OneAndOneIs2

SJVN has an article up over on Linux-Watch on the recent bout of Linux companies making deals with MS.

It's refreshing if only because it doesn't buy into the "We must ostracise these evil companies immediately" hysteria that has been seen elsewhere. But there's one quote from the CEO of Linspire (once Lindows), Kevin Carmony, that a large (and often very vocal) part of the Linux community badly needs to take to heart.

"It's time to move past all of the idea that for Linux to succeed, Microsoft must fail."

I've been using Linux since the mid-90s. I remember the days when a large part of the reason to use Linux was just that it wasn't Microsoft - it was so hard to install & do things with you NEEDED a powerful motivation. "MS is crap, it's all viruses and BSODs, here's something else!" was something worth saying.

That was a decade ago. I can't remember the last time I saw a genuine BSOD, and Linux is no longer so primitive that it needs to point out all the shortcomings of the competition in order to sound credible.

Linux supports more hardware than any other OS. Linux has relatively low hardware requirements. Linux has excellent GUIs, millions of developers, and lots of cool things like wobbly windows.

People are trying Linux now because it looks like such a good alternative. That's the angle we should be pushing now. Smearing the competition just makes us look bad. Nobody is interested in hearing anti-MS rants. They want to hear how good Linux is, not how bad Windows is.

(Well, within reason)

I remember the days when being rabidly anti-MS was a big part of being a Linux user. I remember them because they're firmly in the past, and only dinosaurs still think that the way to make Linux look good is to rant about how crap Windows is.

It's one thing to say "Linux's 3D desktop can do more and has much lower GPU requirements than Vista" - that's useful and factual information. It's a totally different thing to say "Vista's 3D desktop is crap, everybody should use Linux" - that's just ranting.

I don't think it's really the longer-term Linux users that are the problem, tho. It's the newer users who want to try and sound like they've been around longer and know more than they do - the ones who want to seem 'l33t' - and think that adopting a badly-outdated attitude will make them seem like long-established Linux users.

If you encounter these guys, please do at least try to set them straight. They give the whole community a bad name.

Pointing to ReactOS can be a good cure for the real problem cases - As soon as they realize "it's Windows (bad), but it's open-source (good), but it's Windows!" their brains implode :o)