tlug: Re: kernel modules (was: Kernel rebuild problem)

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

I won't try to answer for Chris, but ...

>>>>> "Rex" == Rex Walters <rex@example.com> writes:

    Rex (intentionally misquoting SJT)> "I remember Serdar Argic and
    Rex> green-card spam on every newsgroup, and I remember the Morris
    Rex> worm -- you don't even know who Serdar Argic is or what news
    Rex> and {da,a}rpanet were even like in the good old days".

    Rex> I'm being overly harsh, of course.  I don't really think
    Rex> you're as bigoted as I make you sound above.

I really don't understand your point (nor with respect to the other
three [mis-]quotes).  To be melodramatic about it, we, _Ye Olde
Garde_, see a real threat to our currently very satisfying community.
My statement quoted above was not a put down; it was an attempt to
explain the formative context for my paranoia.  It's not a return to
the good old days that I want; it's to avoid the return of some very
bad old days.

OK, it's impolite to make public the assumption that people migrating
from the Wintel world probably were not hanging out on n.a.p in 1994.
But surely that's not your main point?

    Rex> (Hmm ... "There goes the neighborhood" perhaps?).

Yes, exactly.  Stripped of its historical racial/ethnic baggage, of
course.  I don't want a crack house down my street, and I don't want
to see proliferation of non-RFC-compliant MUAs---whether they are old
Unix garbage, new M$-inspired garbage, or homegrown Linux garbage.

What's wrong with that?

I'm sorry, but it just so happens that a lot of the best (worst)
examples of standards-noncompliance are M$-related.  Does that make me
a bigot?

"I don't want no GIFs on my lawn, just a JPEG I can help along."

What's wrong with that?  (Sorry, Cat.)  OK, I strongly sympathize with
the point of view that Linux is a better community for being mostly a
crowd of people who do rebuild kernels while the beer flows around
them at the izakaya.  A bit strong....  But that's what gives life
flavor ;-)

IMHO, Linux is where it is today because it somehow maintained a
precise balance between the "standards bigots" and the "innovation
zealots."[1]  I really truly doubt that "momentum" and "numbers" are as
important to maintaining our community as that balance is.  Especially 
when "momentum" is attributed to the "zealots," while the "bigots" are 
derided as "inertial".


Footnotes: 
[1]  Not original to me, of course, but an interpretation of a thesis
best argued by Eric Raymond in _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_.

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