hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0400.txt

Episode: 400
Title: HPR0400: Homeless where the heart is
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0400/hpr0400.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 19:49:27

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Okay?
Hello, this is Lost in Bronx.
I have sort of an opinion piece for you today, and by you, I mean the non geeks out there
in Listerland.
Now this is a pretty techy show most days, or in fact almost any day, I'm not on it,
but I figure there have to be at least a few people out there who struggle with Linux
and other free or open source software issues like I do, and who don't particularly enjoy
it.
The struggle I mean.
I'm not a problem-solver by nature, and I'm not especially big on community.
A misanthrope is the word, I think.
I hail from New England in the USA originally, and I'm an old-time Yankee in a lot of ways.
I'm a cheap bastard.
I despise places in the world that don't have four full seasons, and I'm standoffish.
It's one of these things.
I don't know you, and I don't want to know you, because I don't know you.
Now there may be geeks listening to this about whom myself description also applies,
but the fact is if you're a geek, if you're the kind of person who loves the kind of computer
challenges that I despise, which is pretty much all of them, then you're nonetheless able
to step right into the false community by showing your chops.
You contribute code or pass along useful scripts or troubleshoot for people on mailing lists
or the IRC and your in-baby, you're a card-carrying member of the community.
Me?
I got no chops.
I can't do any of that.
Oh, I can write some, but not documentation, for instance.
How the hell can a person write documentation when they're embarrassingly ignorant about
even the applications they've been using for years, let alone something new?
Well, read up on it, you say.
Well, if it was that freaking easy, I'd be doing it now, I say.
And what if I could figure it out on my own, then what?
Join the community, join the news group, jump into the IRC channel, post on the project's
forums, join how, jump where, post what?
And this last is the most important thing, because what I'm really talking about here
is the barrier to acceptance.
As a meritocracy, or so they say, false by its nature excludes the ignorant.
Such is the key to unlocking that gate, but there are those out here, like myself, who
are stupid as well as ignorant, for whom it will forever remain closed.
Maybe that's a good thing, keeps out the riff raff with their raggedy old code and rough
human opinions, or is that the other way around?
Either way, are they truly welcome in the community?
Maybe if they start their own project and attract a community of their own, they can
find a place.
Maybe they can put together a community around yet another Ubuntu respin, because, you know,
we never have enough of those friggin' things.
So the gist is this, I like my distros easy, I like my problems to be pre-solved, I like
things who just work.
For people who like challenges, there will always be the Gentus and the LFS's, so they
can work hard all they want, learn all they want, feel superior all they want income.
Kyle, software, all they want.
Despite my scorn, the value of community is hardly lost on me.
By definition, FOSS cannot exist without it, and by definition, to use free and open-source
software is to be a part of the community.
I mean FOSS developers develop for users, so the user, and therefore the user experience,
is an endpoint, and I would hardly argue the high point of the FOSS community.
One of the aspects of this community, which I value the most, is the inclusiveness.
Certainly, this means people, and I'm mostly talking about people here, but it doesn't
stop there.
The de facto standard computing community on the desktop, and the one that includes the
most people, therefore, is the Windows community.
It revolves around revenue, as you know, and every motivation of the developers is to
that end.
As a for-profit company, that's to be expected, and even lauded.
I mean, while the FOSS community, in general, may find some of Microsoft's business practices
to be reprehensible or even occasionally illegal, Microsoft's shareholders have no cause
to complain on this front.
As the market leader in many aspects of computing, and as a large business concern, its duty
is to its own shareholders, not to the end users.
In the United States, that is, in fact, the law of the land.
In theory, of course, providing a range of quality products entices the end user to
spend money, and thus provides a return to the shareholders.
But that is a business model, not the law.
If Microsoft can retain dominance of the market, by whatever means, it can get away with,
or not quality enters into that equation, then it has done its duty.
You don't ask a shark to be egalitarian.
You don't ask it to share the fish pie.
It is a product of its evolution.
It is designed to hunt, eat, and mate, and it's very good at what it does.
We can admire their beauty, make movies about them, give them a sweep sweep spotlight on
the Discovery Channel, and use them as a metaphor, as indeed I am doing right now.
But none of that will keep them from biting your ass if and when they get it into their
brains that you are prey, or a threat.
They are what they are evolved to be.
Now I'm an average boss user, I don't contribute to code or documentation, at least not yet.
All I do is use the stuff.
So why do I think about the connection between software, economics, and the moral obligations
of enterprise?
Because free and open source software is inclusive of ideas, as well as of people.
You cannot participate on a boss form, even the technical ones I suspect, without being
exposed to the questions of right versus wrong, value versus obligation, and freedom versus
indenture.
These are fundamental to communication in the boss computing world.
And our concepts that the average Windows or Mac user is never exposed to, I mean it
just simply does not come up.
By using FOSS, we become involved in issues of freedom, safety, code, both source and moral,
innovation, and variety.
In other words, simply using this kind of software and searching for help online, brings about
at least to some degree, the thinking and discussing of grand issues, issues of commerce,
politics, and philosophy.
And that, my friends, if I can call you such considering that I don't know any of you
and don't really want to, because you know I don't know any of you, but that is inclusive
for you.
A type of software, community, and lifestyle which, by your very exposure to it, opens your
mind to things far beyond computing.
Oh, maybe not much, but the encounter is there, at the very least, and a deeper immersion
only brings about a deeper appreciation.
So yes, community, community, community, it's dynamic, it's inclusive, it's awesome,
but it's not perfection on earth, because it's filled with people.
People are irritatingly dichotomous, being both the key to and the crap within the community,
community, community.
And needing to find a hook or doorway to participate does not help anyone at all.
Foss is the poorer for any lack of participation, and I'm not talking about know-it-all trolls
who scream RTFM whenever somebody needs help, or the sadly ubiquitous switch delinx as
a so-called answer to a Windows problem.
Those people are juvenile obstructionists, not computer experts, and they do immense damage
to the free and open source software movement.
When you read about, or hear of such people doing such things, challenge them, correct them,
and then hoot them off the stage, and if you're one of those people yourself, shut the hell
up.
As I see it switching to Linux, VSD, Solaris, or any Foss software is hard for most people,
not solely because of the practical challenges of the software differences themselves, but
also because of the moral and intellectual challenges that go along with it.
So it's free software, isn't it?
I don't have to pay for it!
And in most cases, that's true, but of course, that's not what it really means, and you
learn about that pretty early on.
It's thrown in your face.
You hear about it in forums, the IRC, and in the documentation itself.
It's pervasive and stimulating, or not.
Your choice.
You can ignore it all.
If you want, you can just use the software, because when your deadline approaches and
you have work to do, or you really, really need this ancient hardware to work, you could
probably give a crap about the big picture.
At some point, though, ignoring Foss philosophy becomes an active concern, because whether
your Linux and RMS is hideously deformed, though morally unassailable love child, or
a staunch freedom hater mourning for the deliciously sensual experience of syncing your
iPhone on Windows Vista, the fact is, you now know you have a choice, and with that knowledge
comes power, and with that power, responsibility, mostly to yourself.
Oh, there certainly are white knights out there surveying the Foss battlefield from
atop their high horses who are willing to dub the rogue and nave for failing to file
a bug report.
But much of their outrage is affectation, and to the vast, silent majority of users,
their advice is devoid of context, and therefore meaning.
How many bug reporting tools are in use out there, and we're supposed to figure them
out and use them all, and get our work done, or maybe we should just learn to do this
for our favorite apps, or even just one of our favorite apps, or maybe we should just
use the damn stuff without letting some ass-hat dump their moral baggage on us.
How's that sound, because that's the choice I've made.
Remember Old Time Yankee don't want to know ya?
Well, we have another quality, minding our own damn business.
For staunch believers, and religious, political, and cultural freedom, why?
Because if I claim those things for myself, then I'm also claiming them for you.
It doesn't work any other way.
And from our point of view, an essential part of freedom is anonymity.
We don't ask people about their lifestyles or the important choices they've made, and
we expect this in return.
Now, here's an example by way of analogy.
I currently live in the rural Southwest, in an area where religion plays a large role
in a lot of lives.
This is an area of the country where at least some people moved to escape religious persecution
or perceived persecution, and as a new Englander, I can get behind that, you know, with the
pilgrims and all.
One thing I wasn't prepared for though was how, upon initially meeting people out here,
one of the first things they'd asked me is what religion I practiced.
It's common.
It's happened to me many times now.
See, in New England, that kind of question is very offensive.
You do not inquire into other people's religious views unless they offer them up first.
And even then, detailed discussion is reserved for people you know well.
It's very personal.
I don't know what you believe, and I don't want to know.
People here want to know where I fit in to their community.
There's that word again, subtle clue.
But from my point of view, I fit in in exactly the same place I did before they asked.
And in fact, their new knowledge of my personal beliefs doesn't help me fit in any better
at all, but it does make me feel that they are pushy, rude, and invasive.
Because partial knowledge of a person leads to snap judgments there too, and no one has
a right to judge my beliefs.
And no one, including me, has a right to judge theirs.
So people who make decisions about how I or you should participate in false culture are
in that same boat as far as I'm concerned.
Telling me how I can help make software or the community, community, community that surrounds
it.
A better thing is one matter.
Holding me to that is quite another.
Because maybe the way I participate, or not, is different from the way that they do,
or don't.
And my choice is a valid one, no matter what it happens to be.
You don't agree with the way I do things?
You believe I could do so much more?
Well, that's fine.
That's freaking fantastic.
Keep it to yourself.
Because what do they say?
Opinions are like assholes?
Everybody has one, and most of them stink?
Yeah.
Yeah, so there is a barrier.
But I believe the good news to be that it's not as high a hurdle as it once was.
In fact, much of it is simply familiarization.
In the time I've been using Linux and other false software, I've gone from being a rank
noob that people don't know, and are a little inclined to speak to, to a rank noob that
a few people know, and are a little inclined to speak to, I call that progress.
Actually, I tend to hang out in the more social circles of some techie areas of the boss
web experience, which puts me in the odd position of talking out my ass almost every day.
I do not know much, but I can grasp theory now when before it was all buzzwords.
And that means I'm learning at least a little, and little by little, I'm a little less
little.
Sorry, I don't know what the hell I'm saying.
Anyway, my point here is that I'm not a geek, not a computer one anyway, yet I've found
places to be among geeks, peripheral bovose places are.
That would have been simply impossible in days of your.
The barrier to acceptance was high back then, and it rested on knowledge and participation.
I participate some, yes, but my level of knowledge, though glacially increasing, is rudimentary,
so I can only conclude that the barrier to acceptance is lowering.
Now some of you listening might disagree with that, and some of you might agree but despise
that conclusion.
I, however, and naturally, find it a good thing.
But what does that mean for the boss movement in general?
It means inclusiveness.
It means that something which, traditionally, has had a sour, elitist streak running through
its core, is beginning to change and grow.
All sorts are welcome now.
That's good and bad, so maybe I should press on.
I mean, as Groucho Marx quipped, I'd never join a club that would have me as a member.
Yet I have, and I value it highly.
My pitiful store of knowledge is yet light-years beyond what it was when I predominantly used
proprietary software, and that has come solely from being an everyday user of the free and
open-source stuff.
I've had no formal education in it, and I've done far less RTFM-ing than I ought, perhaps,
but exposure to this world leads to understanding, even if it's mostly incidental.
So Groucho, though, I be, I'm a part of this boss world myself, it seems, and I'm a better
man for it.
So no, I don't code, I can tell you now, it simply cannot happen in this reality.
I don't have the head for it, I don't have the patience, and I don't have the yearning.
There are sections of the Linux and open-source world that will never be home, therefore.
But no one does it all, so I'm not broken up about that.
I like to contribute more than I do, well, maybe, depends, I mean, what are we talking
about?
Not documentation, as I explained before, who knows, maybe someday, if I use something
a whole lot for a whole lot of time, I might feel comfortable enough to get involved
in its development somewhere and contribute to its community in a meaningful way.
Right, well, until that day, which may well be the same day, Satan by the parka, I'll
paddle along at the usual pace and seek out my community, community, community, where
it feels the conficosiest, thank you.
That generally means a chorus of one, but at least I know the song, and it's not all
about blundering in the dark anyway.
I mean, I've learned to communicate better since using this type of software.
I'm on phosphorums, and the IRC, I subscribe to a couple of mailing lists.
There may be hope for this old Yankee yet, but if not, so what?
I am better off than I was, and after all, isn't that the point?
We use this stuff because it's better, and we want and need what's better.
The infrastructure, the operating systems, the applications, and the knowledge how to make
the best use of them all.
Okay, inevitably, at some point, to some degree, that includes connection, people.
Those same bastards, yes, can't get away from them.
But maybe, it also means you don't always need to.
No matter who you are, where you're from, or what you hold precious, if you use free
and open source software, you have common ground with complete strangers the world over.
You have something to talk about.
You share trials and triumphs.
You can work, play, and socialize using this software with people using this software.
And at the very least, regardless of all your differences, you can talk about this software
and the issues that surround it.
You'll have that.
It'll be yours to hold, and if you so choose to share.
This has been Lost in Bronx.
You can contact me at Lost in Bronx at gmail.com, that's L-O-S-T-N-V-R-O-N-X at Gmail.
If you have any qualms, queries, questions, or catharsis to pass along, I am always happy
to receive them, because, see, I'm just a pillar, pillar, pillar of the community, community.
Take care.
Thank you for listening to Haftler Public Radio, HPR Responsed by Carol.net, so head on
over to C-A-R-O dot-A-T for all of us here.