Oh FUD, where do I want to go today?

FUD was defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering [Amdahl] products." Now that we know that FUD stands for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”, have you been a victim to FUD? Well, I certainly was. Back in the early 90’s IBM introduced the OS2 operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows. IBM presented a demonstration of the OS2 operating system to our user group at a general meeting. I could clearly see that OS2 was better than Windows, but as a new user; fear, uncertainty, and doubt took hold and I stuck with Windows, as did most users. OS2 is now history because of the FUD tactic.

More than a decade later the FUD tactic is still at work in the software industry. Microsoft is now using the FUD tactic to sway users from Linux. Folks, you have nothing to fear in Linux. Linux as a desktop operating system is just as easy to use as Windows, not to say it’s the same. All major distributions of Linux have a graphical user interface that allows you to do everything with a mouse. As far as installing Linux, I find many distributions to be easier than Windows to install. Oh I know, chances are most of you have never installed Windows. You had no choice, it came pre-installed. This is due to the FUD tactic playing on the computer manufactures.

Choice, that’s where Linux can shine. I ran a search from www.linux.org and found 57 Linux distributions in English that run on the Intel platform that are currently maintained. Most of these distributions of Linux are totally free to download and use on any number of machines with no fear of copyright laws. Some require a registration fee to obtain support, but here again you have a choice. There is no uncertainty in Linux, one distribution may fade away only to have another take its place. Linux is not going to die, it’s here to stay.

Linux benefits from doubt since Linux and open source programmers don't simply say "Ha, this is perfect" but rather they say, "well, this works but so far we haven't looked at other ways". Now if Linux programmers have doubt that there could be a better way, you too should have doubt that there is a better operating system than Microsoft Windows.
Let me make it perfectly clear that I’m not here to bash Microsoft. I use Microsoft Windows everyday but am not letting the FUD tactic scare me away from Linux as it did with OS2. In my opinion Microsoft has more fear, uncertainty, and doubts of Linux than we do, the user. Oh FUD, where do I want to go today? The answer is simple; download a new distribution of Linux, with no fear, no uncertainty, or doubts!