[PLUG] Willamette Week Story

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Dan Haskell wrote:
> The way I read the article, it is intended as an examination of local
> contributiors to the Linux movement. That's why they focused on people
> like Paul, Cliff, and Oso rather than RMS.

And I understand that and accept it.  But the author hadn't yet fully
decided on the tack he was going to take for the article when we spoke and
I feel like he took one of the least interesting approaches.

We actually had a little talk about how the WW seems to always be 10 years
behind the times.  This article is a good example of one that could have
been written ten years ago without too much difference (except the depth
of saturation, but that's sort of what makes it no longer "news").  So
while the direction the story took is totally understandable and in line
with the history of the WW, I kind of thought we might see something more
ground-breaking on this one.

Hope springs eternal, I guess.

By the way, I didn't think the article should focus on Stallman, just that
the concept of Free Software combined with the easy, ubiquitous networking
of the modern age are the reason something like Linux can take hold and
drives the development of all the other projects mentioned in the article.
The article continues the common misconception that Linux is an operating
system and not just a kernel and nothing is done to alter the other great
misconception that an operating system includes a windowing environment,
session management, spoolers, a web browser, and all the other cruft
Microsoft says it is.

I love the fact that there are great projects here in Portland and I
totally respect everybody involved in those projects, but personality
pieces don't really cut it as public education in my book and the article
just seemed to gloss over a few things that might actually help people
understand things better.

I'm really sleepy, so the words aren't flowing properly at the moment..
but hopefully I'm getting the idea across.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
   -----------------
 [cc] counter-copyright
 http://www.openlaw.org