You know me, I like talking about Linux and when I saw these three articles I thought I had to share them.  They all came out last week.  The 1st article discusses the need for a bit more respect between the Windows an Linux camp.  Microsoft has tried to put fact behind the arguments against Linux adoption and while some people think the surveys were doctored (they were not), they did start the discussion as to why each OS was better.  I have said before that this should not be a religious discussion, but an evaluation based upon needs.  In some cases people will choose Linux, in others Windows.  It is nice however to have this recognised by the Linux community.  While the article only discusses Microsoft's PR, there is an underlying respect beginning to grow with statements like "has a good track record in fending off competition" have to mean more than just marketing otherwise it paints most users as pretty stupid.

One other thing discussed is the fact that the lack of release synchronisation causes users pain.  Backwards compatibility does not seem to be high on the Linux charter of needs and therefore seems to always cause problems when running a complex system with something that does NOT come in the box, which is quite often.  To this extent Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian called on the Linux community to develop a standard application-certification process for independent software vendors (ISVs).  Ron and his company however are not flavour of the month with the Linux community for their "audacity" of signing a deal with Microsoft - something so "bad" that explicit changes were made to GPL v3 to stop it happening, which is about as silly as it gets.  For the Linux community to tell you that you are bad for signing business deals is simply stupid.

Meanwhile, Andrew Morton, a co-maintainer of the Linux Kernel reminded people recently that they should get involved, help code Linux.  For most of my partners this is an OMG moment - they don't want to code Linux, they want to sell solutions and not have to worry about the coding and more important know what is behind them in the product quality and support.

Anyway, enough of my rant, I just thought that I would share this.  Finally, since I have referred to this so many times - I think that Hugh's card says it all:

and from a business point of view -

These can all be found at http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/cat_microsoft_blue_monster_series.html

ttfn

David