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Free is too expensive (Economist)Free is too expensive (Economist)Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:05 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)Parent article: Free is too expensive (Economist)
The only other head-to-head I can find from "babbage" on linux vs Windows is http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/operating_...
which seems to support my feeling that he's not much of a "Linux fan" but he does (claim to) run it at least.
Of course, with things like "open-source priesthood" and "Now let the angry ad hominems from the Linux faithful commence..." it's a pretty strong feeling.
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Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:21 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I've been running linux as my desktop since '96, and I while I disagree with some of what he says, there is also a lot of truth to what he is saying, and there is a self appointed "open-source priesthood" that does object to the sorts of things that he likes Mint doing, and I do expect that there will be a lot af ad hominem attacks on him because he is saying things that people don't want to hear.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:28 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
There are niches in everything: linux, Windows, Mac, BSD, Solaris. The "priesthood" is an attack on precisely those sectors (denying that they're rational but rather religious, which is itself a whole 'nother kettle o' fish).
>will be a lot af ad hominem attacks on him because he is saying things that people don't want to hear.
And exactly the same thing happens when you attack some other segment's holy cow. Why the hostile flavoring for Linux folks if he is one?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:35 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Eh, anyway, I've said my piece. The article is quite useless, it just says, "I had problems! It's the fault of package instability and focussing on features!" without any underlying support. Just blank assertions. And it's pretty clearly hostile, at least it seems so to me.
When we have something concrete, which I have an iota more hope for here on LWN than anywhere else, we can solve problems. Until then, it's just a bunch of fanboys arguing, which is also useless.
Time to get back to work.
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 8:07 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
The point should not be to win over "Linux fans" (they already support Linux after all) but to win the ones who quite like Linux and maybe already run it, but are having some problems - such as the ones outlined.
Why are some people so resistant to really listening to users?
Free is too expensive (Economist) Posted Mar 31, 2012 19:55 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] Of course, with things like "open-source priesthood" and "Now let the angry ad hominems from the Linux faithful commence..." it's a pretty strong feeling. A pre-emptive cry of "ad hominem" to round off an article: perhaps the editors at The Economist are already on their Easter vacation. I hope this is the reason we get to read such substandard prose. Although one can be disturbed by the trends in the evolution of GNU/Linux distributions, the chopping and changing of desktop strategy, the apparent lack of attention to tedious detail that only those with the resources and full-time staff can really be expected to pay serious and sustained attention to, and the apparent lack of strategy of the distributions in general, the situation isn't completely desperate. The choice of distributions still gives people the chance to run the more conservative desktop environments with a wide range of packaged software available for them, and although the less conservative desktop environments may not seem particularly compelling replacements, I'm sure that broadly satisfactory choices will emerge eventually.
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