[Sussex] Thoughts On Contrubuting to the Community

[Bob Williams]

On Friday 30 March 2007 15:57:28 Steve Dobbo Dobson wrote:
> Hi all
>
[snip]

> So to all you to spend a moment thinking about two of the questions Nik
> asked last night:
>    1) Why did you switch to Linux?  and
>    2) What is it that you like about Linux now you understand it
>       and the ideals it embodies?
>
[snip]
>
> So here is your homework from me.  You MUST reply to this email saying
> how you contribute, how you pay your dues, for using Linux.  There are
> no exceptions, no excuses, and a reasonable time limit.

How can I refuse an order like that? And I wasn't even at the moot :(

I first played with linux about 5 or 6 years ago, I think. SuSE Linux 6.0. The 
GUI was pretty basic, and I never bothered to learn any command line stuff, 
so I gave it up for a while. However, I was always attracted by the ethical 
aspects of sharing, which is where the internet began, before someone 
realised there was money to be made selling people stuff.

There's a good book called 'Spirit of the Web' (can't remember who wrote it), 
which gives an account of communication media through the ages, from 
semaphore, through morse code, telephones, radio, tv and the internet, and 
shows how there's a constant tension between ownership of the medium by 
individuals, and ownership by big business/vested interests, who package it 
up and 'sell' the content to the consumer. Notice the similarity between 
broadcast radio/tv and internet portals such as AOL and MSN. Where do you 
want me to take you today?

Anyway, I got back into linux again a couple of years ago, with SuSE Linux 
9.3. After about 6 months, I got rid of Windows completely and have been 
using linux almost exclusively at home. I'll admit to having Win2k and Win XP 
running on VMware virtual machines, but only to run proprietory programs that 
don't have a linux equivalent.

Although I'm still relatively new to the GNU/linux world, my main impression 
is one of freedom, in the sense that I feel I've got ownership of my computer 
back again. To quote Paul Sheer, "When you are using a computer, it is useful 
to imagine yourself as *being* in different places *within* the computer, 
rather than just typing commands into it." With linux, I feel I have regained 
ownership of that virtual space inside my computer, even if large tracts of 
it a still rather obscure and unilluminated.

So far, I have written a simple shell script to use rsync to back up my data 
to an external USB hard drive, and I'm working with my son to use rsync to 
synchronise our music collections over a VPN to Aberdeen. He started with 
Windows, but I've recently persuaded him to try linux, so networking should 
be easier now.

OK. That's my 2p worth. I'm off skiing for a week tomorrow. Must try to make 
it to more moots :)

Bob
-- 
Bob

openSUSE 10.2 x86_64, Kernel 2.6.18.8-0.1, KDE 3.5.6 r31.4