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New York Times Staff Editorial Promoting Linux
cotyledon writes "Today's New York Times editorial (Free Blah-Di-Blah) describes Linux as good for consumers and good for programmers. It recommends "Government units abroad and in the United States and individual computer users should look for ways to support Linux and Linux-based products. The competition it offers helps everyone." This is the paper's opinion, btw, and not a guest columnist."
Now, if we can get BusinessWeek or the Wall Street Journal to start saying things like "...businesses should begin investigating Linux to remain cost competitive", the C*O's in America would start herding over to Linux (regardless of its merits and/or limitations, but that's another story).
I've not come here to bash Linux in any way shape or form, but...
There is no doubt that Linux supports the cause of breaking the MS monopoly (a good thing, whether or not MS itself is bad..that's not a debate I'm about to start). It's good for the industry, it is definitely a nice operating system for servers, programmers, and sophisticated computer users.
But Linux (in my opinion, at any rate) is NOT appropriate for the consumer as the articticle claims. The average American (and probably European too, but I can't say) consumer can run word, e-mail, the web, e-mail, and probably a few games. They are blissful on Windows, have no desire to switch over and dont really know about (nor do they care about) the Windows vs. *nix vs. whatever.
Until Linux comes to a level of user-friendliness much more advanced than it's at now, Linux is not going to enter the general consumer market. The programs are not what people are familliar to, it's not supported by ISPs and a lot of technical help groups, the installation is still complicated (we're talking about people who generally have neither the ability nor desire to so much as reinstall Windows), and neither the CLI (obviously) nor the major interfaces (Gnome, KDE, etc.) are really as user friendly and simple to use as Windows.
I generally like the NYT, but I wish they'd put a little more general thought into some issues.
Logic is the ultimate device.
Also odd was:
And outside programmers have long complained that Microsoft makes it hard for them to create software compatible with Windows-based computers.
What? That's the one thing just about everyone knowledgeable agrees Microsoft does well. I mean, have you noticed any shortage of third-party Microsoft apps? Of course, what they will do is crush any developer whose territory they've suddenly decided should be theirs.
Then, there's:
Wal-Mart has started selling a home computer called Lindows, which runs on Linux...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Man, all they ask is that you register and answer a few damn questions, all of which you can opt out on.
/. does *not* promote this utility which ultimately fills the NYT db with garbage. You know what happens when they finally get pissed off? bye bye free registration.
I'm glad that
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The article wasn't saying "Linux is good for the consumer" in the sense that "everybody with a computer should go install Linux now". All the article is saying is that if Linux can offer challenge and competition to the Microsoft monopoly, that THIS would be good for the consumer. For example, presumably if Linux starts making inroads into corporate desktops Microsoft will lower the price of some of their products (if nothing else). Better yet, maybe we'll see more interoperability between the MS, Apple, and Unix worlds, which would also be good for "consumers". Don't try to force what the paper said into such a narrow-minded view.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
It doesn't seem to be tied to an event, but why complain? It seems more sincere and provoking this way. It's not one of those "Let's kick them while they're down" kind of things, as if MS just lost a big client or case decision today. No, just as an everyday thing, Linux was given props by the NY Times.
Besides, if you're a Linux proponent, why complain? This is a great thing to see published. Hell, I think it's a hell of an endorsement and I'm glad they did it... and I'm even a Microsoft shareholder too! (I don't see Linux as the defeat of Microsoft, rather as a challenge for ascension. Of course, I'm rooting for Linux ideaologically as well, but that doesn't mean MS can't make even more money doing their thing ad infinitum)
I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but doesn't the line "Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company" mean anything here?
Quite seriously, regardless of your personal beliefs regarding intellectual property rights and wrongs, and subscription news services: How is it that we pat a news organization on the back for paying lip service to our favorite operating system, and then infringe on their copyrights?
No need for it to be tied to a specific event. It actually could be a case that one of the editors has gotten exposure to it and found out how good it was.. I did that to my roommate with RH6.0, and he turned into a bigtime Linux booster. 7.3 and it's non-RedHat bretheren are a good bit better, so I can definitely see a NYT editor going gah gah over it.
Reporters can be a snarky lot. When they find out that they've been lied to for the last decade or so, then can get downright crusaderish.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Linux has had more success than Microsoft in the embedded space. It's giving Microsoft a run for its money in the server space - at least keeping market share away from Microsoft, if not actively grabbing it. It completely dominates in the supercomputer space, where Microsoft has no presence. So far, Linux has had very little impact in the desktop space, but that seems likely to change over the long term.
Over time, it's actually very likely that Microsoft's traditional sources of revenue will erode significantly, because of Linux and open source in general. Office suites are a case in point: on the one hand, you have Microsoft experimenting with licensing schemes where they try to charge consumers $100's per year for the use of their product, while on the other hand, you have very competitive free alternatives that have been improving at a dramatic rate and are increasingly being noticed by organizations ranging from the governments of the U.S., Germany, and Peru, to colleges and companies with specialize needs. If Microsoft fails to get the world to switch to an office-suite-as-service model, and I think they will fail, Linux and open source will have played a big role in that.
That doesn't mean Microsoft is doomed. But they'll be forced to focus on and stick to spaces where they can compete effectively against "free" software - such as the big business world, where the consultants you can deploy are at least as important as the out-of-the-box software you provide.
In fact, Microsoft has been moving "upmarket" in this sense for a long time, which is one reason they began losing the support of small developers and companies: back when it sold DOS and early versions of Windows, Microsoft needed all the support it could get, and big business treated it as a minor side issue; now, big business loves Microsoft, and vice versa. If you're not a Fortune 1000 company, you're effectively little but a potential annoyance to Microsoft, a source of revenue that can't be supported in a cost-effective way.
Because of this, you can expect to see small business moving to Linux also, in servers to start with but later for workstations also, as Microsoft products become less and less suitable (Exchange, anyone?) and Linux becomes more and more off-the-shelf and automated (a la Red Hat network.)
In short, the New York Times is a little behind the times - they're acknowledging a grassroots trend that has been building for years, and that is already a reality. But they're quite timely in another sense, in that the effectiveness of Linux as a competitor to Microsoft has only just begun. It's only been four years since the Halloween documents opened many people's eyes to Linux, and the landscape has changed dramatically since then. Check back in 2006, and see how Microsoft has changed as a result. My bet is it'll be dramatic, although the specifics are hard to predict.
Depending on the paper and its community, lots of people care.
The positions taken in editorials published in newspapers are not the random jottings of any editor who just happens to have an opinion. They are considered the institutional voice of the newspaper and can carry significant weight in their communities. The editorial stances of the NYT often have national and global impact.
While basic editing is a skill eveyone working at a newspaper needs to possess, editors are paid to manage staff and reporters, decide what stories are covered, determine story placement in the paper, etc.
The technical expertise of this particular editorial writer is irrelevant. The Times is making an economic and business argument for Linux, not a technical argument. The piece's thrust is that Linux provides a viable competitor to Linux, which the Times sees as laudable and something that should be encouraged.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
But you're a bigger capitalist than they are. They've bought into a monopoly -- the antithesis of a free-market economy. You have supported an open system which fosters free-market competition -- many distributions in competition, window managers in competition, and a huge number of apps that help non-Linux-centric businesses gain an advantage over proprietary competitors.
Linux is capitalism. Great ideas flourish, bad ideas are trounced, poorly marketed but technically superior ideas are salvaged from the source code of dead dot-coms. You're a fucking patriot.
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