From: mhous...@mh01.demon.co.uk
Subject: Sunday Times denies right to reply to Hewson!
Date: 1997/05/08
Message-ID: <863134184.3380@dejanews.com>#1/1
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It seems that someone is now wanting to put a lid on the whole
David Hewson fiasco. As I am not, after all, being given a chance to set
the record right about Linux on the PCW coverdisk in the pages of the
Sunday Times I will at least let the Internet community know by publishing
here....
Letter to the Editor.
Sunday Times.
Dear Sir;
As the person responsible for talking PCW Magazine into putting Linux
on the cover CD (for the third time now) I can assure you that David
Hewson's assertion that Linux users hate Microsoft just because Gates
won the Operating System war is simply wrong.
The message we are trying to put across is: It would be rather foolish
of the rest of the computer industry to allow ONE company to control
virtually everything to do with computers. Microsoft already dominates
the desktop. With Windows NT they are trying to enter the big system
domain of Unix and Mainframes. The Linux community believes that
the Operating System should be a matter of public agreement and open
standards. Only that way do application vendors get a truly level playing
field, without suffering the strongest player regularly 'moving the
goal-posts' as Microsoft does so often.
I think you must be working David Hewson rather too hard. In the 20th
April issue I counted him as writing no less than seven articles in
the Comdex supplement as well as what can only be described as a savage
attack on peoples right to be informed of fundamental choices about how
they are going to get the best out of an often considerable investment
in computers.
David seems to be rather confused in his attitude to Unix. When (in the
Comdex Supplement) he is singing the praises of NT he says "NT's design
goal was to match the rock-like stability of Unix" but when it comes to
talking about Linux his attitude turns to "Linux, for the uninitiated,
is a version of that old computer donkey known as Unix."
"That old computer donkey" is where the majority of real computing jobs
are! Unix is not so much a specific product but a deep rooted philosophy
of how to use computers to solve problems, rather than them just being
a platform for ready made packaged solutions.
The most important point about Unix in general and Linux in particular is
that it is free and open. Freedom in Linux is not it's low cost. It is
the fact that all the software has been developed in the open by groups of
developers, engineers, and researchers across the net who share a common
aim in that they need to use the software they are developing. Linux
software tends to be well tested, solid and advanced. It helps to think
of 'free' as 'priceless' as the amount of valuable software delivered on
the magazine CD would be beyond any individual's ability to fully pay for.
Linux gives the individual and the organization the ability to use
advanced
computers as they chose without being beholden to computer companies in
Redmond Washington or anywhere else. That is what is so important about
Linux, and why you shouldn't throw the May PCW CD away, but instead take
time to read the on-disk documentation and realise what this is really
all about.
PC hardware is now faster than expensive Workstations of just a few
years ago. Linux exploits that power to turn the humble PC into a really
powerful tool for the mind.
Learn about Linux and you will become a member of an international
cyberspace community millions of people strong who believe that the
control and understanding that they gain from choosing Linux over Windows
as their computing system is well worth the modest investment in learning.
Maybe David expected a whole free clone of Office97 on the CD? sorry to
disappoint you.... Linux is evolving fast, out on the cyberspace frontier.
Want to know more? feel free to visit RedHat's web site
http://www.redhat.com or my home page http://www.mh01.demon.co.uk.
One last piece of advice to the timid: Linux runs just fine on computers
too slow for Windows95 and Office97. So don't throw your old 486 and
P90/P100 machines away - use them to teach yourself about the new world
of Linux. Linux makes a great network server, even on older hardware!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
For the full sorry story see http://www.mh01.demon.co.uk/sunday_times.html
Thanks to the many Linux users from all over the world who have
written to the Sunday Times - it's a shame it seems to be falling on
deaf ears!
--
Martin.Hous...@ukuug.org Linux SIG Organiser & Linux/Unix Consultant
#!/usr/bin/perl
grep($n += ord($_),split(//,"BILLGATES\003"));
print "$n ? Visit http://www.mh01.demon.co.uk/stopgates.html";
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