Updated: 25/08/2004; 15:58:57

 27 June 2004

Zealots

I get pretty frustrated around Zealots and there’s lots of them lurking around the IT blogs.  I recently read a refreshing article by Jeff Dillon from Sun expressing similar views and it’s worth a read just to convince yourself that it’s possible to be passionate about Linux and Open-source in general and still leave room to admire something that Microsoft does.   A while back a couple of people mentioned to me that I was perceived to be something of a Microsoft Zealot, well I found that quite amusing, you see my own perception is that I am familiar with Microsoft and Realistic about Microsoft’s role in the industry and like any reasonable person I admire some of Microsoft’s products, people and culture.  Probably also like most reasonable people I dislike some of Microsoft’s products, and culture, and if I knew enough of them would probably dislike some of their people as well.   

 

I hardly think this classifies me as a Zealot, but some people do mistake familiarity and realism for zealotry when it comes to Microsoft.  Well I got to thinking why that is and came to the following conclusions:

 

  1. Microsoft has had such a bad press recently that its not really in anyone’s interest to be seen as a Zealot even if you are one
  2. Most reasonable people having read this bad press would find it difficult to be a zealot, at a push I guess one might admire the way Microsoft can recover from such legal embarrassment and technical and procedural neglect of issues like security.
  3. Most people don’t really understand where Microsoft are going now, as Microsoft is talking only about long term vision and technical infrastructure.  The products that will be built on this technical infrastructure that are going to deliver this vision are to a large extent still a mystery.  So unless you are a real techy there’s not much to be a zealot about
  4. Microsoft employees however are another matter, and continue to support and evangelise their company despite the above, which proves they must be doing something right on the culture front and maybe the product and technology front as well.

 

That said it’s likely that the absence of many real zealots outside of MS, means that realists like me are sort of the next tier down.  Compare and contrast that however with Open Source Zealots though to see the real difference.  Here we are talking Zealotry taken to the levels of the religious fanatic,  and that means taken to the level where its impossible to trust anything they say or do because its not driven my a motive that most people can understand, i.e. not profit, customer satisfaction, personal satisfaction etc.

 

Of course I have nothing against open source software, I am not as familiar with it and realistically its not going to wipe Microsoft off the face of the earth during the next few years, but I have used and admired it for nearly two decades and watched it mature and become a real force in business and a force for good. 

 

So I just wish the Zealots would lay off, that way we might see the reality more clearly and be able to trust what we read more often, this applies equally to the MS and Open Source guys.  Let’s hear it for the realists!

- Posted by Steve Richards - 11:29:04 PM - comment []