[KLUG Advocacy] This from Internet Week

[Adam Williams]

> Actually, I would be much more interested in your response to the
> article to which he was responding, at
> http://www.internetweek.com/webDev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10700411

Ok.

"A few months ago I was asked by a major publication to take the Windows
side of a Linux vs. Windows debate. The arguments raised by the writer
on the Linux side revolved around fuzzy political, almost religious,
concepts like freedom of choice and the need to be counted in the
battle"

First off, I find it terrifying that there are so many people who view
sociological issues as "fuzzy" and who use "religious" in a purely
pejorative sense.  One gets the strong urge to whack them over the head
with the thickest history book at hand.  Society, and certain the
ability to maintain technological developement, rests upon a foundation
of ideals and precepts that are anything but "fuzzy".  The societies of
Stalin an Papa Doc rested on different "fuzzy" principles.  Ask all the
people who died from all that fuzz. And if someone compared me in any
way to Mother Theresa, personally I'd think they're nuts, but I wouldn't
feel put down;  Yea, dedicating your life to a good cause - what a silly
thing to do, she must have been pretty stupid.

"against the Microsoft monopoly. I found this somewhat entertaining
since she is a CIO and IT organizations generally don't give their users
a lot of choice."

Miss the point much?  The organization has choice, and that choice
doesn't affect the individual persons choice, only the "user" context of
that person.  How many have computers, even networks, at home?  Open
standards and practised protect the choice of individuals and aggregates
of individuals (corporations).

"The Linux folks can certainly argue, sometimes viciously, for their
platform. But when asked to come up with strong, well founded, business
arguments, they too often go mute, or begin what often turns into the
mother of all flame battles with little real content."

This is true, in regards to much that goes on in places like
linux-advocacy.  But I think there are lots of ROI studies, etc..., that
make concrete arguments.  Ask Oracle for some, I'm certain they will
happily oblige.  Unfortunetaly I think the author is not a real member
of the IT community, where people have long technical threads about
implementations, etc... but yet another consultant who sees only the
noisey swirling surface of the sphere, and not the furnace that drives
it from within (where people like Linus Torvalds blast bad ideas and
weak arguments to bits on a regular basis).

"Linux is a good platform, well understood, and widely distributed."

Yep

"It is backed by practitioners, particularly students, who defend it"

I find the 'paritcularly students' part rather interesting.  So far I
haven't managed to locate this contingent of Linux rabble rousers.  All
students I meet, including from IT programs, are "Linux? Huh, yeah I've
heard of that"

"with great vigor. It is actively replacing Unix and MacOS as the"

Yep

"contrarians' platform of choice and owes its success largely to the"

Contrarians?  I'm not a contrarian - I want something that works NOW, is
cost effective, and will continue to work TOMORROW (without massive
upgrades and component replacement).

"failures of these earlier platforms to run on multiple hardware
vendors' systems in a consistent fashion."

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any platform that runs on multiple
hardware vendors systems in a consistent fashion - except Linux.  Cause
Windows runs on how many platforms?  Oh, right, ONE.

"Linux is also attractive because it is not from Microsoft."

In a sense that the license protects ME instead of THEM yes.

"However, Linux is in many ways a throwback to more primitive systems."

Yes, it is.  An Microsoft Windows isn't?  Drive letters anyone?  But
that doesn't really matter.  Maybe he should check out things like Open
Office (as a server process not as an application), Bonobo, GNOME-Db,
Mono, JBoss, Tomcat, Beowulf,.......  Yes, Linux can and often is used
in a throw-back capacity;  but that by no means defines Linux's limits.

"Not only is it repeating the mistakes of its predecessors, it"

Not certain what those mistakes are?

"apparently is introducing a brand new set of problems, having to do
with intellectual property."

It has?  This is an unsubstantiated claim.  And Microsoft doesn't create
intellectual property problems?  Well, no, not for Microsoft!  Creates a
few for the end user however.  Oh, look!!!! We are back to those *fuzzy*
issues like owner ship of ideas, etc...  Huh, I guess they matter more
than he thought.