At 07:38 PM 1/19/01 -0700, Ron Chmara wrote:
>Taking a page from M$, they don't exactly sit on the sidelines
>and avoid bashing Linux, Solaris, etc.... politeness is great
>for getting along and sharing space. If you want to take over
>marketshare, though, it doesn't quite work.
Why "take over marketshare"? Why should we take a page from M$? What are
the end objectives?
Make more money? The marketshare for free software isn't going to make you
the next M$ ;).
If the objective is to help more people, I'd personally prefer to gain
usershare from providing a tool that really is more helpful to more people
than from bashing others. Same if it's to build a reputation - if you want
a lasting reputation that is.
Regarding "why there is so much bashing" aka "religious wars": I believe
most of us still have strong tendencies towards the primitive mindset of
categorizing things into either "good" and "bad" exclusively. Such
categorizing can be useful as a form of decision caching, but in many cases
it is counter productive. I've been guilty of this, and will probably
continue to be. Another reason is because the entitity has become
associated with our selves, and most people think "Me Good".
Yeah we should just pick the right tool for the job, but often the tool at
hand is almost good enough :). And maybe that's why some bashing is needed
- to get people to use the right tool for them. But you have to pick the
right bashing for the job too ;).
Cheerio,
Link.
