[brlug-general] Zealots!

[willhill]

There are Zealots among us.  No, I've never seen a flame war about Vi and 
Emacs or any other silliness here.  That's trivial by numbers and substance. 
There's a much larger shared faith than that.  It's so prevalent that people 
take it for granted and rarely question it's basic principles.  

What I have seen everywhere, even here, is a blind faith and advocacy of 
Microsoft that beggars description.  They accept what M$ says, despite direct 
contradiction by their EULA.  They make excuses for obvious failures and are 
so grateful for what works that they do as they are told.  Worse, they 
belittle and make life hard for those who would do without their poison.  The 
apparatus consists of those who benefit directly and those who should know 
better.  I suppose that's what a billion dollar per month advertising budget 
buys, but it's creepy like the worst of cults.

Take, for example, the blind faith of LSU's network administrators.  When I 
told them that M$ users would lose nothing from LSU's new AD policy because 
M$ already demanded such control through their EULA, the network 
administrator told me, "there's no technical means to enforce that EULA."  I 
pointed out that he could not possibly know that because he can't inspect, 
modify and compile the OS himself.  Despite ample written and technical 
evidence to the contrary, he has taken some salesman's word without need for 
further checks.  For the sensitive information he's trusted with, that 
attitude is amazing.  Scientologists must view the brainwash with envy.

Brainwashed administrators make life hard for people who want their software 
freedom.  Sure, they can be respectful and polite, but their policies add up 
to oppression.  At LSU they have  launched "secure" wireless they knew would 
make things hard on users of Mac, older versions of Windows and free 
software.  We are all familiar with internet providers who's "support" 
consists mainly of people who read you a script for Outlook Express or 
Internet Explorer.  At best, people making decisions like that figure it's OK 
to make life hard on free software users because free software users are 
smart enough to deal with it.  At the worst, they are happy to inflict the 
damage.  Every religion knows what's best for you and has Zealots that 
delight in cruelty which directly contradicts their faith.  

When I report these things here, I was baraged with people who defended LSU's 
policy and M$ itself.  "I've never had a problem" some said while others 
defended the move as a way of taming LSU's worm infested networks and PCs.  
In the past, I've been accused of being "out of touch" for thinking Windows 
was so second rate it's unusable.  That's more amazing than the blind faith 
of Microsoft administrators because people here should know better.  The 
contradictions are in their face to the point that I'm always, "preaching to 
the choir."  They know better as they recommend I "super hype" myself with 
Vista and document the damage.  "Try it, you might like it!"  Filthy.

Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for people who can manage Microsoft 
systems.  They deal with legal and technical complexity that boggles the mind 
of a simple engineer like myself.  Their software comes from dozens of 
vendors and has to be tested exhaustively because it does not always fit 
their purposes and often does not play nice with itself and software from 
other vendors.  All of those vendors each have their own set of restrictions, 
terms of use and payment schedules which tax the record keeping ability of 
the nation's finest clerks, accountants and lawyers.  The voodoo of port 
blocks, anti-virus and other ineffective measures require the skills of the 
world's best shamans.  In a hostile world where networks choke, individual 
machines do inexplicable things and die, and attrition is reaching levels 
that rival the black plague, the Microsoft administrator somehow sits and 
inspires confidence.  That act is what separates the successful professional 
from those who just know things.  

Woe to those who point out that the act is hollow.  How dare people like Peter 
Quinn suggest that the state of Massachusetts might be better off with free 
and open formats for their records!  Bill Gate's Holy Inquisition made short 
work of that poor man, his department and state government.  Salem has a few 
good stakes left for burning reputations and common sense after all.

The good news is that the practitioners of the IT faith really don't care what 
tools they are using.  In parts of Europe the difference between a devout 
Christian and a devout Muslim is a line where crusades and conquests reached 
some kind of equilibrium.  Software wars are fought over money instead of  
eternal souls, so shifts are much quicker.  As the technical, legal and 
economic impossibility of the M$ monoculture become more obvious, the trickle 
of Mac and Linux converts will become a flood.  Then the orthodox faith will 
be free software and the tables will be irrevocably turned.  

The Zealots won't really go away, but they might not be as bad without an evil 
company like M$ pushing a culture of greed and corruption.  Free software is 
all about user control and choice.  It's hard to be ugly about that.

On Thursday 11 October 2007 7:28 am, Fernando Vilas wrote:
>  I like that PostgreSQL focuses so much on standards compliance
> to aid in portability, both in terms of ANSI SQL and POSIX interfaces, and
> I tend to use it for my own projects, but I've used others and I don't
> engage in zealotry about it.