[lug] Why Linux will win and Micro$oft will lose

[J. Wayde Allen]

On Sun, 11 Nov 2001, Hugh Brown wrote:

> So why is it that the US still doesn't use the metric system.  It's free,
> it makes more sense, it's easier to use, etc.

Ahem ... lots of shades of grey in this comment.  Strictly speaking all of
the U.S. measurement system is "officially" metric since all of our
measurements are standardized on metric quantities.  In fact, the U.S. was
one of the original 17 countries to sign the "Treaty of the Meter" in
1875.  Then in 1975 Congress passed the "Metric Conversion Act" to promote
more common use of the metric system in the country.  The most recent move
I'm aware of was the "Omnibus Trade and Competiveness Act of 1988".  This
changed the name of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) to the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and also mandated that all
Federal procurement be converted to metric by 1992.  For more info on the
topic see:

   http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/lc1136a.htm
   http://www.nist.gov/hearings/1996/metric1.htm
   http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/4858.htm
   http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/pub814.htm

To name just a few.  You can go to the NIST site
<http://www.boulder.nist.gov/> and search on this topic to your heats
content.

Of course, the real issue here is whether or not the general public uses
metric or not.  Obviously, this isn't the case.  To make this reply
slightly topical I'd suggest that the resistance to converting the
business community to Linux is a similar problem to converting the
general populace to metric.

Remember, there is a difference between "illegal" and "against the law" -
one of them is just a sick bird.

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)