By Justin Breithaupt
Ever tried to please the GNU/Linux community? Has it ever worked? If your really lucky it has and you haven’t received any hate mail or been banned from any sites. If your not so lucky and you make mistakes you might be on the other side of the fence but does that mean your down and out?
I’ve experienced this other side of the fence first hand and yet seen projects succeed despite what the media says or the GNU/Linux community. Why is this? It’s because the GNU/Linux community is divided among itself and can’t focus on what really needs to be done or who or what the real threat is.
Just for the fun of it why don’t I make a quick list of sites I can’t post on or have been banned from:
Lxer.com (not banned they just won’t let me post)
Wikipedia.com Banned
PCLinuxOS.com Banned
distrowatch.com (not banned they just won’t let me post)
linuxtracker.com (not banned any more and can post)
ect. the list goes on.
I’ve had anti-Christian activists groups rise up against me and the Jehova’s Witness made up of PCLinuxOS moderators. They were the hardest to shake off my tail and my hat goes off to them for the 2007 Internet Troll awards.
But you see I was young in the GNU/Linux community and didn’t know these bullies existed or how to behave. It was a completely new world for me to contribute by making something. I never knew there were any dangers in it. I figure if I would have kept up the defense long enough they probably would have sent someone to kill me. I’ve had a lot of people warn me about that too.
So what did I do that was so wrong? Well I’m going to spell it out to you. First I installed illegal codecs into my distro and released it without understanding what illegal codecs were, 2nd I made people jealous by making their software better and improving upon it and I even gave them credit, 3rd after they all started complaining to me and getting angry I reacted by trying to fix my mistakes and then asked them what to do and they banned me from PCLinuxOS.com and linuxtracker.com.
At this point I had to make a decision to stop or keep trying to make something I thought was wonderful for my Windows users to switch to. During this time I made my first real mistake and started speaking out against the bullies that harassed me. This never works. The only thing that works is to quietly try to do the best that you can and know that others will eventually realize that you really have something assuming that you do. I spoke to several people including Ken Starks, Richard Stallman, and others. They encouraged me and gave me good advice.
After following the advice about 85% of the hate mail and comments stopped. Months later I was able to use linuxtracker.org again.
The first month I put out my distro over 40,000 people downloaded it. I got many positive remarks from CEOs and customers all over the world. They said it was the best distro they had ever seen for Windows users to switch to. I was not done. I still am not done.
The current result you see of Ultumix 0.1.7.7 containing the Mac4Lin interface and a Windows like interface is still not complete. I would say that 50% of the features that I want people to experience are in Ultumix 0.1.7.7 and that when I’m able to put money into the project I will hire programmers to help me to finish making my dreams into reality.
In one of Richard Stallman’s letters he says that it’s ok and he encourages you to sell free software. Of course now I know that my distro is not free-software according to Richard Stallman’s standards and that I’ll have to put out a free version as well. If it has the same name Richard Stallman says the FSF won’t support it.
I’ve had a lot of time to set back and reflect on what has happened and what will happen in the FSF and Open Source community. I have decided that there exists a problem that separates the two and that the Open Source community is devided among itself. That’s why I purpose a new idea to you. This idea is called the Freedom-Software Community. http://pediaopeness.wetpaint.com/page/Freedom-Software+Community+TM . The main statement is not finished yet and it’s a work in progress or beta but I have faith that together we can make it work.
As you can see here Tux is at the races!