RBW1 wrote:
On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 18:39, Robert Donovan wrote:
RBW1 wrote:
On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 16:54, Robert Donovan wrote:
RBW1 wrote:
Heh, interesting take...
The good news...
History is NOT over!
http://tinyurl.com/3kkma
RBW
After reading this article, the word that keeps coming to my mind is
balderdash. Even if one accepts, as the reason for Linux's lack of
widespread acceptance, the author's premise that it was the Linus
Torvalds as single-handed open-source god myth, which I was never aware
of, even during the height of the .com bubble when such rhetoric got
positively ethereal, I have yet to have any of my customers to whom I
have managed to get to try open source solutions base the decision to
try it on political correctness or the history of Linus Torvalds. They
choose to try it, or not, based on how well it demonstrates an ability
to meet their needs at reasonable cost(one of those needs, at least
initially, being interoperability with Windows). It is the fact that
open source products(Linux or otherwise) can deliver on those fronts
that is fueling wider acceptance of Linux. The author does finally get
around to this in the article, but the idea that Linux needs to be
politically correct, or that some myth about how Torvalds created it
needs to be abandoned, in order to succeed strikes me as ludicrous. In
my experience, if there is any perception that has changed about Linux,
it's that linus is so hard to use that you have to be a dyed-in-the-wool
computer nerd, programmer, or IT expert to be able to use it. I think
the big "social tipping point" is that people are finally realizing that
Unix/Linux is not hard. It's just not Windows. That coupled with the
seeping awareness of what it is possible to do for little or no cost in
the way of desktop publishing(Scribus), groupware(Novell edirectory,
group-office, egroupware), Databases(MySQL), video
conferencing/streaming(H323 server/gnomeeting, Open LDAP, ffmpeg, VLC),
photo editing/graphics(Gimp, Blender, POV-Ray) and the more mundane
office stuff like word processing, spreadsheets, and
presentations(OpenOffice.org, StarOffice) is tipping the balance. That's
just my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.
Robert Donovan
I think you are correct too, but could he just (in a round about way) be
saying the "tipping point" will have some element of "sizzle" to go with
the steak you mentioned?
It is my experience so far that the masses will use what they are used
to long after it is demonstrably not their best choice...
And up until something sexy says, "That's hot" (to which I respond,
"please shoot me ;^).
RBW
That is possible, but I a.) hope not, and b.) hope and think he's wrong.
As a former full-time and current part-time commodities trader, I have
learned to have a healthy suspicion just that sort of sizzle(Consider
that an echo of your "just shoot me" sentiment.). Furthermore, that kind
of "that's hot" reaction rarely comes at the beginning of a major
"social shift"(I really hate that phrase. I'll just say trend.), but
rather near the end of one.
You tend first to get what I think crowd psychologists refer to as the
early adoptors, in the case of Linux, the ones who started using Linux
before it was cool or most people knew it existed. This list probably
encompasses a lot of that group. Then you get a phenomenon called
breakout awareness(at least that's what a number of traders I know call
it) This is the next tier of people who come in after the early adapters
have been laying the groundwork for what will later be recognized as a
major trend. Probably a lot of folks on this list are in that group as
well. The breakout awareness crowd adds it's push to that of the early
adopters and you begin to see the next phase, mainstream acceptance.
This is the period during which major progress takes place and major
adoption of the product(eg Linux) or idea(Open Source) ensues largely
out of the awareness of those in the general public. It is also when you
first start hearing one-line media reports about the new "latest thing."
Then you get what might be called the mass acceptance stage. This is the
first period at which sizzle starts to happen, if it is to occur. You'll
see more and more media coverage. This is the stage at whch the general
public usually becomes aware of what the early adaptors have been aware
of for years or decades.
Then you get the late adopters. These are the folks that "buy in at the
top" as we say in the trading world. In fact these are the folks who
make the top happen, because they are usually the first to take big
losses. They were waiting to see if the new thing, which wasn't really
new by the time they heard about it, was really going to take off or
not. This is where you start hearing phrases like "It's different this
time", "new paradigm", in the business world, and "They'er bigger than
the Beatles", or "He's the next Elvis" in the entertainment world, get
thrown around all too freely. It is the realm of tulip mania, the south
seas bubble, the dot com bubble, and the inevitable crashes that follow
them. Anyone heard much from the Spice Girls or New Kids On the Block
lately, both of whom were regularly compared to the Beatles in all of
the entertainment press about three to six months before they dropped
off the face of the Earth.
While I've laid this out in a very nice neat progression, there is a lot
of overlap; timeframe is highly variable in each stage, and it's nearly
imposible to tell which stage you're in until after the fact. You can
also have mini frenzies in each of the various stages. Again, hard to
tell mini or major until after it happens. Perhaps the author was just
saying that we are entering what I referred to above as a breakout
awareness phase, but I still don't believe that awareness comes as a
result of shedding his presumed Linus Torvalds myth.
Robert Donovan
Nicely put...
Made me think of being in the middle of a Forrest Gump movie and not
being aware of change until much later... But hopefully making the most
of it all along the way.
RBW
Thanks.
RD
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