No subject

  ...After years of fussing about the pathetic, baffled language of students,
  I realized that it was not in their labored writings that bad language dwelt.
  THIS, this inane gabble, this was bad language.  Evil language.  Here was a
  man taking the public money for the work of his mind and darkening counsel
  by words without understanding.
     Words never fail.  We hear them, we read them;  they enter into the mind
  and become part of us for as long as we shall live.  He who speaks reason to
  his fellow men bestows it upon them.  Who mouths inanity disorders thought
  for all who listen.  There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity
  beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable.  Irrationality, like buried
  chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought.





On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 20:01:33 -0400 (EDT)
bscott at ntisys.com wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Apr 2003, at 10:12am, sconce at in-spec-inc.com wrote:
> > Er, it isn't an article on what Linux is and is not ...
> 
>   Perhaps a better phrase would be "What you should and should not expect of
> Linux".
> 
>   I feel it does a good job of addressing two major groups of people:
> 
>   First is the group of Linux advocates whose policy is "Linux at all
> costs".  These are the people who push Linux as all things to all people,
> good as or better than anything else for everything.  They push Linux even
> if Linux will be a very poor solution.  That, IMNSHO, does everyone an
> injustice.  It makes Linux seem unreliable and inferior when it does not
> perform to expectations; it makes the Linux advocate seem untrustworthy and
> fanatic; and it breeds hostility toward Linux.  I firmly believe that this
> class of advocate is a serious obstacle toward the further mainstream
> acceptance of Linux.
> 
>   The second group of people I believe it addresses are those who have read
> or heard about Linux, go into BestBuy, grab a copy of Red Hat off the shelf,
> and expect to be up and running, doing everything they could wish to do, in
> an hour or so.  That isn't a realistic expectation for Linux.  As the author
> points out, that isn't a realistic expectation for MS-Windows, either.  Yet
> this class of people now have a lasting impression of Linux as inferior.  
> Linux advocates need to be well aware of this phenomenon, so they can work
> to overcome it.
> 
> > There's far too much left out. What Linux is and is not, and what Free
> > Software is and is not, is a far deeper subject than this article tackles.
> 
>   I don't think I would consider any single article comprehensive on such
> subjects.  Nor did I intend to imply that this article was.  My apologies if
> anyone got that impression.  :)
> 
> -- 
> Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do  |
> | not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. |
> | All information is provided without warranty of any kind.              |
> 
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