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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1431
Rant: 'Linux is too much like Windows'
By ron carlson, Insanely Great Mac
December 22nd 2002
Once every other blue moon Dvorak says something intelligent
In a column titled "Microsoft, Innovation, and Linux", John Dvorak opines that "Linux
is too much like Windows." That this is true is obvious and it's a matter of some
wonder that no one -- at least no one notable -- has publicly noted this before.
That it can take fruitless hours to get your Ethernet working and that the GUIs
employed are virtually the same as you find on the Windoze side speak volumes about
Linux' usability and consistency or more to the point lack thereof.
The notion of a compact (comparatively speaking), fast and nearly bullet-proof
operating system is tempting until one actually starts implementing it on the desktop.
Though I make my living writing about, using and helping others with their computers,
the notion that users needn't know anything about Ethernet drivers or registry files
-- abstract self gratification aside -- is deeply ingrained in my psyche.
That there are so few knowledgable and smart users out there only presses this point
home. Keeping "ignorant, panicky and dangerous" users out of the registry and the guts
of the box should be a computer maker's "job one."
Furthmore, why do we buy and use computers? To work on the computer or produce things?
What does a @#$!@#$~ .dll file or .kext file have to do with me creating a PowerPoint
presentation? If the computer and/or OS maker have the slightest clue, the minutia and
guts of a computer should be unknown to the user. Yes, these things should be
available to those with interest, ambition and, frankly, courage. But, the "rest of
us" (ie 99 percent of computer users) don't and shouldn't need to give a hoot about
such things.
Monkey see, monkey do
Dvorak reasons that Linux programmers copy Linux for many of the same reasons M$
copies the Mac OS -- it's slick, well-thought out and established. Also, most Linux
bashers have their roots in the x86 world.
"After all, Linux was designed for the x86," states Dvorak with Vulcan-like clarity.
"This is the simple but overlooked fact of the Linux revolution: Its roots are in
Wintel."
"So, just as Microsoft has copied Apple's inventions out of necessity, the Linux
community copies the inventions of Microsoft out of necessity."
This is the sad state of affairs that we find ourselves faced with -- Apple innovates
(or least gets existing ideas to market faster or better than others), Microsoft
copies them and Linux limps along behind collecting the tailings of the market leaders.
With PPC Linux an established commodity and a command-line version of the Mac OS
readily available, perhaps it's time that Linux cut out the middleman. The truth of
the matter is that Mac and Linux users have much more in common with each other, and
more to gain, than we do with Redmond its toiling orks.
What's your take?
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