Part 0: For the Undecided (Linux Benefits)

Contents of this section:

0.1 Fundamentally, why Linux?

0.2 Is Linux for me?

0.3 Linux is difficult for newbies.

0.4 What are the benefits of Linux?

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#TheGNUsystem

To get a flavour for the value of Linux, here are some prices for commercial software as listed at www.amazon.com. All prices are in $USA, as listed on 2001-02-03, with discounts. Roughly equivalent Linux software is included on almost any Linux CD (but with no restrictions on the number of clients). In addition, the hardware for Linux is MUCH cheaper, since Linux can run all services on a single server: Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (5-client)--$848.99; Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (5-client)--$1,279.99; Microsoft Outlook 2000 (1-client)--$94.99; Systems Management Server 2.0 (10-Cals)--$994.99; Proxy Server 2.0--$886.99; Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition (5-client)--$1,229.99; Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition (1-user License)--$4,443.99; Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 4.5 NT (Add-On 5-CAL)--$264.99; Windows NT Server Prod Upgrade From BackOffice SBS Small Bus Server (25-client)--$558.99; Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server Upgrade (25-client)--$3,121.99; Microsoft FrontPage 2000--$129.99; Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server --$664.99; Site Server Commerce 3.0 (25-client)--$4,092.99; Visual C++ 6.0 Professional Edition with Plus Pack--$525.99; Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise 6.0 with Plus Pack--$1,128.99; Microsoft Visual Sourcesafe 6.0 CD--$469.99; Microsoft Office 2000 Standard (1-client)--$384.99; Adobe Photoshop 6.0--$551.99; Microsoft Plus Game Pack--$19.99.



0.5 What are the differences between Linux and UNIX?

Command-line-wise, almost none, although this has been changing (for better or worse). Linux has a much larger market appeal and following than any commercial UNIX. GUI-wise there are also no major differences--Linux, as most other UNICES, uses an X-Windowing system.

The major differences:



- Linux is free, while many UNICES (this is supposed to be plural of UNIX), cost A LOT. The same for applications--many good applications are available on Linux free. Even the same commercial application (if you wanted to buy one) typically costs much more for a commercial UNIX than for Linux.

- Linux runs on many hardware platforms, the commodity Intel-x86/IBM-spec personal computers being the most prominent. A typical UNIX is proprietary-hardware-bonded (and this hardware tends to be much more expensive than a typical PC clone).

- With Linux, you are in charge of your computer, whereas on most UNICES you are typically confined to be an "l-user" (some administrators pronounce it "loser").

- Linux feels very much like DOS/Win in the late 80s/90s, but is much sturdier and much richer, while a typical UNIX account feels like a mainframe from the 60s/70s.

- Some UNICES may be more mature in certain areas (for example, security, some engineering applications, better support of cutting-edge hardware). Linux is more for the average Joe who wants to run his own server or engineering workstation.



0.6 What are the differences between Linux and MS Windows?

The major differences:



- Linux is free, while MS Windows costs money. Same for applications.

- Linux file formats are free, so you can access them in a variety of ways. On MS Windows, the common practice it to make you lock your own data in secret formats that can only be accessed with tools leased to you at the vendor's price. How corrupt (or incompetent?) must the politicians who lock our public records into these formats be! "What we will get with Microsoft is a three-year lease on a health record we need to keep for 100 years" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1694000/1694372.stm].

- With Linux, you are unlikely to violate any licence agreement--all the software is happily yours. With MS Windows you likely already violate all kinds of licenses and you could be pronounced a computer pirate if only a smart lawyer was after you (don't worry, most likely none is after you).

- MS Windows tries to be the "lowest-common-denominator" operating system (for better or worse), whereas Linux is built for more sophisticated, feature-hungry computer users (for better or worse).

- MS Windows is based on DOS, Linux is based on UNIX. MS Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) is based on Microsoft-own marketing-driven specifications. Linux GUI is based on industry-standard network-transparent X-Windows.

- Linux beats Windows hands down on network features, as a development platform, in data processing capabilities, and as a scientific workstation. MS Windows desktop has a more polished appearance, smoother general business applications, and many more games for kids (these are not better games though--Linux games tend to be more sophisticated).

- Linux is more feature-rich than you could imagine. Heard on the Internet: "Two big products came from the University of California: UNIX and LSD. And I don't think it's a coincidence."

0.7 I don't believe in free software, etc.

Here is the opinion of an IBM executive: "The reason we are so excited about Linux is we believe Linux can do for applications what the Internet did for networks" (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-08-17-001-04-PS-EL). IBM just (May 2002) spent 1 billion dollars making Linux run on all their hardware platforms (mainframes, workstations, PCs, laptops).

0.8 "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"

0.9 I need high security. With commercial software, I can sue them if things go wrong.

0.10 I need standards. Big software corporations (Microsoft) provide standards.

"We need standardized, open file formats so that users can exchange documents between platforms. The actual word processing software used to generate these documents shouldn't even be an issue." (Ted Clark, http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-09-29-004-06-OP-MR-0010).

Linux, by its very nature, is based on true, published and free standards because "open source" makes the full specifications available to everybody (competitors or not). I believe that the urge for open standards is the very driving force behind Linux. Some people feel that they cannot afford to trust their algorithms and data to a commercial entity, let alone one that repeatedly demonstrated it is untrustworthy.

Have a look at a draft of this Argentinean law for a taste of the future. It sounds like the Argentineans may be the first to decide that their public records cannot be held hostage by a commercial entity: (source: http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/28/010216.shtml): "... Public National Organizations mentioned in article 1 of this law, will not be allowed to use programs that store data in non-public format ...". Several other counteries are contempleting or enacting legistlations requiring storage of data in public file formats.

There is a strong perception in the Linux community that there is a serious problem with the computing "standards" championed by large software vendors. This includes their standards for our "static" data , as well as the knowledge embedded in our computer codes. Can we afford to have somebody decide for us when, how, and at what cost we can access our work? This problem is ignored and even aggravated by people who are paid to take care of it. Linux is a grass-root answer.

0.11 I Need MS Windows for Reading Writing MS Word Documents

In a large corporate environement, you may have little choice--they locked themselves by cheerful productions of non-portable forms, templates, visual basic-driven web pages and other "tools".



In a smaller environment, you can use OpenOffice.org suit (OO) that runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Solaris, with full file-level compatiblity. It can be downloaded and installed for free (no restrictions whatsoever) so nobody should really complain about the file format (some control freaks still will). Just to make sure, it can import and export MS Word and Excel documents of reasonable complexity very well. However, its native file format is fundamentally much better (and non-propriatory). Feature-by-feature, it can do almost anything MS Office can, plus some extras. Depending on whom you ask, the ease of use veries between "50% more difficult" to "20% easier" (measured on experienced MS Office users). Very complex documents are best transferes as pdf, and OO can make them on the fly.



So, probably you do not need MS Office any more. Download your OO for MS Windows and Linux at: http://www.openoffice.org/



0.12 MS Windows popularity insures that it is "here to stay".

Linux is quite positively here-to-stay because of its open-source nature (Linux cannot possibly be put out-of-business). It is a standard selected for countless projects that are not going to go away, and some of them are quite "mission-critical." Try the International Space Station, for which Linux is the operating system (http://www2.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue59/3024.html).

Plus, never underestimate the strength of the Linux community. Linux is "here to stay" at least for the computer avant-garde. Many Linuxers do not even want Linux to become very popular because they fear it could "dumb down" the elite Linux platform.



0.13 But LINUX may fork into many different systems ...

"Forking" in this context means "branching a computer program," so as to create parallel "subversions" of the program, and consequently fragment Linux.

There is very little (if any) evidence of harmful forking of any software included with a typical Linux distribution. Where forking did occur, it has always turned beneficial. Quite possibly, this is because although there are no artificial barriers to fork software under Linux, there are also no artificial barriers to merge the best pieces back.

The theoretical background on how forking software can be good for its development might have been actually given quite some time ago by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), with his concept of dialectic development. E.g., in "Phenomenology of Spirit", Hegel concludes: "... the schism incipient in a party, which seems a misfortune, expresses its fortune rather."

0.14 Linux is a cult

Face it, you salespeople pretending to be journalists. There is hardly any integrity left in the computing press. How many words on Linux did your PC Magazine (or whatever) publish by 1999-01-01? Wasn't Linux at least an interesting technology by that time? It surely was, yet you conspired to keep your readership in the dark, selling your journalistic integrity for money. And now, after Linux has surfaced in the mainstream (non-computer) media, you keep writing misleading articles about it saying "yah, but it will/cannot/may ...." whatever (trying the "fear, uncertainty and doubt" tactics to kill it). And adding "Microsoft is already ...", continuing to write about the vaporware and the future paradise in the face of the increasingly stealthy, unstable, pricey, architecturally unsound computer platform, whose greatest achievement has been exhorting unheard-of-before money by denying inter-operatibility, and killing any existing or proposed standard (by "embracing" and then proprietary-extending it). Whom do you serve? Surely not your readers.

I worded it as strongly as I could. Am I a zealot? Or am I just trying to voice my disapproval for the self-serving actions of the computer "powers-that-be"?

You think "self-serving" is ok in business? How pathetic must your business be! I always thought that business was a social contract in which we exchange good values, for a mutual benefit. As I read history, societies use to hang / guillotine / electrocute those members who really persisted in their self-serving business. Well, times have changed. A bit for the better, a bit for the worse :)))

0.15 The total cost of ownership (TCO) of Linux is high

Let me try a simple estimate of how much the average total cost of the ownership of MS Windows is. Let's add the fortunes accumulated by all the MS Windows software makers. Add all the salaries of all generic Windows programmers, consultants, support and training personnel, IT management, etc. Now, add the losses customers must surely have suffered while the software corporations were presenting them with "features" so as to achieve their current monopolistic status. Divide this figure by the number of years (whatever timeframe you selected), and the number of MS Windows users (only in the countries in which software is normally paid for). Here is the TCO of MS Windows. However you count it, it will be many thousands of good US dollars per average joe per year. You didn't pay that much money? Well, you must have, it has just been hidden from you. Yes, developed countries waste billions every year on software.

How much did Linux cost? Hardly anything. The number of users is much lower, too, but you will be hard pressed to come up with $10 per user per year.

Yet, in my opinion, the total cost is not what matters the most. What value did I receive for my money? You would have to calculate the total value of ownership (TVO?), then subtract from it the total cost of ownership (TCO) to obtain the "net benefit of the ownership."

I guess accountants only talk about the TCO for software "necessary for doing business," and thus skip the issue of value and benefit. There is no value in the normal commercial software, it is just the necessity for doing business these days. Well, Linux satisfies my computing necessities at zero monetary cost, and the personal pleasure and learning value is just great.

0.16 Linux is idealistic "dreaming"; it is business that rules the world nowadays

Linux is the end-product of activities of many such loose "consortiums" who "scratch their needs." So Linux is a business, but it is not necessarily about selling software--it is about access to reasonably-priced software that matches your need, solves your problem, sells your hardware or service, and which is totally yours (the licence never expires, and you will never be cut off from the source code).

0.17 Linux sux etc.

In this context, it may be worthwhile to briefly summarize Linux strengths and weaknesses: Linux is owned by its fans (your piece of ownership comes free with your free subscription to the fan club), definitely very powerful and feature-rich, highly configurable, as flexible as you want it to be (comes with complexity), low on the cost of hardware, comes with any networking bell-and-whistle known to man, requires a computer literate administrator, some essential desktop applications are still behind commercial offerings on other platforms (e.g., spreadsheet and word processing), a number of excellent end-user applications come "standard" and free with the operating system, the graphical user interface is very nice but still not as polished as Apple or MS offerings, Linux is highly standard (UNIX, POSIX), open file formats used all along, thousands of programs available for free download (although the ease of use and quality of these varies vastly). And most of all, Linux is enjoyable!