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Miscellaneous LinuxWorld Tidbits
The excitement of the LinuxWorld Expo simply cannot be expressed in words. We already mentioned that Mandrake and HP are working on Linux on the desktop (warning, manager-speak). The Open Source Development Lab is expanding its focus through the creation of a working group on "carrier grade Linux" for the telecommunications market. CNET has several LinuxWorld stories up. And let's throw in one more, only tangentially related: IBM has settled with San Francisco for spray-painting their sidewalks.
In addition, the fine is probaly less than the cost of a billboard advertising campaign, and yet got them far more publicity. Clever.
Maybe she's not ready yet... more accurately, maybe Linux isn't ready for her yet. But my god, look how far things have come in a few years.
:)
When I first downloaded Linux, there were no CD-Recordable drives; I had to go out and buy 50 floppies and crash a university computer lab (no DSL or cable-modems, either) to download Slackware. I was thrilled to get it working, and decided that olvwm was king.
Now Red Hat is huge, IBM is running Linux on mainframes, and KDE/GNOME have made the desktop much friendlier. Seems like most distributions have graphical installers that autodetect and configure most of the popular hardware. I remember the labor-intensive process of configuring my X server for Slackware about 7 years ago. Times have changed.
So I hate to hear people bad-mouth Linux because it's not good enough for grandma yet. Because in a few years, I think it will be there. And that's what Microsoft is afraid of.
Am I anti-Microsoft? Maybe a little. I'm cool with the "use what works for the application" argument, but I also think that Microsoft as a business is sleazy and evil. Sure, they're job is to make money, but what happened to dealing fairly with consumers and, well, ethics? And the Linux community feels much more like that: a community. There must be countless Linux developers working for free, for the cause, for the fun of it, whatever. I'd rather align with them.
So hopefully in a few years, Linux WILL be ready for Joe Sixpack. And if you can't get your mom to double-click, maybe you should get her an iMac in the interim.
That's one of the tough concepts for new admins to understand. We're not only juicy targets because of our claims of security; but we're a lot more useful once we're owned.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!