Weblog entry #45 for ajt
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I use to hate windows. I use to have to use it all the time and support it. I found it frustrating and annoying. Now I barley use Windows at all, it's just a bootloader for Cygwin or PuTTY. I still dislike it's bad design, poor POSIX compatability and awful security, but it takes too much effort to hate it now.
I spotted this on LXER this week: I love Microsoft, which made me think. Hating Microsoft/Windows is like hating an old war criminal/mobster. In "his" youth you know he was an evil violent law breaker that did untold damage to his enemies and many innocent bystanders, now he's just an incontentinent old mad doddering about in the prison garden and just doesn't "get" today.
It's hard to hate an old infirm man, it takes too much effort. However you do have to watch you back, Microsoft is still a powerful and spiteful organisation, with a lot of freinds in high places it's bought over the years.
Maybee if they get rid of the clown Balmer and the other dead wood, someone new can turn the organisation around, otherwise, at the current rate there won't be another version of Windows after Vista...
Comments on this Entry
I see it already in slavish backward compatibility cries.
The developers having to learn how to support more than one platform (relearn in the case of the older ones).
I also fear SELinux maybe such a mistake -- much as I want that level of security -- poorly retrofitted security is a sign of an aging OS (look at how gloriously widespread ACL support is) -- hopefully SELinux and ACLs will eventually be seamlessly integrated, or stay as optional for where it is needed, but a halfway house could be very messy.
Perhaps it is time for newer and greener pastures.
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For example, SSH is a good subsitute for the r* tools, but sometimes it's best to get rid of antique tools like the r* tools and when you implement something new you don't need to be 100% compatible with the past.
Love it or hate it, Apple started for a clean sheet with Mac OSX, and has been able to produce a fairly good Unix operating system. Microsoft are constantly held back by their poor designs of old because they retain backwards compatability. Linux is lucky that it's built from Unix, but ultimatly things will need to change for the better.
It's still interesting to look at Micrsoft, they do look like a befuddled old company, they didn't get the Internet, and now they don't get much of what's hip today. They seem out of touch and dazed by the modern world. They still have a lot of money and clout so they are still dangerous, but what ever vision they did have, has long since past it's sell by date...
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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I still write for LinuxJournal.com and O'Reilly primarily on sys admin topics.
I wrote a blog a couple of days ago along these lines. Here's a couple of paragraphs:
It's called: Linux and Microsoft: Taking a Pragmatic Approach
"Would it surprise you to discover that Linux administrative and support employees have created barriers to entry for others with similar talents? What if I told you that a difficult job climate has emerged because of your Linux buddies? Would you believe it?
"Get a grip because that's something with which you may have to deal if you attempt to change jobs or enter the market. Recruiters tell me that "Linux guys" take job offers from predominantly Microsoft shops, go through training and within an average of three months leave their employers hanging. That means having Linux credentials could work against you. Technologists with Linux on their resumes might find something akin to age or gender discrimination when they start applying for work".
While this comment may not follow the reasoning of "I don't hate Windows anymore..." exactly, I feel the author has taken a pragmatic approach and it may not only work for me but lots of Linux users who need to work for a living.
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My past two jobs have involved being a sysadmin for a mixture of Windows and Linux/Solaris/SCO.
Pragmatically if I were in search of a job and needed to pay the bills I would settle for a similar position again, and as your quote says I would leave as soon as I found a purely Linux position to replace it.
It isn't that I hate Windows, or Microsoft. There are good and bad parts to both, just like any operating system or company. But given the choice between something closed like Windows and something open like GNU/Linux my choice has to be the open one.
I wonder how true that is generally though? If there were any discrimination that would be a sad thing, but I'd find it hard to believe. Most of the Linux admins I know are extremely competant at lower-level understanding which is a very desirable trait for a sysadmin, or network-admin so I guess there could be a tradeoff
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On the Windows side, I've known only a handful of people I'd ever trust to do anything on a Windows box, most of the Windows people I've ever known have been plain useless. Of the people I trust, even the ones with Microsoft written through them like a stick of rock, some are sniffing around Linux - could be all Microsoft's FUD is making them curious.
On the Unix side, I've come across some people who switch between Linux and Unix with ease at one end of the spectrum, to some who think Linux is a passing fad, and that there isn't anything wrong with r* tools on UNIX™.
Of the people I know who use Linux, mostly my local LUG, a lot of them have to deal with Windows constantly. It's fair to say that many have come to Linux because they have been frustrated and annoyed by Windows. It's also fair to say that many of them (not nessesarily the same people) also know Windows very well.
Given the choice I'd choose what I know for my work, which would be Debian, Perl, Apache, and other FOSS tools. I can work with Windows, IIS and VB, but it would take my twice as long to get any thing done...
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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I've not looked for a job in some time, but I do hear that in the UK at least, that Windows jobs now are requiring Linux experience. It could be that the idiots in recruitment agencies are just adding more "buzz words" without knowing what they mean, or it could mean that Windows admins now require Linux skills...
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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