> If Red Hat wants to
> standardize a Linux desktop, they might as well call themselves MS
> Linux.
<rant>
Interesting that this statement would be on the list when there are still a
few kicks left in the "OE6 doesn't handle signatures" debate of the last few
days. The main complaint in that thread was that because Microsoft
"invented" their own standards and didn't go with someone else's, they were
bad. Now Red Hat wants to standardize a desktop, help everyone work well
together, and the first in line to bash our "commercial" leader is ...
*ominous drum roll* the linux community itself.
Standards are not bad. Closed standards are an oxymoron. The thing here
with Red Hat is this: you have a choice. If you don't like having
cross-library compatibility, and out of the box support for as much as they
can cram into that little $60 box, don't support the distribution. I get
this feeling that half of the innovation in the Linux market (and lets face
it, making things 'dummie-easy' when it comes to Linux is an innovation)
seems to be dealt with based on the whether or not Microsoft has been
successful in that particular arena. If they have, then the "innovator" is
said to be in league with those damned dirty apes of hell, "and they might as
well be MS Linux" and only a public sacrifice upon the Altar of Linus will
make them clean in our eyes again.
If instead it is an area where Microsoft has tried and failed, then they are
the crowned princes and shall be lauded in the Halls of Binary for at least a
commercial break, until something better comes along.
And watch out if its something Microsoft hasn't tried yet, that set of
developers could only akin to gods themselves for all the praise they will
get. Perhaps until someone thinks of a connection between them and the
horrible beast of the Northwest.
The knee-jerk reaction to hating Microsoft is lame at best, and damaging at
the worst. The majority of people in this country (and yes I am being
US-centric here, because its the only culture I can speak for) want their
computer to just WORK! If they wanted it to be hard, they would go down to
the basement bin and fish out Redhat 2.0 and no one would ever upgrade except
with code they wrote themselves. WRONG! People hate having to reboot all
the time, but they hate even more not being able to get ANYTHING done between
those reboots, even more frustratingly if those reboots are weeks apart.
OpenOffice is great for this, but how many times have we heard about the
"waste of time supporting .Doc format." If you are the new kid on the block
you have to learn the rules to all the other kid's games or they will kick
your ass and call you a dork. .doc is how they play baseball on this block,
ladies and gentlemen.
Evolution is great for this. Search your email logs or slashdot for "Ximian
Connector is ANTI-OPENSOURCE!!!" Exchange is how they play Hopscotch on this
block, better learn the rules.
Samba is great for this. How many gigabytes of bandwidth have been wasted on
"Why are you using Samba, just switch to Linux and use NFS, its works
better." Samba is how you play hide-and-seek here, folks.
Learn all the rules, play all their games. Then, after you know all the
games they play, you can raise you hand and say "since I am such a good
person, and I know all the rules to your games, let me introduce you to my
new game. Do I rock or what?" Then when they all believe that you can make
up great new games, you tell them about how all their games suck and you have
them wrapped around your little finger.
Unfortunately, I will get blasted as a MS supporter and Linux hater because
making everyone think that your games are the coolest is "such a M$ thing to
do", I might as well call myself "Kyle Gates"
</rant>
Kyle Faber
(text/plain)