[oclug]Re: Xandros: [mingp@xandros.com: Re: iso]

[Shad Young]

Not to me. It is about information. The computer is the tool to access it. 
OSS/FSF(GNU) exist to keep that information open and free. That is how I see 
my computer. 

To me my computer is useless if it is not connected to others. Who cares about 
games? Who cares about about a singular entity called my machine. Not me. If 
taken as just a box then it actually has less value than my microwave. I have 
a dreamcast... I have a typewriter, I have a TV/VCR (DVD died). My box is my 
eyes to the world. My way to communicate outside the microcosm of our normal 
existence.

Because it has such great power of information retrieval; how it operates and 
how it guards my data are essential considerations. I am sitting in Linux 
right now for one very important reason. It is not because it is more 
stable... It isn't. It is not because it is faster (it definitely isn't). Its 
not because it has more features, it is not because it is more secure from 
intrusion, there are vulnerabilities on both that I am not skilled enough to 
kill.

It is because it is more private. I have read more and more about spyware in 
the Windows world. I find this part of the computing world the underbelly. 
The anus if you will. These people, who build viri, Trojans, backorifices, 
rootkits, and personal data collectors into their software to gain access to 
personal information to do little more than sell it to other scumbags so they 
can direct market me.

This makes me wanna puke.

That is why it is so important to me that Linux or some other OSS OS succeed 
in a big way. It is, as hard as it is to believe given it is only software, a 
vanguard against tyranny. The same can not be said about other appliances.

I dunno about you, but I don't belong to any VCR user mailing lists :)

Shad

>On Thursday 24 October 2002 09:19 am, tim at trhosking.com wrote:
> Michael P. Soulier writes:
> >     I don't think that converting the masses is necessarily what Linux is
> > about. Linux is about choice, IMHO, and freedom. Groups like this one
> > exist not only to share information with each other about this wonderful
> > freedom, but to advocate that choice and freedom to others, so that those
> > who know nothing about it are aware of their options. In the end, if
> > someone chooses against Linux, let it at least be an informed choice.
>
> You know, I found myself nodding vigourously when I read this, and was
> about to applaud when this voice inside my head said "Get a grip! It's just
> a bloody computer"
>
> I'm off to get wonderfully liberated by the microwave :)