Friday, April 24, 1998 at Pacific

Linux Advocacy HOWTO

In my travels thru LinuxLand in the last few days, I came across an incredible document, deeply nested on www.li.org:

http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/mini/Advocacy.html

Please clear out a few minutes right now and read the whole thing, top to bottom.

Don't skip a word.

You may find, as I did, that you get a whole different idea of what Linux is about.

Based on the arrogant flames I've received in the last few days, a lot of people that advocate Linux haven't read this HOWTO or don't subscribe to it.

I wish the Mac had such a document. I wish Windows had one too, although the Windows culture, as I experience it, pretty much adopts these ideas without explicit statement.

To me, it says that advocating a platform does not entitle you to use that advocacy for your own purposes.

It shows that Linux is rooted in respect for other points of view.

It's an incredible example of what I mean by keeping your eye on the prize.

Know what you want and get it.

What Linux wants

The core of the Linux world wants the rest of the world to respect Linux.

That's the right goal. Here's my answer. Just by asking for respect, you get it.

It's automatic!

Postscripts

After posting the original version of this story, I got responses that allowed me to better understand what it's saying.

I said: "'Free source' and 'open source' are never mentioned in the HOWTO. If this truly represents the philosophy of Linux, then anyone that says that to be part of Linux you have to release source, they're not repping Linux as it wants to be repped".

jared.samet@yale.edu quotes the HOWTO:

...the production of freely available software takes place in an environment of open collaboration between system architects, programmers, writers, alpha/beta testers and end users which often results in well documented, robust products such as Emacs, Perl and the Linux kernel.

I focused on 'open collaboration' in my first read-thru. Thanks for pointing this out. The term 'freely available software' is key, but we still need to understand exactly what that means.

Dave Winer
April 24, 1998

PS: Check out our list culture statement for UserLand-hosted mail lists. A lot of the same ideas. Let's get to work, and stop insisting on being right, especially when the goal is to prove other people wrong. It's a waste of time and bandwidth, selfish and unproductive.

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