ZDNet’s Henry Kingman has a Pogo moment as he meets the enemy
and discovers it isn’t Microsoft, it’s the need to dominate
computing… Linux enthusiasts who didn’t catch the tongue-in-cheek
part of “world domination,” included:
“While a lot of Linux and free software creators are
probably just motivated to write good code, I think others really
hope to free the computing industry and all computer users from the
kind of bullying and domination that Microsoft has exemplified.
They seek to do this not by turning the tables on Microsoft and
themselves dominating the industry and the users. That’s
absurd–you can’t dominate anything by letting people take stuff
for free. Rather, they seek to provide for those who can’t afford
or just don’t want to buy from a domineering company.I remember the first time I figured this out. I was reading the
home page of one of Linus’ University pals, Lars Wirzenius’s, I
think, sometime around 1997. At the bottom, there was a kind of
little footnote or colophon that said, “This page was written using
Notepad on a Microsoft Windows system.” This, in turn, linked to a
short essay explaining that Microsoft would always have its place
as long as it continued to make products that people like. Lars,
for example, found Notepad on Windows perfectly adequate for making
little Web pages, and could everyone please chill out with the
Microsoft bashing.No single company, not even Microsoft, is the enemy. Domination
is. If a customer likes Microsoft products and doesn’t feel
unfairly dominated when they patronize the company, then no one is
compromised in the exchange.”