Operating system advocacy is the practice of attempting to increase the awareness and improve the perception of a computer operating system. The motivation behind this may be to increase the number of users of a system, to assert the superiority of one choice over another or out of brand loyalty, pride in an operating system's abilities, or to persuade software vendors to port specific applications or device drivers to the platform.
Operating system advocacy can vary widely in tone and form, from published comparisons to heated debates on mailing lists and other forums. In its most extreme forms it can veer into zealotry. Advocates are often normal users who devote their spare time to advocacy of their operating system of choice; many have a deep and abiding interest in the use, design and construction of operating systems and an emotional investment in their favourite operating system.
Operating system advocacy can be compared to advocacy in other fields, particularly browser and editor wars, but also advocacy of programming languages and video game consoles.
Read more about Operating System Advocacy: Usenet and Other Advocacy Forums
Famous quotes containing the words operating and/or system:
“Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword; shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)