Not Linux again Charlie Brown

One of my favourite cartoon strips is Peanuts, a group of dysfunctional kids, a dog and a bird making wacky insights into the human condition.

My favourite strip is Snoopy the dog lying on the top of his doghouse watching the autumn leaves fall off the trees.

In the first picture he sees a leaf slowly falling from a tree, in the second it falls a little further and in the third the leaf hits the ground with an almighty clunk. In the last picture Snoopy is looking surprised and saying, 'clunk?'

A lovely idea well done. How could something so light and small make such a loud noise when it hits the ground? Also in Peanuts, there is a character called Linus (cue sound effect of a terrible crunching gear change) which brings me onto the subject of today's sermon: Linux.

Forget the bizarre chattering about how it should be pronounced - some say it is lynne-ux, others line-ux. Now, the man behind the software is Linus Torvalds so do I really have to stand at a blackboard and explain that if the bloke is called Linus then the software will have 'lie' as the first syllable?

Let's consider, instead, all the bizarre chattering about the product.

If there ever was a small light thing making a big clunk it is Linux.

So, according to its fans, we have a new candidate for the desktop operating system - hooray. Except, what is it that I need to remember about it?

Oh yes I know, it's Unix. You might remember Unix - it's the operating system that a lot of chaps with long hair and sandals think is the best thing since sliced bread. But this is Unix, right?

The real issue about Linux is not the technology (although I have to say, I find the idea that a bloke beavering away in at the University of Helsinki somehow beats a team of blokes beavering away in Seattle a bit odd), but the signals it sends.

Given that the world is buying PCs (or Macs) in their millions and on the PCs at least, they're running Microsoft operating systems, what does it say to the punters when a whole bunch of people start saying that Linux is the future of the desktop?

I'm all for competition, but let's have a reality check here - does anyone remember the ACE initiative? Or how the industry said Taligent was the future? Every time we start wandering up what is patently a blind alley, we confuse the people who pay our rent - the customers.

Unfortunately, it's the ones we don't confuse that are the worst. These are the ones that know we talking tosh about the new world we want them to buy into. These are the ones that make a mental note as to who jumped on the loony bandwagon and go and spend their money elsewhere.

It's about time this industry learnt from its own history. We innovate through evolution not revolution - just ask the people that tried to revolutionise things. You'll find them at the job centre.

Chris Long is a freelance IT journalist.