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Date:      Tue, 22 May 2001 18:38:42 -0500
From:      markemmanuel <lists@markemmanuel.org>
To:        FreeBSD advocacy <freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Perens' "Free Software Leaders StandTogether"
Message-ID:  <B7305717.306A%lists@markemmanuel.org>
In-Reply-To: <3B0AB396.1F4DC07A@acuson.com>

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Quoted from the Book of David Johnson Ch 6:7-13 on 5/22/01 1:44 PM:

> Pardon me for intruding with some pop sociological and political
> analysis of the Linux and BSD communities :-) This is all gross
> generalization and prone to bad logic.

Woohoo!!!  I love sociology.  I'm in college right now and my minor is
sociology and I'm also pursuing a a computer science certificate.

> Hackers and geeks are fiercely independent They demand complete control
> over their personal domain. Unix is attractive to them because it places
> them in control of their computer. Open Source unices are even more
> attractive because it offers them even more control.

Yep... I have to agree with that. :)
 
> Individualists tend to fall into two broad political types. One type is
> "hermit". They expect all other people to be equally individualistic.
> They have no desire to tell others what to do. "If I can do it, so can
> everyone else." They don't coalesce into communities very well. Warfare
> with other communities and individuals is rare.
> 
> The other type is "tribal". They group everyone else into the ranks of
> "elder", "us" and "them". It is okay to tell lower ranks what to do, and
> it is accepted that lower ranks may very well tell the upper ranks to
> "shove off". Community(tribe) is central, but because they are still
> individualists, they choose their own tribe and sometimes change tribes.
> Warfare with other tribes is common.

Yep. :)
 
> BSD land is mainly "hermit". It expects the newbie to be able to learn
> how to do stuff on his own. Help is available but hand holding is not.
> Warfare between the BSD systems is very rare. The BSD license fits
> perfectly. "Do whatever you want with the code." BSD users could care
> less what system other people use.

They seem to more helpful when I've asked for help in the past compared to
the Linux communities I've been at.  However, there's no 'I use x distro so
I'm better than you y distro punks,' that I've seen with Linux communities.
To keep it simple, I get more help with BSDs than I have with Linux. :)  I
still use both but I like BSD a bit better.

> Linuxland is mainly "tribal". There are tribes within tribes, and they
> all fight each other to some extent. If a newbie gets snubbed in one
> subtribe, they find another. The GPL license fits perfectly. "Contribute
> your code back to the tribe". Linux users often take great offense if
> some else isn't using the same extact distro.

True dat.  True dat!


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