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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."
" 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."
Maybe they don't get it because they don't see Linux software on store shelves at Best Buy. Maybe they feel that using Linux would be a huge headache since they have NFI where the software actually comes from. It's percieved as some toy OS.
"Derp de derp."
I don't know why this is the case, but it really must affect the bias of so many students (and future PHBs). I suppose its a matter of people using what they know and what they expect the readers will be using that makes them decide to take this slant, but still seems to be a bad approach in the long-run.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
It is always easy for a person who dislikes a platform to make it look bad and point out why it is bad. Text Books are no exception an author who doesn't particular care for an OS even though they are try to objective, will often get their feelings about it in some way or another either by ignoring the fact, giving negative examples, or use negativity resining to explain the features of an other product, "Example: Linux was designed in part because of the shortcomings in windows." While I don't say that Windows is Bad it is implied that Linux is better then windows, Implying that windows sucks. So I probably is best is to concentrate on your platforms strong points and not on its opponents week points, Thus saving yourself from a flame war with your boss. What works best for me is that I compare OS's to Tools Windows is a Hammer and Linux is like a screw driver. They do essentially the same thing put a piece of metal in wood. But they do it differently and having different tradeoffs. Most bosses can understand tradeoffs vs. Better and Worse because with better and worse flame wars occure when speaking about Tradeoffs then it seems much more level headed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The article does a good job of picking the misleading and false statements about Unix and Linux in various leading textbooks.
And these are just the vague and false statements about one particular category of knowledge - the Linux OS. It begs the question: if they can be mistaken about this area and not taken the time to get their facts straight, what other areas are getting hand-waving instead of well-researched facts?
More than anything else, this points out some embarrassing shortcomings in these textbooks. Professors picking textbooks for their students would do well to pick better ones than these.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
It used to be political regimes that adultered the curriculums with indoctrination, nowdays, like everything else, it has become a business!
Fortunately there a growing number of Maverick enterprises, in all sectors, that are learing that success comes best by not following the rules. I guess that is what the lawyers are supposed to prevent;-)
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Eeee, could it be because you don't get kickbacks when somethings free??
(Runs, ducks for cover!!)
Mod +5 Drunk
I was once told by an MBA that in order for my consulting services to be valued more, I should raise my rates. People automatically think that they get what they pay for, therefor a free distro can't be worth as much as an XP or Solaris license.
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
Never have I once come across a mention of Microsoft (except maybe in the History section (Xenix)) any any of the classic books by Tanenbaum, Stevens, et al.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
However, I'll be the first to admit that most of the MIS-related courses gave only sparse mention of Linux. I think students in general are aware of Linux's existence, but little more than that. Were it up to them to make a platform decision after the basic business degree program, I'm sure that most students would sadly be grossly uninformed about Linux and OSS, and therefore drift over to the familiar Windows environments.
Could it be that many PHB's fear the penguin because of the illogical, emotionally-based arguments so many Linux zealots constantly use to push their agenda? I mean, many of the nutcases I've heard from speak of Linux like the coming of some New World Order, reminiscent of how Communists pitched their ideas back during the fifties. PHB's take one look at people like that and say "there's no way in hell I'm going to trust someone so emotionally involved in this to make a valid business decision."
There have been an increasing number of articles, posts, and so forth coming from notable people in the Linux community pointing out how the zealotry is really becoming a serious impediment to further Linux progress. In particular, they cite many Linux zealot's inability to take any sort of constructive criticism and their steadfast belief that the users should conform to the OS instead of the other way around. They say this is bad for Linux, and I think they're right on.
Microsoft is using this irrational zealot behavior to convince more PHB's that Linux is some kind of cult, not just an operating system. The more outspoken the zealots are, the more they hurt things.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I work for a Fortune 100 telecom company who isn't terribly pro-linux. But one day I counted up all the open-sourced software we use on a daily basis, there's a ton of it... if someone ripped OSS software away from us, we'd be in a world of hurt.
Our CIO is a sharp guy, understands that Linux is the appropriate technical answer to several of the problems we have, and understands the value of open-source software in genereal. The problem is, we got _the letter_, and he's understadably not interested in becoming a headline-making company for the wrong reasons. It's annoying and frustrating, but until SCO gets slapped down hard and goes away, we have to consider the legal/political aspect as well as the technical merits. Yes, it's BS. Yes, their claims are worthless, but yes, he has chosen not to put us at risk as a target of SCO. He expressed the same frustration that we techies are feeling.
If SCO is just a shill for Microsoft, and is trying to delay the inevitable slide away from Windows, well, in our case, it's having some of that effect. If they're not doing this as an agent of Microsoft, well, it has the same effect.
"Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely their fault."
This is the first paragraph of the article. Now think about this. Basically what it says is that whatever the system (in this case educational institutions) feed them, that is what they believe. It is very sad to see that many professionals in fact do not spend the time to learn about their field outside of what is fed to them in the classroom. Their educational diet is pretty bad. If one really wants to know everything one can about a particular field, then one should take the time to read that which lies outside of the institution where they are learning it. Btw, this also shows how corporations are integrated with the education system. Never trust just one source for all your facts.
True, it isn't entirely the fault of the student, but what do we do about it? One idea comes to mind, find more sources for information besides just a book your school was encouraged to buy.
There is hope though. Linux is one very powerful example of how the internet has changed the way we find information and work together on common goals.
Question everything.
I think he pretty identified the primary reason Linux has been slow to catch on in mainstream business.
It's all fun having a bunch of geeks get together and talk about how great Howard Dean is and how c00| Linux is; but we're still very nieve when it comes to educating the decision makers in the world. I'd love to seem some discussion about how to get Linux written up in more business textbooks. I would have thought the RHAT IPO and IBM would have helped this; but wow that article showed that misconsceptions still abound.
and you don't extensively cover OSS, the most significant movement in computing today..if you don't cover linux, which effectively runs the web, you're not doing your job. End of story.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
How many times is Windows mentioned in these books? Our author does not include this in the article so if were making comparisons lets at least know the other side.
Traditionally Unix and Linux have bastions in CompSci departments and MIS departments have skewed to the Windows world. Microsoft has heavily infuenced US business schools with low priced licensing and faculty sponsored research, Linux does not have this advantage. Alos, I would mention that Linux+Unices only have 8% of the marketplace while Windows occupies 85% therefore if Linux/Unix have 3 references and you see more then 30 references for Windows then it really is out of whack with reality.
Outside of Slashdot and in the real world, Linux is a minority group, (not to say it will always be that way) and therefore will have less coverage because of it. (I am a fan of Trance music but I do not complain that my local Best Buy does carry the kind of selection I can get in a Miami independent record store devoted to Trance/Dance music). The store and also the author of these books are playing to the largest segment of the population. I would take a guess that more people know how to manipulate digital pictures on a computer then know how to use a Unix-based system.
Finally, university textbooks are NOTORIOUS for being behind the curve when it comes to new developments in fields so you can't really fault the books for being behind the times when it comes to Linux, it is only since 1999-2000 that Linux began to get real traction in the marketplace.
I guess what I am getting at is that maybe we shouldn't teach them anything about IT or programming. Maybe we should teach them how to be humble enough to ask for advice from those of us who know that stuff, instead of pretending they know everything? I know we can be just as biased, but lets say you have a few knowledgeable employees, ask them all and make your best decision from that. I don't know how to manage others or run a business, I wouldn't try without getting input from someone who does first, why should they?
The noted symptoms are indicative of problems in education in general, not necessarily specific to MIS. Keep in mind that it takes a while for a textbook to get written, edited & published. Then it takes time to get it approved for use & curricula to be developed, then you have to wait for the next semester / school year to start. If you were to publish a current, accurate textbook today, you'd be lucky to get it into a classroom before fall 2005. Those students wouldn't likely hit the market until 2007.
Now take a look at the mainstream press & how long it takes them to catch up to whats current in IT. If the journalists that cover this stuff on a daily basis take their sweet time opening their minds to new software / OSes / development styles, etc. how long do you think it will take a textbook publisher, much less a professor?
When I was in college around the beginning of the last decade, the best class I had used business week to drive discussions. It was a great way to get up to speed with the current issues facing business. We were discussing biotech as 'the next big thing'. Note that this was back around the same time that Linus was writing the 1.0 kernel. The 3.5" floppy drive was taking over as a new standard. Internet? WTF is an internet?
If you want to get current information to wet-behind-the-ears MBA/MIS types, you have to figure out how to convince academians that they need to have flexible curricula that changes as fast as technology. Not necessarily follow the bleeding edge, but find a periodical that will cover a wide range of tech issues.
The problem isn't with the textbooks, per se, but with the academic institutions that continue to use old, out of date textbooks - which, in the tech field, any published textbook would be!
I would have asked her who her instructor was, and then contacted that instructor to ask about the possibility about doing a guest lecture on Linux and FLOSS in general.
:)
The questions posed by the instructor indicate stunning amounts of cluelessness that, being involved in a LUG, would be almost a civic duty for you to clear up.
Jason.
IT's funny since most of the hard core business operations run on either Mainframes (running MVS with UNIX System Services), a commercial UNIX, or Linux/FreeBSD (for slightly smaller apps) etc.
How about a book called: "O'Reilly's Using UNIX/Linux guide for MBAs"
Funny, at work, the senior Oracle DBA is a huge proponent of Solaris and AIX on big machines. He's almost done with his MBA. But then again he used to be a UNIX/AIX System Admin.
Hey, it's not just higher education.
2 years ago, I had the option of sending my kid to a better public grade school; I decided to test the waters by meeting with a few of the teachers.
I asked "what was the major cause of the U.S. Civil War?"
and "is the U.S. a republic, or a democracy? whats the difference?"
The answers literally scared me. in both schools, near identical, both wrong.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
And yes, when things break, there's some flagellation, especially if it breaks X, but I've usually been able to recover through basic troubleshooting I've learned in the Windows world.
As an MCSE with some Linux experience, do I recommend Linux to my bosses? Sure, but with many caveats, including buying commercial versions with commercial support and understanding what role Linux can play in an organization -- usually not as a Microsoft replacement.
My advice is to stop making Linux the "elite" operating system. If an "instruction-manual-following monkey" can get the system up and doing what it's supposed to, mission accomplished.
Most non-geeks have no clue, period. I'm constantly hearing from mostly educated people that they're having a problem using "Microsoft" or "Adobe", by which they usually mean Word or Excel in the first case and either Acrobat Reader or Photoshop in the latter case. But it could be just about anything. People simply have no clue how their computers work, they just see the brand names everywhere so that's what they remember.
HOWEVER, people aren't entirely hopeless. If you sit down with them with a clear idea of what you're trying to explain, and explain that thing calmly and clearly in terms they can relate to, most will pick some of it up. If you calmly explain it a few more times, still keeping to terms they can understand, they'll get even more of it. We, the geeks, are the educators. The market and the education system has no desire to talk about something that doesn't make them piles of money.
If we treat people with respect and keep our ideas clear, they will listen most of the time. Stick to real world examples that have or can affect them. If you can't come up with a real world example, maybe you should go back and rethink whatever idea you're trying to explain. If it doesn't affect them at all, why are you harping on it?
Geeks are capable of changing the world, one non-geek at a time. Just have patience.
Illinois Institute of Technology has a business school that offers an Information Systems program. I'd figure that there would be some synergies between the geek-side and the white-collar drone side of the school. I was wrong.
.NET.
The textbooks rarely mentioned UNIX or VMS unless it was during a discussion of ancient legacy database or EDI systems or a treatise on the history of client-server computing. There were courses that were specifically slanted toward certain products like Visual Basic, and ASP, with no mention of Delphi or PHP. Database discussions and case studies involving databases were always about Oracle or Microsoft products. There was never a mention of MySQL or PostgreSQL. Linux only came up because my boyfriend is an advocate. We'd discuss equivalent Linux technologies with professors. Those professors who were interested only felt that it wasn't worth it to try to teach those technologies to students since the students want to learn these sexy enterprise computing acronyms like ASP and
To make things worse, the entire school network had been rebuilt using all Microsoft technologies on the front end and a couple of IRIX or SunOS systems on the back far away from prying eyes. The result was a complete divorcing of UNIX from all aspects of computing among the student body with the effect of new students not being exposed to anything but Microsoft Windows (including thin clients). This bothers me a lot since I feel my UNIX and VAX experience has helped shaped my understanding of computing more than what Windows has done.
There is a perception of UNIX and Linux being institutionalized in the university system. UNIX is what was whereas Windows is what will be. Linux is for local chapter ACM members who have long hair and date ugly girls. Windows is for businessmen who drive luxury cars and get blowjobs from beautiful women they hardly know. UNIX is a typewriter in the age of Microsoft Office. UNIX is that mysterious blue box (SGI Indy) sitting in a basement office serving the school's webmail system, and the VAX is a hobbled workhorse that's being put out of its misery as I type.
*Bang* Hear that? That was the sound of six years worth of my emails being erased forever as a VAX completes its last process.
My advice is to stop making Linux the "elite" operating system. If an "instruction-manual-following monkey" can get the system up and doing what it's supposed to, mission accomplished.
Look, I'm not trying to criticize people that aren't using Linux. I'd say that it takes an equally long period of time to *really know* Windows. I just think that fewer people *really know* Windows. I know probably one person that *really knows* Windows, but I've run into many *IX admins that know an *IX system inside out.
And I've seen clueless *IX admins as well, so I'm certainly not trying to make a statement about all admins on either platforms.
How many Windows admins know (and I'm not a serious Windows guy, so I'm sure I'm missing crucial tools) Dependency Walker, Regmon, and Filemon around, for those times when *something* has changed and things aren't working? How many people could fix a system where Explorer has started refusing to boot, or would know what to start doing? What if a file association mysteriously didn't show up in Explorer and applications couldn't register that association all of a sudden? What if an admin password goes missing? What if some user tries installing Linux and blows away the Windows boot loader? I'm sure there are tons of Active Directory weirdnesses that a Real Windows Guru will know how to deal with that I can't even begin to describe.
The thing is, I really think that the only way to learn a system is to use it. A lot. And fix it when something goes wrong. And it's really hard to do that if your primary system is Windows and most of the problems someone has you fix are Windows-based. The same would go for a Mac OS X fan who maintains a Windows server or two or (me, a Linux guy) for maintaining a major Windows installation at a Fortune 500 company. It'd be silly. It'd not because I'm stupid, it's just because I can't learn everything about admining a Windows system in a week or probably even six months. And because Linux is new, a lot of admins are being handed a training course, and expected to be able to fix all problems. Their bosses are going to expect that if something goes down, the system will be back up again shortly. So suddenly there is this huge mass of newbie Linux admins expected to handle critical Linux systems. A lot of them have no interest in ever learning more, and are going to stay right at that level.
The fact that you're running Linux at home makes a pretty strong statement that you're interested in doing more than just yanking out the manual and never learning more than the ten things you had to do the last time something went wrong. Same would go for someone running MS Exchange or Solaris or Photoshop at home to learn it -- they aren't just doing the bare minimum to get by.
May we never see th