KCLUG --> KCMUG?

[Jonathan Hutchins]

---- Original Message -----
From: "Marvin Bellamy" <Marvin.Bellamy at innovision.com>

> I agree Linux on the desktop is going nowhere right now...

But I disagree!  Ximian has just released their latest Gnome desktop for
Mandrake, KDE made some excellent progress last year, and these two desktops
do have a lot of promise for an alternative desktop.

I don' t like the idea that in order for Linux to "succeed", it has to be
"dumbed down".  Let Microsoft have the knuckle-dragger market.

MacOS is not, in spite of it's user-protection concept, known as an OS for
dummies, but as an OS for artists and creative people.  Linux could become
the desktop for technical people, for power users, without having to be (as
it is now) the desktop for Linux Programmers.

Development of the Linux Desktop may have slowed a little in 2001 because
there's not quite so much slack in corporate budgets to support it, but I'm
certain it will recover.  I'm sure a lot of effort will go into the "Dumb it
down" and "Make it just like Microsoft with all the disadvantages' projects,
but some people will have more sense and take it down it's own road.  Mac OS
X will help drive that direction, and although Macintosh is almost as well
known as Lotus for their lawsuit-based business model, some of the concepts,
if not the actual code, will be shared.

But the biggest thing driving Linux as a popular desktop, warts and all, is
Microsoft XP.  My company is thrashing hard to avoid even mentioning it -
we're still on NT, with a rare W2K box here and there.  We don't _want_ XP,
we don't want .NET, we don't want to have to open our LAN to Microsoft in
order to run their software.  More and more companies who need to have full
ownership of their software are going to have to give up the Microsoft model
and go with something that's not so fiercely manipulated from Redmond.

Frankly, I believe that the cost to re-license all of the servers and
workstations in my company to either W2K or XP would easily cover a program
to develop an internal Linux desktop, deploy it, train the users on it, and
set up a support staff for it.  I've run the numbers, and they look very
good, but I'm not the guy who signs the checks.

Contrary to popular myth, not all of American Business is run by PHB's.
Common as they are, there are real people out there who are earning seven
figure salaries because they're smart, and they make good decisions, and
those people are going to make the decision to leave Microsoft at the altar
sooner or later.

That's what will drive the Linux desktop, not the market for the average
home-user-schmuck who wants a cheap OS he doesn't have to think about.
Individual users with no desire to learn about their computer will continue
to by Microsoft products, and that's a race to the bottom that Linux can't
win, and shouldn't even be in.