Posted on LT in response to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols article on ZDnet on June 4, 2001 10:19 AM ET...

"Linux won't "make it" on the desktop until users can run Microsoft Office


I've been hearing that rant evey since I installed KDE 1.0beta on my box, about three years ago.

Even Author-Author knows that Hell will freeze over before Gates will migrate Office to the Linux desktop. He also knows that Microsoft is betting the bank on its "pay-per-use" service, .NET, in which case even Office won't be on anyone's desktop.

Yet, Author-Author thinks it important that folks should believe that only if Office itself appears on the Linux desktop would Linux be worth using. He knows that the average computer neophyte, who thinks that PC means Windows, will abandon the curiosity they may have had about Linux, drawing from the author's criticsm the conclusion that one can't really do anything useful with Linux because it doesn't run Office. Author-Author quickly discounts StarOffice or OpenOffice, knowing they will be offered as counter arguments. Why did Author-Author do that? He knows that many folks use WordPerfect's office suit, and prior to Microsoft's illegally gained monoply they had used several other office suits as well. Those same people can learn another office suit as easily as they learned Office. Further, point and click is point and click, regardless of the desktop.

Cut & Paste on my SuSE 7.1 at home, running Kylix on KDE2, works exactly the same as it does on VFP6 running on Win2K at work, except that Kylix is MUCH more powerful than Visual FoxPro 6.0. And, Cut&Paste works exactly the same on the SuSE 6.4 at work as it does on the Win9X at work, except that the SuSE doesn't crash. And SuSE cost $30 for as many PCs as one want to put it on, while Win2K costs $300 per PC. Folks who use both say there is no difference in technical or mouse-clicking skills needed to operate either. But, Author-Author knows that, IF he has the Linux experience he claims. Unless, or course, he feels incapable of learning to use another office suit.

That only leaves one question: Why did the Author-Author choose to write this type of anti-Linux FUD at this particular time? It seems so well co-ordinated with the other "I use/like Linux but it will never make it on the desktop..." articles that are popping up like mushrooms every since Craig Mundie's opening salvo. (The obvious stands out immediately: Microsoft has relenquished the server market!)

Standing on the "front lines" you see Mundie's and Ballmer's shells falling short, passing over head, blowing up straw men, or even blowing up in their own faces, but never hitting what we thought is their intended target...us! Then, you feel a sharp, stabbing pain and look around to see what made the hole in your back...and you realize the shot was from behind, where your fellow penquins are standing. It is then that you realize that some Penquins standing among the flock are actually fakes, costumes worn by imposters and planted like decoys to deceive with a false squeal when the moment arises. It is then when you know who are true Penquins. You may not be able to tell when you see them, but you can certainly tell when you hear or read them, no matter what their names are. And one realizes that the shells being fired by Ballmer&Gang are aimed at Window users, trying to blow out of their mind any desires to move to a more stable and economically affordable platform. The decoy Penquins have been assigned the task of 'picking off' the newborn Penquins, who have not yet taken to the "Open Sea."

end-of posting on LT.

A couple of years ago two internal memos were leaked. Called "The Halloween Documents" because of the date on which they appeared, they outlined the threat that Linux posed for Microsoft and what Microsoft could be do to counter that threat.

But, Microsoft appeared to pay no public notice to Linux until Craig Mundie's attack on "Open Source" and Linux a couple of weeks ago. Never mind that he confused Open Source and the GPL. A week later Steve Ballmer followed Mundie's salvo with one of his own, demonstrating the same confusion. Then, last week, Richard M Stallman appeared at the forum used by Mundie to rebutt and educate Mundie about the differences between Open Source, GPL and how a virus operates.

In an amazing display of boorishness, Microsoft PR folks were in attendence, distribuing a list of supposedly 'tough' questions to attendees prior to RMS's talk in hopes that they would ask RMS those supposedly embarrasing questions. Big mistake. RMS was given a copy. What a turkey shoot, and using their own ammo! It's interesting to note that a copyright and 'do not distribute' line was at the bottom of the page.

Perhaps a bit more effective is the Pseudo Penquin Campaign, but not much. I posted this response to Author-Author's article as an example of the battle now being engaged. This article is the third of it's type I've seen posted since Mundie's opening salvo, more than I've seen in a couple of years. Expect to see more, especially of the 'one-shot' journalist type. You know, the kind Sony uses to hype their movies.

Microsoft is not ignoring Linux any more.

Outbursts by Mundie and Ballmer only give Linux more FREE press. I don't expect them to repeat that tactic many more times. Microsoft's biggest weapons are FUD spread by media operatives claiming to be Linux enthusiasts, and the political clout that their money affords, since there isn't a specific company they can fire at. They only public target is the GPL, which they are intent on getting the public to confuse it with the Open Source paradigm. It's really the only thing they can shoot at, since criticising Linux on price, stability or usability would only bring instant and embarrasing comparisons.

Microsoft is actually a victim of their own stratagy, one they used against Netscape. They used their OS monopoly to fight Netscape by making IE FREE and bundleing it with their OS. Their own internal memo called it 'leveraging' their monopoly. Even though the initial offering of IE was inferior to Netscape, people used it because it was free. Over time, IE improved. Microsoft made up for their income loss by increasing the license fee of their OS.

When I first used KDE 1.0beta three years ago it was inferior to about any WinXX desktop. Now, KDE2 is at least equal to Windows, and in some respects already better. The GPL development model (baazar) is much more rapid than the propriatary model (cathedral), and you can expect KDE to evolve to a superior position very quickly. The same is true for OpenOffice, the GPL version of Star Office. After all, only three years ago Linux as a server or a desktop OS wasn't even in the grass on the radar.

What a change three years can make.