Is it a pointless post?

Screams from the darkLeave a comment

I read a
post today on
Slashdot that got me thinking, not the actual post but the response it
generated. The message was basically about how the huge variety of
Linux distributions is harming the take up by business and home users of this
alternative operating system.

listpoliceAs you’d expect the usual holier-than-thow quasi list
police was out in force berating the author for posting, in their view, drivel
and or pointless news yet when I last checked there were 111 comments on the
item. Now to my mind while the subject may well be trivial the net effect of the
item generated a huge response so that poses a question, was it a pointless
post?

Interestingly I myself have had the very same accusation
thrown at me a few times over the years and yet the replies in some cases have
gone on for days so I suppose the real question is was this a pointless post? To
my mind it wasn’t and I’ll tell you why.

  1. The
    author got what they wanted, a large response to their submission.
  2. The
    self appointed egoists got what they wanted, a chance to
    flame someone.
  3. The
    websites got what they wanted, lots of lovely visitors.

footshootStrikes
me if you see a post that you think is pointless then just ignore it, once you
start responding then you’re just as guilty as those who you are berating in
which case you need to start shouting at yourself! rather than others which
would save a lot of time and tears in the long run.

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Rome, Open Source

Screams from the darkLeave a comment

roman-helmetI’ve just come back from spending four days in Rome. Normally I don’t do posts along the lines of “My dogs had pups” or “Here’s my new house” but I did want to share some heart warming observations I made while soaking up the culture of this historical city.

On arrival at our hotel I leaned on the counter during the book-in process and, as you do, I sneaked a peek at the computer desktop being used by the check-in clerk. “Wow you use Firefox and Open Office” I said. “O yeess we use a lotta free soft aware” (OK the accent wasn’t that bad but you get the idea) due to some mix up on my part I needed to print off our BmiBaby hotel booking so nipped over the road to the Internet cafe, yep you guessed it, more open source apps such as Pidgin etc and of course FF and oOo.

Without labouring on too much, pretty well every establishment that had a computer where I was able to nosey at the desktop was running at least one or more open source application of course those that didn’t have a Desktop-shortcut-icon may well have been using other programs as well but you cant exactly say “Oi what you got on there then?”. True everyone was running MS Windows, I’m sorry to say I didn’t see any Linux desktops, but at least they are halfway to being converted.

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