There is just too much adversity in the open source community, and sadly sometimes it comes from within.

There are two blogs going at it, “BoycottNovell” and “BoycottboycottNovell”…
Lefty of BBN writes about those who are fighting for free and open source in the name of purity. While I don’t doubt Lefty’s commitment to the open source  community, he is doing what he finds so appalling, attacking other free
and open source advocates. The way I look at it, Roy Schestowitz of BN is making a valuable contribution by watching what the real adversary (Microsoft) is up to. Now, I don’t always agree with everything at the BoycottNovell site, but by no means am I going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I hearby call for a truce for these two and everyone else who is in current conflict. We don’t have time to fight among ourselves. We’ve got 21 months to go here.

Why can’t we all get along? I see five problems here.

Point #1: the quest of software purity is exhausting

Rob Landley gave up on the Linux desktop due to purity disgust. This is  particularly sad due to the fact that Rob and Eric Raymond wrote a paper in 2006 giving the Windows operating system a two year deadline in which to die. Oh, and for the record, it was Rob Landley who coined the phrase “GandhiCon3″ when Eric Raymond typed it.

Instead, I believe, we should not make open source users feel guilty  for the proprietary driver. Nor is running that special piece of software they can’t live without that requires Wine or Windows worth getting all excited about. Insulting users who are already doing what they can is not at all helpful.

Point #2: bigotry still exists
This year women have been visibly under distress, yet, I prefer to look  at the root cause which is bigotry. The same people who have seen me as being less competent because I am a woman would likely reject someone of another race, orientation, disability, or any other status that makes them look “different” in the eyes of the bigot.

Point #3: distro wars

Shawn Powers of the Linux Journal noted this problem during his Ohio  LinuxFest keynote: “When I do a video demonstrating something with Ubuntu, I get so much hate mail.” While I use 4 different Linux distributions, I understand how someone could have their favourite. What I don’t get is why people feel the need to get insulting about it. When
it comes down down to it, there is no point to being unreasonable with the BSD users if you are a Linux user. And vice-versa. We are one free and  open source community. We came from the same UNIX roots, we use the  same open source software, and we are going the same direction.

Point #4: elitism blocking new users from getting started, let alone contributing

Folks, there are more than 33 million people, each month, downloading open source
software from sourceforge.net

Due to the large amount of activity of people downloading open source
software, the “average user” myths are busted:

• does not care to use open source software
• will not trust free as in cost software
• can not have the ability to make their own software choices and install the packages themselves
• only wants to buy shrink-wrapped big box software

It’s about time we quit trading “I spent three weeks downloading  slackware floppies” stories with one-up-ditude. Instead we need to be phasing in open source where it makes sense. We will be surprised by the  numbers of heads that don’t explode with the idea of saying goodbye to Microsoft.

Point #5: so, what’s your contribution?

I personally have contributed to the success of over events, installed Linux over 1000 times, and used by choice open source software for over ten years. Yet, over this time, I have not contributed one bit of code.  Nor am I going to let an elitist make me feel gulity about it. My  efforts has brought more people to Linux than I will ever know. Still, after over ten years of giving back, I’m still needing to defend the answer to the question “who are you?” Excuse me, isn’t this a meritocracy?

You do not need to “be a big name” in the open source community to make a real difference.

Who are the people I see who are doing great things for the community without ever making a single code contribution?  Here’s a few: Ken Starks, Amber Granger, Michelle Hall, Rikki Kite. Never heard of them? Well, that’s part of the point. We need to look at contributions for their net gain, not the lines of code.

Being a centrist is the best way I have found to bring a diverse group of people to partake, enjoy, and celebrate the joy that is free and  open source software. Right now I declare

ENOUGH already on the in-fighting!

Why? Let’s face it.

We need a new and diverse group of folks to get to GandhiCon4.

Who’s with me?

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