NY Times on "the Fragmentation of Linux"

Weramona writes "The Times is running an article on the possibility of Balkanization of Linux, due to commercialization. To be fair, both sides are presented, and it isn't all that sensationalist. The article is aimed rather low ("Unix was created in 1969 by..."). What's funny to me is, a couple months ago, this was a favorite "Damn the Man" conspiracy theory on /. " Its the times so you need a free account to read the story, but its a pretty good piece so its worth it.

Comments

some evidence...

[Darth Maul]

Well, the fact that everyone can make their own
distro is good for us hard-core Linux types, but
bad for the general user.

A week ago I went into the local Best Buy store,
and went to the Linux section just to see what
all they had. There was a lady there who looked
confused, and just kept picking up different
distro boxes, not sure which to buy.

I felt bad, because she can go right over to the
windoze section, and buy *the* windoze 98 box.
She had no idea that SuSe, RedHat, OpenLinux,
et al were all just Linux.

In that regards, this is a Bad Thing[tm], because
it confuses the average Joe user. I do think
there would be some advantage to having The Linux
Distrubution.

Now I'm sure you'll all reply "well we don't want
people that don't know to buy Linux!", but if
we want global desktop domination, this spread
of distros will NOT help. People don't like
actually doing research when it comes to
technology. They want to be told what to buy or
have no choice. Hence the popularity of windoze.

A plea for cooperation among FUD vendors

[amorsen]

I'm concerned.

The balkanization of FUD is causing numerous problems, most importantly several not quite compatible variants of FUD. I have seen FUD from one company saying that since Linux is free it is worthless, and FUD from a different company saying that Linux is in fact more expensive to deploy than, say, Windows.

I think it is important that all producers of FUD work together so that needless incompatibilities can be avoided. It is of course important for vendors to be able to differentiate their FUD in the market, but this needs not cause incompatibility. I applaud the efforts that Microsoft does to provide basic FUD to VAR's such as ZD and NY Times, who are then able to add their spin, creating different but compatible FUD.


Benny