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About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Abusing trust
One thing I take very seriously in my day job is that readers can trust what I write. I try to be as honest and educated as possible, and one of the things I do that most tech journalists don't is use non-Windows systems, such as Mac OS X and Linux, regularly (heck, I'm writing a book entirely in Mac OS X right now, actually). This gives me, I think, a unique--dare I say, "experienced"--perspective that many people lack. As part of this experience, I spend an ungodly amount of time checking up on Mac and Linux (and Mozilla) news and rumors sites. Most of the Mac sites stink: They're full of tunnel-visioned trolls whose opinions of Windows were formed a decade ago and never updated. Most of the Linux sites also fall into easily-labeled categories, too. Virtually every Linux distribution "review" out there, for example, simply describes (usually in breathtaking detail) how simple the installation was and how everything just worked (usually after entering some bizarre collection of command line commands, of course), and then... that's it (Heck I can read those kinds of Linux reviews on this site. Oh wait). There's very little in-depth analysis in the Linux world, for some reason, which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. I have been heartened, recently, however, by stories like this and this that demonstrate that even the Linux community, finally, is waking up to the fact that their favorite open source project isn't for everyone.

And then there's this misguided soul. There is nothing as alarming as reading that some Linux fanactic (whose email handle is penguinrox, naturally) has decided to "help" his neighbors by getting them going on Debian Linux (virtually the hardest Linux distribution to install and use, incidentally) and then find open source equivalents of all the applications they actually need to run. This is wrong for so many reasons, it's hard to understand why I even have to explain it, but after a couple of email exchanges with the bozo, it's clear that not only is he living in a fantasy land, he's interested in taking down others with him. This is both sad and alarming.

Like any sane person, I'll be praying for this idiot's neighbors. They're in for a world of pain. I just wish I could be there when they finally figure him out and storm his home in a Frankenstein-esque rage. He would be strung up by his toes in some countries for hurting people like this.

[ Posted at 3:15 PM | Permalink ]