Re: [TCLUG:9194] Opinion - On Gartner, GNU and Corel

["Fred H. Olson" <fholson@cohousing.org>]

On 14 Oct, Clay Fandre wrote:

> Anyone see this yet?

The link gives an article that says IN PART:

   Gartner slams Linux with hostile review 
 
   By Ellen Cresswell
   15 October, 1999
 
   SYDNEY - A damning report from Gartner has all but put the kiss of
   death on Linux, but devotees of the OS maintain it's a force to be
   reckoned with.       
 
   "Linux is the 'hype du jour' that is thought by some to have the
   potential to upset Microsoft's dominance on the mainstream desktop,"
   the Gartner Group report says.

As a Linux user wannabe, it seems to me that the title and first two
paragraphs of this article are a biased summary of the orginal article 
as summarized in the article (I did not go to the original article).
It seems to me that Ellen 'hyped' ("made extravagant claims") the Gartner
critique with words like "slams" and "damning report" in part by setting
up unrealistic expectations for Linux with the quote from "some" (one or
more people?) about the "potential to upset" MS.  Sort of a set up a
straw man to knock down.

Anyone who is betting on Linux to upset MS in the foreseeable future is
betting on longshots.  Most of the substance of the Garter article are
legitimate critiques.  Just last week the TCLUG-list had discussion on
how competent / experienced computer users should be before introducing
them to Linux.  Linux is not ready for primetime but there are lots of
folks who find depending just on primetime to be a drag.

Hopefully there are enough folks that Linux does serve now to keep
developing it to get it closer to ready for primetime but it remains to
be seen how things develop.  Or wheter the evil MS empire wipes out all
alternatives.

For me I hope Linux lives long and prospers in some fashion.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  fholson@cohousing.org    Minneapolis,MN   55411  
(612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM          List manager of:
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