[tlug] Supporting Linux

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Lyle H Saxon writes:

 > Supporting Linux On-Line

Uh, we do.  As several now-out-of-Japan posters have recently
declared, despite the amount of bandwidth devoted to non-technical
issues, this is one of the best LUGs in the world for maintianing high
levels of interest and for getting help on technical problems.

Or did you mean the kind of fanatical support that Texas boosters give
their high school football team?  Sorry, we be geeks, not jockstraps.

 > This list is a publication, readable by any Internet-connected
 > computer user in the entire world.

Atarimae darou.

 > Taking a tip from Microsoft, which has been wildly successful from
 > a financial and propagation standpoint, the image pumped into the
 > wires is no laughing matter.

It will be if what the viewer sees is a bunch of legally blonde fanboys.

 > Microsoft takes care of itself, so we don't need to be supporting
 > them with highly controversial statements like "Microsoft is Free".

Exactly.  We make such highly controversial statements precisely
because we *oppose* Microsoft and all others who would conceal the
truth.  Including Linux fanboys and Slashdaughters.

 > Some of you might think that it's best to not provoke Microsoft - to
 > stay off of their radar screen.

Nobody here but us chickens, boss.[1]

 > We don't need to help them.  We shouldn't help them.

So why are you helping them by proposing that we adopt their one-sided
marketing methods---it's their game and they will win, you know---
rather than simply being ourselves and demonstrating that there are
better ways, even if when you do the computations it turns out that a
computer preloaded with Windows costs no more than (and disgusting
often less than) bare metal in terms of out-of-pocket expense?  The
world will benefit no more from legions of brainwashed Linux users
than it does from legions of brainwashed Windows users.  It's not the
software that's the problem.  It's the brainwashing.

 > Support Linux!

I am not a neural synapse that implements a reflex.  I actually prefer
to think about what I support.

I have no objection to you thinking differently, or advocating a
different way of supporting Linux (though on current form I'll very
likely oppose it).  But I have a strong aversion to your implicit
claim that I, and those who advocate positions like mine, are ignorant
of simple facts, incapable of doing simple calculations correctly, and
not supportive of Linux, along with all other open source software.

Please cut it out.

Footnotes: 
[1]  Well, I'm not exactly duck soup; I've been approached personally
by a Microsoft recruiter for their economics research group.  Friend
of a friend thing, after I described the way I think about software
economics, he grinned and said "Don't call us ..." and that was my cue
to chime in with the tenor harmony.[2]
[2]  But then he said, "Although we do need an internal loyal
opposition to keep us honest."