Linux Pride
“A lifetime of listening to Richard M. Stallman is a high price to pay for one's computing preference.”
“RMS is out. Eric Raymond defines my computing style now.”
“Eric Raymond who?”
“Your superlative aesthetic sense reminds me that I have never had occasion to recompile the kernel on my Macintosh.”
The Linux pride, or simply pride, campaign of the open source movement has three main premises:
- that all people of all computing orientations should be proud, not ashamed, of being young white middle-class male Linux geeks;
- that computing diversity is a gift to young white middle-class male Linux geeks;
- that computing orientation and operating system type are inherent, unless of course you use Mac OS X and are therefore only fooling yourself.
Remember: just because you have a personal coding output of zero doesn't mean that you can't take full credit for the programming genius of others for a lifestyle of Slashdot, caffeine and masturbation.
History[edit]
The Linux (formerly GNU) Pride movement started in 1983 at the Stallmanwall Printer Driver at MIT, when a non-disclosure agreement raided the AI Lab.
In contrast to their previous acquiescence to raids from substantial buckets of cash, for the first time in modern history the geeks stood their ground and fought back. The speech impediment machine was duplicated. Herds of wildebeest roamed the plains. Stallman stopped cutting his hair. Activists prowled the halls of MIT, inveighling defenceless students to reimplement the eunuchs and share their software.
The riots were linked to grief over the death of Judy Garland, for some reason.
Pride Parades[edit]
Pride Parades are held worldwide, wherein young male white middle-class Linux geeks of all colours, ages, architecture types and backgrounds can walk down the centre of the main street of their city and commemorate the original Stallmanwall printer driver riots. Many parades still have at least some of the original political or activist character, especially in less Linux-positive settings.
In more Linux-positive cities, the parades will often involve floats, coders, Mountain Dew and amplified music. In some countries, Linux parades are now also called Linux Pride Install Festivals. But even such celebratory parades usually include political and educational contingents, such as local politicians, venture capitalists, Google recruiters and marching groups from open source institutions of various kinds.
Even the most festive parades usually offer some aspect dedicated to remembering victims of Stallmanwall and anti-Linux FUD. Some particularly important Linux parades are funded by governments and corporate sponsors, and promoted as major tourist attractions for the cities that host them. Other typical parade participants include local Linux-friendly churches such as Emacs Community Churches and BSD Universalist Churches, PFLAB (Parents and Friends of Linux and BSD), and the nerd employee associations of local businesses and government bodies.
Openness to diversity[edit]
“Oh, we got both kinds. We got free software and open source.”
Diversity is a fundamental and deeply respected principle of the free software subculture, and it is accepting of all varieties of Linux, Linux and even Linux.
BSD is absolutely welcome at Linux user groups, provided it has the common decency to know its place in the financial pecking order and not try to get in on a Friday or Saturday.
If you're from Caldera, of course, you can just fuck off.
Nomenclature[edit]
Though the Stallmanwall riots themselves, as well as the political organisation they triggered, were events that were fully participated in by BSD contributors, FSF volunteers, X11 people and future Sun founders as well as by white middle-class male Linux users of all races, genders and backgrounds, historically these events were first named Linux, the word at that time being used in a more generic sense to cover the entire spectrum of what is now variously called the Red Hat, SuSE or even Debian community.
But eventually the language caught up with the reality of the community and the names have become more inclusive. Changing first to Linux and BSD Pride, today most are called GNU/Linux/BSD/X11/KDE/GNOME/Mozilla/gcc (GLBXKGMg) Pride Parades. But only by the sort of geeks even the other geeks don't want to hang out with.
The Linux Pride flag[edit]
Several years ago I thought up a graphic of Beastie and Tux spitroasting Bill Gates. If someone could draw it, that'd be dandy. Beastie, being the property of Kirk McKusick, is of course gay, so would have a big smile on his face as his cock plunged between Bill's luscious lips. Tux, being full of arrogant teenage hormones, would sodomise Bill with the glee of domination at last. Bill would be looking distressed (oddly enough) and sweating little Windows logos. Something you'd like someone to sneak onto Bill's computer at Microsoft as his wallpaper, to greet him first thing in the morning. It'll be fabulous.
Opposition[edit]
Within the free software community, some reject the notion of Linux pride, perceiving therein an undue emphasis on GPL orientation and a lack of discretion and modesty to the detriment of either computing morals or the cause of free software; they propose to soften strident activism in order to better integrate into the mainstream. (Others call these a pack of corporate whores while envying their pay packets.)
Others oppose Linux pride on account of its identity politics; they say that one's kernel orientation should not be one's quintessential defining characteristic. Still others preemptively spork their eyes out for fear of sighting twenty Linux geeks clad only in silver jockstraps. AIEEE!!
It is not unusual to see small groups of software fundamentalists protesting at Linux pride events, usually against Microsoft for existing. Since Microsoft are (a) there and (b) give a shit.
The lessons Linux Pride has to teach us all[edit]
Even the Linux geeks prefer devil girls in red catsuits to socially differently-abled cat-piss-smelling nerdboys, and consider that Mac users are inherently sexier despite the Linux nerdboys actually having larger breasts.