Tohir Solomons

Linux is its Own Greatest Enemy

Posted on the October 12th, 2005 under Uncategorized by Tohir

And a greater enemy than that could be said to be its users/advocates!

Nope, this isn’t some pro-Microsoft, anti Linux gibberish. It’s time Linux users rethink their strategy or lose the battle before its even begun.

Yesterday, I had to sit in a workshop and observe the agony of trying to get PHP, Apache and MySQL installed on PCs with Mandrake Linux. First it’s the mount the dvdrom, setup media drives, select path, select relative path – and the list continues…

But worst than this is the attitude of Linux users to beginners! No, the above is not straightforward, no, it is not easy, and no, it is complicated!

What could be a learning experience, a potentially enlightening experience becomes one of arrogance and snobbishness. Linux might be a better product, but they have the worst salespeople. And this, in the end, will affect the open source movement.

Lets admit, people chose software for productivity, not philosophy. If you are comfortable at command line, do not expect others to have the same feelings. Unless Linux and the open source movement can offer a better alternative to Windows in more spheres than just price, don’t expect a victory soon.

Worst of all, don’t let Linux be a source of belittling of people. If it does, its ‘social benefits’ is nothing more than first class rubbish!