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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).
You do realize that the more support that gets behind Linux, the more quickly and easily familiar programs will get written and/or ported to it, right? And the more people who use Linux on a daily basis outside of the developer world will result in a greater push toward the user interface?
The NYT isn't advocating the government yank out everyone's copy of office and stick them on "ed" - they're advocating that governments look at throwing support Linux's way, thereby resulting in increased competition and, by extension, better advances for the end user on both sides.
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?
If you were paying more attention, you'd notice that your argument is rapidly becoming outdated.
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
Linux is very quickly becoming ready for Joe (or Jane) User. Look at recent deveopments such as Lindows or OEone's HomeBase Desktop. The momentum is building. Look at Open Office and Mozilla. Linux is not all that far away from being viable as a desktop operating system my grandmother could use. In fact, I'm convinced that I could already set up a system for her that would allow her to do everything she does now on her windows box with close to the same level of ease.
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.
Well, first off, I don't know any novice users that would describe their experience as "blissful". Secondly, you're right. They don't care about windows vs. *nix. However, they do care about buying the same PC for $100 less. That's what's going to drive Linux into the consumer market - not users suddenly getting the urge to become a hard-core linux hacker.
No. It doesn't. Never has. Never will. Linux is a kernel, not a political platform, no matter how RMS and a subset of its users try to turn it into one. I get really tired of people assuming that all Linux users support some particular goals.
As for the tired "Linux software must be user friendly before anyone will use it" line (no matter all the evidence to the contrary)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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
Live web cams
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.
I beg the differ. Besides being an excellent choice for small-to-medium size servers, Linux is also an excellent choice for office environment.
What I'm referring to its tight control and consistency in functionalities(you might argue with this but it's true). When I want to setup a machine for my secretary for word processing, I can make sure she can only use that and nothing else. This is exactly like office computers during 80s, a box standing there for a sole purpose. Most clerical clerks are not educated with the computers knowledge, fewer functions in a tool would only help them improve their learning curve and eventually increase productivity.
You may also argue that modern computer should be general purpose and user-centric. Can you imagine exactly how many hours has been wasted on handling virus outbreaks? I'm not even going to start the problems with allowing users to install their own stuffs in office computers, but you get the idea.
The modern desktop computing concept promoted by Microsoft is not as productive as the terminal-based idea promoted by IBM in 70-80s, in my opinion.
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 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?
I've been registered for over 4 years and haven't got one pice of spam (that I am aware of) from the New York Times.
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
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.
Amen bro!
I couldn't agree with you more.
The NYTimes is asking *so* little for their content and use of their servers. Abusing their registration system is being extremely unreasonable IMHO, since for one we are not *forced* to use it.
If you don't want to give the information then don't read the articles!!
I for one would perfectly understand if NYTimes some day decides to banned links from slashdot.
*continues laments about sense of fairness in todays society...*
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
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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