I’ve written a guide for new users on how to understand the vitrol that rabid zealots spew in Linux communities ^[2]

Those problems are all very easy to see…but these articles deal with only the tangible problems in these areas.  What are the reasons these problems exist?  Is it because of one or two individuals?  Is it mob mentality?  Are people just waking up on the wrong side of the bed?  I don’t think these reasons get down to the core of what the real problem is…the hidden problem…of zealots in the Linux community.

The Hidden Problem

The hidden problem is Narcissism…people think that what they have to say about a given subject makes the most sense and is 100% correct (or at least more correct than others’ POV) and it’s one that is hard for people to talk about…because anyone that writes or blogs has to be a little bit narcissistic.  People don’t like talking about problems they’re guilty of.  I know I am guilty of it…and I’m still going to talk about it.

With social networking riding a tidal wave right now, the era of the narcissist moves on, unhindered, on the interwebs.  Subscribe to my twitter feed…what I have to says in 140 characters or less is a MUST READ!  My facebook page will keep you updated on EVERY little thing I decide to post unless you edit me out of your news feed.  Sites cater to the egocentric tendencies of anyone plugged in.  So what happens when you get a bunch of narcissists together sharing a common goal?  “My distribution is THE BEST out there and no other point of view matters!”  That’s right, you get zealotry in the purest form.

This has slowly begun leaking into Linux communities during the past few years as Linux is tried out by more and more people and becomes more available to people who aren’t technologically advanced.  Bottom line is, more people are trying Linux now than ever before.  This makes the user pool larger and more diverse.  Where there are more people though, there are more narcissists…and birds of a feather flock together.

Take narcissism with a twist of mob mentality and the powder keg in Linux communities is set to blow.  The zealots seethe and team about in forums, IRC, and on blogs across the internet looking for a place to show how right they are and how wrong the person posting information is.

Oh, I admit it…I have a narcissist streak in me…I want people to read this blog.  I want people to follow me on twitter.  I want people to pay attention to what I say…it’s part of being a blogger…but I don’t think that my distribution of choice is any better than yours.  In fact, I know it’s not.  Just like my car isn’t any better than the one you drive and my clothes are so last year and aren’t as good as yours.  I offset my narcissism with realism…I understand that what I think isn’t the only point of view out there…I don’t think I’m 100% right all the time.

I also don’t go out on the web and try to find others who think my view is the best view and then try to push my egocentric viewpoint to others.  I don’t create a community of zombie thinkers who all believe my viewpoint is the best out there.  I’m not forming any mobs for my mentality.  I’m not flocking together with birds of a feather.  I’m a part time ego-narcissist I guess.

The first step is admitting that you have a problem.  The second step is having some good old fashioned manners, respect for others, and above all…tolerance and realism.

Solution to the Problem

When you’re standing in line at a bank, would you cut in front of someone in the line?   Most likely you wouldn’t.  Personal conflict is something we as humans avoid most of the time.  So, why is it when you’re driving you don’t mind cutting someone off and do it regularly?  It’s because the personal aspect of that motion has been replaced into an impersonal one…the car becomes a protection from that personal conflict that would happen if you had done the same thing in a bank line.

To fix the problem this presents on the web and in Linux communities, think about others (not yourself) and in doing so, become less narcissistic.  Apply this thinking to commenting and blogging and facebooking and tweeting.  Imagine that you are face to face with people saying the things you’re typing.  If you wouldn’t say things like that in a face to face situation, don’t say them.  Remember that tolerance of other viewpoints makes you a better person…AND smarter.  How?  Albert Einstein is largely considered one of the smartest humans to ever walk the earth.  He often gathered with other intelligent people to debate and discuss various topics that interested him.  In doing so, he caused those he debated with “to sharpen and refine their understanding of the philosophical and scientific implications of their own theory.”  Remember that everyone does NOT have to share your viewpoint…what works for you may not work for them.

Lastly, no one cares if you sat down in your office or are eating a peanut butter sandwich.  We subscribe to feeds and twitter accounts for meat and potatoes posts…not 1 liners that tell us you’re in the bathroom of a bakery on 96th street.  So, you zealots out there…you know who you are…take this opportunity to reflect on yourself (your favorite subject) and try to replace your narcissism with realism, tolerance, and good old fashioned manners.

And no I don’t think any zealots will be converted by this post…it’s more of a rant than anything else…and rants are one of the reasons why I have a blog   Well that and because what I say is more important than anyone else and my viewpoint is 100% correct 100% of the time of course.

Zealots and Narcissism originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on December 21, 2009.

Say you were remarking to your friend about a deal down at Best Buy that was “a steal”. Told your mom how you “swiped a $beverage” from your buddies house. What if these keywords flagged you as one who participated in illegal activity if you discussed them on the phone? And what if your carriers had a “3 strikes and you’re out” policy? You’d find yourself phoneless based on the topics of your conversation. Sound far fetched?

It may not be. Compare the idea above to what Internet Service Providers (ISP) are doing. ISP’s are bowing to the RIAA (and BPI) and spying on their users…monitoring the topic of your communication and cutting you off if your communications do not live up to their standards. Virgin Media in the UK is the first major ISP doing this…

It seems ridiculous that an ISP can tell you what you should or should commicate about…which isn’t unlike a phone company telling you what to converse about over the phone. But it’s happening.

The RIAA is stupid for trying to get ISP’s to do this because they’re tromping on the idea of freedom of speech and expression. ISP’s are dumb to try and do this because if they start to monitor and police, they become LIABLE…which means lawsuits and increased expendetures. In all, it’s a losing battle. The phone company can’t be held liable every time a criminal or terrorist plots something using their service and just like that, ISP’s should keep their noses out of what consumers communicate.

This is why net neutrality is so important. Broadband needs to be neutral…when ISP’s pull what Virgin is trying to do, a new and smaller company that doesn’t do this would be able to rise and snare customers that jump ship from Virgin and the underlying network won’t be controlled by Virgin so they won’t be able to do anything about it.

It’s imperative that we keep our internet like we keep our software…free and transparent. Open to all.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Why the RIAA and ISP’s are Stupid originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 9, 2008.

1. “We don’t need to keep reinventing Linux, creating distributions that
put critical bits in interesting and inventive if unusual places.”

This couldn’t be more wrong. We DO need to keep reinventing Linux and creating distributions that put critical bits in interesting and inventive if unusual places. Without these multiple distributions and their drive to do what isn’t “normal” or “business as usual” innovation would be left up to a small number of distros and developers. Innovation thrives in the current environment…we have seen how desktop Linux has lept & bounded during the past 3-4 years. This statement is not only false, but it shows how much people (even industry consultants/analysts/journalists with over 25 years in the business) totally miss the mark when it comes to Linux and Open Source Software.

I assume you’d prefer a ‘unified distro’ or at least fewer to choose from…one where everyone can stop spinning their wheels developing for that small time distro and all join hands and work on that larger distro and make it 1000% better right? That’s something that won’t happen and shouldn’t happen.

Perhaps you think new users will be scared of all of these choices? I bet these same new users walk around in circles when picking out a new shirt or shopping for a pair of pants…there is just too many of them isn’t there? Using this as a reason for justification of having fewer distros is silly and stupid.

2. “An application written for Linux should be relatively simple to install on any Linux distribution. It ain’t so.”

Perhaps the author is referring to source based installs here. Well, I’d have to slightly agree…there a bit daunting for new users. But think of this also…someone for that program you installed on your Windows PC packaged up that .exe or .msi for you to install on your computer. So when you go to install something in Linux…don’t compare source based installs where you’re compiling the program to double click exe or msi installs…because it is logically unsound. Instead, compare the compiling of the code into an exe/msi for install on Windows. Apples v. Apples and Oranges v. Oranges. Comparing a .exe to a .deb or .rpm would be closer to being logically sound in this instance and when doing this installing software is the same as in Windows.

3. “Do we really need hundreds of general purpose distributions, all with diffferent tools, different filesystem layouts, variations on three major software package management schemes and a host of oddball ones, and so on? Do we need yet more to crop up?”

Yes…we do need them. Without them, your XFS filesystem wouldn’t have been tested and tried true. Your various hardware configurations wouldn’t have been run as many times agaisnt different kernel modules because Linux would appeal LESS to people. With more choice, you can find a Linux that is right for you. Without them, new ways of doing things wouldn’t be adopted and integrated by others. Think about if rpm was still the same because .deb’s never came around? We’d probably still have rpm dependency resolution hell in many distros. Deb packages made rpm packagers and devs rethink how they did business and they adopted many practices in spec files because of it. Without this variety and innovation, it wouldn’t have happened.

They say that variety is the spice of life and I have to agree. Imagine if everyone in the United States had a limited choice of vehicle…only the most popular car could be driven and subsequently everyone would have a Toyota Camry. Think of all the manufacturers of truck parts that would fold up shop and leave. Think of how less and less people would think ‘outside of the box’ (box being a Camry in this instance). Think of all the farmers and ranchers who would be livid about having to drive a Camry on their farm/ranchstead. Choice is simple. Choice is innovative. Choice is needed.

Remember that choice for end users also means choice for developers. Devs can come in and look at where they fit in for communities and for programming languages, for community projects inside of each Linux community and for that feeling they get when they’ve arrived at the distro they should be developing for. Less distros means more developers with less territory to fit in on. If we had 12 distros and all the developers of the other 500 distros had to find new places to fit in…do you think everyone would get along? It would be mass chaos and many developers probably would just stop developing all together…and their contribution to free software and Linux would be lost.

4. “Linux has reached somewhere between 30% and 40% of the server market (depending on whose figures you believe) because the major distributions just plain work on most server hardware from major manufacturers like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. We need to convince enterprise customers who buy servers to demand hardware that can use Open Source drivers.”

No business in their right mind is going to demand that a piece of hardware that works currently needs to have it’s proprietary driver replaced by one that is open source. That’s an unrealistic want/desire that will never be fulfilled.

Many people mistakenly think that the Server is the only place that Linux can make progress into people’s lives. I’d say they’re short sighted. Saying things like this is often a mistake that people make…and it gives implication of a ‘no confidence’ vote for Linux on the desktop whether the person saying it wants to or not. The server is not the last frontier for Linux…it was the first frontier.

5. “Until that day arrives proprietary drivers remain a necessary evil in a Linux distribution.”

For thousands, they aren’t a necessary evil. Having them or not having them makes no difference to these users. When something is a neccessity, it means you can’t live without it. Proprietary drivers are not food, water, and shelter for Linux. They’re a performance enhancer that people can and do live without. Making statements like this tries to portray Linux as being at the mercy of proprietary software and totally inept to tackle the problem…so inept that we need to DEMAND that open source drivers be made. Sure, it would be nice…but Linux is as Linux does…and for many, Linux does just fine. As for if it does fine in the server room…you have less support there than you do for Linux on the desktop I’m afraid.

6. “That’s just as true on the desktop as it is in the server room. Nobody will migrate from Windows to an OS that doesn’t work for them on the hardware they have.”

Let’s revisit what you were talking about earlier and then we’ll move on to adress this line. According to points #1 through #3…we don’t need more than a few Linux distros out there right? Having more is just plain stupid for sh!7sake right? If some piece of hardware doesn’t fully work in Linux…then having fewer distributions around won’t help us out at all…it will stifle the number of drivers being developed and the amount of software being written to configure these devices. So what is it that you want? You want to get rid of most of the distros and increase the amount of hardware supported…all without being detrimental to Linux. In fact, you think it would be better right? It won’t. It isn’t. It never will be.

7. “The laptop I’m writing this on doesn’t need any proprietary software to work as it should.”

Wait a second…didn’t you just say in the previous paragraph that proprietary drivers were a necessary evil? Oh for crying out loud, will you make up your mind? Are you TRYING to be appealing to both sides of the fence as to not step on toes?

I honestly don’t know what the author of this blog post was thinking when they wrote it. It doesn’t flow, it draws conclusions it shouldn’t, and it assumes everyone is of the same mind as the writer. Sure, it’s opinion. But when you offer opinions you open yourself up to good criticism and bad. In this case, I’m disagreeing with the sentiment portrayed in this blog. Perhaps next time the author might think about what they’re saying…because limiting the number of distros out there is absolutely NOT the way to go to accomplish anything other than limiting innovation.

Why Having 500+ Distros is a Good Thing originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 7, 2007.

I was immediately reprimanded and given detention. When I asked what I did, the response was “apparently nothing but you’re going to stay after anyway”. When I pressed harder for an explanation, I was told that since I thought ‘my two buddies’ were funny, I was staying after. I had been caught in a perplexing situation many people, groups and companies find themselves in…I was guilty by association.

I was reading an article at Linux Today earlier and saw this line from the article, which was penned in defense of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (and rightly so…I have no idea why people would call SJVN a shill…he’s the farthest thing from it). I’m not so much concerned with people attacking SJVN so much as I am with the editor’s (it’s an editor’s note) second item that he’s bugged by:

So…people shouldn’t do this. We all know that it isn’t fair…but the main fact is they are doing this and have always done this, just like that teacher of mine in high school. I wanted to understand why people aren’t making the connection that openSuse shouldn’t be held accountable for Novell’s actions…but then it hit me…The technology and code being sunk into openSuse as a test ground will one day make it into the Novell Desktop…which, as part of the now famous deal, will make money for Microsoft.

When you look at it in this logical manner, I don’t blame the people the article is condemning for targeting openSuse and I don’t see how anyone can blame them. How many Linux users out there do you know that want to bankroll Microsoft?

It’s how businesses operate. Most CEO’s in today’s society make decisions and lead their company…perhaps an approving board jumps in to give a vote of confidence…but overall, the common employee or programmer isn’t consulted on directions that a platform is going. It’s like this for just about every company I’ve ever worked for…the ‘small guy’ isn’t heard.

The problem with the Novell MS deal is that the small guy is a community of small guys…it’s almost like a union…more powerful in the group than alone. Novell didn’t consider what this deal would do to their community and they didn’t care…there were no channels of communication opened up…there were no private polling of resources within the community…nothing. The deal was brokered and done. But they forgot the community. They forgot that this is Open Source…it’s not business. Open Source isn’t about business and never will be. Open Source Software like Linux is about making a better product because you can, not because someone is paying you to do it. Linux doesn’t make decisions based on any revenue models or forecast loss charts. It is its own entity that bows to no one and serves no business, person, or entity in any greater capacity than any other business, person, or entity.

Novell forgot the community…and in turn, due to their lack of communication on the matter, now have to reap what they sow. Unfortunately, openSuse is not immune to the fallout.

Going further on in the article we see:

Let me be honest…I love openSuse and the desktop they’ve built. It’s professional looking, polished, and has a solid feel about it that is fantastic. But I won’t use it ever again. I don’t want any bug report that I make to go into squashing bugs that will eventually end up in a Novell Desktop that is part of any payment of any kind to Microsoft. So now I find myself floating away from openSuse altogether. I think the developers for openSuse are probably exactly what this article is saying…and if they’re smart, they’ll see past the trees to see the forest that is money to Microsoft…and they’ll do something about it sooner than later.

“But I don’t think it’s necessary or worthy to malign the coders participating in openSUSE, nor the results of their hard work.”

I agree we shouldn’t malign the coders…but the results of their work are fair game. Let’s say you’re completely anti-war and you hate all violent actions that some country has taken. You voice your opinion loudly and with vigor…now do you go and malign the mechanic that works down at the bomb manufacturing plan? Nope…he/she is doing their job and probably has a family to support. Do you malign the company that he/she is working for? Maybe a little bit, maybe a lot. Do you malign the IDEA that making bombs is about? YES.

Perhaps bomb making is a poor example…and for that I apologize. Hopefully, you get the gist of what I’m saying. IMHO, The works and the idea behind the works are fair game…they’re products that are part of monetary gain (eventual) for Microsoft. So perhaps we shouldn’t point fingers at the developers and coders…but we definitely can point them at what they’re developing and shout to the top of our lungs “Do you know what your product is being used for!?!?!” and we can also shout to the top of our lungs at the idea that the entire Novell/Microsoft deal encompasses. Can we hold Novell responsible? You bet we can. Can we hold openSuse responsible? It shouldn’t be that way but it is…so, yep.

Back in that classroom, I stayed after for detention. I didn’t whine or complain…nor did I feel it was wrong for my instructor to put me there…after all, I did laugh when I shouldn’t have…so I was guilty by association and I served my ‘time’ as it were right alongside them. The bottom line to all of this is that openSuse code may one day make it into the Novell Desktop which will give cash money to Microsoft. Do I want any part of that? Nope. If some people want to yell at others who don’t see this correlation to try and wake them up, so be it. When Novell neglected to get a pulse from their community, they allowed that community to be associated with their decision…they made openSuse guilty by association. Wrong, sad, and totally irresponsible all at the same time. Maybe some detention time will be good for Novell as well.

Guilty by Association originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on January 7, 2007.

Often, it’s attitudes, egos, and intelligence that make this gap between users’ perspective even wider. What’s interesting about all of this philosophy and debate is that it is more prolific now than it was 10 years ago. Why? Well, more users of course! Linux and open source are enjoying a very large following currently. Add more users to the fray and you’re bound to get more perspective…for the good things and the bad.

Working with users at work who don’t even know how to place clipart in their MS Word docs (I sub in for helpdesk since we’re a smaller state agency) got me thinking the other day. Where does the new user fit in with this philosophy and debate? How are we to get their perspective across to programmers, developers, application hackers, and designers? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Linux has arrived at a point unprecedented in history…when a Linux desktop is usable and productive. As Uncle Ben said in Spiderman 2, “with great power comes great responsibility”. I feel the community is being irresponsible on this…and yes, it is all about perspective. So please read on…let’s see if we can change your perspective a bit and close the gap between new users and advanced users.

The thing that gets to me is that we have new users…users coming from Windows XP where most everything ‘just works’ or is a few clicks away from just working. When these users come over to Linux we sit there and expect them to dig right in and not expect everything to ‘just work’? How is it that we do that? How do we expect them to come from an environment where most stuff just works to one where things don’t always ‘just work’ without complaining? I for one find anyone who looks at new users in this light a detriment to Linux and Open Source Software in general. It’s people that share this perspective (that a new user shouldn’t be complaining because a) it’s easier now to use Linux than it was when I learned it b) they haven’t read the man pages/manual yet c) they haven’t searched the forums or wiki or whatever) that cause users to make comments and adopt attitudes similar to this person.

We also expect them to immediately respect FLOSS/FOSS and buy into the philisophical debate right away. They should want to use FLOSS/FOSS because it is free and it works right? I don’t think so. They should want to use FLOSS/FOSS because they’re using it. Confused? Well, the simple fact of the matter is that they’re trying FLOSS/FOSS…so they know it is free and that it somewhat works otherwise they’d have dropped it before it even got off the ground. They want to use it because they’re using it…and we shouldn’t expect them to buy into all of our open source philosophy or purist/elitist ideas. We shouldn’t expect them to feel immersed in the ideas of FLOSS/FOSS without first giving them the opportunity to feel a part of the community. They can’t hop up on our purist box and look at the world from our Libre perspective without first arriving there on their own accord. We must first teach them to walk before they can run.

Yet this is precisely what we do. We try to pigeonhole new users, advanced users, Linux, and just about anything we can categorize into tidy little categories that we can stereotype and apply label to. We try to force the new Linux user to immediately conform to FLOSS/FOSS philosophy and try to force them to adopt our ideals…mainly by chastizing them in forums, mailing lists, and newsgroups.

I know I’m addressing an issue or issues that have been spoken of before:

1. Linux Snobs: Real Barriers to Entry
2. Eric Raymond and the RTFM Jerks
3. Free Open Source Support: The Bad and the Good

Really though, these issues didn’t touch on perspectives and how they can attract or drive away users. Think about this for a second. New features are dead. The more functions and features an operating system gets doesn’t matter anymore. XGL? Who cares? Bells, Whistles? Only if it is an Oscar Mayer Wiener Whistle and a tinkerbell. All in all, features have ceased to be the driving force in consumer electronics. Now begins the age of usability. Quickly go over to this page and read the article

…it hits the nail right on the head.

So, what are we to do? Well, with change in landscape (i.e., technological landscape) comes change in perspective. Why? Because it is inevitable. One cannot have a change in one’s current landscape and not have perspective changed. This being said, we need to STOP nonsensical forced methods to get users to ascribe to one philosophy/distro/package manager/window manager/idea and begin to look at things with usability-eyes instead of feature-happy ones. It’s not that hard…one just has to have the same understanding for perspective that one has for code. I know most Linux users can do it because it is far less complicated than port forwarding, IPTABLES, and getting Cron to run jobs. It’s just far less convenient for us to change.

Perspective is as perspective does. Changing perspectives is one way to solve a problem…so when a new user comes SHOUTING INTO A FORUM…try a little less crass behavior and a little more understanding. Try stepping down off your horse and viewing things from their perspective. Perhaps then the gap will close and Linux will mature…not just in code but in attitude as well.

Devnet

Perspective is as Perspective Does originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on July 20, 2006.

Some comments on this article when it hit the newswires at Lxer were that it was spotted previously by a site member. I revisit some articles from time to time just to clean up appearance and layout (since I’ve migrated site themes, been doing this quite a bit) and I noticed that Linuxworldexpo.com isn’t the only website that is powered by Windows. LinuxWorld leaves many of its sites to be powered by Bill and the gang:

1. Linuxworldexpo.co.uk (previously reported by theregister)
2. Linuxworldexpo.com (netcraft report)
3. linuxworldexpo.com.au (netcraft report)
4. linuxworld.idg.se (netcraft report)
5. linuxworldchina.com (netcraft report)
6. linuxworld.dk (netcraft report)
7. Linuxworldsummit.com (netcraft report)

Some of these sites above aren’t live… but most of them are from the same netblock, Level 3 Communitcations, Inc. Some side info to note: Level 3 is having SEC problems currently and the Yahoo Finance Boards are a hoppin with various messages with some predicting a huge fall and others comparing it to Worldcom. Now back to our subject. We’ve identified the netblock, but let’s get a bit deeper and find out other information.

A quick “jwhois linuxworldexpo.com” yields the following information:

A quick lookup on markmonitor.com and we see that it’s not really a host per se…but a domain management service provider. I did a quick search for Linux on their site which yields no results. This quick search doesn’t really tell us if LinuxWorld has a choice in the matter of hosting…it seems they’re given a platform on which to run via MarkMonitor.com through the Level 3 netblock. Taking a look at NetworkWorld, their parent company, we find a Linux Host? That’s a bit odd. Their old parent company IDG.com was always running on Windows but it seems they should have a choice for themselves (Linux and Windows hosting platforms) since their parent company is powered by Linux right? Are they letting their services purchased expire? Are we set to see mad changes for Linuxworld domains? Who knows. We can only comment on the current.

So one would hope that LinuxWorld would have the ability to ‘choose’ what platform to run on. It seems that this may not be the case. As stated, some of these sites don’t resolve aka they have no public face and resolve to nothing. If you’re an avid Linux enthusiast and think that any Linux News site should ‘walk the walk’ when they ‘talk the talk’ then LinuxWorld might be one of the places you avoid…at least until they can show that they deserve to wear the Linux name by hosting on Linux. Afterall, what would Microsoft.com hosted on Linux be? A laughing stock one could bet.

I do recall a time when LinuxWorld was one of the only magazines and sources for enterprise Linux news. It seems they’ve gone downhill quite a bit…according to alexa.com, their traffic has dropped through the floor during the past year. Not only that, but since the relaunch around the first part of June 2006 in which they were put under new ownership from Network World, they’ve had little activity on their website. For example, look at their <sarcasm>wildly active forums</sarcasm>…spammers don’t even try hard to post there…and why would they? Is anyone reading it?

Interestingly enough, macworldexpo.com is also running on Windows, which is silly to me as well. Oh well, life is full of conundrums right? Perhaps LinuxWorld being powered by Windows is meant to be? Who am I kidding! Roast those turncoats! lol.

Devnet

LinuxWorld Powered by Windows Part II originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 27, 2006.

I recently moved and during the move found a couple of old hard drives. Dusting off and installing one brought back some memories…it contained an install of SimplyMEPIS 2003.10, which was my second install of that particular OS. This got me thinking…I wondered what benefits MEPIS garnered from my old, defunct enthusiast site mepislinux.org? At the time and shortly thereafter, no benefits were clearly visible. In fact, with my somewhat loud depart from the MEPIS community, there were many claims that both my site and I did nothing for the distro.

With Google Trends, statistics are at my fingertips. Using this site, I’m able to look back in time and see if my old 12 page review did any good at all to help MEPIS along…I was very surprised to see that I was part of the highest surge MEPIS has made to date according to Google Trends.

First I needed to identify what I should search for. The term “simplymepis” comes to mind since it is the flagship offering aka coin phrase for MEPIS. However, this search didn’t yield as much data as one for MEPIS…although I did note that comparing the two trends shows that they mirror each other quite a bit. I finally settled on choosing the trend word “MEPIS”. Let’s take a look at the broad view for MEPIS, we can see four distinct surges (drops followed by immediate, quick recoveries). All of these surges happen in the last part of 2004 and the first part of 2005:
The largest surge is evident in 2004. Let’s take a look at this surge by narrowing our data to 2004 only (pictured below).

As you can see, the larest surge in 2004 happened in October. Indeed, the largest surge for MEPIS ever happened during this time. Coincidentally, my 12 page review of SimplyMEPIS came out on September 29th, 2004 and was picked up by various news websites the week following. I remember that this was the deciding moment for me to switch to a hosted platform…that review brought my apache box (running slackware) to a snails pace for about 3 days (although some quick tweaks and an apache restart helped things quite a bit).

Next up we see a rapid decline in searches for MEPIS after Oct-Nov 2004. It was during this time that I closed my site with a large, public send off. Reasons being the stifling of free speech in the MEPIS community when a forum member critiqued a business direction that MEPIS chose to go (My nick was TKS). The original announcement has been deleted from MEPIS.org but google cache still contains the announcement and the original front page comments from mepis.org (once again, I am TKS). The important part of this thread was the fact that I was defending someone’s right to comment, not the comments themselves. A day later, 6 November 2004, I closed my site forever. This means that the review had been in place one month, one week and had received 400k plus unique views. Not bad at all for a review. How did the trend look? Let’s see. Well, not a huge drop but a decline nonetheless.

So what does it all mean? Perhaps nothing. But it’s fun to ponder if my review which had over 400k unique views before the site closed actually helped propel MEPIS into the top 10…then again, it could just be coincidence right? Either way, as the webmaster of 2 PCLinuxOS support sites, a project leader for 2 projects in the PCLinuxOS community and a very active member of the PCLinuxOS community…I have to wonder where I’d have been had free speech never been stifled. I can imagine that I’d have remained very active, supportive, and perhaps a loud and unwavering voice for MEPIS. As for now, the trend has turned downward despite riding Ubuntu’s coat tails and life goes on. But it was fun to think about things past with my old friend MEPIS. I’m just glad I have only a positive trend in my horizon.

Devnet

Statistics and Trends of an Old Friend originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 26, 2006.

When these users posted articles about this phenomenon, those articles are either deleted, the users are banned (Submitted & Banned Pics), or the story is buried (despite having 164 diggs at the time of this writing…not on the front page). There is even reports of users submitting an article who haven’t submitted before only to have another user who is ‘popular’ get the story posted despite posting it later. Digg.com is supposed to have a duplicate url system in place preventing this…

Now digg.com can do whatever they want with their website. In fact, they can bully all the other websites they want to. However, they can’t build their community on a Democratic, Users-vote-for-the-story-and-our-editors-don’t model and then just drop it. They need to follow their own TOS (terms of service) to maintain their credibility or recant that part of the TOS and release an updated TOS. As of this writing, Digg insists that its content is driven by the users. With the information collected in this article, it seems that something is rank in the state of Diggmark. You decide.

For your perusal, I’ve collected all the links I can find with information on this issue. Please comment if you’ve found alternative links and I will update these as the comments come in. Please note that I belive Forevergeek.com was the first to post on this…they are listed at #1. Also please note many of the comments in these articles…users are pretty livid about this…and there is no response from digg.com yet.

1. Digg Corrupted: Editor’s Playground, not User-Driven Website
2. The Story that Got Deleted – The digg story that went pewf!
3. Kevin Rose abusing Digg – links to google group tracking this story
4. Suspicious Digging
5. Google Blogoscoped – more on the google group
6. Digg Corrupted – a digg.com user attempts to hold digg accountable
7. Digg Abused? – Newsvine article on this
8. Digg Army – Binary Bonsai
9. Digg, not democracy after all – Yugatech Blog Post
10. The J Spot
11. Corruption. The House of the Digg Elite
12. The Trouble with DIGG
13. Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg – Just got slashdotted!
14. Digg Army: Right in Line – More from Forevergeek
15. 146 diggs, 57 comments, 6 hours and no frontpage at digg
16. Non Response from Digg.com – Forevergeek
17. Digg.com Explanation? – Kevin Responds? Sort of…
18. BoingBoing’s Take On This
19. The Guardian Picks Up the Story…
20. The Inquirer Hops On
21. Sitepoint Diggs in their Claws
22. Boyhazard.net Blog
23. Splasho’s Blog…Update on Digg
24. Three Reasons Why Digg is a Crock! – Zdnet Blogs
25. MonkeyBites Blog
26. BlogCritics – A Must Read
27. Thomas Hawkes Digital Connection – He has the most dugg story of all time…
28. Odeo Podcast on the Subject
29. ForeverGeek Comments Further
30. Zippity Doo Dah – A Statistical Analysis of Digging Corruption? You Decide…
31. CEO of Weblogs.inc – The Digg Backlash
32. More from Techno Pinoy
33. DuncanRiley.com chimes in
34. Is Digg Rigging its Diggs? – a Tech Writer from Toronto adds two cents
35. Businesspundit
36. Kellegous.com Speaks of Digg
37. ProBlogger – Digg Deception
38. Newsome Blog
39. RealTechNews
40. Silicon Valley Sleuth – Social Websites have a Social Responsibility
41. Basement.org
42. Search Engine Guide – is digg working with their own shovel?
43. Publishing 2.0
44. SuperGeekBlog – The Social Corruption of Digg
45. Student-Rant Blog – Interesting Statistics on Editor Posting
46. Virtual Thought
47. CNET Podcast on the subject
48. FG-DIGG Issue on TWiT @ Forever Geek
49. 

The Dirt on Suspicious Digging at Digg.com… originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on April 21, 2006.

What constitutes private property? Is it a piece of land that no one has access to? Do you post a sign up that keeps people at bay? Or is it intangible as well…perhaps private intellectual property; some algorithm written on one line in a multi-million code line piece of software. Many have ideas on what constitutes a privacy and private property. For instance, social security numbers or credit card numbers are always considered private…they’re not given out to people or organizations without the consent of the holder of said numbers/cards. However, don’t be so sure that your information is safe.

As companies increase their business with technology, their information collection engine revs up and begins to go into overdrive. What sites do our visitors go to? What product would they be more likely to buy? What have been their last 10 purchases and would they like to see a product similar to it? This information collected is only on the outskirts of the real information such as SSN or Credit Card numbers but just the same it is information about you and about your habits.

Imagine this alternative look at information collection for a second. You get up one morning and open up your blinds…it’s a beautiful day. You slap on some clothes and begin to get ready for whatever it is you might do that day. You lay out a backpack and begin to get your things together…perhaps an ipod goes in with some ear buds…a pair of comfortable shoes in case you decide to go walking…a water bottle in case you get thirsty. Whatever you might need for a day out at a shopping mall or just plain out. Now picture a guy standing at your window where you drew your blinds snapping pictures of what you’re putting into your bag and writing down notes.

That would freak me out right away…but that is exactly what is happening to us online. We’re being studied and recorded every digital step we take. To me, this is definitely wrong…but to others, it is just normal. Odd how things can become normal after only a few years. Just the same, would you want someone standing over your every move in a certain area…recording everything you looked at, everything you touched or walked by…everything you might have expressed interest in? Probably not. This is the outskirts of the third digital divide.

The first digital divide was purely social-economic. It happened when countries that could afford the new fangled technology of the internet were spurring their economies with online purchases and online business. Countries that couldn’t afford to jump the bandwagon ended up eating its dust. This new digital divide though is political. This could be the third digital divide…it could be the fifth…it just depends on who you talk to.

Washington DC cannot protect its citizens’ rights currently. This division is so large that they (politicians) are lapsing behind to protect everyone’s right to privacy. Here in the U.S., we’re not alone. The other major internet using countries such as Britian and Australia are also lagging, though Australia is more proactive than many countries.

Yes, this digital divide is between citizens of countries and their governments. The governments bureaucratic red tape clogs up the arteries of technology like a 4 pound angus burger with mushrooms. Governments fail to see that they are playing catch up…or they don’t care. Should they? I believe so. After all, there are laws in place to protect citizens. There are enforcers of this law also in place to protect citizens. For order to prosper, there has to be respect for the authorities and the authoritative restrictions that the law places on the citizen. However, currently there is no respect because there is no law. Government is losing the ability to govern. In cyberspace, the only government that exists is a dot gov domain…and that’s just a static webpage.

What can we do? Nothing really. If one of us called our congressmen today, they wouldn’t know half of what we told them. Congressmen and Senators are normally technologically inferior to a box of hair. They’re out of touch with how citizens can use technology and how businesses use technology. Citizens wield little power in this struggle.

As the government fails its people and the ability to protect them, those with any clues whatsoever will flock to arenas that they have more control in. For instance, using software that promotes privacy (crapcleaner, firefox, and spybot S&D) and using software that they control (such as Linux and BSD). Little by little, citizen’s technological voice and concerns (as they become more familiar with their ability to control it) will become louder. It is then that politicians will be forced to deal with ‘that technology thing.’ For now, I believe we’re in a rut. Stuck. Call your politician to see what I’m talking about. Ask him/her what they feel about cookies and listen to them launch into a speech about oreos. Thanks for reading. I wait until they can come back with anything having to do with browsers…

The Digital Divide in D Major originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on November 16, 2005.

I look fondly back at this time and have spoken about it before…not because I don’t think something like this exists now…just that I think it is a rarity. There was a time when this “spirit of open source” was all about educating and furthering the program/app that you were working on. Now it seems that when a new user comes in to any channel on irc or forum, they are told off with a hearty RTFM (Read the ‘Friendly’ Manual).

Where did this Elitism come from? Where and when did Linux and open source become about the mentality “you must be this knowledgeable to ride?” It pains me to see people do this to new users…distancing themselves from potential advocates of open source…zealous ones at that. It’s a real testament to some of these new users STILL wanting to plug open source and Linux, despite being squashed by elitists in forums.

I’m sure that some of you are saying, “this kind of thing doesn’t exist in my application/project/distro’s community. We are all open to all users, be they new or experienced. Sounds nirvana to me. I challenge you to take a closer look at your community and if you find Elitism, squash it. Having personally been involved in quite a good share of communities of major Linux distros (let’s just say, some major Debian and RPM based ones) I can assure you that despite the claims of new user friendly, most had a fair share of elitists swimming in their help channels.

Elitism has no place in open source. Open source is about freedom of everyone to look at the source of a program…EVERYONE. There are no country clubs for open source…you do not need to pay to get in. There are no qualifications for people to use open source. Since there are no criteria…why are people holding new users and others with limited knowledge…to a standard as if there are criteria?

It’s ridiculous for current ‘expert’ users or developers to withhold information or help from new users simply because, “new users need to cut their teeth”. Why? Because not everyone learns the same way. In the past, the only people who used Linux and open source were those that learned by reading and pouring through documents. A more coder mentality existed among those flocking to open source banners then. Fast forward to today’s learner. You’ll see many differences. Among the largest one is the visual learner.

The visual learner learns by examples and seeing things happen with his/her own eyes. There have been vast advancement in this arena on the internet. Today, we have websites with embedded videos, flash tutorials, and audio blogs with step-by-step processes and how-tos. Despite all this technology, people still send new users to the same avenue to learn. RTFM or do a search. What if that isn’t good enough for the person you’re telling it to? What if that person can’t learn things in this capacity? What if they need to see things in action?

In closing, we must rethink our approach to answering questions on forums and in chat clients. I challenge each and every single one of you to think about your responses to new users or those limited in knowledge. Helping these people to attain knowledge in different capacities can make or break their will and create a friend of open source for life…or through not helping, a foe.

As always, Yet Another Linux Blog is open to users of all walks of experience. If you have a question, please ask away in the comments.

mv elitism /dev/null originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 31, 2005.