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Poll
Windows zealots are ..
.. not as annoying as Linux zealots 28%
.. more annoying than Linux zealots 42%
.. equally annoying as Linux zealots 28%

Votes: 14

 Windows Zealots

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Nov 29, 2001
 Comments:
There's been a lot of hatred and misconceptions being bandied about Adequacy.org about Linux zealots lately. While it is true that there are some Linux enthusiasts who take "the cause" a bit too far, it is one-sided and irresponsible to not point out that there are Windows zealots who are just as bad.

Case in point:

I've got a cow-orker who is the prototypical Windows Zealot. You know how women get "that time of the month?" This guy has his time of the month, too. He subscribes to about 50 different Windows rags and gets them delivered out here at work. Towards the beginning of every month, he wanders around the office with a dopey grin on his face, anticipating the latest issue of Slobbering Microsoft Acolyte or whatever the hell these magazines are called. He reads them at lunch. He reads them during software builds. He reads them during meetings. He reads them on the toilet, for fsck's sakes.

Today, I ran into this buffoon in the hall. He waddled up to me and said "Hey, George, you upgraded to Windows XP yet?" His eyes were open so wide that they were almost touching each other. His toothy grin was so big that he could have easily swallowed a woodpecker whole. "Well, have you?" he asked.

"Um, no," I told him with a fake smile.

"You haven't?" he said incredulously, as if he were unable to believe that such a thing was possible. "Still running Win ME, huh?" He punctuated this last query with a playful jab to the shoulder and a grating giggle that one might expect out of a schoolboy with excessive flattulance. "Dude, ya gotta get with the program!" He then went on to prattle about such things as the "media player" and "active projectory" and other such nonsense. "What version of Windows are ya running, man?" he asked.

I smiled sweetly. "I don't run Windows," I replied.

"Dude! Yer one of them Mac types? Man, I never would have guessed!" He then let out a laugh not unlike the braying donkey-call made famous by the movie Revenge of the Nerds. "Mac-boy, Mac-boy, all for show! All dressed up and nowhere to go! Tra, la, la!" he shrieked.

"I run Linux," I explained.

At this point, the raucous braying and tra-la-la-ing stopped. His eyes narrowed to nearly-indiscernible slits and his lower lip began trembling in what I assume was rage.

"Gates-hater," he whispered, and took a few tentative steps backward. "That's all we need here is one of you Gates-haters. Gotta rock the boat, don't you? You gotta thumb your nose at Bill Gates and flaunt your use of this Linux because you hate Bill Gates, yes, and you hate Windows, and you flaunt it, you evil, evil .."

"Flaunt?" I interrupted. "You're the one that brought this up."

"Shhhh!" he hissed, bringing his index finger to his pursed lips in a silencing motion. "Hater, hater, hater .."

"Will you get a hold of yourself?" I asked, half-puzzled and half-amused. "I don't hate Bill Gates. I think he's a pretty good guy, in fact. I don't hate Windows, either. For most people, it's a pretty good operating system. It gets the job done for them, and then some. Why would you think that I think otherwise?"

"Because you're one of them," he croaked. "You use Linux."

(He pronounced it "LIE-nucks".)

"I use Linux because I'm a Unix developer by day and it's nice to have the continuity when I come home, " I explained. "I use Linux because my main activities on my machine are Web browsing, listening to music, and hacking on code. For my purposes, Linux is far more appropriate then Windows is. All the development tools are included with the system, including compilers and interpreters, Web servers, RDBMS packages, debuggers, etc. It's just a better-suited operating environ .."

"SHUT UP!" he screamed, causing several people who who were passing in the hallway to halt in their tracks and cast him quizzical glances. "Don't give me that crap," he hissed. "You use Linux because you're a hater. A dirty little goddamned hater. Can't stand success, can you? Can't stand Bill Gates, can you? Well, you'd best grow up and learn how things are."

"Look," I said, tiring of this. "If I wanted to use my machine primarily for gaming or office automation applications, I would use Windows. As it happens, the things that I want to do with my machine are more easily and comfortably accomplished under Linux. I don't have any problem with Windows, nor do I .."

By this time, the guy had closed his eyes, stuck his fingers in his ears, and was spinning around in circles. "La la la loo loo loo DEE DEE DEE DOO DO DOO I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU LA LA LA LA" By this time, I had given up. I walked back to my office and resumed working on a piece of code. The weirdo la-la-la'd out in the hall for at least five additional minutes, until somebody called Security and had him escorted off the premises. (He'll be back Monday morning, hopefully with something new to think about.)

In short, don't give me these fairy tales about how annoying Linux zealots are. Yes, they can be exasperating. But there are more than enough zealots on the other side to make up for it.


all zealots suck (5.00 / 3) (#1)
by alprazolam on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 02:04:19 PM PST
and should probably be executed. meek inheriting the earth and all.


Zealots do suck... (none / 0) (#6)
by chuckx on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 06:34:35 PM PST
...whether they be Christian, Linux , Windows or whatever. All they really end up doing is annoying others and hindering, instead of helping, their cause.


- chuckx -

 
zealots (none / 0) (#12)
by Synapse on Fri Nov 30th, 2001 at 06:33:16 AM PST
What about car zealots? I'm rather zealous about my Diamond Star cars. Granted, I am currently driving a big behemoth of a Ford Explorer, and enjoying it...


 
Windows Zealots are peripherals of "Windows&q (none / 0) (#2)
by loginadequacy on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 02:43:12 PM PST
I don't believe there are such things as Windows Zealots or shall we say the only thing they can ever be zealous about is to turn themselves into peripherals of "Windows". Proof: when "Windows" are dead, they are dead!


 
Unsubstantiated (none / 0) (#3)
by MessiahWWKD on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 03:29:45 PM PST
Forgive my skepticism, but I believe your anecdote is frivolous. Why must those who wish to affiliate themselves with Free Software resort to spreading propaganda about superior software? Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
Guardian angel, heavenly friend, walk with me 'til the journey's end.

 
What was that about lying? (none / 0) (#5)
by chuckx on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 06:32:08 PM PST
There are no RDBMS's for linux.
This has got to be a joke. This is definitely a flat out lie. There are RDBMS's for Linux.

Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and DB2 are all RDBMS's that are available for Linux. If you make such bold statements, you should at least try to back them up.


- chuckx -

You obviously do not know what an RDBMS is. (none / 0) (#7)
by TheReverand on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 06:44:26 PM PST
So please stay out of this conversation.

Running Oracle on Linux is like trying to swim in quicksand.

It's just a bad idea.

I know you are a zealot, but please, leave the DB talk to the big boys, who use real Unix.


Yes, I do. (none / 0) (#8)
by chuckx on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 07:02:36 PM PST
An RDBMS is a Relational DataBase Management System. Claiming that they don't exist on Linux is lie. Whether or not you consider them worthwhile for use is a different matter.

Here is another link for you to peruse. There's really no way you can claim that DB2 does not run on Linux.


- chuckx -

Listen kid (none / 0) (#11)
by TheReverand on Fri Nov 30th, 2001 at 04:53:44 AM PST
What IBM does for marketing, and what people actually USE, are 2 different things.

And knowing what an acronym means does not mean you know what an RDBMS is. MySQL and postgresql are not RDBMS's. They are just DB's. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop now before you make yourself look more foolish.




 
Drivel (5.00 / 3) (#9)
by seventypercent on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 09:27:42 PM PST
This whole diary entry is basically crap. And I'm not talking 70% crap, it's 100% crap. All I see is a bunch of mental masturbation wherein you're trying to convince yourself that running Linux is a moral and/or patriotic thing to do. Well, I've got news for you, Sparky: it isn't. So take your shareware operating system and your useless command-line interface and hit the bricks. I've not encountered one single Linux user that was interested in anything but rebelling against the establishment. And after reading this diary, I still haven't.

--
Red-blooded patriots do not use Linux.

 
It's spelled: "Linux"... (none / 0) (#10)
by Anonymous Reader on Thu Nov 29th, 2001 at 10:39:56 PM PST
...it's pronounced "Communism"!

P.S. Don't underestimate the utility of the fingers-in-your-ears-spin-around-and-go-lalalala-I-can't-hear-you technique. It can get you out of all sorts of trouble.


 

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