“Generally speaking, our view of a person, initiative or company
often comes from select perceptions. If you read Slashdot, for
example, even regular participants seem to comment that much of the
discussion there is not based on what people have personally
perceived but on what they have read about others people’s
perceptions. Often, even these perceptions are based on second- or
third-hand knowledge. My impression is that the vast majority of
folks who are critical of my own columns have actually done a very
good job avoiding actually reading them.“But just as many perceptions are colored by the opinions of
what appears to be a large number of uninformed individuals, my
perceptions–and the perceptions of several of us in the media–are
colored in much the same way, and probably by some of the same
people. So I thought it might be useful to share how my perception
of Linux has been created over the last several months by a
minority of those who back Linux. In reading this column, many of
you might see similarities to how you formed impressions about
Apple, Linux and even Microsoft…”