[plug] Linux Enthusiasm - Are we over the top?

[sol]

Well put Greg. Truly Linux itself isn't the most important issue. Free 
Software is the revolutionary concept here and it will, and it is 
transforming society. Don't forget that one of the most important - if 
not the most important so far - collections of FS are the standards that 
run the WWW that were made so by Tim Berners-Lee and the team at CERN. 
It was the internet and WWW that made Linux possible in the first place.

Technology is not benign. It is the driving force behind social change. 
(For a good read on this concept get "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared 
Diamond) Capitalism and Socialism were ideologies both based on 
industrialism which came about largely due to the internal combustion 
engine and later the generation of electricity. Many would argue that 
computer technology - and significantly networking technology - are 
transforming the nature of work and recreation and leading to new ways 
of conceiving the world. The debate between proprietry and Free Software 
is essentially a battle between the old industrial age ideology of 
patenting and copyrighting industrial processes and trying to graft that 
onto the world of software engineering which is thousands of times more 
productive (ie: replicating a TV or car is heaps harder than replicating 
a web browser or office suite), against a new way of developing economic 
goods where the development cost is shared and the parts are in the 
public domain so they don't need to be redesigned (and so on; most of 
you know the advantages of FS and have read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar").

FS is destined to succeed because it has history on its side so to 
speak. Actually, there is a fascinating historical parallel between the 
OS War (which is really a war between proprietry vs Free Software) and 
the AC/DC war of the 1890s. Any one know who discovered Alternating 
Current electricity? No not Thomas Edison, but Nikola Tesla - although 
like Bill Gates today, it was Edison that became filthy rich. Tesla 
discovered the rotating magnetic field that allowed for AC. He also went 
on to discover radio, x-rays and a host of other useful stuff that we 
take for granted.
What's this got to do with M$ vs Linux? Well AC was a hell of a lot more 
efficient, yet Edison and his major financial backers ran a scare 
campaign that lasted years in order to discredit AC in the eyes of the 
public. This included the first electrocution of an inmate using AC. It 
was disingenuous but it had a huge sway on the American public, 
especially as Tesla was a foreigner (parallels here?). However, the 
benefits of AC over DC were just too obvious and won on their own merits 
in the end.

FS and Linux will too, but not before M$'s propaganda machine does 
everything it can to tarnish its name (ie: GPL is a commerce killer; 
Linux is unAmerican; etc). But I wouldn't be surprised if in 50 years 
when FS/Linux has become ubiquitous and blended into the background, 
Bill Gates is still deified in the annals of history whilst RMS and 
Torvalds are forgotton.

some reflections from a student of history,

sol

>  
>
>>Are we Linux fans coming across too obsessive about what is just another
>>operating system?
>>    
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>
>Some people are too obsessive, yes, but mostly because they don't know
>what they should be obsessive about: Linux is just another operating
>system from a purely technical POV, but it is the OS vanguard of the Free
>Software concept, which _is_ very different, and very much superior to
>what has gone before. Linux is just technology, possibly better than its
>competitors at this instant in time, but still only technology and not
>worth obsessing over. Free Software is the reason behind the success of
>Linux, and will be behind the success of the next OS-de-jour, and the
>next - it is a concept, and so timeless, and so worthy of obsession.
>
>-Greg
>
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