A Blog of Very Little Brain

The June 1 date for the next Ubuntu GNU/Linux release is closing (although the original April 24 date would’ve been closer… Oh well), and many “previews” are already available. I placed preview in double quotes, as these are based on the Flight Series alpha test releases, which is a snapshot release of the product.

First to rise on my browser was Linuxforums which aptly claims to be not a preview but a survey of the current available flight CD. He pushes some nice points regarding the GUI installer holy war, and it’s an overall positive survey, but then again the writer is a self proclaimed Ubuntu lover.

Second is a lookahead straight from the padded cells of the Mad Penguin. The insanity of said waterfowl doesn’t deter him from warmly recommending Ubuntu, despite it being, as he claims “not quite in the league of Slackware and Red Hat/Fedora“. Whatever league is that, I don’t know, but then again, the writer does, as par with his words, “prefer Slackware over any other distro”.

And, naturally, you might want to go over the actual description of the release, which is displayed for your inquiring eyes in all shades of brown.

The current alpha release, code named “flight 6″ is available here for download.

I kept postponing this issue because I wanted to distance myself away from it, until I would be able to comment on it rationally (hopefully).

This whole mess started when Peter Quinn, Massachusetts’ Open-Document martyr and former CIO, announced that the cause for companies and institutions not accepting Open-Source and open standards is due to the “Sandals and ponytail unprofessional appearance” practiced by FOSS leaders and hackers.
While this load of bull would’ve gone unnoticed, or at best, become the recent laughing stock among the communitee, this time it was spoken by one of the “good guys”, so people took heed of the call.
This (long and overbearing, don’t bother) article in Groklaw, claims that one should “adjust your appearance (wherever you are) to help you achieve those goals.”

To this I say, screw them all. Anyone who makes his business-crucial decisions based on what the other side is wearing is deserving what he gets in return. This explains those Lotus Notes offices that runs everything BUT email on Lotus, since they use Exchange for that. This explains why someone will move AWAY from using Apache into Microsoft’s Aye-yay-ass. It also harks back to all those “When will GNU/Linux be ready for the Desktop”, which is, actually “When will GNU/Linux be windows?”.

But then again, we are talking about a world where CEOs are more interested in “standardised, enterprise-ready, business-management solutions” rather than asking “how does it work, and how good is it?” Where one needs to “learn the lingo” to progress in his company, where upper management makes Dilbert’s boss look like an IT guru. Reminds me of those who claim that the future of “e-business” lies with “protected, trusted technology” (Read, DRM and software patents), comfortably forgetting that the whole Internet from which they make their money is an open, free technology.

I hope that eventually all those will implode, which on that day, I’ll be there to go and sing comic songs on the ruins. Oh, and Peter Quinn didn’t lose his battle for ODF in Massachusetts (and his job) due to any dress code, but due to a blatant lobbying effort on behalf of Microsoft. I’d like to see him dress to that.