File: engel.html

package info (click to toggle)
lg-issue113 1-1
links: PTS
area: main
in suites: sarge
size: 1,932 kB
ctags: 42
sloc: sh: 364; makefile: 34
file content (539 lines) | stat: -rw-r--r-- 24,484 bytes

<html>
<head>
<link href="../lg.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen, projection"  />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../favicon.ico" />
<title>Free as in Freedom: Part Four: Epilog - 2000 VAIOS and a Grain of Zen LG #113</title>

<style type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
<!--

-->
</style>

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="LG RSS" href="lg.rss" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rdf+xml" title="LG RDF" href="lg.rdf" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="LG Atom" href="lg.atom.xml" />

</head>

<body>


<img src="../gx/2003/newlogo-blank-200-gold2.jpg" id="logo" alt="Linux Gazette"/>
<p id="fun">...making Linux just a little more fun!</p>


<div class="content articlecontent">

<div id="previousnexttop">
<A HREF="collinge.html" >&lt;-- prev</A> | <A HREF="kapil.html" >next --&gt;</A>
</div>



<h1>Free as in Freedom: Part Four: Epilog - 2000 VAIOS and a Grain of Zen</h1>
<p id="by"><b>By <A HREF="../authors/engel.html">Adam Engel</A></b></p>

<p>
<p> The KDE and GNOME desktop environments make it possible for people who
have no knowledge of Unix or GNU/Linux commands to use a GNU/Linux system
as easily as they'd use Mac or Windows for web-browsing, word-processing,
email, games and the things most users spend their computer time on. It's
only going to get better, and one day many people might know GNU/Linux only
through the GUI.

<p> I asked Okopnik, "Do you think this is a 'good' thing, that people are
finding out they have an alternative, but at the same time using that
alternative almost exclusively on the GUI level, like they would use Mac
or Windows? Have you noticed more of an interest in Linux or an enhanced
readership since Linux became both market and user friendly? If so,
are these new users less interested in the "technical" aspects than in
having a stable GUI-based system to for work and email and net-surfing?"

<p> Okopnik wrote, "Actually, this is an issue that I brought up in an
involved discussion with the LG staff and the Answer Gangsters (The
Answer Gang answers Linux questions sent to us by our readers, and the
discussions and the answers become part of LG.) My viewpoint here is
that it's actually a very good thing - modulo the awareness that the
Command Line (CLI) exists. That is, people are perfectly welcome to come
to Linux and use only its GUI capabilities as long as this serves their
needs - but when the GUI proves insufficient, the capabilities of the
CLI are there, just underneath, providing the perfect security blanket.

<p> "In an article I wrote for Java Developers Journal, I related an
example of this. I had a client whose Web developer left them in the
lurch with several hundred HTML files without the ".html" extensions.
This wouldn't be too bad by itself - renaming a group of files isn't
difficult - but the thousands of HTML links within the files referred
to those extensionless names as well. With GUI-only tools, this is a
nearly-unsolvable disaster. From the CLI, it was a matter of a single
short line of code:

<pre>
perl -i -wpe 's/&lt;a href="[^"]+/$&amp;.html/g' *
</pre>

<p> "The readership of LG has certainly changed over time. Where we
used to get dozens of questions on fairly technical topics in The
Answer Gang, we now get only a few - and they tend to be simpler, less
technical. The email I get from our readers indicates that there has
indeed been a definite shift in the user base; the old Linuxer who would
bang on a problem for hours so that it could be reported (and quickly
fixed) is being... well, not _replaced,_ but reduced, percentage-wise,
as the mainstay of the population. The new user is often just that -
a computer user who just wants that email/web/document/spreadsheet
processor and maybe a few games on the side. There is, however, a
cultural shift that occurs even in those users after a while: you
cannot live in a society based on a given moral premise and ignore
that premise, or even stop it from penetrating into your life (even if
you try to prevent it.) The original "hacker ethic" of Linux lives on,
strong as ever in those who use the full extent of this OS, and inherent
(and growing, however slowly) in those who use it even without that full
knowledge.

<p> I wrote, "I was considering the license for Documentation -- I forgot
what it's called..."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "The Open Publication License. There has been quite an
evolution of licenses on the documentation side; the OPL is pretty much
the last product of it (there are a few others) and is by far the most
popular, simple, and comprehensive. The LG remains under it because I
did _a lot_ of applicable research."

<p> I wrote, "It almost goes without saying that this article will be
'free' but it's probably a good idea to say it because I've been
'burned' before, as have other writers I know, having articles that were
meant to be "free" stolen by publications that charge a fee to readers
-- online or off."

<p> Okopnik replied, "This would be a good reason to implement the 'no
commercial distribution without prior permission' clause."

<p> 
I wrote, "Tell me about your experience with licensing and your
research. For instance, how does one particular license affect LG as
opposed to another?"

<p> Okopnik wrote, "When I took over the E-i-C/publisher slot here at
LG, I decided to revisit the decisions that had been made (and cast as
procedure) in the past with regard to as many of them as I could find;
in my opinion, this needed to be done to keep LG fresh and relevant.
One of these was the license under which we accept and publish all our
material.

<p> "I had asked Rick Moen, a member of our staff who is very knowledgeable
about the nitty-gritty of various FLOSS issues including licensing to
comment on our use of OPL; I also threw the floor open to others' input. As
a result of the discussion and familiarization with the basic issues at
stake, I did a lot of my own research, and came to focus on the OPL (which
was the license LG was using at the time) and the CC, the Creative Commons
license (see <a
href="http://creativecommons.org/">http://creativecommons.org/</a>; I
recommend the site highly, particularly their "license-choosing wizard"
which helps you pick the appropriate one for your application.) The latter
held a lot of promise and flexibility, but in the end, I had to vote
/antiquo/; the OPL, with a little clarification, supplied all our needs.
The front page of LG now states:

<p>  "All content released under the Open Publication License v1.0
 (options A and B not applied)

<p> "The clarification in the parentheses was the only thing added. Given
that the author of OPL himself, David Wiley, considers it dated (he
became CC's Director of Educational Licenses and shut down the Open
Content site in 2003), we may well transition to the CC at some point in
the future. For now, though, the OPL serves our purposes and creates no
restrictions on the author's rights (theirs supercede ours) that I would
find objectionable.

<p> "LG's only concern is the right to distribute freely in electronic
format. Should you wish to prohibit or restrict commercial distribution,
or want to be contacted before anyone converts it to print, we have no
objection or concern; in fact, we have no say - and this is what I,
in my capacity at LG, see as perfectly suiting our needs. A slightly
different attitude than you'll find in a commercial environment, I
grant... " wrote Okopnik

<p> I wrote, "This is a particularly interesting/different attitude for a
magazine."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "The Open Source culture often produces those. Once
money is not the primary motivator, a number of interesting results show
up. FLOSS is a social experiment gone successful -&gt; mainstream -&gt; wild,
a meritocracy/gift-based culture that focuses on exchanging people's
best abilities for community recognition and respect. Part of the secret
of its effectiveness is that you can't cheat people out of respect
the way you can with money - it can always be lost or withdrawn. Like
any other human system, it has its imperfections (see Cory Doctorow's
"Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" or James P. Hogan's "Voyage into
Yesteryear", both of which describe a respect-based system as the basis
of an economy), but they're a) usually self-correcting and b) several
orders of magnitude less extreme at the edges than what we have now."

<p> I wrote, "It actually brings up the question, "what is a magazine"
(online or off)? I always thought of a commercial magazine as a
corporation using artists and authors to sell advertisements while
at the same time providing a venue for artist/authors' works. But a
zine like LG, which provides essential, often crucial information to a
specific audience -- i.e. Linux users -- has a unique responsibility as
an "education/information venue." By placing author's rights above the
rights of the magazine itself, you are serving as a mediator between
your audience and the kind of information you offer them."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "/<a
href="<http://www.netschoolbook.gr/latinmoto2.html#t>">Tetigisti acu</a>/;
well done, sir. That is precisely our function and mission. We want to
introduce people to Linux, get them to the point where they'll know enough
to ask the right questions and to find the answers. This would set off all
sorts of alarms for a commercial venture - we are, after all, training our
readers not to need us after a while - but I'll happily hang up my
editorial hat once most of the world is Linux-competent. :)"

<p> I wrote, "I see LG as a "mediator" between Linux Users and the
millions of pages of information pertaining to Linux. At some point an
'editor' is needed, otherwise a reader can just do a Google search on
various subjects without a coherent 'theme.'"

<p> Okopnik wrote, "Precisely so. Does it surprise you to learn that I'm
a teacher (seminars in programming, network security, etc. for Sun
Microsystems and others), and have been, in one form or another, for
most of my career? I suspect not."

<p> "What's FLOSS?" I asked.

<p> Okopnik wrote, "An unwieldy compromise of a name that the majority
can live with. As you've probably figured from your exchange with
Stallman, there's some disagreement about exactly what this whole
movement should be called - and Free/Libre/Open Source Software is what
we got as a result. Like dead yeast in beer, it's harmless and doesn't
even affect the flavor."

<p> I wrote, "Interestingly, or by strange coincidence, I destroyed my
wife's Windows installation on a super-powered custom-built PC she uses
to run the Maya 3D program (she teaches computer graphics and 3D at New
York University)."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "You do realize that Maya is usually run under Linux
these days, right?"

<p> I wrote, "Doesn't matter; the university's program is locked
into Windows. Anyway, she warned me not to mess up her dedicated Maya
machine by 'playing around with Linux' and of course I told her this
was an impossibility -- oops. Problem was, I switched, after a year
of smooth sailing, from GRUB to LILO and totally corrupted the Master
Boot Record (MBR). This brought up an interesting point: virtually no
one knows how Windows works. I was able to fix the LILO problem, but I
had no idea how to do anything in Windows, nor did many people I called
who actually teach courses on the Windows OS. To make matters worse,
the only boot disc available was the original installation CD, which
you can only access via a password, which we forgot. So, even though we
"owned" the system, there was no way of getting in. We had to call in an
expert, the person who built the machine and installed the software, the
President of Compusoft Computing Systems himself, Philip Keough, who is
all of sixteen years old..."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "In an information-based economy, intelligence (and
the wisdom to use it correctly) is the winning factor. The side
effects still tend to surprise the hell out of people, which makes for
interesting food for thought."

<p> I wrote, "I recognized this as an opportunity not only to save my
marriage, but to interview a certified computer whiz from the 'younger
generation' (painful, those words) who grew up with both Windows and
Linux. His high school -- I think the President of Compusoft Computing
Systems is a junior -- just provided a Sony VAIO laptop for every
student, loaded, of course, with Windows XP. The school was considering
GNU/Linux, but decided to go with the 'industry standard.' I asked him
if anyone among his hacker friends, not the 'mainstream students,' was
into GNU/Linux, which I thought would be the OS for rebellious young
geeks. His answer was exaclty 2 out of 2000 sudents, are familiar with
GNU/Linux: himself and some other kid who publicly proclaims 'give me
Linux or give me death' but secretly runs Windows 2000 as his main
installation. I asked Philip why this was so, why kids at such a young
age would want to feed into the 'industry standard' way of life. His
answer was that Windows felt more "professional" just as Adobe Photoshop
was 'more professional' than The GIMP. So much for garage-band rebellion
and the Ramones...

<p> "If what he was saying is true, and Mac is viewed as something for
graphic artists, like the old SGI, but otherwise obsolete, then there
is only one operating system on earth, and it's a damned bad one," I
wrote.

<p> Okopnik wrote, "You have to remember that the OS competitive arena
is the entire world, while what you heard was a single opinion from a
single person in a single location. Furthermore, if he had said 'Windows
can do X, Y, and Z whereas Linux can't', or 'the software that we're
mandated to use requires Windows', well and good (although I don't think
that it's possible to defend the first argument); since his entire
area of focus is on how an OS 'feels', then he's off into mysticism as
opposed to rational judgement."

<p>  I wrote, "So, in reference to your LG audience: is GNU/Linux just
a toy that hackers boot on week-ends to unwind, or is it viewed as
a genuine alternative to Windows? The feeling I'm getting, or I
was getting from Philip, is that even the most dedicated GNU/Linux
enthusiasts share their hard-drives with some version of Windows for use
in the 'real world.'"

<p> Okopnik wrote, "Well, let's see. Many schools, hospitals, and
government installations in India run Linux. Same for South Africa. France
has passed a law that says "Open Source is to be implemented whenever
possible"; Brazil, which was 8% of Microsoft's business a couple of years
ago, has followed suit. Germany has been using Linux in their security
departments, and is now implementing it at every level - federal, state,
and local. China has decided that it's their official OS; Korea and Japan
have joined them in investing several billion dollars in FLOSS software
development recently. Most of South America is switching, led by Peru (Dr.
Villanueva Nunez, a Congressman, responded succinctly and brilliantly to
the fear-and-doubt tactics that Microsoft tried to sow when the decision
was made; the translation can be found in many places on the Net.) This is
just off the top of my head; there are many other countries which have
decided that FLOSS simply _works_ for them (generally by making them
competitive in the world market and removing an unnecessary barrier to
their pool of talented but poor would-be techies.)

<p> "Special effects - in e.g. Titanic, Shrek, The One, and many other
movies - are being done on Linux, simply because you _can't_ build
a real server farm for crunching serious processing under Windows
(incidentally, one of the most powerful computers in the world is a
massively-parallel rig built by students in Australia. Guess what it
runs?) The overwhelming majority of Web servers on the Net run Linux
- and many of those that don't are running Apache, a piece of FLOSS
software.

<p> "I hope these random examples begin to add up to a coherent picture.
I couldn't even start to draw an outline of just how huge and pervasive
the entire FLOSS penetration into the OS market actually is," Okopnik
wrote.

<p> Okopnik added, "Mac's gone FLOSS. Well, almost completely, anyway: the
base of Mac OS/X is another free Unix, BSD. The only part they haven't
really opened is their desktop manager (if I recall correctly, it's
called "Aqua") - but you can run plain ole' X on Mac hardware, and it's
available right from Apple's site. What's more, Apple has been edging
toward releasing the older versions of Aqua as FLOSS; their real edge
has always been as a great hardware and User Interface (UI) company
anyway, so they wouldn't lose anything.

<p> "A lot of FLOSS software, unsurprisingly, can be compiled to run on
OS/X; the instructions for doing so are, again, available on Apple's
site - and so it a lot of already compiled FLOSS. Did I mention that
we're taking over the world? :)," Okopnik wrote.

<p>  I wrote, "But Mac long ago ceased to be any kind of real competitor
to Windows. Like the old Soviet Union kept the U.S. in check and vice
versa. Now the U.S. is a Monopoly run rampant -- like Microsoft. A
closed system is a closed system. The rest of the world, developing
better software on Linux, will catch up while Microsoft, who keeps its
position only through use of 'force' will wither up and die," I wrote.

<p> Okopnik wrote, "Is it as obvious to you as it is to me and many
others? I don't understand why more people can't see that basic fact -
other than simply not knowing or understanding the issues."

<p> I wrote, "I came across this quote by Stallman on the gnu.org site
(www.gnu.org/thegnuproject.html):

<p> 'The "Linux" magazines ... are filled with advertisements for
proprietary software that works with GNU/Linux. When the next Motif or
Qt appears, will these magazines warn programmers to stay away from it,
or will they run ads for it?'

<p> "Response?" I wrote.

<p> Okopnik wrote, "As it happens, LG is the one Linux publication that
does not accept advertisements, and therefore does not follow Stallman's
dictum; we prefer to remain totally unbiased (except by our own personal
prejudices, of course. :) I have to agree that commercially-driven
magazines do have their bottom line to consider; perhaps not above all,
but it is a very strong motivating factor. I'll admit to being actually
shocked for about 30 seconds when I saw a Microsoft ad in the Linux
Journal... but sober consideration prevailed. There's no reason that
they shouldn't have - the ad said nothing derogatory about Linux and was
placed in the more-or-less correct market for MS's purposes - but it did
make for an interesting contrast.

<p> "For the people who were outraged by this - and judging from the
comments on Slashdot and elsewhere, many were - I'd suggest considering
the following Buddhist koan:

<p> "'Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.'

<p> "Very interesting questions can be found in the moment between the
emotional response and the reaction..." wrote Okopnik.

<p> I wrote, "Sometimes I wonder if I should be writing two different
articles, the GNU Story, and Everyone Else's. They're kinda picky with
their "GNU/Linux" not "Linux" and initially boycotting KDE because qt
was "proprietary" but I guess you need people like that, people who are
ready, willing and able to go 'all the way' to get a movement started.
If you don't mind me 'requoting' you from the previous section of this
article:

<p> 'We _need_ our radicals. They're ugly, scruffy, pushy, aggressive, loud,
and unfit for normal humans to associate with - but, O Ghod do we need
them! They sacrifice themselves on the altar of whatever the hell their
passion may be; they give up their right to be seen as "normal", and
make of themselves targets at which the majority of society will fling
rocks and garbage - and we, the human race, get to move ahead just
another tiny notch for each one of them. Granted, there are radicals on
either side of the fence - and lots of different fences - but the total
vector of these little steps *is* in the direction of progress; another
pragmatic belief of mine, and although I won't go into the philosophical
ramifications of it, it can be summed up as "'good' is just another way
of saying "pro-survival".' -- Ben Okopnik. That's you," I wrote.

<p> Okopnik wrote, "I might add, 'Listening to these folks, however,
_does_ require turning down the volume and intensity controls, and
keeping a supply of large grains of NaCl handy. :)'"

<p> I wrote, "I just want this article to introduce GNU/Linux to people
who aren't aware that it's a valid option -- especially now that KDE
and GNOME provide GUI 'desktop environments' that anyone can use.
Good to know know LG is sticking to the straight and narrow regarding
advertisements for proprietary software, though."

<p> Okopnik wrote, "Well, we don't have an articulated social contract the
way Debian Linux does (<a
href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract">http://www.debian.org/social_contract</a>),
but we do have our priorities. 'Making Linux a little more fun' does not
mean distorting the truth for profit - and that includes being cautious
with regard to slippery slopes."

<hr>

<p> 

This work is licensed under a <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">Creative Commons
License</a>.  It is free to distribute, reproduce or modify with the
author's consent. Read more about licensing software, text and
documentation at <a
href="http://www.creativecommons.org">http://www.creativecommons.org</a>.

<!--

<rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
 xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
 xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<Work rdf:about="">
 <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" />
 <license 
rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" />
</Work>

<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">
 <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction" />
 <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution" />
 <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice" />
 <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution" />
</License>

</rdf:RDF>

 -->


</p>


<!-- *** BEGIN author bio *** -->
<P>&nbsp;
<P>
<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<hr>
<p>

<img align="left" alt="[BIO]" src="../gx/authors/engel.jpg" class="bio">

<em>

Adam Engel has published poetry, fiction and essays in such magazines and
periodicals as Counter Punch, Dissident Voice, Online Journal,
Strike-the-Root, LewRockwell.com, The New York Art Review, The Concord
Journal, The Middlesex News, Accent, The Littleton Review, Ark, Smart
Shoes, The Beacon, Literal Latte, Artemis, The Lummox Journal, Fearless,
POESY, The Half Moon Review, Art:Mag, Chronogram, Gnome and others.

<p> Adam Engel's first book of poetry, <strong>Oil and Water</strong>, was
published by Maximum Capacity Press in 2001. His novel,
<strong>Topiary</strong>, will be published by Dandelion Books in the
Spring of 2005.

<p> He has worked as a journalist, screenwriter, executive speechwriter,
systems administrator, and editorial consultant, and has taught writing at
New York University, Touro College and the Gotham Writer's Workshop in New
York City.

</em>
<br clear="all">
<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** END author bio *** -->

<div id="articlefooter">

<p>
Copyright &copy; 2005, Adam Engel. Released under the <a
href="http://linuxgazette.net/copying.html">Open Publication license</a>
unless otherwise noted in the body of the article. Linux Gazette is not
produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC, Inc.
</p>

<p>
Published in Issue 113 of Linux Gazette, April 2005
</p>

</div>


<div id="previousnextbottom">
<A HREF="collinge.html" >&lt;-- prev</A> | <A HREF="kapil.html" >next --&gt;</A>
</div>


</div>






<div id="navigation">

<a href="../index.html">Home</a>
<a href="../faq/index.html">FAQ</a>
<a href="../lg_index.html">Site Map</a>
<a href="../mirrors.html">Mirrors</a>
<a href="../mirrors.html">Translations</a>
<a href="../search.html">Search</a>
<a href="../archives.html">Archives</a>
<a href="../authors/index.html">Authors</a>
<a href="../contact.html">Contact Us</a>

</div>



<div id="breadcrumbs">

<a href="../index.html">Home</a> &gt; 
<a href="index.html">April 2005 (#113)</a> &gt; 
Article

</div>





<img src="../gx/2003/sit3-shine.7-2.gif" id="tux" alt="Tux"/>




</body>
</html>