Re: Formal Member Registration

[Raju Mathur <raju@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Arun,

I agree with Atul that Linux is a movement and Linux lovers a
community.  You made the point yourself: no one calls X users a
community or X a movement.  However, there are qualities which
characterise people who run Linux because they prefer to run it (not
including corporates who're just using it because it's the best
solution for their problems):

- Most are sold to the idea of free software, GNU, GPL, etc.  As you
said yourself in an earlier mail, you aren't, so you dropped out of
the community.  Fair enough.

- Most are passionately concerned with issues dealing with the privacy 
of individuals.

- Most are willing to spend time, money and energy promoting and
advocating their beliefs.  MS users don't do that, for instance.

- Most are concerned about and willing to act on issues of big
business trying to stifle perceived competition.  E.g DeCSS, Amazon's
new patents, etc.

- Most read UserFriendly ;-)

This is what I could think about off the top of my head, but even this
makes it pretty clear that there is a movement, and the people in that
movement do form a community.  The same principles applied to the BBS
culture in India 6-8 years ago, where each BBS'er found it comfortable
to interact with other members of the community, even if s/he didn't
know the other from Adam (Eve).  In fact, the origins could probably
be found in the dope-smoking hippie culture of the 1960's.
Unfortunately the hippies managed to dope themselves out of existence,
which this particular movement seems to be growing all the time.

I can agree with your dropping out of the community, but that doesn't
give you the right to claim that there is no community at all.  It
exists, it's strong and it's growing.

Regards,

-- Raju

>>>>> "Arun" == Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Arun> On Sun, May 28, 2000 at 10:32:11PM +0530, Indranil Das Gupta
    Arun> wrote:
    >> Fine.... if OpenSource movement is no more, and that we are to
    >> use the OS and the s/w, then __who__ is going to continue to
    >> develop newer and better free s/w.... linux included...??? ;-)

    Arun> Open source software can exist and continue to be developed
    Arun> without being called a "movement" or the set of users being
    Arun> called a "community".

    Arun> Note the notorious absence of the use of the word in other
    Arun> free software (they may exist, but not emphasized) - ever
    Arun> heard of "X windows user community or movement" ?

    Arun> Just trying to control paranoia and the religious color
    Arun> being added to a piece of software. The set of linux users
    Arun> come from varied walks of life and different political
    Arun> views. They work together best, when they talk about
    Arun> software, rather than a popular political view.

    Arun> My claim is that "community" and "movement" represent
    Arun> certain narrow political views. It isn't apparent to the
    Arun> casual reader - but if you think carefully, that's exactly
    Arun> what it is. They are very similar to a particular use of the
    Arun> word "free" that's popular here.

    Arun> 	-Arun

    Arun> PS: Does anyone have a reference to Linus using those words
    Arun> ?

    Arun> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Arun> The LIG mailing list archives are available at:
    Arun> http://lists.linux-india.org/cgi-bin/wilma/linux-india-general