Thursday 27 March 2008

You'll Never Find a More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany

Obi Wan could well have had the yahoo message board for SCOXQ.PK (formerly known as SCOX) in mind when he spoke the immortal line about Mos Eiseley.

If you want a good example of idiocy and grade A lunacy then pop on over and have a read. Just don't take anything said on there at face value.

Somehow the message board has degenerated into a Linux vs Windows flame fest - with each side just as bad as the other. According to one side Linux is the best, Windows is evil. According to the others Linux is broken beyond repair whilst Windows is perfect.

You've just got to hope that no-one takes this collection of pond-scum from the bottom of the gene pool seriously as they aren't doing anyone any favours.

Lets face it, it is entirely possible to run Linux full-time these days without worrying about recompiling the kernel when you reconfigure your hardware. That hasn't been true for nearly a decade (if not longer). Most hardware works as well in Linux as it does in Windows, which is actually pretty amazing when you consider the lack of official support for most hardware (most of the drivers are written by volunteers).

Windows too can work perfectly well for a lot of people. Personally I prefer Linux but hey, horses for courses folks. I certainly don't spend all my time editing configuration files. Linux works for me and doesn't get in the way. Your mileage may vary.

Is it worth getting into a flame war over? Not really. I'm a big fan of open source AND freeware software (something to do with me being a tight-wad) but it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the fact that there are some pretty good - albeit expensive - commercial alternatives too.

The problem is that it is getting hard to recommend the commercial as the benefits no longer outweigh the costs. I'd guess this is why Microsoft (and other commercial companies) are fighting so hard against Open Source.

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