I have received quite a lot of queries from friends and customers that they are planning to use Linux in their products and would like my advice.
I have always asked, "Who is your Linux expert?"
"Well, we have a coupe of software engineers who will be taking care of Linux."
"Why Linux? You were using Windows and other systems."
"Well Linux is free, right? It's open source so we think we will be able to sort everything out."
"OK, so these software engineers of yours, do they have experiences on Linux?"
"Well, they can always learn. They are pretty bright guys. By the way, do you have a total solution for this product we're going to make?"
So here goes. At this point, I can already bet all my money that their project will never be a success.
What makes a Linux Engineer?
A hacker. A hacker that started to play with computers in high school and nearly got kicked out of school because he's spent too much time on computers.
You can't learn Linux without the kind of crazy enthusiasm. You can't understand Linux without hanging on the Internet all day searching and browsing key words that won't make sense to anybody else. You can't make a product out of Linux without these kind of crazy hackers!
