open-source gaining a strong hold

It is evident since past few years how open source, apple and google are getting bigger n bigger in the market. I hardly see a slashdot daily feed without the mention of these three things. Google is venturing into interesting things and the fact is that things automatically become interesting as soon as Google touches them. Apple, on the other hand, has never been this successful. With its amusing history and release of iPods, it has become the new mark of creativity and a 'historical comeback'. Its design sense is amazing. Who would have thought of putting so few controls on iPod; I think the major success of iPod lies in its elegant and easy to use user-interface. It is revolutionary and simply marvelous to use. Anyways, this blog is not on either apple or google but the third news-maker category - Open Source.

There has been a hype created with this term but I believe it is the influence of successful open source projects like Mozilla and Linux. I believe in its advantages more than the downsides. I cant imagine the state of research community had it not been for Linux. This fearsome and user-unfriendly looking OS is the best example of 'power of open source'. The more you use it, the more you 'hate' windows. But I know its GUI, which you cant avoid always, had its shortcomings till now. As a result, most of the academic community moved toward Macintosh to have the best of unix design and sophisticated UI. At UIUC, I've seen most of the core profs using either linux or mac. But the open source is all set to rebel with 'Ubuntu', the debian based Linux distribution which is being called as 'linux for human beings'...I find the term funny but I think its wise about their advertising campaign since Dell has announced its chain of laptops with Ubuntu pre-loaded. I think its a major step in getting 'open-source' popular beyond academia and research community. I dont see why software shouldn't be free or at least why should Microsoft suck the customers' money on hopeless products like IE and well, Windows in general. Its not worth the cost!

I am definitely looking forward to a complete line of open source products in future. This does raise the issue of Apple making money on Macs. Yeah, I wish it was free too but somehow it hurts less to pay them than Windows. Dont u agree?