This article is probably one of the best I've read

[linuxgeekery]

I was just recently browsing the gentoo forums - specifically the "What will we do to keep up with Longhorn?" one. I found a link to this great article in that thread. It really hits the spot on the explination of OSS/Linux vs Windows/Closed source.

Take a looksie: http://linuxinit.net/news-showfull-1126399511--1.htm

EDIT: I'm wrong, the article posted above wasn't written by the person who posted it. It's a cleaned up version. (Thanks for the pointer, linuxinit! It's still a good article, you just made it a bit better. )

Original article: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm


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[sundialsvc4]

Yeah, that's a really nice article.

And it gets me thinking ... maybe it is time for my first Harley-Davidson.

Seriously... I like this article, very much, because it doesn't "bash Windows" while explaining why Linux is so fundamentally different from it.

It would have been very delightful if the author had also considered what Macintosh OS/X is doing these days, because "what OS/X is doing these days" is, I think, very important and very useful for the Linux community to observe. Their system is based entirely upon Unix, and it is portable between architectures, and it is much easier to "figure out how to do something without cracking a manual." Also, the OS/X system is comparatively new, at least "as a system" or "as a delivered consumer product." What they're doing is demonstrating that something very "geeky," like Unix, can be made to be quite serviceable in the hands of my grandmother.

It is very, very easy to heap praises upon Windows simply because it was first. (Mac users and Xerox SPARC uber-geeks, please don't quibble... it was the first to hit mainstream.) Now that Windows has competition that is both strong and good, both Windows and the company which created it aren't looking so good anymore. Even though OS/X and Linux are newcomers to "the old Windows game," in an awful lot of ways they do look very good. It may take a little more time for the Windows user community (and the hardware sellers) to grok that "now, at last, true competition exists," but once they do so, they won't show any lingering loyalties to anyone. (Not even Linux.)

Right now, Microsoft has been the beneficiary of "being the only game in town," with the consequence that they have fallen into the trap of "if it's what we supply, it's what our customers want." (Or, "who cares what our customers want? They'll get what we supply!") There are all sorts of equally-incorrect variations on this:

• "Nobody has complained yet... so..."
• "The customer isn't smart enough to want more."
• "The customer can't think of a better way on his own."
• "It's always been this way..."

Exactly the sort of reasoning that caused the recording industry to stare dumbly at the Internet, enabling Steve Jobs & Co. to look miraculously brilliant. (While the customers observed, "Find a need. It's right there. Fill it. Duh.")

What we all need to do is to ... look back at the customer. First of all, there's more than one kind of customer out there. One of them is my grandmother. Another one of them is me. Yet another one is you, whoever you are. Any "one size fits all" solution isn't going to work. "What used to work," or even "what works now," is now irrelevant. The hardware that we may use is just as different, potentially, as the applications that we have for our hardware to do. Any "sole source, one way, my way or the highway" solution isn't going to work. We're all going to have to cooperate to meet this fractuous, diverse, and increasingly well-informed customer's true requirements. No one .. not Microsoft, not Apple, not Linux, not anybody .. is ever going to "own the pie." No one country. No multinational corporation. This business is nothing at all like cable-TV. It's a new way of business and not always terribly profitable. But it's terribly important.

[linuxinit]

Wow! Thanks guys. I just cleaned up an article by somebody else. I actually started on my own... But then I saw that and was like OH HELL YES! RIGHT ON!

The original author deserves the credit, not me:
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

All my Linux crap on there (what little I have) is for Slackware. I'm about to start back on Linux tutorials and all (for Gentoo!). The things that seem to be most popular (most outside hits) are my PHP and Linux crap (mainly http://linuxinit.net/site/downloads/tutorials/e17/). So I really should get back on the ball and get more stuff pushed out. I'm just lazy (and low on time).

So...

If anybody wants tutorials/videos of crap... PM me and I'll put something up. :D

[linuxgeekery]