On Friday 11 January 2002 13:12, Larry Price wrote: > On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Mark Bigler wrote: > > http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020114/tech/14linux.htm > > It reminds me of businessweek article from a few years back, where bw > referred to rms as Mr. Stahlings, (they did have a fairly decent > picture of him playing flute in a server room). But it is good to > see something like favorable media attention, even if it's good old > Useless News & World Distort.
I was amazed to see it there, and, without a single mention of Linux Zealots or hints of religious fervor, etc. > The main thing they aren't talking about in the article is that > Linux, and free software in general is a much bigger thing than Sun > and IBM's maneuverings against the army of bill. > > I think that the level of personal autonomy made possible by using > free software is one of those things that money cannot buy. And it's > appeal is stronger than most MBA's could possibly understand. Yes. And, sadly, many, if not all, of the people these mags address, want to believe that Money is the only driving force in the world. > I really get the sense that this year we are crossing, if we haven't > already, the tipping point where it becomes more appealing to > everyone to know Linux as an operating system because everyone who > has a computer probably knows someone who knows linux. > > I could make some deep biological analogy here but y'all know what > exponential growth is, right. > > Maybe we should think about having an install fest some time this > spring? This year we'll see solid major releases from many high profile projects (Mozilla, OpenOffice, KDE, GNOME, etc.) and reach the point where they can all be built with a gcc version 3 compiler (i.e. hopefully the ABI can be consitant across distributions again). Soon after the various distributions do a release with those components in place (maybe close to the time of the next Eugene Computer Conference). It would be great to start a strong push locally to get people to give software libre a try. I love the freedom Linux and friends offer. I can hardly wait until the time we can, with few reservations, recommend anyone give it a try. > http://www.efn.org/~laprice ( Community, Cooperation, > Consensus http://www.opn.org ( Openness to > serendipity, make mistakes http://www.efn.org/~laprice/poems ( but > learn from them.(carpe fructus ludi) > http://allie.office.efn.org/phpwiki/index.php?OregonPublicNetworking
