Are Linux users really a feral bunch?

Sam Varghese
Monday, 05 November 2007 20:11

Opinion and Analysis

But if I were to throw fire into a nest of snakes and then express surprise that I was bitten, the only fool around is me. This, in effect, is what Kennedy did and he got bitten. Badly, too. For him to use those bites as evidence that those in the nest are vile sorts is indicative of an individual whose IQ is on par with the common cockroach.

Whenever I criticise any particular distribution, I always expect a reaction from users of that distribution - it is only natural that someone would defend what they chosen. Nothing unnatural there.

Where Linux users (and also Mac users) differ from others is their willingness to come out and say something in defence of the technology they use. At times it may sound childish - "You are a paid M$ agent". Many writers (and many journalists too) like a quiescent crowd of readers who accept what they read and swallow it hook, line and sinker. Such practitioners pay lip service to the idea of feedback but in reality treat every response with contempt.

Of course, Linux users tend to be direct in their approach most of the time - and this may rile the type of writer who is used to the double-speak employed in the business world. But then again, being direct and calling a spade a spade does not constitute feral behaviour.

There is also a class of person who believes that those who insist on their rights have no place in society. For example, Linux users are often vociferous in demanding hardware support for this or that device and this is interpreted as feral behaviour.

I don't find any of this offensive. What I do find offensive are developers who cannot accept criticism and try to blackball journalists on members-only mailing lists instead of doing so in the open; so-called FOSS advocates who try to shut down discussion of an issue by complaining to people above you in the food chain and making false claims; and people on the fringes of the FOSS community who try every trick in the book to appear more important than they are - and get miffed when they are put in their place. I encounter these sorts once in a way and they just make me think of one line: "open source, closed minds."

That's the kind of person who should be put in the doghouse and rightly so. Not Linux users who at times can be a bit loose-lipped or juvenile in defending the technology they use.