[Newark] Getting Free Software Into Schools

[Khismett Riddle]

Scientists make FOSS great, and to be honest only some of it really is
advanced, only some of it really great. Linux itself is far from an ideal
kernel, it's monolithic, old and wasn't really built to be so scalable it's
impressive it works as well as it does but perhaps a shame it does because
it so held back the Hurd. (Connoisseurs might like to ask if FOSS is
actually worth advocating yet). To me it seems a little pretentious that
someone would claim to be adding to a world built on science with their
social skills and little else, to me it shows a lack of intelligence or -
more often - just a lack of dedication and curiosity, people like that
strike me as those who didn't put in the effort to learn technical skills
but were persuaded to imagine a community that is rather fragmented at best
and apply normal community skills to it as if that is an affective
alternative. You might like to pause and think quite what the word
"community" means.  I was talking to someone over breakfast; they used to
have a teacher who always linked things to "imagined" and "physical"
communities.  The latter being a well-defined power structure like a
government and the former being the looser "communities" the modern world so
likes; the "community" of IRCers, the "community" of artists, perhaps the
FOSS "community". We are all part of dozens of imagined communities - and I
don't doubt their validity - as well as at least  a few physical
communities, but I think the distinction is a helpful one.

Surely it's more use to this community (however you want to define it) for
someone to design, create or work on technology such as the X Server, DBUS
or the kernel than for them to.. how do I generalise this, to advocate? To
advertise? It's almost like saying the people who make a film are no more
important to the outcome than the people who market it, bearing in mind of
course that this film is both always and never complete and that those who
are marketed to can choose to contribute. So I pose the question: how do we
measure the "value" of someone in this "community"? How terribly flat of me
to consider a complex social system so mathematically, but that's economics
for you. Let me simplify it, for argument's sake. Is a zealot worth less
than an engineer? How many zealots have the same worth as one engineer? How
do we define worth? I assume we all agree that software progress (the
creation and completion of new and better projects) is more important to
FOSS than factors like the number of people using it, I know this is not the
case for some people who consider the ethos and "freedom" more important
than the software but to me that seems very dull and depressing. I'm
interested in computers and I don't kid myself that FOSS users are somehow
the saviors of man and beast.

Suppose, then, that FOSS users can be split into zealots, engineers and
normal users. Suppose also that a zealot is never an engineer and vice
versa. Zealots themselves are considered useless to the progress of FOSS, as
are users. Each zealot may "convert" a certain number of non-FOSS users to
FOSS while engineers will convert none. So the real question is "what
proportion of the converts become engineers and what proportion become
zealots?" I don't know if that can ever really be answered, but we can
reasonably suppose that the zealot ratio is higher than the engineer ratio,
so we shouldn't ignore the next level of zealots who themselves may find
engineers. Therefore each zealot is potentially connected to a structure
containing users, engineers and other zealots (each of which may have their
own tree). A zealot may pay off in time with many engineers while an
engineer can offer progress sooner (and with more certainty) but potentially
less progress in the long term and they do not cater for later generations.

Clearly I'm ignoring many levels of detail here. We could keep adding
complexity until the cows come home to find the rapture has happened, but
why not look briefly at where this could lead? In actuality, engineers are
often zealots and no two zealots or engineers will provide the same level of
progress. Certain zealots may be connected by a tree of other zealots to
hundreds of users and yet may also be successful engineers (Mark
Shuttleworth comes greasily to mind). Is this new hybrid engineer-zealot
more effective at attracting engineers? I think that sounds reasonable. So
the most important FOSS user is one who offers good solutions to computing
problems - like an engineer - but also who provides for the future by
attracting others - like a zealot. That's the path to fame in this
"community" and it also leads to, in my mind, the greatest progress. That is
to say, it is best for the community if people can both be and attract
engineer-zealots. We're looking for intelligent, motivated people who aren't
afraid to learn and apply some really hard science but who can also spread
the interest to like-minded people. But then, isn't that what every society
wants? And, just like every society, FOSS won't get as many engineer-zealots
as it would like.

In conclusion to this... study: if one wants to "give back to the community"
one offers little by attracting those who themselves will offer little -
users  - but if one can both become and beget the engineer-zealot, then
progress will ensue both now and tomorrow. A user is useless, a zealot is
only as good as the engineers they find and an engineer is the only one who
may offer progress directly. So if at all possible, zealots - and you know
who you are - should learn something about engineering (learn to program,
solve problems, pull levers, replace udev) and engineers should consider
advocating to people they believe would be engineers themselves if they want
to extend the community's reach to the stars above.

I'd like for people to consider this with the understanding that it is a
model of the imagined community we're all here for, but that simple models
can provide great insights about the systems they represent. Science is all
about finding manageable representations of complex situations because we
can rarely calculate everything from the most basic, detailed level. One of
the most controversial points here is a foundation-stone of my definition of
worth that I set out before I started, so the rounded argument tries to fit
a square hole if you consider kittens-and-trees ethics a more important
hallmark of FOSS progress than science and the software itself.


Thank-you for reading this far, I can't tell you how rare it is that someone
nowadays is prepared to actually stop and read before careering off to
quicker thrills like "Gnometris" and "YouTube". Perhaps with more people
like you, we can properly consider the problems of this community by
embracing lengthy communication where lengthy communication is in order.
FOSS OSes need a lot of reworking to excel, engineers are in short supply
and people who really care to learn are worth their weight in gold. They
used to be called hackers and they created computer science.

Goodnight everyone,
Tom French
P.S Any argument in agreement or rebuttal of mine would really make my day,
does anyone out there have the time?
P.P.S Having the time is another topic I could talk for hours about, surely
everyone has the same amount of time in a day they just prioritise
activities differently?
P.P.P.S The definition of 'hacker' is also interesting to consider, but
ultimately we should use whatever definition the world at large most
understands if we can't tell it otherwise.
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