Why not Linux?

[Evan Leibovitch]

Rick Tomaschuk wrote:
>> I just think it is more appropriate on a Linux list to discuss the 
>> goodness of our chosen OS than to be forever putting down the "other 
>> guy." It makes us all look bad in the eyes of potential converts. Hasn't 
>> anyone noticed all the misguided UNSUBSCRIBERS lately?
>>     

> Sorry if I've offended some. I believe the only way to deal with  some of the walking, breathing, human garbage out there is to expose their methods. For the faint of heart we have:
> http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Advocacy.html
>   

The general approach in the world of FOSS is to make the best possible 
software possible, regardless of the progress of any particular brand X. 
I heartily advise folks here to read interviews with Linus Torvalds to 
see how irrelevant Microsoft can be to the development process.

Having said that, those of us who try to encourage the use of FOSS can't 
help but be confronted by folks who have built their careers on using 
brand x and aren't about to switch any time soon. For some time now, the 
biggest obstacles to the adoption of FOSS (not just Linux but open 
source applications) have included inertia and fear of the unknown.

Rick, like many long-timers here, understands this. Talking about the 
entrenched leader is unavoidable when dealing with advocacy/marketing, 
as we constantly encounter small minds who support the status quo quite 
deliberately to protect their own careers or accidentally because they 
don't know any better (or have been led astray by others with vested 
interests against change).

I wouldn't characterize the people we're dealing with as garbage, or as 
asleep as another message suggested. To do so is to needlessly insult, 
it enforces the stereotype of FOSS advocates as elitists, AND it 
suggests a grave error in underestimating the skill or drive of those 
whose minds we're trying to change.

To assert that people reject FOSS out of ignorance (or stupidity) is a 
big mistake; to use that assumption as a foundation for strategy is a 
guarantee of failure.

- Evan

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml