| Linux benefits from Microsoft's ads against it |
Jan. 09, 2006
I am shocked, shocked, I tell you to find out that Microsoft has ads on a Linux site!!
For some reason beyond my little brain, digg.com readers are upset that "Linux Today has sold a significant portion of their retail web space to Microsoft with a 'Linux Reference Center.' Microsoft then uses it to slam Linux!"
What? You thought Microsoft was going to use that ad space to say, "forgive us our Windows sins, and give us this day our daily Linux?"
I think I'm more likely to see Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds playing patty cake, first.
The tenor of many of the Digg remarks is that the people behind Linux Today are sell-outs.
What nonsense.
Print or online, you sell ad space to the people who want to buy it. If Microsoft wants to buy it, so be it. They've done it before on pretty much every Linux site of any size and they continue to do it today.
In a decent publication though, there's a wall between editorial and advertising. Has Linux Today started publishing pro-Microsoft and anti-Linux stories? No. They continue to publish the best stories they can find that talk about Linux.
That's the publication's job, and Brian Proffitt, the editor there, does a fine job of it.
In fact, I hate to admit it since we're in the same business, but he and Linux Today does the best job out there of collecting all the Linux news that's out there in one easy-to-read Web site.
Darn it!
For some reason, Linux Today seems to get more flack for its advertisements than other sites do.
That's partly because Linux Today's founder, now long gone from the publication, called for readers to boycott his old site once it started running Microsoft ads back in June 2004.
Since then, it's flared up at least one other time.
Again, though, advertising is what pays the bills for a publication, it doesn't mean you sell your soul.
Look at the Linux Today stories. Do they read like Microsoft ad copy? I don't think so.
Now, ask yourself, "Why does Microsoft do this?"
I'll tell you why, they're concerned that Linux is going to eat their lunch. They want to spread their FUD any way they can. They're so frightened, so desperate, that they'll even spend money on sites where they know that 90 percent of the readers are already against them in the forlorn hope that someone will buy into their propaganda.
Linux Today taking Microsoft advertising isn't interesting. What's interesting is that Microsoft is so worried about Linux that it's spending more and more money attacking it.
If Microsoft wants to help Linux grow by pouring money into pro-Linux sites, that's fine by me, and it should be fine with anyone who wants Linux to succeed.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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