[sf-lug] ...Enabling M$

[Rick Moen]

Quoting pmpope (pmpope at gmail.com):

> Here! Here! I couldn't agree with you more, Rick, and not JUST because
> I'm some poor Debian Fr3ak, no sir, this has everything to do with the
> manner of enslavement tools the corporate overlords will use. MS
> developers look down their noses at the LX community at large because
> 'we're not greedy enough' Maybe they can't tell... we're greedy for
> freedom and we're willing to work for REAL freedom. 

Er, well, I wouldn't personally paint it as an ideological cause.  (No
criticism implied, just a difference of perspective.)  For me, it's just
a matter of optimisation of effort.  Given a fixed number of hours of
free time per month, I can elect to spend some of my time (and money) 
helping MS-Windows users, or Linux users.

Helping Linux users helps repay the debt of gratitude I owe to people
who helped me.  It also helps deepen my own understanding of tools I 
have a great deal of use for, and that (unlike proprietary toolsets) 
are going to be permanently available and adaptable by anyone for any
purpose.  It's also orders of magnitude more interesting, more
professionally useful, and helps build and strengthen a community and
body of understanding that I care about, making people self-reliant and
willing/able to help others in their turn.

Helping MS-Windows users accomplishes none of that.  From my own
perspective, it's just time lost.  At _bare_ minimum, I'd expect to be
paid professional billing rates for that sort of time sink -- not have
to underwrite it.