Display problems! – RM Pros, Priests and Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux

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I have a hard time seeing the Linux Zealots as any different from terrorists because of the nature of their threats. I expect one of them — or
perhaps a group of them — will go too far at some point and do significant damage to the open-source movement.

Last week in writing the column “Zen and the art of Being Happy with Microsoft” I began to see parallels between Microsoft’s image problem and my own
view of the Linux community. Much as the Linux community sees just one aspect of Microsoft, the bad one, I tend to see just one aspect of the Linux
community.

Generally speaking, our view of a person, initiative or company often comes from select perceptions. If you read Slashdot, for example, even regular participants seem to comment that much of the discussion there is not based on what people have personally perceived but on what they have read about others people’s perceptions. Often, even these perceptions are based on second- or third-hand knowledge. My impression is that the vast majority of folks who are critical of my own columns have actually done a very good job avoiding actually reading them.