Thanks Was: RFC: Educating the majority

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 12:01, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2004, at 9:27 AM, Craig White wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 09:08, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> >> On Jan 13, 2004, at 7:40 AM, Bill Lindley wrote:
> >>
> >>> I'm reading Eric Raymond's "Art of Unix Programming" now, it
> >>> definitely shows the technical reasons why the Unix Way is better...
> >>> and those *do* come out at the user end of things.
> >>
> >> ESR is certainly a very smart, interesting and thought provoking guy
> >> but he is also very often wrong. Take what he says with a grain of
> >> salt.
> > ---
> > Are you content to just shoot from the hip here or did you care to give
> > meaning to this by illustration?
>
> I certainly don't intend to be cryptic. It's just that so many have
> reviewed Mr. Raymond's prognostications in general and "The Art of Unix
> Programming" in particular that that I have little to add. I'm sure a
> little googling will provide all the illustration that anyone could
> want.
---
I guess there is this celebrity thing going that people take to heart -
kind of like Charles Barkley talking about politics. He was a damn good
basketball player but the media outlets love to stick a microphone in
his face because he is ready, willing and eager to spout out on just
about any topic.

His predictions about the demise of Microsoft may come true but
regardless of what ESR believes, they will not simply fold up, even if
the most dire of ESR's predictions comes true, it would take a long time
for Microsoft to die off. It's not gonna happen in the next 3 years,
that seems certain. I'm quite certain that the value of Microsoft stock
went unchanged every time he made one of his predictions.

But this does lead to the issue which started the thread off in the
first place - does Linux need us to proselytize on its behalf and I
think that it's obvious the answer is now. The market has its own
dynamic and generally, people will make the right decisions, sometimes
for the wrong reasons but over time, things generally work out right.
For many people, they have picked up a copy of Linux somewhere, tried to
install it and work with it only to get frustrated and conclude that it
isn't what they're looking for. This leaves a lasting impression.

As Matthew Szulik said some months back - Linux still isn't ready for
everyone's desktop...I will simply add, Yet.

Craig