If Linux fans ever want it to take over the desktop, they should make it run on Windows!
Linux, registry keys, and UnInstall Shield
scrottie on 2007-06-30T10:08:17
When the BSA was in full swing, I was toying with the idea of making a "make your system legit" CD and mailing a bunch out. It would have StarOffice, some paint program, and so on, and would uninstall whatever ill-gotten-ware you have and install replacements. I wanted to do this as it's exactly what people should do and exactly what the BSA doesn't want you to do. (I did later do this on a small scale but after the timing impact was lost.) Yes, my work is driven by hated, and the hated of stupidity above all else.
Dealing with "the Windows problem" occupies my cycles now and then.
ProjectEvil/NDIS Wrapper seemed to stem from my fantasies along these lines. Given a system as sold by Best Buy or whatever, what's the most direct route of realizing a functional, moral, practical, enjoyable upgrade? Getting rid of the bundled adware is an obvious first step. The Windows kernel works pretty now days and none of the contempt Microsoft treats their users with is directly perpetrated by the kernel. The Explorer shell on the other hand crashes a lot and nags the user with blaming messages as if to brainwash him that all problems are his fault. KDE runs on Windows, I think, though it's not a study in stability either. But that might be too far reaching. IE goes, but the replacement Firefox would have to be built with a ProPolice style bounds checking gcc as Firefox doesn't have much better of a record. And so on. Without IE or the Explorer shell to muck up, abusively written Windows programs would have less room for doing damage.
A partial Linux-on-Windows might work, given a calculated effort at improving the security of the system, making it less naggy and obnoxious, and generally improving the user experience.
A head-on assault won't work. A much more strategic invasion, that doesn't allow their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses, is needed.
-scott
