It is interesting that Microsoft’s Steve Balmer has said that there is a need for a $100 computer.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Is_Ballmer_s_100_PC_possible_/0,2000061702,39166674,00.htm

I understand that others who have investigated this have found it feasible, but not with Windows, as so much of the software in Windows is used to run the Windows software, (like a dog chasing it’s tail), requiring more powerful chips that only add to costs.

So they are now investigating making a basic computer using a stripped down version of Linux to run basic software packages (that can also access the Internet), but the computers will require much less grunt, with some suggestions that these computers can also be run on solar power.

Where does that leave Microsoft in the future? Possible it will leave it as a type of computing dinosaur, or as a company that has to specialise, because unless someone wants a computer that has a full range of “bells and whistles”, then most computers will become so cheap they are almost given away

So then If I as a consumer want to totaly resdesign our DISK OPERATING SYSTEM with GUI, like windows, mac os, or linux, which are basically filing cabinets mated to typewriters, dark rooms and printshops. In which each of us develops workarounds of the system designed to administrate a number of users who bring their punch cards in the morning and take them home in the afternoon, except now the data can all be on a hard drive...

Where would i go with the idea that the system should support the chosen user's processes, that the whole thing should be more like a database environment, where things at root, are indexed and searcheable, transparent to formats (pdf, html, rtf, txt) in an environment where more such entries (not files) are produced by reference, mix and match, and wholly new.

Where do I post that email? Where do I take that idea?

Files in folders is a findable system, if you know the categories that set it up /usr /etc /sbin /var/www/html \My Documents etc.

I want a searchable system, not a findable one with add-ons. (like devonthink)

where do I post that?

It is good to see the open-source story becoming "mainstream", with non-geeks starting to understand its power and its usefulness.

In due course the open-source movement will have rebuilt all the "plumbing" in a computer system that is presently controlled by proprietary Microsoft software, and will have made this available to the community for free. It won't happen overnight, for the simple reason that Microsoft presently has over $30bn cash in the bank, and earned $10bn in free cash flow last year alone. They will protect their monopoly position in the market with every means possible, as you would expect.

Clearly, no commercial enterprise could hope to make a dent in their control over these revenue streams. Only a community effort, as represented by output such as Linux (operating system), MySQL (database), Mozilla (web browser) and many others, has a chance to break their monopoly, and reduce the cost of computing for everyone.

Microsoft has built its empire in some interesting ways - the court transcripts of their anti-trust trial make fascinating reading - but the reality to you and me is that they impose a commercial form of tax on computer usage that is unsustainable in the long term.

The company has already given in to pressure from poorer countries, and produced a cheap (sub $10) version of Windows, and it will not be too long before major corporations catch on to this, and start to demand massive discounts themselves. That will be interesting to watch, from a business case-study perspective.

I'm a senior software engineer with one of the largest software companies in the world. We have been making use of open source for a number of years. Open source is no threat to Microsoft or to my company for that matter. While there are some good advantages in the open source methodology there are also some major drawbacks. Basically the main one (strength/weakness) is leverage of intellectual property. General prediction within my company and others is propriety software will continue to be the dominate force. Specially in midrange and mainframe systems.

Kenny,

"Basically the main one (strength/weakness) is leverage of intellectual property."

To whom is it a weakness? I would suggest, since you refer to the "leveraging" of intellectual property, you are looking at it from the point of view of a manufacturer of proprietary software.

Open-source software right now is in the infrastructure - operating system, databases, web servers etc. - and that is in my view where it belongs. Proprietary infrastructure (Windows, IIS etc.) is a bit like a proprietary railway track, and will eventually die out. Proprietary application software (SAP etc.) is not vulnerable in the same way.

It’s a weakness in that you can’t gain economic advantage over competitors. Innovation is the corner stone of successful technology based companies and some of those companies are infrastructure companies. These companies have to turn a profit so R&D needs to be paid for, so far no one has come up with a business model within the Open source community that will allow that with any certainty. Products like Mysql are not going to take too much market from products like Oracle at the high end of the market. Your comments might be true if the underlaying infrastructure of all computer systems was pretty much the same however this is not the case in the high end of the market. The amount of work to turn a infrastructure product from 96% available to 99.0% is not to be underestimated. Some of our customers require 99.99% availability that kind of investment would not be returned in the open source arena at this stage to the innovator. The lower end needs more control than Open source allows so for the foreseeable future Open source will be a complementary part of desktop computing for us nerds.