Neal Stephenson on Linux

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

 I know most of you would rather be sent links than gigantic blocks of text,
and for that matter many of you have already followed the same trail of
links from slashdot that I did to find this, but dammit, Neal Stephenson
rocks so much I can't help myself...

 This is from his essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line", available
at
 http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
 In this excerpt he compares four of the larger players in the home PC OS
field to car dealers at an intersection...

"...Since then there has been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has
changed. The smaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans
and to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING
OUT OF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they have
gotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and bigger
station wagons and ORVs. On the other side of the road are two competitors
that have come along more recently. One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully
operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even
than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at
least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the
others. With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and
which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and
geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who
live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet
tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age
materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the
other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a
way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to
use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These
tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast
number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the
ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for
free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety
percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons
or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the
remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to
turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and
ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road,
selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride
them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the
occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon,
but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group
giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by
volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns,
trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical
conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your
money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive
across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred
miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say
is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You
don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this
dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station
wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it
while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers
to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my
house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is
buying station wagons?""

---
Eric Hillman
CCCU -- UNIX Sysadmin
ehillman@cccu.com
The opinions expressed in this message are mine.  You can't have them.