Allen:
This is exactly what I meant. People who would not normally consider Linux
(Microsoft-heads, I guess) will not be turned onto Linux when they see letters
from Linuxies in Microsoft magazines putting them down. Those who don't see
name-calling in forums other than your own as being childish are obviously not
looking at this from the business side of things.
Microsoft is winning because it has almost every coporation in the world
convinced that MS is the way to go. For those people, the only view of Linux
they ever get is what's in the news (Bill Gates ultra-polite way of putting
Linux down as a hacker operating system) and immature name-calling posts from
Linuxies in Microsoft forums supporting this view.
You don't win people over by treating them like morons. And in this case, there
is a much higher number of these "morons" than there are Linuxies.
For those who will now rant that Linux is now available pre-installed on XX-
machine from such'n'such major vendor... in all cases, if you want Linux pre-
installed on a machine, you have to actively look for a vendor that will do it.
If you haphazardly walk into a computer store and buy a computer, you don't take
it home and "discover" Linux is the OS. You don't have them saying over the
little loudspeaker "would you like an order of Linux with that?"
Linux has a *long* way to go before it is in a real battle with MS. I am sure
we'll get there, but we're not there yet. Microsoft's fight has remained very
mature. There are countless unoffensive articles out there as to why MS is
better than Linux. But that letter to the editor of a Win NT magazine is a
serious step backward for the Linux community who (certainly to the MS-world)
seem unable to fight on equally mature terms.
Good to see that someone read my post without intending to flame it regardless
of content.
Karsten
Allen Carpenter wrote:
>
> The point is that when some of us try to introduce linux to or use linux
> in
> professional environments one of the obstacles we must overcome is the
> perception
> that linux is an enthusiasts hobby kit. This perception is often
> reinforced when one
> of the "suits" (You know these guys, they are the ones that have little
> technical
> knowledge but control the checkbook.) reads a bit about linux and runs
> across
> the kind of things that have been quoted in this thread before.
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