Lxer article (was Re: Is Linux a desktop operating system? )
Tom Adelstein
adelste at yahoo.com
Tue May 24 14:15:30 UTC 2005
On Tue, 2005-05-24 at 13:45 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
> or everyone as Windows and OS X are.
>
> One of the oldest dodges in journalism, whenever a magazine or newspaper
> has run out of ideas or wants more readers, is to find or invent some
> controversy. Then they can strongly support one side in an opinion piece
> that takes little research, little effort, contains huge amount of hot
> air, and takes a lot of space.
>
<snip>
> And computer magazines (on or offline, or broadcast) have picked up this
> trick. For at least the last eight years, the Linux community has been
> an ideal target, because of its many vocal and passionate supporters.
> Before that, they could get much the same effect by running the same
> story about Macs, or Amigas, or STs.
>
> And we've had loads of stories saying "Linux is not suitable for...". Or
> "Can you trust your data to random bearded scruffies from the Net?"
> You'll all have seen them.
>
<snip>
> Situation normal. Tech journalists can't think what to write about /
> broadcast. They make up some controversy. It hasn't stopped Linux so
> far.
>
> They used to run "Linux is not suitable as a mission critical server"
> stories. Even Microsoft seem to have gone quiet on that one (probably
> because if Linux isn't suitable, Windows certainly isn't!)
>
> James.
>
As a journalist myself, I back up James statements. I've seen it and
even spoken to writers who create these stupid controversies because
they get a beat and don't know the subject.
I published an article on lxer.com yesterday that said Linux as a
desktop is a irrefutable truth.
Here the link if you have an interest:
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/36897/index.html
It was yesterday's "big story".
If you don't know about Lxer - it's the web site started by the founder
of LinuxToday after he sold out.
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