It’s unfortunate how the passing of Steve Jobs is bigger news than the recent passing of Dennis Ritchie. The world owes a debt of gratitude to Dennis, and most people don’t even know it. You’ll be hard pressed to find a household that doesn’t include technology that shows his influence. 

Even without UNIX, there’s the C programming language influence. Heck, UNIX had a clear influence on DOS which funded MS Windows, so I’m not sure you could find a computer anywhere that Dennis hasn’t influenced. 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/dennis_ritchie/

http://www.osnews.com/story/25232/Dennis_Ritchie_Creator_of_UNIX_and_C_Dead_at_70

In Big Bang Theory episode 22 season 3, about the last minute of the show, Sheldon states “Oh Ubuntu.  You are my favourite linux based operating system“.

I’ve been debating whether or not this is correct.  Linux itself is the operating system whereas Ubuntu is a GNU/Linux Distribution.  The YouTube comments have some discussion on this.

Some people say it is still correct because of the word “based”.  I.e. “…linux based operating system”.  Since linux is an operating system, this is redundant, and we all know Sheldon would not use redundancies. 

But substitute the word ‘based’ for something similar such as ‘founded’, and it is correct.  

I feel very strongly that Sheldon would never have said it the way he did.  The technical person he is, he likely would have said “Oh Ubuntu.  You are my favourite GNU/Linux Distribution”.  Even leaving it as Linux Distribution may have sufficed because the use of the term distribution could imply the GNU layer.

Others feel that Sheldon wouldn’t even use Ubuntu but BSD instead.  I’m not so sure about that, because I think Sheldon can appreciate the large community around Ubuntu.  Also, he could have been running Ubuntu server or even the Ubuntu alternative install without the GUI.  

Anyway, no Bazinga here.

Best-Buy employees get to work through a training programing provided by Microsoft in which Windows is boasted as better than Linux.

If you don’t think MS is threatened by Linux, then think about this BestBuy program carefully.  Why would a billion dollar corporation spend so much resources to “clarify” that Windows is better?

MS knows that Linux will continue to take garner more support and eat away at their consumer base.  They know the GNU/Linux operating system can and does meet and exceed the needs of PC users.

I imagine if I owned Product A which is dominant in the market and a similar Product B comes along, I’d do two things (or both):

1. Promote my product as better
2. Demote the other product as worse

If Product B was a mild threat, I’d put my resources to promotion.  As B gains in popularity, I’d slowly shift to demotion strategies, which seems to be MS’s tactic with this training program.

The more MS bashes Linux, the more you know they are worried.  And that makes me sleep well at night.