Re: Formal Member Registration

["Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 29 May 2000, Raju Mathur wrote:

->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):
->

I agree with Raju, Atul and others, and differ with Arun. I would in fact go
a little further and call it a social PHENOMENON, or a social PROCESS.  My
justification is as follows: There are many movements in the history that
died after the main proponenents vanished from the scene (either due to
natural death or otherwise.) Open Source movement, to my reading, is more
than a movement, because even if, Linus stops releasing the kernel sources,
or RMS stops supporting GNU, or some other evangelist differs due to
whatever reason, the phenomena of open sourcing will not stop.  As a student
of history of ideas, I wish to share the observation (or prophecy if you
like) that open sourcing became an AUTONOMOUS social phenomenon -- whether
one thinks he/she is a part of it or not it affects everybody, including
those who think they dont belong to the community.

Nagarjuna