I had taped the show on CNN about Linux and just watched it last night.
I have a few comments:
They make it sound like Linus alone created Linux. I appreciate his efforts, but even he admits that he has only writen 10% of the kernel and the kernel is only 1/1000th of the Linux software. It is actually the GNU operating system running a Linux kernel and I didn't hear GNU mentioned once. How about mentioning Richard Stallman?
Red Hat? They made it look like Red Hat was they only Linux vendor. Why they showed so much Red Hat I don't know. There is S.U.S.E., Debian, Slakware, PowerLinux, Stampede, OpenLinux, Mandrake, Turbo Linux, and probably a few others I can't think of right now. Red Hat is one of my least favorite distributions. I'm sick of hearing that Red Hat costs $50.00. Its usually $30-$40, and I got a copy for free at Office Max. Cheapbytes for $1.99. I usually pay ~$12.00 for Slackware at the local computer store. Also, they should have mentioned that you can buy 1 CD and install it on 1000 computers, then how much does it cost. 5 cents a piece.
Then they went into the store and showed how there was hardly no Linux software in the store. They forgot to mention that there is more software than you could ever want free for the downloading off of the internet. You can also order it by mail. Linux people aren't willing to pay for much software at the moment, thats why its not in the stores.
I like the positive press about Linux. I just think they should have done a better job informing people who don't know anything about Linux. Thats who the show was for anyway.
I did enjoy hearing Linus say "because their operating systems really suck.", and I liked what they had to say about having the source code is a good thing. I have fixed so many things in Linux/Unix by looking at the code. All I can do with closed source is give up after a while.
Judd |
