“Operating systems, for various reasons, generate a kind of
religious fervor. Proponents of Unix and the Macintosh OS have been
like this for some time. There have been OS/400 believers, VAX/VMS
believers and OS/2 believers. Take those fundamental passions and
focus them on an individual — Torvalds — and you can begin to
understand the Linux and open-source phenomenon.”
“Of course, every movement worth its salt needs an enemy. This
role is neatly filled by Bill Gates. Only a few years ago, Gates
was the enfant terrible tweaking the nose of the company everyone
loved to hate, IBM. Now Gates has become the target. He opened
Spring Comdex with a trademark keynote complete with studied
casualness, slick and entertaining videos, impressively staged
demos and scripted humor. He spoke before a packed auditorium, and
while there was not much hard news, it was entertaining
enough.”
“Torvalds, meanwhile, wearing a blue denim shirt and jeans,
spoke in an unstudied style at a hard-to find, jammed-to-the
rafters meeting room full of followers. He said distributions of
Version 2.2 of Linux are becoming available and that Linux would
support Merced as soon as that processor ships.”