New York Times Staff Editorial Promoting Linux

cotyledon writes "Today's New York Times editorial (Free Blah-Di-Blah) describes Linux as good for consumers and good for programmers. It recommends "Government units abroad and in the United States and individual computer users should look for ways to support Linux and Linux-based products. The competition it offers helps everyone." This is the paper's opinion, btw, and not a guest columnist."

Solaris != Linux

[Cubeman]

I find it interesting that according to Netcraft [netcraft.com], nytimes.com is running on Solaris. Perhaps they should switch to Linux :)

Has anyone ever wondered...

[StArSkY]

Has anyone ever wondered why so many Newspapers dedicate so much of their time providing obvious answers rather than answers to complicated questions that might actually enlighten their readers. Every day I pick up the newspaper and am convinced they are written for teenagers.

I would so love to see an article like this answer questions like "What would be the effects of government adoption of Linux on employment in the technology industry?" or even "What would be the economic and social consequences of wide spread adoption of 'free software' in government?"
or maybe "Will Linux help you pick up chicks?"

ok.. maybe not the last one... but really. I think the public needs some serious media coverage of in depth issues aroun linux, "free software" and open source to help stimulate thought, and not just come off as a marketing campaign for "choice".

It is like the abortion argument. You can argue that women have rights, or kids have rights, but when people ask and answer tough questions it stimulates thought rather than emotion.

Re:Good For the Consumer?

[Dalcius]

Said it before, say it again, blah-di-blah:

Red Hat Linux 7.3 + Ximian GNOME = computer my mother can use. She doesn't do a thing besides email, web, Yahoo! and AIM. She's not what you'd call computer literate, although she's not a moron by any means.

She loves it.

Give it a shot before you say it's not hard to use. I am a technical user (programmer by trade), but I wasn't a new user too long ago (7 years). IMO, [RH] Linux is as easy to install and use as any Windows OS.

Re:encouraging but superficial

[chill]

MacOS doesn't run on cheap, available-everywhere, commodity, x86 hardware.

Until it does, Apple will remain a niche. Period. The End.

Hell, even SUN is getting in on the game!

There are 100x the number of Intel-type machines out there than PPC-based. OS X would require a total new hardware investment, Linux does not.

Re:Good For the Consumer?

[Dalcius]

That's what we have distros and configurations for.

"What type of user are you?"
"Advanced."
"Ok! All wizards and easy-screens set to non-default."

Get Gentoo [gentoo.org] and stay ahead of the game. =P

Re:For those that don't have subscription

[Knife_Edge]

"communitarian spirit"?

This is an extremely odd choice of words. I would have used 'cooperative', wouldn't you? I wonder if their intent was to conjure up another commun- word. We may never know.

Re:It was a bad idea to begin with...

[NamShubCMX]

I too often hear what "average users" are according to /. posters so I wanted to tell you a story.

The story of my parents... :P

They are definately what could be called "average users"... They don't know exactly how their computer works except for the few programs they needed, and don't want to know more. Even using a "totally user-friendly OS such as MS Windows", they often feel dumb when in front of the computer because it won't do what they want it to do, for most of the time.

They didn't care about windows vs. *nix either, until I told them about Linux, which is what I run. They asked me the obvious question: What is Linux?. I tried to avoid "tech" talk with my parents because I know they hate it and it's really hard to always try to explain everything that seems so obvious to you because you spend so many times in front of your machine... So I just said it was an OS, like Windows, only better in my opinion, and that it's Free. Notice the capital F, instead of going all-tech, I started telling them the story of Open Source, Free Software, how MS is "evil" (they read the newspapers, they already knew that) etc...

Well guess what, a month later they ask me if they would be able to use Linux, and ask me to install it for them.

So what's the moral of that rather long story? I don't know, some folks care more than saving a hundred bucks... :)

Re:Here's my question...

[Anonymous DWord]

I think you're hopelessly misguided if you believe nobody cares. The Times has one of the largest readerships in the world, and if you look at who is included, you'll see some interesting things, [nytimes.com] like:

A New York Times reader is about 36% more likely than the average affluent head of household to hold a college or postgraduate degree; 34% more likely to have a household income exceeding $100,000 and is 49% more likely to be a top manager.

These are the people who can actually do something about introducing linux into a company. Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so if you even just make them aware that alternatives exist, that's a start. Providing a positive review is just bonus.

This article just panders to thte Linux minority

[Damion]

The article claims that now that Microsoft has won against the government, it's next big challenger will be Linux.

That's a joke.

The people who think that Linux will rise up to crush the oppressor are either delusional or horribly misinformed.

While Linux has made, and will continue to make inroads due to its technical superiority, Microsoft still has the lion's share of market share, and an absolutely enormous amount of money.

Really, to think of Microsoft and the Linux community as fighting for supremacy is like imagining a battle between a human and an ant colony. The human may not be able to destroy the ant colony (or may get one colony, while many others remain in the yard), due to its diffuse nature, but the human will never be seriously threatened by it.

--
http://ragnar.nilmop.com [nilmop.com]

Conspiracy theory

[Perdition]

You know, the closer that I see Linux approaching MS parity in form and function, the more articles that I read declaring Linux' "real competition" being Solaris, MacOS X, etc. Am I high? How can you compete with your co-defeated marginal players? Why do it? I think that the majority of these opinions are cleverly designed ruses planted by trolls trying to make Microsoft's truest competitors beat each other to death. Then, when a publication the caliber of the NY Times (whatever caliber you assign to them will do) says, however marginally, that Linux is a threat to MS, so many people line up to point out how behind the, um, times they are. Microsoft wins not because of superior product or customer service, but rather on the power of the vain, factious, cowboy (no offense sir) mentality that sticks to Linux like a bad smell. Microsoft is not 30,000 people off thinking on their own, but one man thinking with 30,000 brains. He is not a guru or some neat guy, he's a billionaire with 300,000,000 plus private lines to the computer consumer market. The consumers may be sick of the geek, but they see no alternative (unless you take those Mac ads seriously). The rest of the computer world looks like an episode of Little Rascals. Cute, capable, plucky rebels trying to win the soapbox derby with two ladders strapped to three baby carriages. Granted, I've seen sparks of hope with Lindows, Lycoris, EOne, and the voices for tighter standardization, but unless 30,000 brains begin following one idea to completion (no matter how imperfect), the Linux commune-ity might as well be fighting the Nimitz with a tennis-ball cannon firing 100 shots a second. It's impressive, but ultimately comical. I propose everyone using Linux, no matter the flavor, send 100 dollars (or an equivalent in Yen or those big stone coins) to one place and call THAT Linux. Otherwise, we may just have to hand ourselves the dubious title of the toughest cripple at the street fight.

Re:For those that don't have subscription

[reallocate]

My guess: they don't know about it. Posting entire NYT articles and editorials isn't likely to be seen as fair use, and deprives them of revenue at their site, so they'd have reason to send /. a cease-and-desist letter. That would actually be interesting: Would /. management have to take responsibility for what's published here?

why and ui

[tim_maroney]

The obvious reason the Times said this today was the Sun announcement about Linux PCs [com.com].

As for all the people saying, "yes, Linux used to be unfriendly, but now it's just as good as Mac or Windows," that would have a lot more credibility if the same people hadn't been saying exactly the same thing for the last seven years or so. The fact is, it hadn't caught up then, and it hasn't caught up now.

Re:It was a bad idea to begin with...

[toopc]

So what's the moral of that rather long story?

That your parents love you and could tell that Linux and Open Source ware very important to you, so they decided to give it a try because they knew it would make you happy?

Re:Good For the Consumer?

[Joe Tie.]

Our perspective is incredibly skewed because of our expertise.

Not to be overly cynical, but I think the perspective is rather skewed due more to an enjoyment and willingness to learn when confronted with the unknown. Which is something I've found somewhat lacking on average in most people. It's not just in tech, but I think in most aspects of life where we find ourselves ignorant the more geekish will enjoy digging up information and figuring it out. While most people would much rather remain ignorent and have the solution handed to them.

Re:BEWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ! Stupid moderators that can handle a joke!

Speaking of moderation, while we don't know who is moderating our comments, they can go to your info page, and moderate your older comments... easilly giving them an opportunity to use up their 5 mod points, and allowing a moderator to fulfill a grudge.

So, you may have an enemy moderator, and not even know it... Until the anonymity of moderators is removed, we will never be able to know if a moderation is legit, or just the result of someone with an ax to grind.