On 03/09/2001 08:25:42 AM Stephen Stafford wrote: >> rant or the outright inaccuracies in her article). She seems to be under the >> impression that linux is supposed to be a desktop operating system. It is >> not, it is a server operating system, and people like myself and probably >> yourself who like computers and like playing with the innards of your >> hardware and software are happy to use it as a desktop. I fail totally to >> see why a rant like that should be perpetrated on something because it fails >> to be what it is not and was not designed to be (although it is slowly >> evolving towards this, hopefully without losing any of the power). This is >> like ranting at an apple for not being a strawberry.
Bringing us back on the topic of debian-curiosa, could you provide any pointers proving that Linux "is a server operating system" or that it was not designed to be desktop OS? Maybe some policy documents? And do you have any pointers as to whom is it that designed it not to be a desktop operating system, or any design factors in that? I'd love to know why Linux can't be a desktop OS, because then that would prove me and my users don't exist, and that would be a good laugh for me. Also do you have any job descriptions for a secretary or a typist or a telco technician that specifies that the user has to partition hard drives and install OSes? In fact, where I work its technically a fire-able offense for non-IS people to install software on company owned PCs due to concerns about licenses, etc. It's an urban legend I've always been interested in, because first of all, its a very stereotypical UL in that theres never any logical explanation or citable sources, and its also a very long lived UL in that it never seems to die. Finally that UL claims that me and my users don't exist, and people are always interested in claims that they don't exist. As far as I know, there is no widely accepted definition of a "server operating system". It's always awful hard to prove something is a member of a group that doesn't exist (except maybe in a marketing department's mind). As far as I can tell, whomever the individual is who decided for the entire free software community that Linux is not supposed to be used on the desktop, totally failed. There's tons of user level applications out there, and user support packages like window managers, so I guess we need to discipline those authors for not obeying their leader, or discipline the unknown leader for not forcing his or her developers to obey and only work on server programs. I hate to rant on it over and over, but part of my job is designing, installing and supporting linux based systems for "non-technical" users. It's highly frustrating to me to see endless posts with no proof and plenty of FUD that basically claim my users and my job don't exist. Hello, my users and I exist. You may not like it. You may not agree that we should "be allowed" to exist. But we do. Deal with it, and get over it. In the department that I work in, Debian is on the average user's desktop TODAY and has been for several years. Maybe your company will catch up with us some day, but ours is there NOW. That's why I disagree with the original author's web-article. It's like picking on a flat-earth claim because it has grammatical errors, the real problem is a total lack of clue at the most basic level, not a minor superficial error.
