__/ [ Mark Kent ] on Tuesday 25 July 2006 22:40 \__
> begin oe_protect.scr
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> __/ [ Mark Kent ] on Tuesday 25 July 2006 15:13 \__
>>
>>> <snip />
>>>>> I googled (finally it's a word) for a while, but couldn't find the
>>>>> author's E-mail address. Can you think of a way to correct him?
>>>>> Yesterday evening I sent out the following...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ===
>>>>> I noticed your article which is due to go public on July 24th. It made
>>>>> me think of One Microsoft way (or even Apple, for the sake of this
>>>>> argument)
>>>>>
>>>>> I have a gripe with what you claim and suggest. Essentially you propose
>>>>> robbing users from choice and diversity. Monoculture is what GNU/Linux
>>>>> is here to address/tackle. Isn't that what SLED is for? Corporate
>>>>> uniformity? Why eliminate all others as contenders? And why spread FUD
>>>>> about compiling packages when there are such huge Ubuntu repositories.
>>>>> ===
>>>>>
>>>>> In reference to:
>>>>>
>>>>>
http://www.crn.com/sections/microsoft/microsoft.jhtml?articleId=190900617
>>>>>
>>>>> A Linux OS For All
>>>>
>>>> Update: Got a response this morning. He says he'll add my comment or our
>>>> correspondence as Letter to the Editor.
>>>
>>> Hmm, if I'd known that would happen, perhaps I wouldn't've used the
>>> word "terrible"...
>>
>> The CRN Editor has posted 2 followup items since. Good publicity for
>> GNU/Linux and high traffic for their Web site.
As I read your first sentence I realised that I had
neglected to mention an important point. The principal
editor (for all I could say) clearly stated that Linux
brought a lot of traffic, _BUT_ CRN abstained from
mentioning it more often... as means of averting controversy
(or /alienating/ readers). That's one of my explanations to
the fact that the BBC, CNN and other mainstream media
outlets do not mention Windows as the culprit in many
blunders. They also rarely recommend Mac OS and Linux (even
from an objective stance), let alone mentioned these. The
world is a funny place, ain't it? Permit people to follow
the illusions they have fallen under and never cater for
improvement (or basic education).
> Which is great, of course. This is one of the problems - I don't want
> to alienate those people we need as friends, at the same time, I really
> cannot condone sloppy journalism, which that article really was. I
> wouldn't mind, but all this stuff is readily available from the web,
> anyway, right from the "printer driver" story of RMS's onwards. Even
> Linus T has remarked on how the GNU thing was inspirational for him, as
> well as the Tannenbaum minix stuff.
Well, I can say for a fact that the /use/ of Linux alone
(without extra words of evangelism necessary) can get
others' hostility. People fear what they don't/cannot
understand, especially when they realise that it has special
power that they have no access to (skills barrier). Like
desktop, like server room (father and son). Think of servers
with admirable downtimes and an infinite number of open
source projects (CMS, spam filters, stats packages and so
forth).
> One of the biggest selling points for free software now, used wisely, is
> the documented _proof_ that so much of it is incredibly mature, tested,
> secure, reliable and so on, because it's actually much much older than
> the majority of the Windows stuff which is being pushed by Microsoft;
> this has to be one of the major reasons why it's so much better, more
> mature, more reliable, more secure and so on. Open-source GPLed code
> is no fly-by-night activity, it's a very very long-term project, which
> /nobody/ on the planet can /stop/. (Hey - now that is one major
> observation - I'll be using that in my next presentation, I think).
> It's impossible for /anyone/ to make it obsolete, if you don't want them
> to.
It perpetuated. How many projects do you know which died
(OpenDarwin died last night, I believe) but had somebody
else take the lead? OpenSSH continues to live (off handouts
perhaps) and distributions that get abandoned have forks, if
they were ever any good. Code needn't be manufactured. It's
always up there on the shelf and it's not turning yellow.
Modularity means that you can assemble the latest of all the
constituent parts while retaining the core without throwing
it away (or washing/bastardising it).
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Code built upon another's is less prone to bugs
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Cpu(s): 16.7% user, 2.5% system, 0.6% nice, 80.2% idle
http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information
|
|
