Humanity has a love-hate relationship with technology. Geeks like to take it to the extreme. Take the recent hub-bub in the blogosphere about the aptly named: Linux Hater’s Blog. In that blog, the anonymous blogger (or bloggers) rants about how BAD Linux is. Its entertaining and educational! Entertaining because rants and rabble-raising is fun… in a perverse sort of fashion.

This is not just a simply a rehash of Microsoftian propaganda; a machination of an ingenious marketing machine feeding FUD to an ignorant public. Rather the Linux Hater’s Blog (LHB) looks at the issues that Linux suffers from. Just like the Unix Hater’s Guide (thanks LH) before it, LHB satires the attitudes of the community, developers and companies in the Linux landscape. And hopeful as satire has done before, maybe better the Linux, Open Source and Software Libre ecosystem as a whole. Don’t be fooled. The Linux Hater is most likely an experience developer in the Linux world, and knows damn well what he is talking err… ranting about. And deep down inside he loves it.

I read both of the Linux Hater’s Blog and Unix Hater’s Guide in their entirety. It changed my perspective. Linux and UNIX are not perfect. The design and implementation of both of them aren’t the shining gems of computer science. And for historical reasons, and laziness on the part of Linux/FOSS developers, just doesn’t cut it anymore.

I admit it. I still prefer Linux. I’ll continue using Linux with all its wrinkles and weirdness because it’s still the best OS out there. I’ll still think freedom in software is paramount. I’ll still advocate open source as the most ethical and efficient way of doing business in the software industry. And I’ll still write in C, C++ and its spawn Java. Cause Lisp is way too hard to do in my head.

Thanks Linux Hater.