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Why PHBs Fear Linux
Tin Foil Hat writes "Paul Murphy over at LinuxInsider examines the role IT text books play in business school curriculums and the misconceptions and misinformation that they present to students. If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."
"Pointy headed boss". I am a PHB with an MBA and I never saw the word Linux in a textbook. However, being that I am natuarally geeky, I am slowly showing my company the benefits of open source.
"We are accountable for not only what we do, but also that which we don't do." -- Moliere
"PHB: /PHB/
[Usenet; common; rarely spoken] Abbreviation, "Pointy-Haired Boss". From the Dilbert character, the archetypal halfwitted middle-management type. See also pointy-haired."
Souce: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/P/PHB.html
I don't know about Best Buy, but I know CompUSA has Linux boxen (as in product cardboard) right next to copies of Windows. Not only that, but their prices run the gamut from about $30 to $150, significantly lower than Windows.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
...and while I haven't read them all, I find that their treatment of OSes is very general indeed. They talk more about computer systems and networks, and the foundations of these, than they do about which OS is good or bad and what's different about them. In the book I read, an OS comparison showed about 7-8 OSes, including Windows, Mac and Linux, and also had a case study about switching to Linux. (Note that the article doesn't really say that MS Windows is mentioned *so much more* than Linux, just that Linux is not mentioned often.)
This article, IMHO, doesn't really show the reality that 1) Linux even 5 years ago was merely a speck in most people's minds, 2) that Unix does have its downsides, and that 3) the authors of these books are probably running Windows as their native OS! This hardly adds up to the kind of bias the article suggests.
2-3 years from now you will start to see Linux information trickle down into these books, as they publish new versions. A couple may retain a "bias", but I bet that most will realistically track what has changed in the marketplace since the previous version of their book. To expect that formal education moves at the same speed as economic developments is silly. Education moves much more slowly, and it's got nothing to do with bias.
Actually, Pin Head is one of the main characters in Hellraiser. You may think that the that is proper comparision, but anyway, PHB = Pointy Haired Boss.
Ever tried installing Java and Java programs?
Yes, I added jpackage.org to my sources.list and ran "apt-get install ant struts tomcat5" and got everything I needed.
A long time ago, I read a book by Paul Reps titled "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones", that includes a story, "A Cup of Tea", that is particularly appropriate given the material in this article. I reproduce the story here:
A Cup of Tea
The PHBs have had their heads filled so full with material, and are so unwilling/scared/unable to unlearn it, that their education becomes a liability. Corporations encounter the same kind of problem when they develop "core rigidities" and are unable to rapidly adapt to the ever-changing marketplace.Aside: someone has been kind enough to reproduce this story, along with a number of other excerpts from "101 Zen Stories", and they can be found here.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;