Get off the tracks

[Editor’s note: This is the first of two special The Open Source newsletters. The newsletter will be discontinued after the May 5 edition.]

I have been encouraging businesses to look into Linux and open source since 1997. Some people have mistaken this as the missionary zeal of one so taken by a movement that he or she can no longer think straight. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

I never was a Unix bigot. In the early 1990s, I found Unix to be ugly, crufty, and unnecessarily obtuse. But one Unix trait I appreciated was that it did what an operating system should do: It created a multi-user environment in which programs could run reliably without the programmer needing to go to great lengths to make it all happen.

I came across Linux in 1995 while at a training class. I needed to increase my Unix skill set to prepare for a new business offering and saw this new “PC Unix clone” as a way to do so inexpensively using commodity hardware. As I began playing with Linux on my PC, I found that even though it was still very young and immature, this operating system had the stability, reliability, and multi-user capability that Windows lacked. It was still a bit ugly, but the community had opted to create a solid foundation first before adding the bells and whistles that can make it simple to use.

For such a young operating system, it was impressive. Even though it incorporated much of the work of the slightly older GNU Project and the BSDs, it still represented a lot of good work over a short period of time.

But the turning point for me was in 1997 at the now-defunct Atlanta Linux Showcase. At this small show with about 500 attendees, I finally heard many developers’ plans to write software in support of Linux. I heard the early success stories, I saw the enthusiasm, and I got the big picture. Was this some kind of “religious experience?” By no means —

it was the day I heard the train.

All aboard

In this industry, a week doesn’t go by without someone claiming to create some product that will change the IT world. After years of listening to hype from vendors, I had grown numb to these claims. But once in a very great while, something truly significant appears. Something that is technically sound.Something that has undeniable business sense.Something that is coming, regardless of which company wants it or who is fighting it.

That’s the train. It comes down the tracks with power and speed. It forces people and businesses to make choices. You can buy a ticket and get on board. You can get off the track and let it go by. Or you can elect to stand in the middle of the track and face the consequences.

In Atlanta in 1997, I heard the unmistakable sound of the approaching train we now call Linux and open source. It was technically sound, transforming formerly unreliable, single-user PCs into stable, multi-user computers. It made business sense, being astonishingly low cost and granting full control to the IT consumer. It had no natural leveling-off point, being pulled by consumer need rather than pushed by the profit motive of a single organization. It didn’t even have a business vulnerability where it could be thwarted by an attack on the company that owned it, since no such company existed.

For six years now, I have been trying to get people and businesses to understand that the train was approaching. During this time, I have been astounded at the number of IT pundits who refused to look at the situation with a logical eye. Some have accused me of being an idealistic fanatic or having a hatred of proprietary software. In actuality, though, I am guilty of having a firm grasp of the obvious. When a train is coming, milling around on the tracks blindly expecting the status quo to remain undisturbed simply is not an intelligent option.

The train is now pulling into the station. If you want to take advantage of its power and speed, now’s the time to take your seat. If you want to stay behind and hope that a different train is following soon, that’s your prerogative. But don’t be so foolish as to walk the tracks ignoring the great sound and fury at your heels. If you do, you will have no one to blame but yourself for the consequences.