Good evening all... :)
Thank you. Your opinions are noted. :)
On Tuesday 09 November 2004 10:33, Richard Graham wrote:
> Vatsala:
>
> You probably don't recognise my name on this list. As a Linux user
> (debian) for about 4 years I tend to observe it from a distance most of
> the time; however after reading the nature of your posts I feel their is
> something which I should point out.
>
> >From all of your off-topic ramblings about greed, Microsoft, evil
>
> capitalist and the wonders of your particular religion I get the
> distinct impression that you are one of these people who see using linux
> and OSS as some kind of higher moral calling, and OSS as something
> created by happiness and the love of some army of tree hugging idealist
> hackers (Richard Stallman?).
>
> This is simply not true. Their are many large companies (ever heard of
> google, yahoo, apple, IBM ... even your dreaded MICROSOFT uses OSS code
> from FreeBSD in Windows) who use, and contribute significantly to open
> source software. The contributions of these large companies are a
> significant factor in the success of gnu/linux and OSS we see today.
> Open source has proved to be a very good development model in many
> (though not all) circumstances. This is why people use it. Because it
> works for them.
>
> In my experience, I have found that most of the really hard-core hackers
> - down in the trenches so so speak - are not all that much concerned
> with the moral and political issues. They are writing the code, simply
> because they NEED the code and because they enjoy writing it and being
> part of a team.
>
> To quote directley from Linus Torvalds recent book 'Just for fun'
> (p122)- "Open source hackers aren't the high tech counterparts of Mother
> Teresa. They do get their names associated with their contributions in
> the form of the 'credit list' or 'history file' that is attached to each
> project. The most prolific contributors attract the attention of
> employers who troll the code, hoping to spot, and hire, top
> programmers."
>
> I mean, let's take a reality check at this point. Linux is software - a
> man made tool that serves a purpose, and we need to remember that Linux
> is only software, and not some godly means in life where we must cast
> down all those who oppose. The particular Linux users that I direct this
> comment to are what I would call "those users who like to express their
> opinion in forceful manner"; in other words, those people who get very
> hostile to anything that isn't Linux.
>
> These people remind me what I would call religious fanatics. People who
> go around and forcefully try to 'convert' everyone to their religion and
> impose their views on others. You might have noticed that all normal
> people absolutely hate these fanatics, no matter how convincing their
> arguments. The absolute WORST way of getting someone interested in your
> particular opinions is to go around telling them that their own
> considered opinions are wrong and they are stupid but if they 'convert'
> they will be OK. People don't like being told they are stupid (as
> evidenced by your recent comments on this thread) and hence this way of
> behaving actually has a detrimental effect on the number of people
> 'converting'.
>
> The reason I am telling you this is that in my opinion, you seem to be
> approaching the Canterbury LUG the same way one might approach a
> religion, and since GNU\Linux, OSS is NOT a religion I feel this is
> rather inappropriate and why people are going so stop being so nice to
> you and helping you with your linux problems.
>
> For example, assume I want to become a [insert arbitrary faith here].
> Suppose in the process of 'converting' I had some problems with some of
> the opinions of the new faith. It is very likely that I might spend a
> lot of time talking to people involved with the faith and trying to
> resolve these issues. Because of the nature of religion, the people I
> would be talking to would be obliged to help me as much as possible with
> these issues at the expense of their own time, even if I asked them
> difficult and non specific questions about their faith, and even if I
> became frustrated and abusive towards them.
>
> Open source philosophy is NOT a religion (despite what RMS might think).
> The Canterbury LUG exists to help people with specific Linux problems.
> The ONLY thing these people need to have in common is an interest in
> Linux. It transcends all social, religious and political barriers. From
> my observations, this works well and members of CLUG are generally very
> helpful. I suspect that the vast majority of members are this way not
> because of some higher moral calling, but because they like
> troubleshooting linux or feel obliged to 'pay back' favours other group
> members have given them in the past. They all have real lives, and do
> not have an infinite amount of time available.
>
> Over the last few weeks, you don't seem to have made much progress
> getting a basic linux system set up. Personally I don't seem to have
> this problem and find the modern Linux distributions very easy to set
> up. Most problems can be solved by googleing. However since this does
> not seem to work for you, I can only recommend the same solution other
> group members have suggested. If you want a decent, stable unix based
> system that 'just works' then I highly suggest you just go out and buy a
> Apple Mac running OSX. This would make everyones life a lot easier.
With Regards,
Bhaktavatsala Dasa (Vatsala)
@ http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~vatsalaji - Hare Krishna!
