[SLUG] Food for thought

[john at johnallsopp.co.uk]

> Following on from a discussion later on at the SLUG meeting, I thought
> I'd throw out a few questions on Linux.
>
> What is the purpose and place of Unix and indeed Linux?
> What are it's strengths?

Yers, I'm thinking on from what we said about the Software Freedom Day
stand. As you know I used to run a software marketing consultancy so
this kind of thing bounces around inside my skull quite a bit.

I'm starting to think that standing in the middle of Scarborough and
saying "free software" won't win any converts. People will come over,
get the free software, find that the Gimp doesn't work the same way as
their ripped off copy of Photoshop and doesn't have step-by-step
how-to magazines devoted to it in WH Smiths, and will revert to what
they know. Software, if you get ripped off copies, is free anyway. The
call "free software" will attract people who install ripped off
software.

It's a harder sell, but for me the difference is ideological and
political, and I think I'm going to create a handout "the politics of
free software" for the stand. The other thing is Stallman saying "free
as in freedom, not as in beer".

I recently read The Corporation, a book (and film) on companies in
which is makes the case that public companies are legally bound to
make amoral decisions. The directors of such a company take care of
the shareholders money. If a director decides they'd like to be nice
to their workforce by paying above the going rate, unless there's a
clear case that that would lead to higher profits, they would legally
be giving shareholders money to the workforce, and that's illegal, or
at least, it's not in their contract.

This is paraphrasing the book, btw, so don't hassle me about it, it's
just where my head's at atm.

The same with environmental issues. So a company is, essentially,
bound by law to, without reference to any morality, find the cheapest
way to make and distribute something, and sell it in such as way as to
maximise profit. That's how we've got sweatshop labour, environmental
issues, increased stress in the workplace, huge intellectual property
issues and so on, but it's also how we've got a system of software
upgrades and it determines how functionality is selected.

If you're not bothered by the moral side of that, you can buy shares
in those companies, work for them (and gain an income), buy their
products and that's what most people do .. I'm not judging that.

However there are those people who see the bigger picture. Linux is
part of the solution. Linux is built by the people for the people.
It's part of an entirely different world view in which information is
for sharing, not for keeping as part of a balance sheet of assets. You
know the rest .. but the easy sells, I think, are thinkers and
alternatives who will buy into the politics. There are plenty of
alternative people running ripped off Windows and thinking they're
sticking two fingers up to Microsoft. The real two fingers comes from
running Linux. Also those people may have the time to invest in
getting to know Linux.

I know there are downsides to that strategy. Painting Linux into an
'unwashed' corner won't do it any favours at all, particularly if an
IT person from the council or hospital or any corporate business
wanders along and wonders what it's all about. But then, in an ironic
twist, within the corporate framework above, if Linux is cheaper for a
business to run, they are (legally) bound to take it up, otherwise
they'd be wasting shareholders' money on overexpensive software.

But it remains my view that it's the social, political, human
arguments about Linux that will win people over and give them the
motivation to take the huge plunge to convert to Linux, and that's
what we should concentrate on on the 10 September (not that that's
what you were asking, but that answers your question too).

> Is Linux really meant for the office and/or home user, or is it an OS
> by coders/hackers for coders/hackers?

It's both because of different distributions.

> If we take Linux to mean just the OS kernel.  Then take a GNU/Linux
> distribution as the kernel, a GNU tool chain and a set of applications
> and libraries, then is there much of an idealogical difference between
> running open source on Windows or Linux?  Is the porting of GNU/Linux
> applications harming the Linux OS?

I slowly moved to open source software under Windows. Then making the
switch to Linux underneath's not such a big leap. I think it's helping
by making the OS irrelevant.

J