Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 02:53
Opinion and Analysis
Page 4 of 5
Bush has been using Linux and open source software for the last five years. The child in him he indulges by using Wine, which makes it possible to run games written for Windows on Linux.
"I got to a point where, as a starving student who couldn't afford proprietary/commercial tools, I realised that I wasn't particularly happy with the idea of piracy (it's just not sustainable - if you don't support the people who make the stuff you like, they can't make the stuff you like) and went hunting for other options. The philosophies behind open source software, as well as the more user-oriented development cycles, were immediately attractive to me and I haven't looked back," he says.
"I've been doing
Software Freedom Day events (and a few spin-off events, thanks to demand and interest in more stuff) for several years now, and in the effort to help foster community growth, I started looking into ways that I could help connect the people who came to our events and provide a focus for some of the enthusiasm.
"An idea I was particularly keen on was a larger event that was a joint effort by all the assorted LUGs and enthusiasts across the state to help solidify statewide bonds and reassure those in more rural areas that they're not alone and they're part of a bigger community."
Bush's involvement in TasLUG is relatively recent. "I've been running local meetings in Launceston for nearly six months, and when I came about, things were more or less dormant. Ben (Powell, the other co-organiser of the conference) and Leah have been involved for around a decade now and have stories of heydays and other quiet times.
"My personal feeling is that there's just not quite enough people in the major population centres to sustain regular LUG meetings, given the disparate nature of Tasmania's population. I feel that by making sure things are happening regularly and making resources and recordings of our meetings available for everybody, we're able to also connect with those who can't make it to the meetings and sustain interest that way. It's a tough balancing act with LCA though."
Asked about his choice of distribution, he says he's primarily a user of Fedora, Red Hat's community distribution. "I have been (a user) since Yarrow (the first release, which came out in November 2003), and I guess I've stuck with it because it meets my needs. When you get right down to it (and I'm sure I'll cop a bit of flak for saying it - but I'm a flight sim nut and a bit of flak doesn't faze me), all distros are the same. They all run off the same kernel, they all make use of the same sets of utilities (man, mount, more, cat, ls, etc), and most of them use the same window managers.
"When you get right down to it, the only differences that I can see between most distros are a) community attitudes, b) the default theme and c) what's in the repositories. Fedora's community is an alright bunch, and I'm hoping to become a Fedora Ambassador when I get some time. It's also a bit of a loyalty thing. If I move to another distro as my primary OS, it'll be because Fedora doesn't meet my needs anymore, not because there's something newer and shinier floating around."
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