@John Helms
Bypassing the more pointless flame-throwing let's address the issues.
[...]
> First off, what technicians and programmers often fail to appreciate is a simple sociological fact: organizations often can bring much more staying power and focus to bear on problems than a loose collection of individual(ists). [...]
> All "organizations" tend to do is throw money at problems until some of it sticks against the wall in the form of a solution, usually mediocre. All the while individuals were offering cost effective better solutions and being ignored by the "organization" above them.
Good rant. First off it's beside the point. You, in typical enthousiast fashion, fell over your feet interpreting it as an attack on the "Bazar" form of software development. It isn't. It's much wider, but it (specifically* applies to marketing and propaganda, which is how I used it to explain Microsoft's pervasive campaign against Linux in my post.
Secondly, it's good to see you look up unfamiliar words. The meaning you are looking for is the first one. Now re-read my post with your newly found definition of "sociological" and give some thought to how big organizations go about marketing, branding, and using media outlets.
> You see, Microsoft is simply doing all it can to delay, derail, and avoid adoption of Linux and with it erosion of their marketshare. It's only reasonable that they should, for they stand to loose big bucks when that happens.
> Competition in the marketplace is "reasonable". Back room wheeling and dealing, threating patent lawsuits, bribing public officials etc. to derail possible technologies from ever having the chance to compete is UNREASONABLE and also illegal. I couldn't care less if they lose "big bucks". Screw em!
Nice try. Now read up on US legal history. Starting from Injuns versus Settlers, slavery and a certain protracted bar-fight over whether that ought to be legal, then skipping to the mercantile "robber barons", strike-breaking, the way US car manufacturers hobbled competition by the nations' railroads, the waterfront mafia, the way in which Standard Oil used its commercial clout, "Ma Bell", the development of anti-trust legislation and its use on Microsoft by Judge Jackson (you can Google for it).
If you do, you may find a pattern. Which is that ethics has no place (and never had) in US business or politics. Nowadays it does have a place, which is to serve (nowadays) as a convenient cop-out in case of legal trouble in the form of a "Code of Conduct" (You know, that tome filled with Maoist gibberish that your company adopted along with its "mission statement").
As long as something isn't demonstrably illegal *and* so visible as to attract prosecution, it's something that will be used. Over and over again. And that's what Microsoft is doing, Ok?
And by the way, since when was using your commercial clout to disincentivize "the channel" or public officials from offering other people's products "illegal" eh?
So: no need to act all surprised over it and go off in a tizzy shouting "Jihad Jihad". Which is my main point.
> We knew that. But perhaps some people (like FOSS enthousiasts) didn't quite realize the implications.
> [...] Spell them out in plain english.
Some people need things spelled out to them. Others need a diagram too. Then there are people who don't go into shock when reading the word "implications", and who *don't* need to be tutored in what it means.
> Well ... they are finding out [...]
> HOBBY!!!! [...] So those above are the "implications" you were referring to eh? We Linux users are "irresponsible nerds who like to stuff their hobby down people's throat with no regard for end-users or management while Microsoft, the Blessed Saints that they are, would never do such a "irresponsible" thing as "stuffing" their products down "end-users or management"s throat???
Got it in one. It's only echoed around the noosphere in a thousand places by Microsoft salespeople, subsidised publicists, lazy journalists, and lazier execs. And reinforced by a vocal section of Linux enthousiasts. I knew you were perceptive.
> Quite to the contrary. Microsoft has a loooong history of doing exactly that.
> http://grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history
> And thats the SHORT version!
Yup. And? Does it detract from their marketshare? Is the way Linux and its supporters are painted any less effective or suggestive?
Since you're such an attentive student I'll give you something more. It's necessary to understand the publicitary mechanism Microsoft uses in order to be able to effectively counter it. Rants won't do that. Sobriety will. In fact, rants are counter-productive, because they allow anyone opposing you to put you away as a crazed hobbyist. Got it?
> Unfortunately that's not the whole problem. Nor is it the main problem. What I see as the real the problem is: this negative image of Linux enthousiasts *really* isn't Microsoft's invention. On the contrary! Instead it accurately describes a vocal section of the Linux community.
> Actually the so called "problem", for you at least, is that you think you can run around the net changing reality to suit you by proclaiming Linux supporters are "zealots' or "hobbyists" or whatever negative paintbrush you and your sycophantic Redmond fanbois are using currently without getting flambeed in return for your stupidity.
*sighs* Reading is a skill too you know. Now re-read my post and give particular thought to the following paragraph:
> "Well ... they are finding out that it means that Microsoft uses its normal PR channels: salespeople, media, and the web to promote its own brand and to put Linux adherent away as irresponsible nerds who'd like to stuff their hobby down people's throat with no regard for end-users or management problems."
There is a prize of one small bar of chocolate to anyone who can construe that as saying that *I* proclaim Linux supporters to be "hobbyists".
A hint: this is where that glass of water comes in.
> Like people who trumpet the virtues of "The Commandline" and how hapless end-users should just get used to it.
> The commandline is one of many tools used in all operating systems, even (wait for it).....Windows! As is the mouse, the GUI, the web browser etc. Get used to it genius.
*sighs* And it's well hidden in Windows, where users from the typing pool and Joe Sixpack get along quite well without it. System administrators and power-users *do* use it however, because it's powerful and can save time. But then they already know a lot about how to dig into the Operating System internals. For sysadmins it's their work. For power users it may be.
Forcing use of the command-line onto end-users forces them to learn about system administration, which to them is a pure waste of time. Hence the invention of the GUI in the eigthies and its near universal adoption in the nineties. Some people have a neigh-incurable case of nostalgia though.
And oh yes. It's a lot less work to set up a command-line environment than it is to put together a good coherent GUI. Which is why projects like KDE and Gnome take so many programming resources and so much time.
It's no use trying to try and sell the commandline just because developing a GUI is proving such hard work, and even less use trying to force end-users to deal with it, Ok?
> Or people who contend that "Linux is a way of Life", and therefore doesn't and shouldn't adapt to the needs of users or management.
> I have NEVER heard ANYONE make that claim....except you.
I don't blame you, but that you didn't hear of it doesn't mean that it isn't being held as a view.
> Or who derisively respond to simple (and sometimes admittedly stupid) questions with replies that basically echo "RTFM" in varying degrees of rudeness, or technical shorthand that only a fellow Linux enthousiast will be able to decipher.
> That would be your only somewhat correct point. Rudeness is rudeness and you are not talking about just Linux here, you are talking about a rude individual. Learn, See the Difference. (LSTD)
Well perhaps. But I think that to pass off an (in my view) generally occurring phenomenon on mailing lists as "rude individuals" is a bit of a cop-out. In this case mailing lists seem to be populated by quite a lot of rude individuals.
Be that as it may however, there is a difference between mailing lists and paid support. Paid support (while sometimes pretty darned stupid and useless) is almost always polite, and almost always ready to help. Having to rely on mailing lists for end-user support may lend disproportionate weight to vocal minorities who are rude. I believe there is a need for moderated fora, such as run by companies selling Linux, and perhaps free ones too.
I'm not saying I have an answer, I'm just pointing to a problem.
> Or a certain Windows-management project which released version 4.0 without warning that it was in fact a pre-beta. And which then went on to state that the project, not being commercial software, would continue to release part-working software for people to experience and experiment with.
[...]
> The list goes on. And on. And on.
> I'll just bet it does........
You'd win that bet. Any point you wanted to make here? My point is that when you load a GUI you expect everything you can see to actually work as advertised. What you don't expect to see is a lot of pre-beta problems. So you either bill what you release as "experimental" (the project I spoke of does that now), or you release something that works. Nothing in-between.
> And as long as it does, Microsoft will have *plenty* of ammunition to paint Linux as a hobbyist tool (as far as the desktop is concerned). That, and those people in particular, are what I regard as the greatest stumbling-block on the path to replacing MS Windows with Linux on the desktop.
> Probably not, but I have the feeling you'll just soldier on whether there was ammo or not. [...].
Spoke to your company's board or CIO about adopting Linux on, say, file-servers lately? No? Ever been present at meetings involving salespeople from Microsoft trying to pitch their stuff to the board? Try it. It might open your eyes and give you a new perspective.
> If the Linux community were somehow able to pour the same disciplined wave of energy and focus into a single polished, high-quality, end-user friendly windows manager as it did with the Kernel, Microsoft Windows would be marginalized within a year.
> (cough cough) Vista???? Result of all that "sociological" brilliance eh?!
Don't confuse the issue will you? Between them Windows XP and Windows 7 still have the desktop market sewn up. So Microsoft stumbled badly with Vista. It shows that desktops are hard to do right.
> Only it doesn't, for various reasons.
> [...] By just using those BIG words you are hoping to imply you are a flipping genius with whole volumes of important underlying information you're going to bestow upon us all by simply using such BIG and POWERFUL words?
*rolls eyes* Words like "sociological", "implications", yes? Err ... not everyone considers those "BIG" words, and not everyone is unfamiliar with them. Linux enthousiasts might be, but they too can learn.
> For years we Linux supporters have been "polite". We have bent over backwards in politeness while idiots tried to make us out as all sorts of things, zealots, hobbyists, rude, etc. etc. etc. for simply daring to point out that Linux was a good operating system. While I can't speak for other Linux supporters, THIS Linux supporter is DONE being polite to morons like that. [...].
Somehow I guessed. Which just about makes you ready to be served off as a risible "hysteric Linux hobbyist". Think that's a plus? You be the judge.
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