinclair QLs and Acorn Aristotles. There was once a thriving echosystem that comprised a lot more variety. And it died ~20 years ago, in no small part thanks to Microsoft.
[0] An Amiga cost less than an 8Mhz PC+EGA (best you could get back then) + EGA monitor + sound card, and delivered more - but the basic Amiga did cost twice as much as a PC+CGA+Green CRT which was the common setup at the time.