VTOLfreak,

I looked over your posts to other threads and you seem pretty smart. Sorry, but this suprised me, given your post to this bug report. Mostly you contributed in a helpful and knowledgable way to other posts...

But in this one, the premise of your argument -- that a product is better if most people choose it over others -- has two structural flaws, as far as I can see. One, it assumes people make choices without history and inertia playing a part (ie, Microsoft or McDonalds or Starbucks might dominate a certain market partly because of aggressive marketing and anti-competitive business practices, not necessarily because of the quality of their product). Likewise, I think that many people make choices based on what they see available or based on what they know from their past experiences; so when for example a longtime mac user begins to search for a new computer, she's not as likely to purchase a LINUX or Windows machine. And two, your argument applies as poorly to Operating Systems as it does to religion, orange juice, art, music, burgers or coffee. If most people choose Budhism, MinuteMaid OJ, Monet, Backstreet Boys, McDonalds or Nestle's Cafe, then those are probably the best choices overall, given the field. That doesn't seem all that accurate.

If you could be more specific in your argument, I'll try to consider it. Do note, though, I was one of MOST PEOPLE under a year ago. I replaced my Sony VAIO (Windows 2000 - my system for the two years prior) with a PowerBook (OS 9 & X). And I have to say, Mac OS 9 caused me as many headaches as Windows had. But OS X is worth a look. So far, I've run it for several months - I think four, and it's not crashed on me. Not once. Occasionally an older application will quit when running OS 9 from within OS X, but no more or less than my experiences with Windows or OS 9 alone. OS X native applications, on the other hand, are tremendous and very stable, even as I test the processor and memory management with many tasks simultaneously. It's not without it's glitches and minor things that I'd like to see changed, but I'm impressed overall.

pdX