[svlug] Forbes on Linux helping Microsoft

[Mark S Bilk]

In-Reply-To: <20040901215151.43266.qmail at web52802.mail.yahoo.com>
Organization: http://www.cosmicpenguin.com/911

On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 02:51:51PM -0700, Anthony Ettinger wrote:
>Debian, Gentoo, Knoppix...just to name a few, which
>don't require any pricing points.

Same for the big commercial distros, SuSE, Mandrake, and Red Hat
Fedora.  Download them from the website for free, or buy one box 
and copy the disks for every computer in the company, all perfectly 
legal.  Or buy a box for every ten computers (~$8/seat) so you have
plenty of manuals.

As to support, you get better help from Usenet on Linux than from 
Microsoft on Windows, unless you pay them a huge amount of money 
per call (otherwise you're talking to some guy they hired off the
street who knows less than you do).  

Also, you don't need as much help with Linux.  It's not just that 
you have the source code, there are more built-in tools (e.g., the 
proc filesystem, lsmod, lsof, strace, etc.), and commonly and freely 
available ones (e.g., ethereal, netcat, etc.), that enable you to 
figure out what's going on.  Because it's all designed to be open 
and understandable and as easy as possible to work with, instead 
of concealed so the vendor can make a profit from everything -- 
including help calls.

And considering that Microsoft has been paying SCO, and also
the various right-wing propaganda mills like Alexis DeToqueville
Institute, to lie about Linux and make legal threats against 
its distributors and users, they are clearly much more worried 
about it than they've ever been before, and with good reason.

Not only are a few whole companies, city governments, and even 
entire countries switching to Linux, it's gaining major acceptance
in businesses in general.  This report came out over a year ago:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=IKKdnRc4fr80pM_dRVn-uA%40comcast.com

  Surveying several hundred businesses of less than 1,000
  employees, Jupiter found that 19 percent are using some
  form of Linux on their desktop computers. Six percent said
  they use OpenOffice, an open-source suite of productivity
  applications, with an additional 3 percent reporting plans to
  deploy it in their next fiscal year, according to Joe Wilcox,
  a Washington, D.C.-based Jupiter Research senior analyst.


  Open standards. Open source. Open minds.
  The command line is the front line.
    -- Kevin Nathan (Montana, USA)

  Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. 
  That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
    -- Linus Torvalds


>--- Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Linux
>> http://www.forbes.com/2004/08/31/cz_dl_0831msft.html
>> 
>> Is Linus Torvalds secretly working for Microsoft?
>> That sounds crazy until you consider that lately, the
>> free operating system he created, Linux, has been helping
>> Microsoft close deals.
>>   ...
>>
>> Torvalds' Linux kernel (the core of the operating system)
>> is 13 years old. Other parts of the operating system are
>> even older. Even if Linux does catch up, will it matter? If
>> the Linux camp simply manages to create an operating system
>> that does roughly what Windows does for roughly the same
>> price, what will be the point?
>>   ...
>>
>> Microsofties say they were more worried about Linux a few
>> years ago, when it was a truly free program, spreading on its
>> own, from user to user, like a virus. Now that Linux costs
>> real money, and is sold by buttoned-down blue suits from IBM
>> and Novell, Microsoft feels more confident. Microsoft has
>> beaten these guys, badly, in operating system wars before.
>>
>> Wow, I guess I should go back to Windows.  (Err, wait,
>> I never ran Windows before.)
>>
>> I'm eager to see this article picked apart.  Have at it. ;)
>> 
>> -bill!
>> bill at newbreedsoftware.com
>> http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/
>
>=====
>Anthony Ettinger
>Phone: (408) 656-2473
>apwebdesign at yahoo.com
>http://www.apwebdesign.com
>