[ Thanks to Robert
McMillan for this link. ]
“There is a lot of speculation about Linux and whether and when
corporate information technology (IT) departments will really begin
to adopt it. While looking at recent studies on
operating-system usage, it struck me that Linux bears an amazing
similarity to another technology that was gradually picked up by
corporate IT in the 1980s: the personal computer. Although the
technology itself is different, the issues and obstacles are still
the same.”
“Back in the 1980s, corporate data-processing groups shunned the
personal computer. They said that it was a toy and couldn’t be used
for real work. Furthermore, no corporate support personnel was
trained to support PCs. Most of the computing workload for large
organizations was handled by mainframes and minicomputers.”
“Regardless of what the data-processing (DP) folks said, those
who had actually bought PCs knew that they could make life at work
much easier. So, they started sneaking PCs into the office. “Since
my PC can emulate a terminal,” the thinking went, “the DP people
won’t ever know that my terminal is mothballed in the broom
closet.”