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Re: A All Linux Devices story has been mailed to you!



Apropos nothing, here is my 0.02/47:

Unlike many people here, I know quite a lot about the Linux efforts in
Wipro, and have personally interacted with various groups who are working
on Linux projects at Wipro.

The company encourages such projects, and many of the developers also
interact with the community, much to the gain of the community. These guys
are seasoned professionals - loads of experience there.

While their current highlighted efforts may seem like nothing big, they
are really in a very early stage and have not really had a chance to feed
back stuff to the community yet. But they have a history of doing so.

[Disclosure: Wipro is not a current client of my company, though they have
been in the past]

My point is that it is easy to bash a commercial entity that is involving
itself in Linux [naysayers will call this comment "self-serving"], but to
categorically denounce them in any way just because they haven't had a
chance yet to "give back to the community" is just plain wrong, and this
attitude will cause many corporates dipping their toes into the world of
opensource to shy away.

When people talk about "scruffy, unwashed hackers" they are wrong if they
talk about their appearance in general, but if one talks about the manners
they deploy (especially if one goes by what one sees on LI*), they are
*dead on*.

The common theme on LI* (which has now become the voice of Linux in India)
seems to be "be as negative as you can get, about anything and
everything".

I wonder how long it will be before someone prominent from a company using
Linux as part of their business strategy gets bashed in LI* style for
"selling out" this way. Someone like a certain Mr.Linus Torvalds, for
example.

Remember this one?

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you, cry, and you cry alone"

In grown-up talk, that would be

"Everyone wants to be part of something positive, nobody wants to be part
of anything negative".

or

"Everyone loves a winner, nobody loves a whiner".

Could we, as a matter of policy, adopt the following resolution in LIG?

"To further Linux in India, we, the members of Linux India, shall adopt a
positive approach towards anything worth it that furthers the spirit of
Linux/OpenSource, and shall desist from saying/discussing *anything*
negative about things/companies/people/products that may not deserve such
a positive approach".

OK, so that was more than 0.02/47....

Atul