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From: mdw@cs.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld!
Message-ID: <1995Jan18.214037.6088@cs.cornell.edu>
Organization: Cornell CS Robotics and Vision Laboratory, Ithaca, NY 14850
References: <950116203411@lambada>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 21:40:37 GMT
Lines: 35
In article <950116203411@lambada> ed.duomo@lambada.oit.unc.edu ("Mr. Ed") writes:
>In the columns section of the Jan 16 Infoworld, there is a column
>highly insulting to linux. In it the writer basically says the
>following:
>
> o linux is really not free
> o linux users are as neurotic as Amiga fans
> o linux is difficult to install (their senior systems analyst
> apparently failed to install it)
> o linux should be called "underware"!
First of all, I feel that this is an inaccurate interpretation of the
attitude taken in the article. The article was rather sympathetic
towards Linux, and "underware" was used as a joke. They rank Linux
below commercial software, primarily because they wouldn't trust it
for "mission-critical" applications. That's fine, if they want to take
that attitude.
They did say that although Linux may not be up their alley, they
agreed that it was very high quality and overall a good thing.
As far as being as "neurotic" as Amiga fans, the article didn't say
this. It simply stated that Linux users are generally very enthusiastic
about their system, which is true.
So I think that the above criticism of InfoWorld's article is too
harsh; they did not completely blast or otherwise insult Linux. They
simply approached it with their own point of view.
Flaming InfoWorld won't help, so please don't do so unless you have
actually read the article in question. Relying only on the above list
of "insults" would be very misleading.
mdw