Slashdot Mirror
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."
Ha-... huh?
Not that I object, but this seems like an odd thing for the NYT to just come out and say. "...the possibility of invading Iraq. By the way, Linux r0xx0rs. In other news..."
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
It baffles me why Slashdot continues to post links to the NY Times with nary a mention of the NY Times random login generator. It makes my perusal of the news so much nicer.
I can see the testimonials popping up on distro sites...
"The competition it offers helps everyone" - New York Times (registration required)
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
I find it interesting that according to Netcraft, nytimes.com is running on Solaris. Perhaps they should switch to Linux :)
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.
From the article:
If Linux spreads, Microsoft could see the first real challenge to its dominance of the operating-system software market.
It would be nice if the writer suggested why Linux has the potential spread where others, most notably MacOS, have so far been steamrolled. Instead, MacOS isn't touched on, and we aren't given any new arguments why Linux could succeed on the desktop.
It's great to see Linux being taken seriously by the Times but it would be better still to see this editorial add something fresh to the pro-Linux argument.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
This is the paper's opinion, btw, and not a guest columnist.
So when did the paper itself become self aware?
This editorial appears in the print edition as well. Needless to say, the NYT is quite a prestigious publication. While I am surprised its editorial board has taken such a strong stance on such a geeky issue, the positive press will surely be good for open standards and free competition.
We mustn't forget that competition is the cornerstone of a free economy and that Microsoft makes a significant contribution to technological innovation. Without Microsoft's constant competitive pressure on OSS developers, the quality of open source software would suffer. Certainly Microsoft has shown that it is more than willing abuse its monopoly status and it is the duty of the Department of Justice to protect the consumer against economic hegemony. Under the Bush administration, the DoJ is failing to perform its duty. In spite of this, my sincerest admiration goes out to the OSS kernel and application developers who choose to challenge the Giant rather than merely whine about its existence.
sm
login: spamfree
/.) successfully since. Enjoy!
pass: spamfree
This was posted some time ago in the discussion of another NYT article. I've been using it (for reading articles linked by
Russ
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
Remember, editor != reporter. Being an editor is a much more prestigeous job (especialy being a NYT editor). Editors edit what reporters send them. They are the filter for what goes into the paper. The editors write things themselves, those are called editorials. This link is an editorial. The editorial can be thought of as the opinion of the paper, as the editors have control over what is in the paper. This is not a fact based article by a reporter (those seem to be in short supply at times). This is an opinion. This is a pretty big statement.
"communitarian spirit"?
This is an extremely odd choice of words. I would have used 'cooperative', wouldn't you? I wonder if their intent was to conjure up another commun- word. We may never know.
The story of my parents... :P
They are definately what could be called "average users"... They don't know exactly how their computer works except for the few programs they needed, and don't want to know more. Even using a "totally user-friendly OS such as MS Windows", they often feel dumb when in front of the computer because it won't do what they want it to do, for most of the time.
They didn't care about windows vs. *nix either, until I told them about Linux, which is what I run. They asked me the obvious question: What is Linux?. I tried to avoid "tech" talk with my parents because I know they hate it and it's really hard to always try to explain everything that seems so obvious to you because you spend so many times in front of your machine... So I just said it was an OS, like Windows, only better in my opinion, and that it's Free. Notice the capital F, instead of going all-tech, I started telling them the story of Open Source, Free Software, how MS is "evil" (they read the newspapers, they already knew that) etc...
Well guess what, a month later they ask me if they would be able to use Linux, and ask me to install it for them.
So what's the moral of that rather long story? I don't know, some folks care more than saving a hundred bucks... :)
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
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.
I might mention (though you probably know already), that it's not just the website that said it: the site is just a mirror for the actual print edition. It was kind of neat to flip through the paper and see a linux advocacy right in the middle of the editorials. I'd imagine the print version has a substantially higher readership too.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
communitarian spirit"?
This is an extremely odd choice of words. I would have used 'cooperative', wouldn't you? I wonder if their intent was to conjure up another commun- word. We may never know.
Communitarian has a very specific meaning that describes a recently-popularized political philosophy. Both Bill Clinton in the US and Tony Blair in the UK have talked about their political philosophy as inspired by communitarian ideas. As the name implies it proposes that communities are a central political unit.
You can find out more at places like: RadicalMiddle
I believe that calling the Open Source movement communitarian has some useful connotations.
Sailing over the event horizon
I believe the point is that he's NOT an expert on technology. If he was a technological expert the reaction would be, "Oh? Another one? *Yawn*" Because he's a Regular Guy (who happens to be able to write his opinions in the NYT) it means that Linux is starting to infiltrate the NON-tech oriented community which is a Good Thing for Linux because I think the technologically savvy demographic is fairly well saturated with Linux users.
And BTW, a lot of people care what the editor of a newspaper thinks. About a lot of things. You don't become editor of the NYT by being a moron. He's probably at least as smart (however you want to define it) as you and his education is greater than yours in probably a multitude of areas (he does read the NYT everday which can be fairly informative on occasion). Admittedly he's not a technological expert, but I've already explained why I think that's a good thing.
No sig for you.
However, ...
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.
That last comment is definitly worth highlighting as the only useful thing in the "Editorial".
Despite the fact that my home machines run linux, I still have a major objection: Linux isn't nearly the only good alternative to Micro$oft. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are equally good (and about 99% compatible with linux). OSX is, by all reports, an excellent system, if somewhat pricey.
Imagine the quality cars we'd have if people were afraid to drive anything that didn't have, say, the Ford dashboard layout. "The headlight control is on the wrong side; how can people ever possibly learn to handle that?"
This is the reasoning we're hearing for why people can't learn anything but Windows. And we're getting the crappy computers that you'd expect in such a market.
But I don't think that people are that stupid. They can learn to drive Toyotas and Hyundais and Volvos and Saabs. I think they are mostly smart enough to handle KDE or Gnome or OSX.
Maybe we should be encouraging them to try something that just might be better than the worst system on the market.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
... but a wildly successful beginners guide is another thing altogether.
You know that if all the movie critics in the world give props to this year's hot indie film, almost no one will go see it. Put it in wide release, and get some hype behind it, and you've got yourself a blockbuster.
I think it's about time we got a "desktop distro" that nears the foolproof quality of Windows, has a tremendous user guide, and has easy to use dumbed down setup tools involved. It's about time everyday people started recommending Linux because "it's easy" and "its better than Windows".
We knew this already, though. Just repeating it for emphasis, cause I feel that strongly about it.
Well, you can see what they run their website off of...
You should also note that quite a few newspapers run their presses of some sort of Unix, some in tandem with Macs. This may be mostly the smaller papers (the one's I've had contact with), but that setup seems to work for quite a few.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I think you're hopelessly misguided if you believe nobody cares. The Times has one of the largest readerships in the world, and if you look at who is included, you'll see some interesting things, like:
A New York Times reader is about 36% more likely than the average affluent head of household to hold a college or postgraduate degree; 34% more likely to have a household income exceeding $100,000 and is 49% more likely to be a top manager.
These are the people who can actually do something about introducing linux into a company. Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so if you even just make them aware that alternatives exist, that's a start. Providing a positive review is just bonus.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Since the NYT requires registration to view articles people used to always say something like "free registration required" when they submitted stories from the site. People are so tired of reading that with every submission that we see people writing blurbs like blah-di-blah in place of saying free registration is required.
So why doesn't Slashdot just stop linking to nytimes.com then? They have stated that their general policy is to not link to registration-required sites, so why should NY Times be any different? The link has them saying that NY Times has "a lot of high-quality" stories...so do lots of registration-required sites. They also say that NY Times was grandfathered in...wtf is that supposed to mean? People may be getting tired of reading "Free Registration Required" on every other Slashdot link despite a Slashdot policy that is meant to curb this, but personally I am much more annoyed by having to register there in the first place.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
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?
You can bet the libertarians (who have been highly active in trying to ascribe their values to OSS development) will take great issue with this choice of word.
The article claims that now that Microsoft has won against the government, it's next big challenger will be Linux.
That's a joke.
The people who think that Linux will rise up to crush the oppressor are either delusional or horribly misinformed.
While Linux has made, and will continue to make inroads due to its technical superiority, Microsoft still has the lion's share of market share, and an absolutely enormous amount of money.
Really, to think of Microsoft and the Linux community as fighting for supremacy is like imagining a battle between a human and an ant colony. The human may not be able to destroy the ant colony (or may get one colony, while many others remain in the yard), due to its diffuse nature, but the human will never be seriously threatened by it.
--
http://ragnar.nilmop.com
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
You know, the closer that I see Linux approaching MS parity in form and function, the more articles that I read declaring Linux' "real competition" being Solaris, MacOS X, etc. Am I high? How can you compete with your co-defeated marginal players? Why do it? I think that the majority of these opinions are cleverly designed ruses planted by trolls trying to make Microsoft's truest competitors beat each other to death. Then, when a publication the caliber of the NY Times (whatever caliber you assign to them will do) says, however marginally, that Linux is a threat to MS, so many people line up to point out how behind the, um, times they are. Microsoft wins not because of superior product or customer service, but rather on the power of the vain, factious, cowboy (no offense sir) mentality that sticks to Linux like a bad smell. Microsoft is not 30,000 people off thinking on their own, but one man thinking with 30,000 brains. He is not a guru or some neat guy, he's a billionaire with 300,000,000 plus private lines to the computer consumer market. The consumers may be sick of the geek, but they see no alternative (unless you take those Mac ads seriously). The rest of the computer world looks like an episode of Little Rascals. Cute, capable, plucky rebels trying to win the soapbox derby with two ladders strapped to three baby carriages. Granted, I've seen sparks of hope with Lindows, Lycoris, EOne, and the voices for tighter standardization, but unless 30,000 brains begin following one idea to completion (no matter how imperfect), the Linux commune-ity might as well be fighting the Nimitz with a tennis-ball cannon firing 100 shots a second. It's impressive, but ultimately comical. I propose everyone using Linux, no matter the flavor, send 100 dollars (or an equivalent in Yen or those big stone coins) to one place and call THAT Linux. Otherwise, we may just have to hand ourselves the dubious title of the toughest cripple at the street fight.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
If you have Opera, Konqueror, or Mozilla, you shouldn't have to register. If you have IE, make you register. If you have AOL, make you wait five minutes while they 'download new artwork.'
Evil is the money of root.
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?
Easy.... We are assholes and hypocrits!!
Burma?
'informality' means theres no orginization, there's no obligation. Noone makes Linus et al work on the next version of the kernel. They could decide they want to make gameboy games instead, and abandon it.
While this is an extreme scenario, sourceforge is full of projects that aren't going anywhere.
We all assume, for instance, that a hole in Apache will be quickly closed by a thousand coders from around the world. But there's no guarantee. Guarantees and contracts are FORMAL parts of the business world. Do you understand yet what the statement is saying?
If you base some project that puts your career on the line, you want to be as sure as you can that it's not going to dissapear because the team behind it got bored, changed their mind, got in a flame war and split up, or whatever.
We already know MS uses closed source. It doesn't need to be repeated. But they pay employees to come in and work on the source every day. This leaves at least the impression that work will be done.
I got no problem with linux, I got no problem with windows, os/2 beos or C64 Basic. But call it like it is, take the blinders off.
Linux is not above criticism. If you think it is, you're worse than any MS marketing drone.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My guess: they don't know about it. Posting entire NYT articles and editorials isn't likely to be seen as fair use, and deprives them of revenue at their site, so they'd have reason to send /. a cease-and-desist letter. That would actually be interesting: Would /. management have to take responsibility for what's published here?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Beware, wood-pulp has been genetically engineered. Soon they will gather together with their brothers, and turn into a giant, man-eating blob.
Fortunately, I have a lighter. I don't think the paper has thought that far ahead, but what would you expect from ground-up trees? You've seen how the rainforest protects itself: "Hey, everybody! Hold still and play dead... I'm sure they'll all go away."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
What is wrong with requiring registration to read an article? Would you rather just pay for read it? They are giving you something that you want in exchange for something they want. What could you possibly have against that?
Is all you want a life full of freebies? Next you will be wanting "open source" pizzas, and "open source" clothing. It's a surprise you don't want "open source" housing.
-BrentThe NYT's editorial will give Linux's profile a bit of a nudge, but I have to think that the biggest single push toward consumer popularity would come from an AOL client for Linux. I know the combination of Linux and AOL is anathema to a lot of folks, but tens of millions of AOL users won't consider moving to Linux until AOL does.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I would guess that Slashdot would immediately take the post down if they got a Cease-And-Desist letter (as required by the DCMA {I think - IANAL}). Otherwise, I'm sure Slashdot's policy is to not try to police the posts on their site. Once they started to do that, they would have to continue doing it, and it would be impossible for them to do it with any degree of certainty (how would they know that I had not copied this post off of another site - they couldn't).
The thing is that the sum total of copyrighted material out there is practically infinite. You couldn't possibly check every Slashdot post against that large of a set of information (not to mention aLL pOSSiBLE trANSfOrMatIONS) even if they had access to all of it.
I might agree with you if the word could only be found on dictionary.com, which incorporates words from very modern sources like the Jargon File, but here's "communitarian" at Merriam-Webster.
(Psst. He's making an allusion to "total cost of ownership or 'TCO'. Oh, and watch your head.)
Seriously, I think many more people would be very happy with a Macintosh than currently own one. Put another way, I think there is 'growth potential' for the Macintosh product family.
Will Apple-made personal computers ever seriously challenge Microsoft/Intel/AMD "Wintel" dominance? Not a chance. Forget it. But what I don't get is why so many people think this is a mark of irrelevance or failure.
In truth Apple is one of the most relevant computer makers. Apple is also one of the most relevant software makers. Apple is also one of the most sucessful personal computer makers. They make tons of money, have a fiercely loyal customer base, hold one of the most recognized brands in the United States and could buy every single Linux comany with cash using only the change out from under the breakroom couch pillows. The fact that the platform that they put forth isn't a dominant one doesn't change any of that.
Sometimes I think we're all so used to hearing about some single-digit marketshare that the Macintosh platform is supposed to have that we simply lose sight of the fact that Apple is a very large, very sucessful and influential company that makes some darned nice products, too. They're in no danger of irrelevance.
Sorry about the seemingly unprovoked rant. Sometimes it just bursts out. Mod me down if you must. I can take it.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
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"
You can use user and pw "slashdotac" to log on. You don't need to register. If you wanted to, you could, and it's free.
- Have a picture
A year ago, I would likely have agreed. Much has changed since then.
I have Mandrake 8.2 running here at home. My wife and I use it for watching DVD media, listening to Mp3 files, word processing, spreadsheets, basic scheduling and general Internet usage. (Web e-mail and such.) I am very technical, but she is not. Linux works nicely in this respect. We have different logins, mine is customized to the hilt and setup for more than basic computing, hers is clean and easy to use. The nice thing is, with Linux, it is easy to keep things that way.
Guess what? This machine works fine! Heck, it is not even that nice of a machine. E-machine (ewww..), Matrox G400 video, 500 mhz PIII, 192Mb ram and some HD are not much these days. I can get another machine and do the same thing for just the cost of Closed Software licenses alone! That has got to be good for the consumer.
The only configuration I needed to do with this machine that did not work easily with the GUI is the DVD setup. Ogle is great, but due to some lame law decisions in the US, I have to get this somewhere else. If this were not the case, I know Mandrake would have intergrated this program in with the others. It is likely that, given the freedom to include DVD support, I would have had to do almost nothing to begin really using my machine.
Now I know not everyone can do this yet because of the time it might take to learn how to set things up properly, but each revision of the various distributions seems to reduce the need for this by quite a bit. One more iteration and things will work very nicely for most of what we need to do day to day.
Soon we will be able to buy a very nice workstation ready to handle all day to day computing tasks for the price of that other OS. Now with all that extra money laying around, don't you think that people will be interested in buying some additional products since they got such a deal on their base computer? I do, particularly when they realize they are spending their money for new things, not the same things over and over again each year.
A large chunk of the problem has very little to do with the performance of the Open Source / Free Software whatever method of development, it has to do with lawyers profiting off of the fear that some companies have for their withering business models.
So right now I would agree with the Times, Linux is good for consumers, not all consumers mind you, but an increasing number of them.
So really, I don't think for a minute that the editors of the Times are stupid. Like it or not, a lot of thought goes into the production of the Times; otherwise it would not have the name that it does today.
They see what I see; namely, that Linux is ready now and improving at a very nice clip. We are seeing Linux leave the early adopter stage about to enter the early majority. This is a great time because all the really good stuff happens now. Applications are being ported, new ones in process are showing up now, early ones are maturing to a very usable state.
I work in the MCAD field. Did you know that Pro Engineer is coming to Linux next year? That is major software supported by not one, but two large companies, PTC and HP/Compaq. These types don't port unless there is demand. I would say that the Times has it just about right at the moment.
How is the whole thing supposed to progress if it does not get some press at the key time? I believe that time is now. I just don't think the Times are that far off --I could be wrong, but I hope not.
Blogging because I can...
There was the September 10th article about Hewlett-Packard firing their open source evangelist, Bruce Perens, which managed to state his case pretty well, including his outrage over the flamingly hypocritical microsoft-backed "Initiative for Software Choice" overseas lobbying group.
And there was their original September 5th article reporting on that lobbying group (and really, if there's anything that Microsoft has done that screams "We want to go to hell in a hurry!" it's creating that organization). The times tossed in a nice zinger there that hinted pretty strongly about how they feel: "(Illegally stifling choice, of course, was precisely what the federal courts in the long-running antitrust case ruled that Microsoft did in the market for personal computer software.)"
The Times articles may no longer be free, but we did write-ups of them here (sept. 5) and here (sept 10) and we quoted the articles fairly heavily.
neslon
Since when did logging into a site have anything at all to do with software development? All these rants about registering and logging in to the NYT make no sense at all, especially coming people who have registered and logged in to Slashdot.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The obvious reason the Times said this today was the Sun announcement about Linux PCs.
As for all the people saying, "yes, Linux used to be unfriendly, but now it's just as good as Mac or Windows," that would have a lot more credibility if the same people hadn't been saying exactly the same thing for the last seven years or so. The fact is, it hadn't caught up then, and it hasn't caught up now.
That your parents love you and could tell that Linux and Open Source ware very important to you, so they decided to give it a try because they knew it would make you happy?
As a Linux user, programmer, writer, and advocate, I'm interested in this. But what I'm wondering is has a major newspaper used its editorial page to endorse a product before? A candidate, yes. A stand on an issue, yes. But a product? Or do people see this differently? Is choosing an OS a matter of public policy?
because Linux has progressed to the point that the New York Times thinks the "Linux Minority" is worth "pandering" to.
I am a Unix user, I detest the lack of control WIndows allows, I have had to use it three times in the last 15 years, and I tell you it is NOT intuitive, it is NOT natural, it is NOT easy to use.
How obvious is it that to rename a file you double click on the name?
Visual Studio -- had to use that for a week, just about puked daily, and found three stupdi bugs in the first day (click Add Function, no File.Save mneu so click the X to close the window, click Add Function again, it bitches that some external program has changed the source. Can you say DUMB?)
I won't go on, because I have done my best to forget the experience.
Windows sucks. The ONLY reason people put up with it is that they have been putting up with it for so long. It was a fresh install this last time, W2K, still crashed daily, and don't give me crap about bad hardware -- it previously had Red Hat on it and worked fine.
MicroSoft is locked into their PC single-user single tasking mentality. They have added multi user login and multi tasking, but not mentally, they still have that single user single task mentality, and they have locked themselves into that corner. The very idea that you have to have a GUI to control things is bizarre.
Infuriate left and right
Well, the funny thing here is that most large organizations end up trashing about 20% of their hardware in a given year anway. (Actually, many places run on a 3-year cycle.) This is why I think it was very important that that Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) works so much better in Windows shops than previous versions. You now could conceive of buying some Macs and adding them to the mix. Most Windows users I know who have seen Jaguar are not unimpressed; the big gripe is that they might be missing something performance-wise on the hardware end. In reality, they pretty much won't be for anything most users do, and those who do need more cycles will probably have much stronger choices in the Mac line within the next year.
Of course, to be perfectly honest, the best way to get anybody to switch to a Mac is to show them your 17" LCD, since Apple makes *very* nice LCD monitors...
Most big companies get hardware from Dell, and the differential on Optiplex hardware versus an iMac isn't as large as you might think (disclaimer: when last I checked). There's also the question of costs down the line, and accountants are now *very* aware of Microsoft licensing costs these days, as well as how many tech positions it seems to take to keep N windows boxes in order. Anecdotally, the number of Macs at my place of business is pretty small, and the official line is that they aren't supported. Which has not ended up mattering, since nobody who has a Mac has ever needed support...
Babar
How could anyone find fault with "Bill the Biller."?
:-)
Don't tell me people are starting to wonder who paid to make him the richest man in the world. And if maybe they have paid too much, for too long and over and over and over.
(Don't look at me... I run Linux on x86 and OS X on Macs. Since the days of the x80 architecture M$ has ALWAYS been the worst alternative. Windows has ALWAYS been second a visually mediocre GUI. Functionally its no great shakes either. And don't get me started on security
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
That's funny, I don't remember infringing on any of their copyrights.
And how the hell can you say "regardless of your personal beliefs regarding intellectual property rights and wrongs"? Those beliefs seem to me like they would be pretty important in how you treat all copyrights, not just the copyrights of articles you agree/disagree with.
Life is too short to proofread.
SMALLER white box builders != the vast majority of consumers who don't have technical competance. Compare it with Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
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.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Why should NYT take a proactive stance on Linux? Just because one of the editors recommends Palm PDAs doesn;t mean that the company should help out Palm financially.
Linux companies should stand and fall on their own.
Besides, I thought VA didn't have anything to do with Linux anymore.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Now, return to Open Source. If there is a mistake in the code, you and you personally are to blame, and everybody on the whole planet knows, because it says "stratjakt" right in the program. You're afraid that your peers will snicker and point, your mother will cry, and your wife will run away because she can't stand the shame. A coding error at a big company is a "problem requiring prompt service to our respected consumers", but Open Source is as personal as a punch in the guts, and you can't avoid dealing with it by playing office games. Your code, your glory; and your mistake, your blemish.
So the question of why Open Source is and will be superior on the long run to Closed Source comes down to one simple factor: Human nature. The Free Market works because it harnesses greed; Free Software works because it harnesses pride.
I mean really. At least the first disenter had the decency to post as an AC.
I'm not sure what all the brouhaha over the NYT's registration policy is myself. If you don't like it but wish to read the articles you always have the option of having the dead tree version delivered right to your doorstep every morning.
Just call them on the phone and tell them who you are and where you live.
KFG
And of course the main reason Linux was written in the first place was to break the *UNIX* monopolies, a fact that is often times completely forgotten.
KFG
Capitalism is about private ownership. It isn't about choice. You can have a free market where the majority of producers are cooperatives operating from government loans, and you can have a monopoly driven economy where all ownership is in private hands.
Those are, of course, extremes, but they are illustrative that the free market = capitalism equation really isn't right.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Interestingly enough, I just checked netcraft.com and it reported that www.nytimes.com is sporting a Solaris OS and using Netscape Enterprise. It would have been really funny if they were running Microsoft.
Slashdot is like most physicalnews media, only much more fluid in function and standards. It's just a means for public communication. So is the air.
I hear it in my head as a quote from court: So, since you can't sue the atmosphere, a very common medium of communication, you think suing a medium for a specific culture as having more positive results?
I imagine a whole lot of free-speech arguments will grow around something like that.
What's this Submit thingy do?
To the average user, the home computer *is* Windows (or OS/X or Lindows). The fact that the operating system can be replaced with a different one has as much impact on them as the fact that the engine in their car can be replaced with a different one to make it into a hot rod.
You are confusing "open source" with "free as in beer". Common mistake, many people do it, so don't feel too bad about your stupidity.
There's been a growing trend in people copying entire articles. Remember the "slashdot effect."
What's this Submit thingy do?