

Umberto Eco - The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS - pmjoyce
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html

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pmjoyce
Had cause to re-read this 1994 article this morning after a discussion here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1186066> \- it's an interesting
perspective that goes a little beyond the fanboyism often found in discussions
on this topic.

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rbanffy
Would traditional (the ones with X, /etc, /usr/local) Unices be Buddhism in
this analogy?

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mtts
If I read it correctly, you can s/DOS/Unix/ and it would still stand, so: no

(DOS|Unix) "is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation
of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle
hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can
achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program
yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed
within the loneliness of his own inner torment."

~~~
riffraff
I'd say it stands better. You have to consider the author is of a literary
persuasion, and wrote the article in the '94, unix was something obscure to
normal people and popularity of free unixish things were years to come.

~~~
teilo
What are you talking about? In 1993 even little blond girls knew Unix.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/>

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julius_geezer
I think there was an article those lines in The New Republic probably at least
five years before--about 1989 I much shortened my commute and no longer had
time to fill by reading magazines. The search at www.tnr.com turns up nothing,
though.

~~~
sunchild
Either way, this one was written by Umberto Eco!

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aarghh
So I wonder where Linux/BSD or open source would fit? Hinduism? Buddhism?

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borism
Linux/BSD are clearly polytheistic, but I'd argue they're not even developed
to the hinduism level yet. More like pagan.

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proemeth
Summary: satirical article to say we don't like flame wars.

