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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."
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
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...
This is the paper's opinion, btw, and not a guest columnist.
So when did the paper itself become self aware?
MacOS doesn't run on cheap, available-everywhere, commodity, x86 hardware.
Until it does, Apple will remain a niche. Period. The End.
Hell, even SUN is getting in on the game!
There are 100x the number of Intel-type machines out there than PPC-based. OS X would require a total new hardware investment, Linux does not.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"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.
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
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 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
w-w-w-w-wwwwwait a minit!!!!
.... etc.. etc....
AOL is the frigggin crapolla that alters how WinSock.dll interacts with the rest of the system. I can't tell you how many times I've had to restore someone's internet connection because they innocently installed that stupid AOL software. Sounds like AOL/Netscape FUD to me.
What about, when installing AOL/Netscape/Winamp, RealPlayer no longer
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?
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.
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.
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"
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.
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"
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
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?
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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