Red Hat Desktop Integration

>     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"