>  If Red Hat wants to
> standardize a Linux desktop, they might as well call themselves MS
> Linux. 

<rant>

	Interesting that this statement would be on the list when there are still a 
few kicks left in the "OE6 doesn't handle signatures" debate of the last few 
days.  The main complaint in that thread was that because Microsoft 
"invented" their own standards and didn't go with someone else's, they were 
bad.  Now Red Hat wants to standardize a desktop, help everyone work well 
together, and the first in line to bash our "commercial" leader is ... 
*ominous drum roll* the linux community itself. 

	Standards are not bad.  Closed standards are an oxymoron.  The thing here 
with Red Hat is this: you have a choice.  If you don't like having 
cross-library compatibility, and out of the box support for as much as they 
can cram into that little $60 box, don't support the distribution.  I get 
this feeling that half of the innovation in the Linux market (and lets face 
it, making things 'dummie-easy' when it comes to Linux is an innovation) 
seems to be dealt with based on the whether or not Microsoft has been 
successful in that particular arena.  If they have, then the "innovator" is 
said to be in league with those damned dirty apes of hell, "and they might as 
well be MS Linux" and only a public sacrifice upon the Altar of Linus will 
make them clean in our eyes again.  

	If instead it is an area where Microsoft has tried and failed, then they are 
the crowned princes and shall be lauded in the Halls of Binary for at least a 
commercial break, until something better comes along.

	And watch out if its something Microsoft hasn't tried yet, that set of 
developers could only akin to gods themselves for all the praise they will 
get.   Perhaps until someone thinks of a connection between them and the 
horrible beast of the Northwest.

	The knee-jerk reaction to hating Microsoft is lame at best, and damaging at 
the worst.  The majority of people in this country (and yes I am being 
US-centric here, because its the only culture I can speak for)  want their 
computer to just WORK!  If they wanted it to be hard, they would go down to 
the basement bin and fish out Redhat 2.0 and no one would ever upgrade except 
with code they wrote themselves.  WRONG!  People hate having to reboot all 
the time, but they hate even more not being able to get ANYTHING done between 
those reboots, even more frustratingly if those reboots are weeks apart.  

	OpenOffice is great for this, but how many times have we heard about the 
"waste of time supporting .Doc format."  If you are the new kid on the block 
you have to learn the rules to all the other kid's games or they will kick 
your ass and call you a dork.  .doc is how they play baseball on this block, 
ladies and gentlemen.

	Evolution is great for this.  Search your email logs or slashdot for "Ximian 
Connector is ANTI-OPENSOURCE!!!"  Exchange is how they play Hopscotch on this 
block, better learn the rules.

	Samba is great for this.  How many gigabytes of bandwidth have been wasted on 
"Why are you using Samba, just switch to Linux and use NFS, its works 
better."  Samba is how you play hide-and-seek here, folks.

	Learn all the rules, play all their games.  Then, after you know all the 
games they play, you can raise you hand and say "since I am such a good 
person, and I know all the rules to your games, let me introduce you to my 
new game.  Do I rock or what?"  Then when they all believe that you can make 
up great new games, you tell them about how all their games suck and you have 
them wrapped around your little finger.

	Unfortunately, I will get blasted as a MS supporter and Linux hater because 
making everyone think that your games are the coolest is "such a M$ thing to 
do", I might as well call myself "Kyle Gates"


</rant> 

Kyle Faber