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Re: NT vs. Linux
Shalom,
Aviram Jenik wrote:
So far I haven't seen one single intelligent and objective response about
this issue (like, ok, lets improve the SMP abilities of the kernel) neither
here nor in slashdot and such.
Have you looked at http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/mindcraft.html or at
http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml? Have you read (among
many others) Matt Welsh in /.?
[Quoting Paul Thurrott:] For those of you who are unfamiliar with
such a thing, there are people that feel really strongly about
their computers. [...] Today, however, the Linux community wears
that championship belt of crazed advocacy [etc...etc...]
Of course people feel strongly about Linux: If they didn't Linux
wouldn't exist. The development of Linux is done by volunteers, if you
haven't noticed, and they wouldn't do it if they didn't feel strongly
about it. In fact you have here a positive feedback loop: people's
enthusiasm for Linux is both feeds on and contributes to its technical
excellence. To dismiss this enthusiasm as "crazed advocacy" is to
ignore the main strength of Linux and of Free Software in general.
This has no similarity with advocacy of proprietary systems like OS/2,
or Windows NT for that matter. The prominence of NT is mainly due to
the multi-billion dollar marketing budget of Microsoft, rather than to
any intrinsic merit in the OS.
Not that NT is entirely without merit: it has an enormous range of
applications, and a consistent user interface which is particularly
appealing for novice and casual users. In both these points it is
clearly superior to Linux, and nobody would ever get flamed for saying
this. When it comes to web and file serving, however, the picture is
different. That over a quarter of the webservers on the Internet run
on Linux is not due to the marketing budget of the Linux community nor
to the predilection of pointy-haired bosses for Free Software, but
solely to superior value for money. Tens if not hundreds of thousands
of webmasters and sysadmins around the world chose Linux after
ascertaining for themselves that for these tasks it is superior to its
competitors, including NT. That is why Mindcraft's report raised such
an uproar. To contradict so outrageously the experience of so many is
simply to insult both their intelligence and their qualifications for
their jobs.
When this public is outraged it naturally wants to express itself. So
Mr. Thurrott would rather be invited to exclusive presentations in 5
star hotels presided over by the most suave and urbane representatives
of America's most expensive public relations firms than be flamed on
Slashdot. Tough luck. The Linux community can't hire firms like
Mindcraft to represent its point of view. It can't apply subtle
pressure on journalists through the advertising department of their
newspaper (in the case of Mr. Thurrott, whose very livelihood depends
on the continued success of Windows, even this is unnecessary of
course). it can only respond by email. My suggestion to journalists
like Mr. Thurrott is to read carefully these emails rather than sneer
at them. They may not be as slick as advertising copy or invited
reports, on the other hand they might be true.
I'll close with this suggestion by Alan Cox
(http://www.linux.org.uk/):
It is tempting to publish a Linux versus NT benchmark
on 8Mb 486's. Except of course NT won't install too
well on it, and the world has enough fishy pseudo
benchmarks already. Why not do your own benchmark
?
Dig out that old 486 that was once the company server
and has been handed through the ranks until even the
secretary couldn't run Word on it any more, load Linux
and you'll suddenly find you have a web server,
firewall and mail gateway happy to handle any
small/medium business. All for under a tenth of the
price of NT Server.
---
Roi