Phil Mendelsohn wrote: > > As the older generation passes on, it may take a good chunk of > > Microsoft's market with it. > > Boy, that's an unfortunate turn of phrase! If Microsoft gets wind of > that idea, they'll start selling life insurance that names themselves as > the customers' beneficiary. We may need to "make a few calls" and have uncle Guido "take care of" a few people, but if that's what it takes... ;-) Scott Dier writes: > This guy is hurling FUD. Worse, he works for the govt. Even worse, he > doesn't actually follow linux, he makes his point as an "enthusist" > *not* a working linux professional. > > Plus, the person has not a presence in the community as far as I can > see. This non-presence brings -0- creditability to many of these > arguments. I disagree, and think the author makes some valid points regarding obstacles Linux faces on "the desktop." Currently, the vast, unwashed masses of business computer users couldn't care less about "the community." By my definition, "the desktop" is different than "the community" -- the government recently declared that Microsoft currently enjoys effective monopoly control over "the desktop." In recent months, in an effort to spread doubt about open-source, linux, the GPL, etc., Microsoft has been conducting a calculated negative public relations campaign against linux and friends. Presumably, M$ marketing research has led it to believe that open-source, etc. represent a threat to the M$ way of life. The apparent goal of Microsoft's negative PR campaign is to rally the troops and sway the hearts and minds of many, relatively naive computer users. IMHO, while sometimes necessary, grandstanding and taking up a rigid, elitist stance is not always the most effective political response to this type of criticism. On a lighter note, Friday's Slashdot carried an interesting story regarding recent remarks by Steve Ballmer (big kahuna at Microsoft): Ballmer Calls Linux "A Cancer" http://slashdot.org/articles/01/06/01/1658258.shtml The following commentary, found in the discussion under the story, cracked me up laughing... To Microsoft: This word you use ... Innovative ... I do not think it means what you think it means. Joel (apologies to "The Princess Bride") --- Member of the GNU/X/Apache/Perl/Samba/OpenSSH/Linux generation.