Subject: The Guru of Chelm From: hughett@chaplin.med.upenn.edu (Paul Hughett) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy The Guru of Chelm In the village of Chelm there was a computer guru who had passed his novitiate hacking ITS for Minsky and who was now greatly respected for his wisdom. One day a graphic artist came to the guru and asked him whether MacOS was the best operating system. The artist believed that it was, for as he said, "It has a graphical user interface with many lovely icons and is very easy for a beginner to use. In addition, it has wonderful tools for drawing and page layout." "You're right," said the guru, and the artist went away satisfied. The next day a manager came to the guru and said that he had heard the artist proclaiming that MacOS was the best operating system. "But this cannot be correct," the manager explained, "for Windows NT is the best operating system. It has a graphical user interface just like the MacOS, plus all the applications programs that anyone might want. Not only that, but it runs on inexpensive hardware." "You're right," said the guru, and the manager went away satisfied. The following day a programmer who worked for the manager came to the guru and asked why he had said that Windows NT was the best operating system. "For it seems to me that Linux is the best operating system. It comes with a dozen different languages and all the tools that you need to write wonderful code. And you get the source code for everything in the system." "You're right," said the guru, and the programmer went away satisfied. On the fourth day a kernel hacker came to the guru and asked how he could possibly have told the programmer that Linux was the best operating system. "FreeBSD is the best," he said, "for it has beautifully designed internal structures and is carefully written to work reliably even under very heavy loads. It makes no sense to use anything else for a critical server." "You're right," said the guru, and the hacker went away satisfied. A novice who had witnessed all this spoke to the guru. "Master, you have told the artist that MacOS is the best operating system, the manager that Windows NT is the best operating system, the programmer that Linux is the best operating system, and the kernel hacker that FreeBSD is the best operating system. How can all of these be true?" The guru smiled gently. "My son, you must understand that each user sees the operating system through the lens of his own needs. Each of our visitors has the best operating system because he has the operating system best suited to his needs." "I see," said the novice. "Then ITS is no better than any other operating system?" The guru grew red in the face and almost shouted, "Fool! Have you learned nothing from my teachings? ITS is the greatest operating system ever, compared to which all others are but pale imitations." "You're right," said the novice. Paul Hughett (c) Copyright 1998