I’m going off tech blogs

The last year or so, my web surfing habits have changed somewhat. Before, the first place I went, usually, on starting up my computer was to head over to the Yahoo groups I subscribe to: al-Zawiya, Bewleyupdates, New Muslim Project, and a few others. Then I discovered blogging,and I started my own blog, and I now use it as a starting point. Most of my favourite sites are linked off it, including of course my favourite blogs, especially Muslim blogs.

One of the sites you can see on the left is called OSNews. It’s about operating systems, giving news on developments as they happen. Obviously this has its uses – one of the big advantages of blogs is that they bring news in from many different sources, so you can find out aboutthe developments of a particular sort all in one go. Trouble is, the comments pages are so full of junk! We all know war and political blogs fill up with rubbish pretty quickly – warblogsespecially are full of racist nonsense. But the flaming on tech blogs is of a different sort – it’s the rehashing of old disputes as to which operating system is better.

So, every time a new release of FreeBSD comes out, say, you’ll get the Linux people saying how much better Linux is compared to FreeBSD (or any BSD). And the BSD brigade will put the opposite argument, and one of them will post a link to a photo-comparison, featuring a woman in abright red bodysuit representing BSD, and a bunch of male geeks representing Linux. People advocate software in the most forceful way, and you get it on your machine and it’s mediocre. Even after you’ve spent money on it.

Then there’s the discussion which ensues every time an article is published on whether Linux is soon going to overtake Windows (commonly called “is it ready for the desktop?”). Well, the advantages Linux has are well-known: freely available, vastly more secure, more competition (only one company produces Windows), the vast amount of software in the box, never mind what’s out there. There are, however, the disadvantages: the narrower range of screen fonts on most versions, compared to Windows and especially the Mac, lack of availability, limited Windows compatibility, limited range of applications, Microsoft’s ability to pay Linux developers off (noticeably, Corel stopped supporting Linux after it got a cash injection from Microsoft). If you’re visually impaired, it’s fair to say “forget it”, because accessibility is in a very early stage. (Apple, however, are getting their accessibility ready for the next release, because US government grants depend on it!) We all know this, so what’s the point of “discussing” it on OSNews, Slashdot or whatever blog or forum? It strikes me as a rather pointless exercise.