DISCUSSION: [Hari's Linux Corner] Thoughts for Linux

vharishankar · 01-16-2007, 09:03 PM

This thread is to discuss the article titled:
[Hari's Linux Corner] Thoughts for Linux - 2007

Quote:

Hello and a belated happy new year to all my readers. I apologize for this delay in posting my next edition of Hari's Linux Corner, but since it was the holiday season, I figured that I might as well wait for a while before I started posting articles again in the hope that more people will read it. In spite of the customary "Linux is not ready for the desktop" rants that we usually see all around the year, I think that it's clear that 2007 promises to be a remarkable year for Linux as a mainstream OS. I've already mentioned that Linux as an alternative OS is already catching on and with Windows Vista coming out and forcing end users to upgrade their hardware, I predict a greater degree of movement towards Linux, particularly in Asia and Europe. I've talked at length about Microsoft's unethical business practices and this includes the vicious upgrade cycle forced upon users. Till date, it has remained in the domain of software and however inconvenient, users have managed to keep pace with developments. However, I think Vista will be a major road-block for Microsoft in the consumer market. I don't think that in 2007, the end-user is as ready to accept Microsoft's diktats regarding upgrades as the user was in, say 2000. There is already a slow revolution shaking the IT world as more and more people have starting waking up to facts.

rickh · 01-16-2007, 11:20 PM

Hari,

I hope you'll take this as friendly criticism. You are an excellent writer, and when you first announced a regular column, I was pleased. I've read every one of them, and this is the closest thing I've seen to what I hoped for, but it's not that good.

Your columns here have the feeling of having been dashed off in 15 or 20 minutes when you had a moment of idleness, and the responses they get are indicative of that. On the other hand, the articles on your blog are often well conceived and concise in reason and execution ... and they attract voluminous commentary.

LQ deserves better from you, and I know you are capable of giving it.

vharishankar · 01-16-2007, 11:44 PM

rickh, I've been pressured for time for some time and I haven't posted regularly even in my blog for a while. Maybe the rustiness is showing, but I assure you I try my best to express my thoughts in the best possible manner.

Also I wanted to try a different style of writing here at LQ instead of my usual rants. I don't want to attract the flames that are usually attracted to my more controversial (and well thought out) articles. So I was naturally focussing on things that wouldn't draw too much negativity.

I hope that you will continue reading and hopefully with Jeremy's permission I can actually share this content with my own blog as well so that I minimize the time taken to maintain different sets of articles. You will understand that my first priority is to keep my blog active so that I can continue attracting my own audience as well. In fact, after starting my LQ Column, I have sacrificed quite a lot of my blog time to post for other websites, paritcularly LQ.org and hence I've dropped my activity considerably on my blog. See the date on my latest blog post to get an idea of what is happening.

It's hard to write consistently good articles when I lack material. However, I have a couple of plans for this year which, hopefully I will discuss with Jeremy and bring off - namely interviews of up-and-coming Linux software developers and their projects.

I accept your criticism. Unfortunately I write a lot of different things including book and movie reviews on my website and other stuff, so naturally one area of writing suffers when I focus on another. Plus I have to keep my literaryforums active as well.

In short I'm finding it a bit tough to keep up with all my writing activities and still find time to pursue my educational activities.