On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 14:20 +0800, Wilson John D. Barbon wrote: > Silly of me for asking in this mailing list--intended for "technical" > matters. But I remember when I signed up for this list when I stumbled > into PLUG website a couple of months ago it says--mailing list for > newbies. >
Your question wasn't a newbie question, it was a philosophical question, thus you got 1) flame bait, and thus Molotov's 2) philosophical discourse 3) friendly reminders and 4) "intellectual masturbation". I'm just saying it "as-is". > I don't intend to be philosophical in raising that question. I got the > idea of asking that question after reading some articles in Linux > Magazine about how Linux solutions can also have myths--and can be > very frustrating for desktop users like me and the many PC users on > the planet. > Well, your question was philosophical. At least, it came across as one to me, instead of a rhetoric? > Since we talk about philosophy, Socrates was famous for saying "know > thyself" or "the unexamined life is not worth it"--for linux failing > to see linux beyond the many "technical" blabber in this mailing list > or beyond the flame wars that are happening--we may never know where > we are going. See, Socrates was living centuries ago -- he couldn't differentiate a pencil from a stick even if his life depended on it. If you know what Bertrand Russell was talking about regarding the language game, then you might understand that what you mean might not be what I necessarily understand -- if Red is a different color to you, while Red a person to me, however could we understand each other if you said "I like Red." ? And if you see Linux as a "silver bullet that's free and out to eradicate Windows from the face of the earth", while I see it as merely a cool operating system on which *I* can be productive then how do we understand each other when you say "Linux is both good and bad." ? > Personally, after many sleepless nights looking for > solutions just to make my soundcard work, or wifi device to work--I > am aksing myself is it worth it? Using OpenOffice alongside MS Office > users is a nightmare. Powerpoint presentations from my co-workers or > Word documents especially the ones with tables are all in disarray > opening it in OpenOffice. One time, I was even reprimanded by the boss > why I am in Linux after I submitted a presentation material made in > openoffice but was completely unusable (texts and drawing are not in > their proper places) during the time of the presentation. Damn it, I > completely trusted OpenOffice Impress to just smoothly convert to .ppt > and did not bother to check if its ok for the file to be opened in > powerpoint. > Not to put more frustration on your side, but did you really expect OpenOffice to work exactly like MS Office? It's like asking a Honda City to run like a Ferrari Enzo. Not that one is better than the other, but because THEY'RE DIFFERENT THINGS. > Am i more productive in Linux than using MS Windows XP? I asked. Is this a rhetorical question? We might not be playing the same language game, I have to ask... > > Flame wars, it really sometimes annoying but it is in flamewars that > we get feedback from Linux users. It is through rants and complaints > that Linux and other FOSS shape up > I certainly doubt this statement -- If I wanted to get feedback from Linux users, I'll ask for them. Now, this is NOT the venue to get feedback from Linux Users regarding their philosophical views. If they had trouble getting something to work in Linux, maybe yes. But I don't want to hear "Why isn't Linux so useless compared to Windows?" here. > Below are two articles from a magazine solely for Linux and from a > person with years of Linux in his mouth. See, that's why I don't read them articles anymore. They tend to get you away from what YOU think. You tend to believe too much what other people think that it prevents you from thinking for yourself -- or even verifying and learning about something. I used to read Conrado de Quiros' column, but I realized it was like watching someone else "intellectually masturbate" and just get stuck on it. I failed to see that I had opinions too, and that I didn't necessarily have to agree with whatever he wrote. > > I have expected some more factual information from the views of > Filipino Linux users like how these articles view Linux. But instead > of getting these, i was dismissed as irrelevant and should stay in the > "plug-misc" maling list. Again, if this mailing list is technical in > nature, I apologize for the error. I do understand the limited > resources we have Linux and spending bandwidth for these > "intellectual masturbation" is really a waste of resources and time > especially for a maling list intended for geeky and technical blobber. > Months after I have been a member of this list most of the entries and > subjects are coming from sysadmins, developers, programmers--few are > coming from desktop users. I sometimes I get the impression that linux > is not ready for the desktop user all the more for people who are not > into programming, sysadministration and the like. > I'm sorry if you find that "geeky and technical blobber" isn't cool, and should give way to "intellectual masturbation" -- but in this case, the mailing list has to be kept technical, else no form of order or "netiquette" would be present. It would be a "I piss higher than you do" list, and we all don't want that, do we? > Thanks though for the replies. You want more? > > End of the thread > I certainly Don't Think So. ;) <snipped irrelevant non-technical articles from posting> -- Dean Michael C. Berris Mobile +639287291459 URL http://mikhailberis.blogspot.com YMID: mikhailberis _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
