Re: [tlug] How to Push Linux! .......................

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

OT again - but I thought I'd put the second of my blog entries in here 
about the recent Ubuntu Linux meeting:


"Passionate and Reasonable... I Hope!"

I'm still in the process of reading up on Ubuntu Linux to prepare for 
writing about it in some detail, but there was one moment of the round 
table discussion I partook in last Friday at a conference room at the 
Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel that has stayed very firmly in the "Pending" 
section of my mind, so I've decided to go into that moment and its 
ramifications first and foremost.  I recorded the meeting (with 
permission) and so the following part of it was transcribed from the 
recording word-for-word.  There is the main issue of face-value content, 
and there is also the sub-issue of the gap between writing and 
speaking.  For some, there is little or no perceptible difference, but 
for others (such as myself), the gap is wide.  For those of you who have 
never heard me speak, have a look at the transcription of what I said at 
the meeting... and you will have at least a small idea of what a 
horrible speaker I am!

The following except from the two-hour meeting with Mark Shuttleworth is 
just a few minutes beginning from the 15-minute, 17-second part of the 
recording (which wasn't begun until about ten or fifteen minutes into 
the meeting - a round table discussion with about twelve participants), 
with the first question directed at me as a freelance photojournalist:


Mark Shuttleworth: "Perhaps I could ask a question of you as somebody 
who watches the industry - how would you characterize free software in 
Japan today"

LHS: "Well, I'm not an expert actually - I mean, I use Linux on the 
desktop myself, and I'm very interested in promoting Linux and that sort 
of thing, but I'm actually not specifically focused on technology.  I've 
been doing a lot of more general kind of issues about Japan... and about 
travel to the Boso Peninsula and that sort of thing.  So I'm actually 
not an expert at all, but I'm a user of Linux and I want to do anything 
I can to promote it, so I'm sort of a crusading anti-CSMSC person - I 
really hate CSMSC."

     - Japanese translation -

LHS: "And... and also...."

Mark Shuttleworth: "There is a danger in the fact that many of the 
people who are passionate about Linux, are really passionate about their 
opposition to the status quo... because the question arises - when the 
status quo changes, what will bind us together."

LHS: "Haha - Yeah, okay..."

Mark Shuttleworth: "And, ah...  And ah... So I think my focus is very 
much on promotion of what is good about this software."

LHS: "Yeah."

Mark Shuttleworth: "To a certain extent, everything [???] good work has 
been done on the outside [??] as well... setting a reference."

LHS: "But I do make a point of trying to... you know... ask as many 
people as I can, and kind of mention it, and the thing that is always a 
little bit depressing is... is... of most of the general people I meet, 
they've never even heard of it, so it's really hard to get them 
interested in trying....

Mark Shuttleworth: "There's a low awareness of free software..."

LHS: "I think it's a very low awareness amongst... you know... ordinary 
users.  Yes... um..."

Mr. A: "At the same time, there are many magazines - published glossy 
magazines - that feature free software, but they're just for the... 
like... really technical crowd."

Mr. B: "But I think the thing is, if you look at the bookstores here in 
Japan, that ah... the publishing industry is very strong here, they'll 
publish about anything.  ........ [etc.]"


Notice how to the point and focused Mark Shuttleworth sounds above and 
how out-of-focus I sound.  It's a strange thing for me.  For some 
reason, I can conjure up what I want to say when I'm writing alone (or 
by tuning out the people around me and thinking as though I were alone), 
but in a public situation like that, I usually don't articulate what I 
want to say very well.  (Maybe I should imagine that I'm going to write 
it down and then just verbalize it instead.)

All of that said, when I think back to when I was working at Linear 
Power in the late seventies, I found it easy enough to focus on the 
product, and when you talk about the same subject to large numbers of 
people, one after another, on and on, you fall into patterns - which is 
useful for smooth speaking, but also a hazard in that you can 
misidentify where someone is coming from and launch into one of your 
automatic responses - as did Mark Shuttleworth seems to have done in 
mistakenly identifying me as one of those who "...are really passionate 
about their opposition to the status quo...".  No, Mark, I'm not against 
"the status quo".  When the status quo is something I feel to be a good 
thing, I'm happy to jump on the bandwagon, but when the status quo (or 
fringe element, whatever) is something I feel to be destructive to the 
common well-being of us all, then I end up going against it.

There is certainly some truth to the situation of people more easily 
banding together when they have a common enemy, but I think the 
situation Linux users are in with regard to CSMSC is one where CSMSC 
plays dirty - very very dirty.  How can you be complacent and purely 
positive about something that threatens the very existence of tools you 
depend on for a living?  So - yes, I'm passionate about Linux and 
passionately opposed to CSMSC, but I don't care what the status quo is, 
other than I find it distressing to see large numbers of people 
supporting tyrants - committing a kind of collective slow suicide 
through the ignorance of not knowing any better.

Conclusion?  I'll try to be more positive and I hope that Mark 
Shuttleworth doesn't underestimate what Ubuntu Linux is up against.  And 
- Mark - I promise that, even after CSMSC has gone bankrupt and saner 
days return to the computer software scene, I will still be with you on 
Linux!  Passionate, reasonable and with no regard whatsoever to whatever 
the "status quo" is.  A good thing is a good thing.  The more people on 
board, the better!

Lyle