ESR on Desktop Linux: 2008 Deadline

jesboat writes: "Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley co-authored an essay about the rise of 64-bit computing and what the Linux community must do to achieve dominance. From the essay, entitled "World Domination 201" (in response to Linus Torvald's former "World Domination 101" lectures),

"Idealism about open formats will not solve our multimedia problem in time; in fact, getting stuck on either belief in the technical superiority of open source or free-software purism guarantees we will lose. The remaining problems aren't technical ones, and none of the interesting patents will expire before the end of 2008. We've got to ship something that works now. If we let this be a blocking issue preventing overall Linux adoption during the transition window, we won't have the userbase to demand changes in the laws to untangle the screwed up patent system, or even prevent it from getting worse. It's a chicken and egg problem, demanding a workaround until a permanent solution can be achieved. We can't set the standards until after we take over the world."

It's definitely worth a read."