“The recent announcement of Gates’ resignation as the CEO of
Microsoft, and the subsequent flood of articles from several
different sources promptly published on Linux Today and several
other Linux-related sites, tends to bring to mind a single, plain
question: who really cares?“
“What, if any, bearing does this week’s “Microsoft Interesting
News Item” have to do with Linux? Why do we fundamentally care
about the Outlook exploit-of-the-week, why do we care about how
much IE sucks or doesn’t suck? Why do we care if Microsoft’s stock
price rockets, making its investors rich, or drops like a stone?
Why do we now care about Windows’ market share?…”
“But enough stupid rhetoric. The answer should be obvious:
Windows and Microsoft is Linux’s perceived competitor. It is nearly
impossible in the news media today to see Microsoft mentioned in a
sentence without seeing the word “Linux” also mentioned, usually
within a paragraph or two. Windows and Linux are competing on a few
fronts, to varying degrees: developer and company mindshare,
Internet servers, embedded devices, desktop machines, and so
on.”