[NTLUG:Discuss] What makes Linux great?

[Lance Simmons]

* MadHat <madhat at unspecific.com> [031220 16:16]:
> Don't reply here.  He is not a member.  He is looking for feedback off
> list.

I'm on another mailing list where some list administrators from other
LUGs have been discussing this guy's request to contact LUG members.
(He's been contacting LUGs across the country -- who knows, maybe the
world.)  At least one of them said no, others said he needs to subscribe
to their mailing list first, and others approved his post.

There were some good questions raised on that list about the prudence of
answering this person's survey.  The person requesting this feedback is
doing what he's doing because he is trying to help Microsoft.  He's an
employee. That means that he believes that your cooperation with him is
better for Microsoft than otherwise.  (He could of course be wrong.)

Furthermore, some people on that list pointed out, the person asking you
these questions, however polite he is, and however much he seems to
"get" what is going on in the GNU/Linux world, has precisely _no_ power
to determine the future direction of Microsoft.  That direction is set
by Bill Gates.  So, by cooperating with this person, you're basically
helping Bill Gates gather information he wants in order to implement his
vision of the future.

That isn't to say it's a bad (or good) idea to answer a survey from some
Microsoft guy who is polite.  My only point is that the issue isn't as
straightforward as it might at first seem, or at least as it first
seemed to me.

-- 
Lance Simmons
"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
		-- Dave Bowman, 2001