Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (110 mails)

[kevin.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

> Perhaps someone else on this list also read the
> same thing and may wish to comment ?

I didn't read it - but have read similar articles in the
past.  I find that the best thing to do with such things
is bin them.  I find it very frustrating, and want to
write back in  to point out the errors - but if is not
often worth it ...

There are quite a lot of very good ariticles being written
too - so maybe it balances out ?

(actually, I seem to remember several small 'opinion'
type articles in Computer Weekly, that have been
very negative to Linux, and often in contradiction
of the facts, and seem to remember some of these
were written by someone associated with IT issues
in  the Guardian - maybe the same person ?  Anyway
CW is usually quite objective - so these are usually
easy to ignore ... When all said and done, they are
opinion articles - and he is entitled to his opinion).

Unfortunately, this sort of thing can often promote some
of the more 'vocal' members of the Linux community,
and sometimes results in loud 'mouthing off' to the
person to 'correct their ways' - this is actual quite a
serious problem for the rest of us - as it just gives
people an excluse to label us all as raving zealots
(well, maybe we are, perhaps, alternate Tuesdays ...
but it is not nice to say so in public :-)

There was a very positive description of Linux
in general, on Channel 4 a few weeks back.  When
they were listing the 'most influential people on
Britain" for year 2000, Linus Torvalds was number 39 !

(Their list is at :
http://www.channel4.com/nextstep/powerlist/main.html)

Whats more, they then went on to say *why* they considered
him number 39 in the list of people with the most influence
on Britain this year ... (most people had just got a small
mention - he got a 15 minute detailed explanation).

It was a very good account of Linux and its potential
affect on the 'everyday person'.  They interviewed
people like the IBM UK head person about Linux,
and got a few opinions from several other people.

They considered its use in internet, embedded systems,
set-top boxes, PDAs as well as home and server use.

Shame they didn't get a statement from someone
like Alan Cox ... or a UK distributer (someone like
Roger), etc ...

Anyway, very interesting and very, very positive
publicity.  In short I was very surprised and pleased
at the account.

Kevin.