Inspired by this.
It’s a common Linux trope, which means we must be making headway. To quote: '“Too many versions”? Yes, probably so, in the same way that there are too many different kinds of breakfast cereal’
This of course is a stunning misconception of why there are “too many breakfast cereals.” It also ignores the question of why the Microsoft equivalent of Kellogg’s cornflakes has, ahem, eaten Linux’ lunch.
Thing is, it’s a ridiculous comparison. It’s a comparison that wouldn’t even need to be made if there was a good reason, any reason, for 57 flavours of the Linux Desktop and nothing on.
Once hooked in to this theme, however, Freetards just can’t give up. Another bogus comparison on the blog quoted:
“How many of us would like to be in the position of having Toyota be the ONLY car?” (Which is a presumption of MS monopoly and no defence of Linux fragmentation.)
Read the rest of the post. It’s fun, in a look-mommy-see-the-cretin way. The capstone argument is always
'Innovation and variety. So far I have only mentioned a few of the largest “mainstream” distributions, but some of the most interesting and innovative development is going on with the smaller distributions. Completely different desktops and user interfaces, support for different kinds of computers ranging from the very small to the very large, real-time and embedded systems, and of course distributions in different languages.’
All of which is bullshit. But even if it was true, I wouldn’t want a new desktop free with every packet of breakfast cereal, and, frankly, it wouldn’t be an economically viable proposition in any case. Most people already have a perfectly usable desktop to eat their cereal off.
The Linux Desktop is not a breakfast cereal. It is not a car. It is not a house and it is not a girlfriend and it is not a football team and it is not a baseball team and it is not even, to be honest, remotely equivalent to a computer language, where there are reasonable grounds for picking one from a multitude.
The only way in which the Linux Desktop has anything in common with breakfast cereals, ironically, is that it has a sugar daddy like W.K.Kellogg of Battle Creek, who created corn-flakes almost by accident whilst trying to discover the perfect enema for Seventh Day Adventists with a mania for health fads.
Sound slightly familiar? Much though I hate to quote it, Wikipedia explains the reason there are so many varieties of breakfast cereals on the market.
Or to put it another way, there’s no money in daft similes.
Comments
“Innovation and variety”
Yeah, right… This Watson chap has obviously never watched The Hurt Locker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo
TacoBellDistroStrategy™, anyone?
I remember reading a variation on this one from Piestar. It went, “yeah, there’s too many distros, just like there’s too many flavors of ice cream”.
It’s essentially variations of ItsNotABugItsAFeature™ and StableKernelDriverABINonsense™. Incompatibility and lack of standardization are good things, fool!
@Delano
Actually I think it’s more than just that. The Delusoids seem to have moved past the point of argument on technical merit (possibly because the Linux Desktop is entirely lacking) and convinced themselves that with a 1% market share, it’s actually time to treat Linux as a consumer product. In other words, this is outward-looking self-delusion, not inward-looking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JTVYNCTVhk
Linux in cereal form.
If that was a pidgin, I’d have bought lunch…
@JoeMonco
Straight rip-off from The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, Elliot Gould, 1973, best evah Chandler adaptation to film).
No uCrud for the specific scene, which involves Marlowe going out after midnight to find cat food to shut his cat up, but here’s the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeNyD9UFXHs
Life doesn’t get any better than this film. Unless, of course, Ubuntu feecks their funking fahnts.
You know what? YouTube is what Linux would have been if it had balls …
Here’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6a5CEOx2zw) a total rip-off of classic content that I would have (and indeed have, on VHS and DVD region 1, and DVD region 2) paid money for. It’s what’s known in the real world as “an advertisement.”
In the Land of Loon, it’s known as “Why didn’t you put that in the Repository?”
Anyway, here’s the original, plus supermarket, plus cat, plus on-screen smoking, plus Elliot Gould telling the cat, “So it’s not Ubuntu. 'S okay with me!”
I challenge you to find a more awe-inspiring video clip to accompany this trademark.
“Never seen so many catfoods in my tsck ... hey, uh, excuse me? I don’t see any Coury brand catfood”
“So what?”
“Coury brand catfood. Yeah, C-O-U-R...”
“Why don’t you get this, mister? All this sh1t is the same, anyway..”
“Oh yeah? You don’t happen to have a cat, by any chance, do you?”
“What do I need a cat for? I’ve got a girl”
“Ha ha … he’s got a girl, I’ve got a cat.”
I don’t see Elliot Gould or the guy in K-Mart or the cat or the half-naked girls living opposite going for Ubuntu. Maybe Coury brand, but not Ubuntu.
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