Guns and Microsoft...

["Orn E. Hansen" <oe.hansen@isholf.is>]

  I heard the other day, a small joke about the Linux community.  It's a
joke, but it holds a whole lot of truth.

  Whenever somebody, like Bruce Perens now, starts to make something out
of this big empty nothingness here... people run into their cellar and
pick up their gun and shoot the guy with their "Microsoft" bullets.

  It's what we in real life call a "cheap shot".  Because the same people
are just as quick in "incorporating" Windows framework and "quote" windows
environment, when it comes down to that.

  There is nothing wrong with trying to make money of your work, because
that is the world we live in.  We have to feed our kids, dress ourselves,
and to do that we have to work.  Everybody agrees, that it would be nice
to live in paradise and eat fruit from the trees and live happily ever
after, in harmony with all the other animals in the Jungle.  But, we all
know that it's an impossible dream... so...

  The concept of what is wrong with MicroSoft, is its conduct in buisness
and not because Bill Gates is an ugly guy.  It's the fact that they are
selling an outdated operating system with only half workable functionality
and "indirectly" advertising it as a fully functional medium sized
networking environment... when it's only a small sized one.  And that it
is using robber baron methods to kill off it's competitors.  That is *not*
what is occurring here, nor in Debian or other communities... so quoting
Microsoft in that context... is just way off. IMNSHO.  We have to
remember that we are promoting Linux/Unix as an operating system for the
common user... which is quite a task, and we need to stand together and
put aside our tiny differences in a common goal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orn Einar Hansen                         oe.hansen@oehansen.pp.se
                                          oehansen@daimi.aau.dk
                                        voice+fax; +46 035 217194