On Thu, 2 May 2002, Jeremy Bertenshaw wrote: [...]
> What a load of garbage, ... [...] Maybe, maybe not. But apparently everybody is ignoring some other arguments which I personally find compelling: 1. The strategic and economic game: Practically all of the IT technology is controlled by US, hardware and software. You name it, is US: IBM, Microsoft, HP, Sun, etc. (manufacturing doesn't count, printers are the only exception but there is only Japan) As the IT penetrates the "second" and even "third" world countries I find very hard to believe that these countries will want to relinquish their IT infrastructure control (government and military above all) over to US. Can you imagine China, Russia and the Arab world basing their strategy on US controlled IT technology ? I can't. Can you imagine India and Latin America being able to pay the US prices for IT technology ? I can't. (yes, prices are country based but still too high). 2. The user game: The argument here is that users will not want that or they want something which is not available under Linux. First AFAIK in the average enterprise it is _not_ the user who decide but the _employer_ trough various authorities: CIO, etc. (Universities may be notable exceptions at least in some areas). Second, again AFAIK, most users interact with just one or two apps. An complex office suite is required only for the front office and few others like that. You don't need it for a POS or many other places. And finally if a user would use Linux at work for 8 hours why would he/she want to use anything else at home ? 3. The "Linux is not ready for the desktop" game: I've seen many articles with this subject over the last 3-6 months. This is a very interesting development not for what they say (that's obvious) but most importantly for what they don't say but imply. You would not have seen such articles in the past, it was damn obvious to anybody that Linux was not ready for Joe Average. But now you see them, a dime a dozed ;-) Which it turn means that is no longer obvious. One now have to do some serious study and write an article to argue the points! It means in fact that Linux is, if not ready, at least very close! Which in turn means in fact that Linux is _already_ good for the desktop for at least some situations! The development is interesting from another point of view as well: it follows very closely (so far) the same path as the "Linux is not ready as server" argument. For those who have followed the arguments 3-4 years ago the similarities are striking: after ~1 year of argumentation suddenly it ceased and Linux _was_ good as server. Nowadays very few deny this. It would be certainly interesting to follow this development. Cheers, -- Ryurick M. Hristev mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Manager University of Canterbury, Physics & Astronomy Dept., New Zealand
