GNU/Linux: Too Much about Hate, Not Enough about Pride (LinuxPlanet)

I dont think its hate. Nobody can be oblivious to the fact that Microsoft is doing pretty much
anything it can to kill Linux. Do you like someone who wants you gone is the question here. To
not like or care about something does not equal hate.

The hate thing is mostly something MS and their supporters use to diminish any legit
complaints about Microsoft or their products. 

There are plenty of people solely using Microsofts products that says much more hard words
about them than any OSS advocate i have ever heard. 

I think the portrayal of Linux supporters as being only defined by their opposition to
Microsoft is true only for those Linux supporters that are only defined by their opposition to
Microsoft.  :)  There is such a group.  But they are only a subset, albeit unfortunately a
vocal one.  I have found that those who have a history of contributing positively to the free
software ecosystem tend to just ignore Microsoft as much as possible, rather than ranting
about it...

As is often the case, the printable view is not annoyingly paginated:

  http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/print/6473/

A few comments:
The free software movement started in the 1980s.
There is no word "securer", the usage should be "more secure".
These are the arguments of a marketing person - focus on the positive and ignore the negative.
Norman Vincent "banana" Peale in another guise.
Far better to acknowledge reality - the ugliness brought to the table by Microsoft and its
boorish behaviour and the nicer side portrayed by free software. Byfield is always a
contrarian and just aims for traffic by doing this - his pagination is another good
illustration of the reason he writes.

"[...] hate [...] pride [...]"

I think Bruce just forgot adding envy and fears into the same mixture, *and* to mix it well.

Pride comes before a fall, so does he really think it's Not Enough Fall?

(being a humble reader/developer/maintainer/manager who recognizes his envy, even if not hate,
all too often -- even if for completely weird reasons :)

It's nonsensical. There -exists- people whose main attraction to Linux is that it is NOT
Microsoft, but those are few and far between.

There's a larger population that is attracted to Linux for entirely different reasons, but
which are nevertheless annoyed at certain of Microsofts antics. Not because of hate, but
because they dislike criminal abuse of monopolies and would much prefer a level playing-field
governed by open standards.

Most Linux-users I know either use both Windows and Linux, which hardly fits the cliche of a
rabid hate-filled person, or they wish they could ignore Microsoft, which is however sometimes
hard to do. It is hard ignoring a 500 pound gorilla which does the very best it can to hurt
you in any way imaginable.

I think that this is largely a generational thing.  In the 1990s, when Microsoft's dominance
of not just "the market" but computing in general was far stronger than it is now, it was a
little more obvious why people targeted their ire at the company.  It was frustrating knowing
that you had something technically and ethically better than the status quo, but that you
would likely be forbidden to implement it for the same old "nobody got fired for buying IBM"
type reasons that stifled corporate computing in the 70s and 80s.

Times have changed.  Remember Paul Graham's oft-misinterpreted "Microsoft is no longer a
threat" essay.  We have fully-functional server and desktop systems with (according to Greg
K-H) better hardware support than any OS in history.  We have media darling status that hasn't
gone away in 10 years, and we're making newer and cooler things all the time.

Everyone I know who got into Free Software in the 80s or 90s kind of gets baffled now by
Microsoft-hatred.  I mean, Microsoft?  Aren't they the guys who make those keyboards?  Why
re-hash the past?  This isn't 1998, after all.

I think that it's largely young people new to the whole scene who make up the Anything But
Microsoft crowd.  It's kind of invigorating to have your Three Minutes of Hate sessions
hurling garbage at a copy of Microsoft Bob, but it really doesn't help public perception.  I
suspect that they will mellow out in time, just as we did.

When I helped organize the Windows Refund Day events in Foster City, we were simply trying to
get the message out to the newsmedia that we were trying to get a refund for something that WE
WEREN'T USING.  This was an alien concept at the time: I mean, if you're not using Windows
then what?  DOS?

How times change!

I do not know of any people in the Free Software community who "hate" Microsoft. It's more an
indifferent position of dislike. However, I met Microsoft-haters in the past. They use Mac-OS.

(Sorry to call the article nonsense, maybe it's just another experience set. On a side-note,
the author confuses the USA with America, the continent.)

One should never underestimate the motivational power of the negative emotion commonly
referred to as "hate". I think, if well focused it can coalesce into something positive. Many
of us, if we were completely honest with ourselves, would come to realize that we came to
Linux because of our disdain of Microsoft and its third rate software which was forced upon
us. Yes, I hate Microsoft, and I am unashamed to admit it! Too much has happened to ever
change that.