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Free software
- - - - - - - - - - - - April 1, 2000 |
I ask you, is it so wrong to use a proprietary tool like Microsoft Word to write about the joys of open-source software? Should I be flayed alive for sending e-mail to Richard "free software" Stallman via Microsoft Outlook? Am I a bad person for reading Slashdot every now and again through the prism of, gasp, Microsoft Internet Explorer?
My stomach ulcer certainly seems to think so. Sure, I can get myself to sleep at night with any number of cherished, uh, rationalizations. Like a fundamentalist Christian disappointed in the absence of Millennial rapture, but still faithful, I keep telling myself that yes, Linux will be ready for the desktop Real Soon Now. And hardly a day goes by when I don't promise to myself that tomorrow, absolutely, positively, I'm going to learn how to use the Emacs text editor. I will shake off Bill Gates' shackles! When I get the time. But a guy's gotta be careful, right? What if I lose all my old data when I switch operating systems? Wouldn't want that to happen. Wouldn't be prudent.
Still, my guilt began to accumulate like bug reports on an open-source developer's mailing list. I found that I wasn't able to meet the eyes of my interview subjects when they asked me what I thought of the latest release of Red Hat. No matter how often I bleached my vast collection of penguin-adorned T-shirts, I still felt unclean every time I pulled one over my head. So what if I could sling kernel-hacker jargon with seeming total authority. Deep down, I knew it was all a sham! A flimsy facade, waiting to crack and crumble at the sight of just one more inexplicable error message.
But I'm all better now. I just had to face the facts: I don't like free software. I'm sorry I ever started covering it as a reporter. And, most of all, I wish to GOD I had never started writing an online book about the damn topic.
What a huge mistake! As if anyone needs an entire Internet's worth of ankle-biting critics jumping on every misplaced punctuation mark. And all that whining about getting proper credit for their contributions. Get a life! Here's a dirty little secret about open-source software: The people who start free software projects are all devout sado-masochists who get their kicks from being howled at by juvenile delinquents. They thrive on the abuse.
And it gets worse. It's not just the masterminds of free software who get off on self-mutilation, it's everybody who even uses the code. How else to explain the widespread devotion to Linux, which, as Bill Joy points out, is merely the fourth re-implementation of a 30-year-old operating system that no one has yet figured out how to make easy to use for people who need to actually DO things, rather than just fiddle with configuration files or recompile their kernels all day.
Yup. I realized just a few days ago that the reason I haven't completed migrating to Linux is that I actually want to spend my time doing useful things. I'm tired of reading incomprehensible How-To documents and asking for help in Usenet newsgroups that are mostly populated by rabid mongrels who would rather rip out your throat than answer a simple question. And you know what? As soon as I recognized my intense lack of interest in geekishly wasting the rest of my life, a great calm descended on me. My stomach troubles suddenly vanished. I achieved enlightenment.
I'm sorry, Bill G., for all those nasty things I said about you. Will you take me back?
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