[Linux-aus] Marketing Linux

[Steve Walsh]

I've tried to be good, but I just need to nitpick some of this.
> <snip> but narey a word is said about the freeloaders who NEVER contribute a damn thing to Linux.
>   
Yep, Curse those people, they're probably also the ones evading our 
restrictive licences and downloading our software off those warez sites 
in an effort to steal our Intellectual Property and look at our codebase 
to crack the serial number algorythm.
> I happen to know some things that PP should be concerned about.
>   
So do I. Interest rate hikes, global warming, where my next cup of 
coffee is coming from, was that really chicken in last nights curry..

> But you see, I'm not annonymous. I post on lxer, ask Don Parris about me, check out various ezboards where I post on Linux, 
>   
Ah, but you are anonymous to (hazarding a guess) 99.9% of the Australian 
Linux Community. We'll known, if not to everybody, to at least someone. 
I can browse the flickr sets of linux.conf.au or SFD and say "who's 
that?" and have an aswer inside of an hour, just by asking. I've googled 
"tracy barlow linux" and can't find much there.
> I can't for the life of me see what's destructive about getting the Linux name well known.
>   
It's not the result that has people concerned, but the method being used 
to achieve it.

Tracy, I can't code for squat, hell, even my "Hello world" in Bash 
segfaults. I'm a system administrator by training and choice. I made a 
conscious decision to follow the open source path when I started in IT, 
and with the exception of contracts for long standing clients involving 
MS, I have managed to stay true to my beliefs.

Not everybody in LA is a coder or a hacker or a developer, but we are 
all the same thing - we are all *Contributors*. We all contribute to the 
linux project in our own way, some of us write code, some of us 
administer the systems to keep it all going, some of us organise a 
conference every year, and some of use work as advocates in our chosen 
field, trying to spread the word. If we chose not to contribute $1, $2 
or even $50 to something like Tux500, then that's our choice, both as a 
person and as a community. Continued harassing is not going to change 
people's mind.

But, there you go, that's my 2cents, and you can put me down as having 
contributed that to the tux500 project.