The Sharer
September 28, 2003
There
was an excellent piece in the New
York Times Magazine today called "The
Sharer" written by David Diamond. He had a Q&A interchange with
Linus Torvalds, the father
of Linux. The final question he asked was
about Linux being the nemesis of Microsoft. The answer from Linus will be a
classic. "I just can't see myself in the position of the nemesis, since
I just don't care enough. To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy
something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just
be a completely unintentional side effect". See the full
Q&A at The New York Times.
(read
more)
Linux is worth knowing about. I believe it is changing how information technology is being created around the world -- from supercomputers to consumer devices of all kinds. Linux is doing for computing what the Internet did for communications -- opening it up, making it more accessible. Making things easier. Using a TiVo is really easy. I know people who can't use Windows effectively yet who find TiVo a breeze. Most people don't know that under the covers of the TiVo box is a computer running Linux. Currently there are five Linux systems running in my house but my desktop is still Windows XP. I hope to change that soon when I get some time to learn more about WINE. Linux offers most applications that anyone would need but there are a few, like Quicken and Dreamweaver, that I would not want to convert to a Linux equivalent (or to a competitor on Windows either). The claim is that with WINE, a Windows application can be run (emulated) on Linux. I will report on this further when I start experimenting. With the power of today's PC's, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work well.
If you are interested in Linux and haven't had time to learn much about it, you might want to start by reading "Linux -- The Penguin Marches On" for a big picture view. Then you can use this Google query link to zero in on things of more interest. Probably the question I have been getting most during my recent travels is about the SCO lawsuit. There is a lot of emotion and confusion about this. If you are interested and want to read an unemotional view, I recommend reading the new IBM counterclaim document. It is forty pages but doesn't take long to read. If you don't have a PDF reader, you can click here.
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