Linux Advocacy: Lessons Learned in 2013

by Dietrich Schmitz

It's been nearly a year now since I created Linux Advocates.  I am reflecting on what has happened during the past year and appraising what changes I need to make that might make Linux Advocates more effective in terms of its advocacy.

As the website domain name implies, it is all about advocating for the use of Linux.  That is obvious but subtle at the same time.

In doing advocacy, I have discovered some things which have resulted in my making changes that seemingly run counter to the definition of advocacy.

Censorship

Over many years, I have learned from my personal experiences in website forums that readers come in varieties and types.  Taking feedback over the past year on Linux Advocates, I have found it necessary to apply rigid censorship so as to keep trolling from ruling the comments section.

It became quickly evident to me and LA co-founder +Katherine Noyes  that regardless of the cause, there is a sub-population who have no real interest in rational discourse on the topics at hand, who are merely intent to 'troll'.  It is unfortunate, but, part of the landscape and without censorship, I have seen comment feedback quickly regress.  So as to be effective in reigning in the trolls, full moderation has been on for over 6 months now.  Largely, the trolls have gone elsewhere.

But it leaves me with a strong impression of the types of people out there who make 'hating' and 'trolling' a game of sorts, who feel by virtue of their anonymity that they are not accountable for their bad behavior.  That is perhaps the most troubling aspect of today's Internet, along with privacy rights.

It represents a disconnect between how a 'normal' person would conduct his/herself in a public place and doing the same in a forum context.  Psychologists will be studying this type of behavior for years.

So be it.  Trolling is rampant, only I have filtered it out with censorship.  I don't like having to do it, but it is absolutely necessary.

Tribalism

In the real world, when you come to work to earn a paycheck, inevitably, there will be some 'friction' during the day due to human interaction.  Some conduct themselves in keeping with good business practices.  Others depart from that and their professional comportment and/or diminished social skills impact on others who come into contact with them.

Hopefully, you quickly identify who those people are and find ways to avoid unpleasant exchanges and get through your day.  Some days, it becomes impossible.

Personalities get in the way even more so on the Internet.  When it comes to professional conduct in the upstream software developer team setting, I have seen the worst kind of behavior one can imagine.  Even the grand poobah Linus Torvalds has been charged with exhibiting unprofessional, vulgar behavior.  

All it takes is one person in a position of 'authority' who controls a project to cause alienation to ripple downstream.  The side-effect of such behavior in the Open Source community includes arrogance and those directly affected by the individual must quickly choose sides -- either adversarial or side with the 'bad behavior' and cliques quickly form.  In psychology, the tendency to behave in cliques smooths out difficulties for the project unit but leaves the organization in a position of exhibiting tribalism towards outside developers who wish to advance a special software feature or change. 

In fact, so as to preserve the purity and sanctity of this advocacy, I have had to discharge more than one contributor by virtue of their inappropriate behavior.  It's not something I will ever tolerate from anyone.

The reputation of Linux Open Source has been given a 'black eye' by tribalism.  It is very divisive, damaging and counter-productive to advancing the cause of Linux advocacy.   I don't know what the future holds but while many upstream projects do not suffer from this malady, all it takes is one 'bad apple' to magnify and spread like a contagion.  I hope things improve.

Living

Living.  What do I mean by that?  Everybody wants the same thing: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Living comes at a cost.  Many currently around the globe are in the throws of economic turmoil.  And when you can't pay the rent, you are even more less likely to have any inclination to write code for an Open Source project.

That factors in for many who continue to dedicate themselves to Linux despite their life circumstances.  They are to be commended for their resolve and fidelity.  Others, simply by attrition, have either given up (Cloverleaf and SolusOS) or retired (Fuduntu).  That is the harsh reality.

I have predicted that given the serious economic turmoil, there will be a major consolidation of Linux Distributions resulting in a rapid collapse.  The result will be in the next five years only the strong will survive and that comes down to just a handful of base Distros.  And that has been a major factor influencing my decision to use Fedora -- they will be around.

Conclusion

I sincerely hope to continue providing strong advocacy for all things Linux with original and meaningful content.  I want to thank the readership for visiting my website and hope they will continue to do so throughout the 2014 year.  The average montly pageviews for 2013 was over 60,000.  

A very special thank you goes out to the Linux Advocate Contributors for their continued ongoing support.

Happy New Year Everyone,

Dietrich Schmitz
Linux Advocates, Site Owner

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Individual Accountability: Even Linus Torvalds Needs to be Civil

by Dietrich Schmitz

It runs counter to common sense.  Bad behavior is bad behavior.

How you conduct yourself on the Internet should closely parallel what you do in the physical world.

When you meet a person in a public setting, if you cast insults, the likelihood that 'face meets fist' increases proportionally to the degree to which you engage in such activity.

Internet users, on the other hand, seem to think that they are not accountable for their bad behavior.

And it was put to the test by one young developer, who in an on-line exchange stood up to none other than the Grand Poobah, Linus Torvalds.

Linus has earned a reputation for being quite caustic, if not insulting, in his style of communication with his Linux kernel development community peers.  While many of his exchanges have reached the news with sensationalistic reaction, it points to how one should not act.

Finally, someone with some moral fibre stood up to Linus in a LKML mailing list exchange [<==<< Edited link to point to LKML source].  A relative 'newbie' developer, Sarah Sharp, took issue with Linus' communication style.  In his usual intimidating, uncalled for manner, Linus shot off an insult-laden rebuke to which Sarah fired back her candid appraisal of his behavior:

"Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable?Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse. Not *fucking* cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists. Let's discuss this at Kernel Summit where we can at least yell at each other in person. Yeah, just try yelling at me about this. I'll roar right back, louder, for all the people who lose their voice when they get yelled at by top maintainers. I won't be the nice girl anymore."

Three cheers for Sarah.

It's gotten so this kind of behavior is incorporated into the arrogant swagger of many developers who think it is 'appropriate' to be less than polite in communicating anything.  It has gone too far.  Linus Torvalds, you are a role model, like it or not.

Sarah Sharp was interviewed regarding her LKML exchange with Linus by The Wired and had this to say:

"You can be direct without being aggressive. You can give negative feedback without cussing people out. 

There’s a fine line between showing your displeasure and verbally tearing somebody apart. How do you tell someone that their code is crap without making it into a personal attack? This discussion is going to be ongoing. I don’t expect Linus to change overnight. He’s been this way for 20 years. The only thing is: I just want to open a discussion channel and have a frank discussion with this, and have it among kernel developers."

Sarah went on record following her exchange with Linus in her own blog story No more verbal abuse.

I am glad she stood up to Linus.  He is no different from anyone else and it doesn't matter what the issue is at any point in time -- one can get their message across in a polite way and still be an effective communicator.  

What the world needs is more Sarah Sharps to maintain civility and reasonable discourse.

There is no place for verbal abuse whatsoever on the Internet.  

So Linus, please take note: Do the mature thing, tone down and get your act together.

--Dietrich

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The Myth of FOSS Community

by Dietrich Schmitz

Let's get real Folks.  No matter how much you twist it and turn things around and no matter how much hand-holding, singing the Coke song or Kumbayah isn't going to change it:

There is no community.

Ta dah.

Stare at that for a few moments, if it helps.  And, just like in the Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home", you can never go home either.

When you roam around the Interwebs, and see references to how wonderful Linux is because of the FOSS and community behind it, it's all rubbish.  Don't believe it.  Why?

Because, for the most part, and in application, it doesn't exist.  Decision making is never done collectively.  Even our fearless leader Linus Torvalds calls the shots when it comes time to pull the trigger on the next kernel version.

No, we have on our hands a class of fiefdoms, tribal in nature, operating on the false premise of community participation and the notion that everyone has input into how a project should be developed.

The reality is quite different.  Only a handful of individuals along project lines makes any kind of important decisions.   The interests of one group over others sometimes run parallel, are often intersecting and even totally divergent tugging groups in different directions all at the same time.  A lot can get done, or, in some cases much time is spent doing little as conflicts arise.

In the case of Fedora, even Red Hat has appointed the Chair to the Fedora board with right to invoke a veto on anything that comes along.  Which is to say,  We don't care what the community would like, it's our way or the highway.  That's business, not community at play.

Debian has its own shell game going for itself.  Only they insist that it is democratic.  But it isn't. Someone is calling the shots and we are chumps if we believe otherwise.

For the most part, that is how the business world operates.  And, when you see commercial enterprise in action, they obtain results or management objectives and reach milestones, because if they didn't, they would fail.

When you see the word community and FOSS, don't get too misty eyed.  The community and the Free only go so far.  Nothing is really free.  There is a cost exacted even in FOSS development in bringing a group of people together into a loosely grouped rag tag organization.  But in that organization, you can still sing Kumbayah, hold hands, if you will, and believe in sharing, because sharing is still going on to an extent.

You may not like this.  But, one of the big problems as I see it for Linux and particularly on the Desktop is coming to terms with this myth of community.  When there aren't disputes, there is cooperation.  When there are disputes, you have factions, intransigence and in some cases it becomes intractable to the point that one project dismantles entirely and often a fork occurs, because the software terms of a license allow that to happen, or an organization chooses to write their own project from scratch to gain full control.

We have labeled ourselves a loosely cobbled together organization of community with implied cooperative work, but human behavior contradicts the notion and the need for authority will prevail and be given to only a handful, appointed or voted onto a board who determine our future.

So, don't despair.  It's better that you know that like there really isn't a tooth fairy and Santa Claus.  That's part of growing up.  And unless we grow up collectively and see things for what they are, Linux on the Desktop will be forever mired in turmoil spinning its wheels.

Wake up and smell the moca java.  FOSS Community is a myth.

-- Dietrich

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Adaptation is Hard, Power is Hard

by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Difficult it sure can be to become a high-speed racing/Formula 1 driver. Arduous it is to become an advanced computer user. Virtual desktops are hard to grasp conceptually or practically for those who never saw them in a Microsoft-dominant computer lab, so how can one expect to popularise multiple desktop activities the way KDE does?

The concept of extreme abstraction and removal of features has been popularised more recently by the advancement of smartphones and tablets (I write many of my posts while walking in the streets with my tablet). The general philosophy is that users are dumb and they should be treated as such. The problem with this is not that it's insulting (in disguise) but that it discourages learning and self improvement.

In the past decade, with the hype of 'i' things gaining a foothold, the class of 'simplicity elitists' got a lot of mindshare. The idea of excessive simplification was famously chastised by Linus Torvalds who used the "Nazi" word to call attention to the reason he was leaving GNOME. Sometimes more is less, but it has become a stubborn cliché which is hard to leave behind.

When I was a teenager and used KDE the environment was still a tad cluttered and many of the presented settings I could not make sense of. KDE had already gained a reputation as desktop made by geeks, for geeks. By the time KDE3 was out and more so in KDE4 (once many bugs were out of the way) most of the daunting settings had already been 'shelved' in Advanced menus and the GUI laid out more intuititively. But the stereotype never died. To this date, one of the prominent patterns of Linux FUD is that it's hard. Well, the kernel sure is hard, but the user barely ever interacts with it. A command-line user interacts a lot with GNU and GUI users often prefer GNOME or KDE.

When people tell you that "Linux is hard" ask them, "which desktop?"

My father had no issues when I switched him from Windows XP to KDE and he is not even so technical; he is a store manager who likes sports. Since the real barrier is that Linux desktops are different we should ask ourselves not how we make GNU/Linux easier but how to make people easier to change. It's not about coercion but about diplomacy. People need to be patient when they adapt. Is GNU/Linux hard? It's hard for impatient people to adapt to.

- Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Linux or GNU/Linux: Is the Distinction Worth Preserving?

by +Katherine Noyes

As a young reporter just starting to cover Linux not so very many years ago, I quickly learned that simply calling it “Linux” is a grave mistake in the eyes of some.

“It should be GNU/Linux,” they'd urge. “Linux is just the kernel.”

That distinction was made crystal-clear for me when I had the opportunity to interview none other than Richard Stallman, whose willingness to be interviewed was actually conditional upon LinuxInsider's agreement to use the term “GNU/Linux.” (Image credit: springfieldpc.dyndns.org)

“Linux is just one component of the GNU/Linux system, which is, in turn, just a part of the world of free software,” Stallman told me back then. “You'll have no chance of understanding or explaining anything about the Free World if you don't keep those distinctions straight.”

The Free Software Foundation, of course, provides a very nice explanation of the difference on its site.

Rarely sighted

Fast forward to today, and I still occasionally hear the same argument made. Just the other day, in fact, I was reminded by a reader of the distinction.

Take a quick scan through the Linux media, however – including not just LinuxInsider but also Linux Today, Linux Journal, the Linux Line section at PCWorld, and the site you're reading now, among numerous other publications – and you'll soon get a pretty strong indication that the distinction is rarely upheld.

You won't see it made routinely by the Linux Foundation or on Linux.com, and Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself has reportedly dismissed it.

My question to you, fellow Linux Advocates, is whether it's really still worth making. Personally, I don't think it is.

More than a mouthful

I realize that there are strong historical and philosophical reasons for separating the Linux kernel from the GNU system.

I also realize that it's technically more accurate to call it GNU/Linux.

What I'm also aware of, however, is that few beyond the inner core of free software enthusiasts still adhere to or understand the distinction; to most mainstream users, it's baffling. The term GNU/Linux is klunky and unwieldy in printed text, and even more so when you're speaking.

Meanwhile, as Linux advocates, we all want to promote Linux, and to advance its use over proprietary counterparts – right? We'd like to see Linux covered as much as possible for all its many successes, making clear to the mainstream world that it is now a fully competitive alternative.

Are those goals worth sacrificing in the interests of a linguistic distinction? I'm thinking not.

Connecting the dots

Please make no mistake: I am nothing if not an advocate for Linux and free software in general.

Personally, however, I'd rather see Linux trumpeted on the pages of PCWorld and other mainstream publications as “Linux” than see stories passed by because of the niggling debate over its name, which tends to make editors groan. Personally, I'd rather be able to have a conversation with an SMB about the advantages of “Linux” than have to bog down my speech with the clumsy “GNU/” as well, thereby potentially confusing them.

Realistically, we're lucky if mainstream users and readers today are familiar with Linux, per se; I generally make sure to add the “Linux” name to headlines involving distros such as Ubuntu and Fedora to help them make that connection.

But to add “GNU/” to the conversation? It's unreasonably idealistic, and just doesn't make sense. If we want to advance the use of Linux in the mainstream world, let's leave the history and the deep-seated philosophy for the background.

It won't get lost, I promise; rather, it will still be fully available for those who care. For all others, it will free up the “Linux” term to help us chip away faster at all the many proprietary monopolies in this computing world.

In closing, I offer you this last bit of evidence. Go to Wikipedia.org's home page and search on "GNU/Linux." What do you get? It redirects you to "Linux." That, I think, sums up the prevailing sentiment nicely.

-- Katherine Noyes

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Let it not be said that Linus Torvalds has any difficulty getting his point across.  We have witnessed his sharp, caustic, sometimes quite harsh 'shock jock' exchanges with both awe and respect many times over.

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Very recently, a 'chit chat' was had regarding SecureBoot routines possibly becoming part of the Linux Mainline Kernel which was met with a strong rebuttal from Linus who made it clear in no uncertain terms--no secureboot signing code in the kernel will ever happen.   NEVER!

Recalling another incident, a few years back, and this one is a 'classic', Linus Torvalds wrote:

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There's an Elephant in the Room

Elephant Eyes (Photo credit: ricklibrarian)

By Dietrich T. Schmitz

That metaphorical expression comes to mind--you know--the Elephant in the Room that nobody will admit is there?

He's getting really hard not to notice, and as he grows, the room gets smaller.  Every day, there is yet more technology news which validates the strong presence and pervasiveness of Linux that simply cannot be ignored.

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