News Comment This is a comment on news story: Stick a fork in SCO. They're done. It's a reply to comment: Agreed... Well said, Jamyskis by: Fred McKinney  That's another thing that grieves me in the Linux community -- a lack of patience toward Linux newbies. I for one can remember when I joined LinuxQuestions.org, when I was interested in making the switch from Windoze to Linux. Seems like hardly anyone at all ever bothered to answer any of my questions. After all, I had serious, honest, legitimate, questions -- and they all ignored me, leaving me to find those answers on my own. But I didn't give up...when I learned about WGA in Windoze XP, I decided right there it was time to jump ship, and I never lost sight of that goal. After all, I was after computing freedom, you see. Fortunately, things have cooled down in Linux discussion forums in recent years, and I'd have to say I've seen very little if any bad attitudes in the discussion forums of my two most recent distros, MEPIS and my current distro, which is PCLinuxOS. But yes, Jamyskis, you're exactly right. I remember several years ago seeing a magazine article entitled "why Linux will lose the desktop war", and in the article, the main reason the author said it was bound to lose was because of such arrogance toward Linux newcomers, and that's NO way to promote your favorite operating system! In fact, as a longtime Christian, Linux kinda reminds me of Christianity in that just like many churches belong to some denomination or other (for the record, I'm Southern Baptist), there are people in the Linux community who have different preferences, such as DEB vs. RPM, LILO vs. GRUB, GNOME vs. KDE vs. Xfce vs. Fluxbox vs. IceWM vs. whatever, people who prefer to use the command line whenever possible vs. people who prefer to use a graphical desktop when possible, etc. And, for the free software purists who insist on not allowing themselves access to non-free software, they've got GNewSense that they can enjoy. This can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. On the good side, I think it's cool how Linux is not tied to any one particular desktop, unlike Windows or Mac. I'm a KDE fan myself, but I think it's cool how, for instance, there are desktops that work great for really old hardware. Sadly, it's also a bad thing in that yes, there's no denying that the Linux community has too many factions for its own good. If nothing else, if there's something that bugs you about the way things are done by part of the community, can't we at least learn how to politely agree to disagree? If we can't, Linux will never stand much of a chance of going mainstream on the desktop. If, however, Linux is going to ever become even halfway mainstream, we need to put aside our differences and learn to fight toward a common goal, and that's putting a major dent in Microshaft's coffers. As for an appropriate attitude to have, my church promotes the following, and I think the Linux community would do well to take this to heart: "In essential beliefs, we have unity, in non-essential beliefs, we have liberty, and in all our beliefs, we show charity." If Linux is going to become even halfway mainstream on the desktop, the community would do well to adopt those kinds of attitudes. Fred in St. Louis
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