RE: [PLUG] about people who "leaving" as a result of heated discu

[beldon@scamail.com]

Linux users are people who have chosen their OS for many different reasons.  
Sometimes the reasons are pragmatic (technical excellence, stability, higher 
degree of control), sometimes academic (you're not gonna learn squat about OS 
design from a closed-source, completely graphical OS), sometimes philisophical 
(free or open-source programming as a political/philosophical priciple), and 
very often a combination of all three.  So Linux users have *chosen* their 
operating environment (as opposed to the 90% of computer users for whom 'OS' is 
synonymous with 'MS Windows').

Linus was quoted the other day as saying something along the lines of, 
"Democracy is very confusing for the citizens of the former Eastern Bloc.  It's 
all so much easier when there's only one party."

In technology (as in politics) whenever there is choice there is also lively, 
animated, and sometimes strident debate.  This is in sharp contrast to the 
discussions between users of, say, MAC or MS software.  Even where there is 
sometimes debate (Win98 or SE?) the inevitability is that one vision will 
prevail-- not on technical or (shudder) philosophical merits-- but because 
there is no choice.  It is the stilted silence of those who know they have no 
choice.  Silence isn't always golden-- sometimes it's just plain yellow.

And, yes, we'll lose a few.  But that's to be expected and accepted, minimized 
is possible, but never ever should it be seen as an end in itself.  Mass 
acceptance/commercialization of Linux (or any other technology, for that 
matter) should never act to stifle the noisy dialogs that are the very signs of 
the life in our community.  If that were to happen, rest assured, another 
upstart technology will arise-- with its own animated and sometimes strident 
debates-- to take our place.

Wow-- did I just write
that?


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