Fundamentally, why Linux?

Is Linux for me?

0.3 Linux is difficult for newbies.

What are the benefits of Linux?

What are the differences between Linux and UNIX?

The major differences:

What are the differences between Linux and MS Windows?

The major differences:

- Linux is free, whereas MS Windows costs money. Same for applications. If MS Windows or Office comes preinstalled with the computer it is unlikely it is free. Ask in the store to take it off your computer (your run Linux) and you are likely to obtain a discount, at least in smaller stores.
- Linux file formats are free, so you can access them in a variety of ways. On MS Windows, the common practice is to make you lock your own data in secret formats that can only be accessed with tools leased to you at the vendor's price. How corrupt (or incompetent?) must be the politicians who lock our public records into these formats! "What we will get with Microsoft is a three-year lease on a health record we need to keep for 100 years" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1694000/1694372.stm].
- With Linux, you are unlikely to violate any licence agreement--all the software is happily yours. With MS Windows you likely already violate all kinds of licenses and you could be pronounced a computer pirate if only a smart lawyer was after you (don't worry, most likely none is after you).
- MS Windows tries to be the "lowest-common-denominator" operating system (for better or worse), whereas Linux is built for more sophisticated, feature-hungry computer users (for better or worse).
- MS Windows is based on DOS; Linux is based on UNIX. MS Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) is based on Microsoft-owned specifications. Linux GUI is based on an industry-standard network-transparent X-Windowing system.
- Linux beats Windows hands down on network features, as a development platform, in data processing capabilities, and as a scientific workstation. MS Windows desktop has a more polished appearance, smoother general business applications, and many more games for kids (these are not better games though--Linux games tend to be more sophisticated).
- Linux is more feature-rich than you could imagine. Heard on the Internet: "Two big products came from the University of California: UNIX and LSD. And I don't think it's a coincidence." MS Windows is simpler.

I don't believe in free software, etc.

Here is the opinion of an IBM executive: "The reason we are so excited about Linux is we believe Linux can do for applications what the Internet did for networks" (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-08-17-001-04-PS-EL). IBM just (May 2002) spent 1 billion dollars making Linux run on all their hardware platforms (mainframes, workstations, PCs, laptops).

We may add that Linux seems to do to the operating system the same what IBM's open PC specification did to the computer hardware.

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"

I need warranty and security. With commercial software, I can sue them if things go wrong.

I need standards. Big software corporations (Microsoft) provide standards.

"We need standardized, open file formats so that users can exchange documents between platforms. The actual word processing software used to generate these documents shouldn't even be an issue." (Ted Clark, http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-09-29-004-06-OP-MR-0010).

Linux, by its very nature, is based on true, published and free standards because "open source" makes the full specifications available to everybody (competitors or not). We believe that the urge for open standards is the very driving force behind Linux. Many people feel that they cannot afford to trust their algorithms and data to a commercial entity, let alone a single one that has repeatedly demonstrated its untrustworthness.

Have a look at a draft of this Argentinean law for a taste of the future. It sounds like the Argentineans may be the first to decide that their public records cannot be held hostage by a commercial entity: "... Public National Organizations mentioned in article 1 of this law, will not be allowed to use programs that store data in non-public format ...". Several other countries are also contemplating or enacting legislations requiring storage of public data in public file formats. (Source of the quote: http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/28/010216.shtml)

There is a strong perception in the Linux community that there is a serious problem with the computing "standards" championed by large software vendors. This includes their standards for storing our "static" data , as well as the processing algorithms embedded in our computer codes. Can we afford to trust somebody decide for us when, how, and at what cost we can access our own work? This problem is ignored and even aggravated by people who are paid to take care of it. Linux is a grass-root answer to this problem.

Here is an example from Life, as narrated by "The Economist" (http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2054746):
"IN MAY, the city of Munich decided to oust Microsoft Windows from the 14,000 computers used by local-government employees in favour of Linux, an open-source operating system. Although the contract was worth a modest $35m, Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, interrupted his holiday in Switzerland to visit Munich and lobby the mayor. Microsoft even dropped its prices to match Linux—a remarkable feat since Linux is essentially free and users merely purchase support services alongside it. But the software giant still lost. City officials said the decision was a matter of principle: the municipality wanted to control its technological destiny. It did not wish to place the functioning of government in the hands of a commercial vendor with proprietary standards which is accountable to shareholders rather than to citizens."

My favourite example of how Microsoft, instead of promotting standards, keeps confusing them. For decades, there has been one standard way to write all-numeric date and time in the country I live. This standard is accepted in most countries of the world. MS Excel offers, conveniently in a drop-box, almost any possible permutation to format date/time, except the one required by the international standard. I guess, there is no lesson learned from the billions spent on the "Year 2000 issue".

I Need MS Windows for Reading Writing MS Word Documents

In a large corporate environement, you may have little choice--they locked themselves by cheerful productions of non-portable forms, templates, visual basic-driven web pages and other MS Office-bound "tools". Perhaps a more adquate name for propriatory software would be "lock-in software"?

In a smaller environment, you can use OpenOffice.org suit (OO) that runs on Linux, MS Windows, Mac, Solaris (and more), with full file-level compatiblity. It can be downloaded and installed for free (no restrictions whatsoever) so nobody should really complain about the file format (some control freaks still will). Just to make sure, OpenOffice can import and export MS Word and Excel documents of reasonable complexity very well. The native file format in OpenOffice is fundamentally much better than Microsofts (plus it is non-propriatory). Feature-by-feature, OpenOffice can do almost anything MS Office can, plus some extras. Depending on whom you ask, the ease of use veries between "50% more difficult" to "20% easier" (measured on a sample of experienced MS Office users). Very complex documents are best transfered as *.pdf, and OO can make them on the fly.

So, probably you do not need MS Office any more. Download your OO for MS Windows and/or Linux at: http://www.openoffice.org/

Latest MS marketing joke: "Wait, don't install OpenOffice. Microsoft is ALREADY working on a file format that is based on the same principle as that OpenOffice is using. Microsoft will even extend the file format to make it even BETTER." Well, we do not need a better format. We need a open-standard file format.

MS Windows popularity insures that it is "here to stay".

Linux is quite positively here-to-stay because of its open-source nature (Linux cannot possibly be put out-of-business). It is a standard selected for countless projects that are not going to go away, and some of them are quite "mission-critical." Try the International Space Station, for which Linux is the operating system (http://www2.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue59/3024.html).

Plus, never underestimate the strength of the Linux community. Linux is "here to stay" at least for the computer avant-garde. Many Linuxers do not even want Linux to become very popular because they fear it could "dumb down" the elite Linux platform.

But LINUX may fork into many different systems ...

"Forking" in this context means "branching a computer program," so as to create parallel "subversions" of the program, and consequently fragment Linux and presumably reducing its usefulness.

There is very little (if any) evidence of harmful forking of any software included with a typical Linux distribution. Where forking did occur, it has always turned beneficial. Quite possibly, this is because although there are no artificial barriers to fork software under Linux, there are also no artificial barriers to merge the best pieces back.

The theoretical background on how forking software can be good for its development might have been actually given quite some time ago by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 -1831), with his concept of dialectic development. E.g., in "Phenomenology of Spirit", Hegel concludes: "... the schism incipient in a party, which seems a misfortune, expresses its fortune rather."

Linux lacks a central development blueprint (or roadmap)

Linux has no central steering committee, design specifications, etc. It has many leading bodies for the many ongoing, and often competing projects. Some of the projects work on integration, overall consistency, etc. The value of their concepts is verified in practice.

Following Hegel's (and Parmenides) thought, one may expect that what is rational comes into existance in Linux, and what became a permanent part of Linux did so because it was rational (Hegel's original is "What is rational is real and what is real is rational"). The same cannot be expected to be the end-product of development of a system build to a rigid blueprint prepared by a committee.

Linux is a cult

Face it, you salespeople pretending to be journalists. There is hardly any integrity left in the computing press. How many words on Linux did your PC Magazine (or any other IT magazine) publish by 1999-01-01? Wasn't Linux at least an interesting technology by that time? It surely was, yet you conspired to keep your readership in the dark, selling your journalistic integrity for a few dollars. And now, after Linux has surfaced in the mainstream (non-computer) media, you keep writing misleading articles about it saying "yah, but it will/cannot/may ...." whatever (trying the "fear, uncertainty and doubt" tactics to kill it). And adding "Microsoft is already ...", continuing to write about the vaporware and the future paradise in the face of the increasingly stealthy, unstable, pricey, architecturally unsound computer platform, whose greatest achievement has been exhorting unheard-of-before money by denying inter-operatibility, and killing any existing or proposed standard (by "embracing" and then proprietary-extending it). Whom do you serve? Surely not your readers.

I worded it as strongly as I could. Am I a zealot? Or am I just trying to voice my disapproval for the self-serving actions of the computer "powers-that-be"?

You think "self-serving" is OK in business? How pathetic must your business be then! I always thought that business was a social contract in which we exchange good values, for a mutual benefit. As I read history, societies use to hang / guillotine / electrocute those members who really persisted in their self-serving business. Well, times have changed. A bit for the better, a bit for the worse :))

To be fair, there seems to be a number of hard-core devotees around any computer program/platform, and Linux might have accummulated a fair share of them. Oh, well, you may be religious about whatever you like. I can assure you, most Linux users I interacted with are rational.

The total cost of ownership (TCO) of Linux is high

Let me try a simple estimate of how much the average total cost of the ownership of MS Windows is. Let's add the fortunes accumulated by all the MS Windows software makers. Add all the salaries of all generic Windows programmers, consultants, support and training personnel, IT management, etc. Add the cost of the hardware for MS Windows. Now, add the losses in productivity customers must surely have suffered while the software corporations were presenting them with "new features" so as to make them upgrade and/or achieve their current lock-in status. Divide this sum of money by the number of years (whatever timeframe you selected), and the number of MS Windows users (only in the countries in which software is normally paid for). Here is the TCO of MS Windows. However you count it, it will be many thousands of good US dollars per average joe per year. You didn't pay that much money? Well, you must have, it has just been hidden from you (probably in the price of seemingly unrelated products and taxes). Yes, developed countries waste billions of dollars on software every year.

How much did Linux cost? Hardly anything. The number of users is much lower, too, but you will be hard pressed to come up with $10 per user per year.

Yet, in my opinion, the total cost is not what matters the most. What value did I receive for my money? You would have to calculate the total value of ownership (TVO?), then subtract from it the total cost of ownership (TCO) to obtain the "net benefit of the ownership" (or "return on investment"). Well, I cannot see how I would be making a good investment by purchasing the latest version of MS Windows or Office, by putting myself deeper into a single-platform dependency. My Linux based email, web browser and word processor work as well as anything available on MS Windows.

I guess accountants typically talk about the TCO for software "necessary for doing business," and thus skip the issue of the value, benefit, and the return on investment. There is really no value in the mainstream software, it is just the necessity for doing business these days. Well, Linux satisfies my computing necessities at zero monetary cost, and the personal pleasure and learning value are great.

Linux is idealistic "dreaming"; it is business that rules the world nowadays

Linux is the end-product of activities of many such loose "consortiums" who "scratch their needs." So Linux is a business, but it is not necessarily about centralised production and marketing of software. It is a de-centralized, small-scale development performed close to the end-users, so that they have access to reasonably-priced software that matches their need, solves their problems, sells their hardware or service, and which is totally theirs to keep: the licence never expires, and the user will never be cut off.

Linux may be found to violate somebody else's "intellectual property" (IP)

This is a serious and timely issue (July 2003). The most powerful Linux adversary (Microsoft) stated in their internal memorandum (leaked to the press) that they should try the legal route to deal with Linux ("The discussion of IP rights needs to be tied to concrete actions"). The entertaining (and "scary") Microsoft series of blueprints on how to deal with Linux have been leaked and published as so-called Holoween Documents (http://www.opensource.org/halloween/).
So yes, there is some probablility that Linux might be sued out of existance in the United States because of political pressure.

Linux developers are not copiers or thieves. They produce thousands of lines of computer code every day. The Linux licence is based on the respect for the "intelectual property", i.e., the exclusive right of the author to distribute her creation. Nevertheless, missappropriation of code into Linux can happen. Considering the amount and complexity of code in a typical GNU/Linux distribution and the rate of development, it is likely going to happen, sooner or later. A dishonest developer may "lift" code from somebody else and submit it to any of the number of public Linux-related projects, pretending that the code is his own. This IP problem is not limited to Linux. Cases of misappropriation of code happen to close-software companies as well (e.g., it happend to Microsoft) and, no doubt, will happen again.

As far as potential for missappropriation of code is concerned, the major difference between the "open source" and "propriatory, closed software" is that a misappropriation is trivial to detect in the former, and almost impossible in the latter. It the obligation of any IP owner to protect their IP and report potential (involuntary) infringements so it can be promptly remedied, and their potential losses minimized.

Linux developers are not negligent. They continuously submit all the Linux source code for public review and comment so as to detect and prevent any IP violations. Well-organized Linux archives are maintained. The open development method of Linux follows that employed by science, and it is likely a more dilligent practice for protection of other authors' rights than almost any IP control system conceivable for implementation in a closed-software house. Thus, Linux management of IP rights can rightly be called as "among the best in the industry" if not "the best".

Linux has an excellent IP record. Certainly, it is not known to harbor missappropriated code. Is it then legally-safe for me to use Linux? I feel, it is for me. In case a missappropriation of code into Linux is ever found, I can be certain that any infringing code will be immediately expelled from Linux and "clean" version will become available for me to upgrade. It has always been a specific goal of the Linux community at large to produce code uncontaminated with any propriatory code.

The whole issue should be placed into a broader context. There appears to be a recently increasing tendency to go overboard with "intelectual property" which clashes with notions of basic justice, decency and common sense. It seems that some dishonest corporations try to impose nebulous "licensing" to keep extracting, indefinitely, money while delivering no new value. In some cases, IP is becoming a tool with which some major corporations try to tax the average joe (and business startups), not unlike emperors used to tax salt. Linux is an answer to this unhealthy trend, an answer which is based on respect to the existing copyright laws. Therefore, Linux clashes with those who wish to extract money while delivering no value. I do not see a fundamental problem with IP in Linux but there is certainly a conflict of interests and hence attacks on Linux.

To summarize, Linux licence is based on respect to the current copyright laws. For all what is known, Linux is free of "intelectual property" infringment. It employs the best due deligent practises to make sure it remains free of any such infringments. However, due to the revolutionary nature of source code development, Linux is being attacked with nebulous IP claims and smeared by some paid "experts" with various IP "worries". So yes, publicity is expected as Linux big names are dragged through U.S. courts but it does not affect me.

If worst comes to worst and the intellectual property laws became so restrictive as to impede the progress of Linux and other open software, I would expect that it will be the laws that crumble. This is because the politicians seem to forget the intellectual property does not really exist (as Jefferson knew) and have been put in place only for further development and common benefit. Linux was born from genuine frustration about the quality and cost of software produced by the past methods, and such frustration cannot be contained by naked force without political repercussions.

Linux sux etc.