It seems we agree on at least one point, that is, that the names of various shells, progs, processes etc. are probably puns or double meanings done in a light vein. However the concepts in the GPL have roots in most religions or at least in spirituality. You know, don't be ruled by greed etc. By the way Linus Torvalds wrote the preface for the book I mentioned. In case you didn't catch it the first time , it's "The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age" by Pekka Himanen. The preface by Linus is "Prologue: what makes hackers Tick? a.k.a. Linus's Law, by Linus Torvalds." One more thing and then I'll hold my peace, (true) Christianity should not be confused with religion. I did not for one minute mean anything like that. ShalomOut Chal Elder PCUSA Registered Linux user # 217118 Mark Johnson wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Charles Punch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 4:23 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [newbie] religion in Linux?! > > > > > > manuels would have aquired. It would seem to me, that if someone were > > looking into whether there is a possibility of religious roots in > > "daemons" and "ncurses," that they must have at least a basic working > > knowledge of Linux. > > > > FWIW, the original meaning of "daemon" means "strong spiritual/natural > force" and it was used in connection with both good and evil. If you look up > this word on dictionary.com you'll find the more current meaning (demon); I > will need to look around and find the original definition. I think I found > it originally discussed in Rollo May's "Love and Will", however, if someone > knows where the history of UNIX/Linux/computer science that discuss terms > can be found I'd really be interested. I would bet that to serious UNIX > folks the general connotation of the words "daemon" and "demon" mean two > different things for them even outside of the computing environment. > > Anyway.... as for "ncurses" or "curses" I couldn't tell you, however, if you > are looking for religious roots in linux I think you will find that they are > not serious religious bindings but rather a sarcastic play on religious > thems and idioms (especially BASH). Many programmers for example will use > 666 as a number when debugging programs or creating data for test cases. > Not because they are satanist (or Christians) but because they are playful > programmers. Then there's always SATAN (Security Administrator Tool for > Analyzing Networks), more playful programmers! > > I think it's safe to say that most computer folks are probably > anti-establishment (& anti-church), but probably not not anti-spiritual. A > lot of the hackers in the 60's and 70's where hippies. Most are probably not > very extroverted and consequently suspicious of anything organized, or like > to play games with languages (both human and computer). You can see this > language play in perl programmers... > > In my opinion, the religious themes in linux (or for that matter computer > science) is pretty trivial and purely for fun. There's also the whole "I am > God" mentality for sysadmins and programmers (compare Torvalds opening line > at a user's group meeting: "I am your God"). If you've ever looked through > enough source code you'll find a ton of allusions to The Lord of the Rings > (admittedly a book based on religious themes). > > Western Religion is part of our cultural and literary history here in > America and Europe whether you are a church-goer or not, so they are bound > to show up in some variation in our contemporary lives and consequently in > Linux. > > (ps: this thread could go south really fast, we should be careful not to > translate "religion" to mean "Catholicism" or "Protestantism" or etc... > "religio" means "to link back" and there is a reason why the word religion > is used to address these themes that are much larger than Catholicism, > Buddhism, etc... What I am getting at is becareful to think that there is a > Christian sentiment running through Linux, but rather what seems religious > is rather a play on ideas that represent the big primal themes and symbology > that humans have had to deal with since the beginning.) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > Go to http://wwww.mandrakestore.com
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