:-D Fair point.

I merely quoted -- or at least paraphrased -- the original essay itself:

«
They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free.
»

https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt

This essay is so important, so valuable, and so blasted insightful, that even though I read it more than 20 years ago, I can still remember key phrases, and search for it, find it, and quote from it in seconds.

It should be one of the seminal texts of the FOSS movement. And yet most people don't know it, or if they do, they don't get it and misquote it or misinterpret important points... such as here, claiming that people were trying to sell Linux up against BeOS and MacOS and Windows, when the real point was that although it was better than all the commercial competition in important ways, it was FREE and yet the people that developed it literally could not GIVE IT AWAY for nothing, up against inferior commercial OSes.

And they still can't.

Everyone has probably also forgotten by now that Sun bought StarOffice and tried to give it away, and nobody cared. So some forgotten Sun exec, who actually understood how businesspeople's minds work, made a discount version. It was $89.95 or something, alongside and as well as the free version.

The result was a modest explosion in business uptake.

A free office suite? Must be junk. But a bargain basement full-function office suite, for eighty bucks when MS Office costs a few hundreds? That's a steal! Great -- I will have that and push it out across my business!

It worked.

And now, Linux is on the desktop and it's a roaring success, selling hundreds of millions of units, and outselling Macs.

It's called ChromeOS, and when I point this out, the geeks of HN get very angry at me, and complain, and say that I'm moving the goalposts, that ChromeOS doesn't count, that it's
not really Linux.

They accuse me of "bad faith":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697

They call my argument "BS":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295

Even one specific commenter I really respect and whose posts I find richly informative and learn from, flat out deny that it is Linux:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384

Ah well.

We all know Linux runs servers, routers, and most smartphones, but if it's on the desktop, and it costs money, then it's obviously not Linux. If it's a successful desktop that people like, it clearly can't really be Linux, right?

Shakes head, walks away.

Anyway, for better context, here's the whole passage from ITBWTCL:

«
With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free.

Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships.

Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits.

The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player.

The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this:

Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"

Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"

Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"

Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."

Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"

Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"

Bullhorn: "But..."

Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
»