On 09/19/2010 07:12 PM, Rion D'Luz wrote: > Hail Vaguers: This was a well thought out post, you have hit some points new to the thread.
I have to agree that Open Source definitely pulled me more so than Unix per se. If the open pioneers happened to have cloned some non-unix operating system or created something more original, I would have been perfectly happy to go along. The logic of openly sharing non-scarce resources is the compelling thing (for me). Maybe the logic dictated Unix too; it was a proven design for wrangling a CPU and devices, so why not stand on the shoulders of giants? Another thing you identified is that our topics do tend to be one-off. The more niche groups like PHP and .net can probably pursue topics deeper just because of their specialized interest. As an example, I love to explore computing ideas from a program languages point of view by writing expanders/evaluators/interpreters/compliers. I could do a long series of presentations around a toy interpreter, but I imagine this isn't something that other people would want to pursue very deeply in Vague. So, we end up with one-off topics and little follow up. Interestingly, this is almost the opposite problem of the one Josh put his finger on. Touching on your last topic, vague is a good place to preach to the choir, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great forum for advocacy. Our first important role is to keep the fire burning so we always have a local community for mutual support and to welcome others when the light goes on in their head. I don't see that as a walled-garden. -- Anthony Carrico
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