Forbes' Dan Lyons Hates Groklaw, Wants to Be BFF with Linux

Anastasia Beaverhousen writes "In what many will consider either a total change of heart (or complete BS), Forbes columnist Dan Lyons was caught on video by Linux.com (also owned by Sourceforge) at a recent conference professing his undying love for Linux. The words, "pry it out of my hands at gunpoint" were even used at one point. 'After wading though some of the Lyons vs. PJ mire while writing this brief piece, I found myself wondering, "Aren't we all supposed to be grown-up journalists, or bloggers, or whatever? Aren't Linux and Free Software supposed to be about love and harmony and making the world a better place? Can't we, please, smile on our brother, everybody love one another, right now?" In any case, old-hippie sentiments aside, Dan Lyons says that despite the many attacks on him as a supposedly anti-Linux attack dog, he loves Linux. And uses it. And that he has trouble understanding why anyone would think he doesn't love Linux. '"

Comments

Re:Who is this guy, and why should i care?

[Facetious]

Yeah, PJ expressed some similar sentiment. Still, I would prefer Lyons' half-hearted (or career saving) apology to Rob Enderle's ego driven life-story non-apology any day.

Re:So is dan a long-haired smelly communist now?

[MightyMartian]

He's also a stock scam promoter. Let's never forget that he's sleeze from end to the other. What a pathetic and worthless piece of shit. Forbes deserves this crap-pile of a man.

Re:The real story...

[osu-neko]

Yup. LAMP on the servers, OS X on the dev box, Windows on the fun box (with all my favorite PC games installed). Windows is on the dev box too, although usually running under Parallels, and generally not that often. For various reasons, I happen to like all three operating systems. I've never understood why liking one of them is supposed to make me hate one or both of the other two. Nor do I want some uber-system that would supposedly take the best of all three and give me everything I want in one package. People don't understand that there are trade-offs in any design, and no matter which way you go, it'll make it better in some situations and worse in others. There is not and never can be a single OS that works best for all people in all situations. Better to have diversity, and use the best tool for each task at hand.

Incidentally, this makes for a quick and easy touchstone for judging someone's intelligence and reasonability. Ask them, "What's the best X?" If they answer with anything other than a question, "Best for what?", they're probably an unintelligent or unreasoning zealot of some sort or another. The question itself is nonsensical -- without defining "at what", the term "best" makes no sense. The fact that the question makes sense to them and that they even have an answer is a sign of muddled thinking.