 Search I,Cringely:  The Pulpit The Pulpit  << [ What's in a
Name? ]   |  Where is Eleanor Roosevelt When We Need Her?  |   [
What's Wrong With Being Entertained? ] >>  Weekly Column  Where
is Eleanor Roosevelt When We Need Her?: Why the Linux World is
Upset and Shouldn't Be  Status: [CLOSED] By Robert X. Cringely
A shock went through the nerd world this week. It was one of
thosedefining moments on the order of Dorothy turning to Toto
and saying, "We're not in Kansas anymore." The Open Source
Software community, specifically the developers of the Linux
operating system, came under the strategic gaze of Microsoft.
And like deer caught in Bill Gates' headlights, the hackers
didn't like the experience. I'm not too thrilled with this
development, either, but what bothers me is how the nerds are
generally reacting the wrong way.  Last weekend a document
appeared on the Net, ostensibly an internal Microsoft whitepaper
about how to respond to the threat from Linux, from the Apache
web server, and other Open Source