Bells & Whistles

“What’s – heck, why not? – the ‘killer app’ that’s
going to get the world excited about Linux?

“The best answer to these questions? There aren’t any. There is
no single feature to adorn the covers of magazines. There’s no
whizzbang gadget to turn the computing world on its head. Instead,
the major appeal of Linux, for me anyway, is that it’s content to
be an operating system. It’s got no ideas of grandeur. It doesn’t
want fame and fortune. Its name doesn’t belong on billboards right
across the planet, and neither is it going to be sponsoring
anything major, getting name-checked by ‘celebrities’ or promoted
as if it’s the moment that the apple fell down on Sir Isaac
Newton’s head.

“Watching the carnival of publicity for both Mac OS X Snow
Leopard and Windows 7, I can’t help but think that the world has
forgotten just what an operating system is for.”

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