Umberto Eco - The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS | Hacker News Reader

Umberto Eco - The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS

themodernword.com

62 pointspmjoyce13 comments

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.

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

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."

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.

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

> It allows free interpretation of scripture

Check

> demands difficult personal decisions

Not really. Haven't given up anything because of a difficult decision

> imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user

Not at all. Everything is very simple, from the bottom up.

> not all can achieve salvation

Why not? Every Unix that runs on a regular PC (or a Mac) is a free download. Chances are you can run some flavour of Unix on your watch. Or toaster.

> To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself

No way. Running most programs is a point-and-click business. On any modern Unix (such as Solaris, Debian or Fedora), installing a programs is a point-and-click, very app-storish thing.

Without the DRM part, of course.

> > It allows free interpretation of scripture

> Check

> > demands difficult personal decisions

> Not really. Haven't given up anything because of a difficult decision

vim or emacs? KDE or Gnome? decisions, decisions.

> > imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user

> Not at all. Everything is very simple, from the bottom up.

All complex hermeneutics are simple once you're initiated into them. To the outsider, however, Unix is arcane.

> > not all can achieve salvation

> Why not? Every Unix that runs on a regular PC (or a Mac) is a free download. Chances are you can run some flavour of Unix on your watch. Or toaster.

Salvation comes from understanding the system and making it work for you. Merely downloading it is not enough. Unix is user friendly, it's just very picky about who its friends are.

> > To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself

> No way. Running most programs is a point-and-click business. On any modern Unix (such as Solaris, Debian or Fedora), installing a programs is a point-and-click, very app-storish thing.

> Without the DRM part, of course.

Configure, Make, Make Install. Remember, this was written in 1994, when point-and-click was still very alien to Unix.

(all in good fun, of course)

No. Just no. Join the campaign to stop mindless Buddhism fanboyism.

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.

Either way, this one was written by Umberto Eco!

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

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

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

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