Sep 11, 2002
Reading the title of the piece, I am sure you are wondering if I am
out of my mind. With
Open for Business being a site for those
interested in adopting Free Software/Open Source in the enterprise,
you would not expect me to claim that this sector is
inconsequential. Unlike the way it sounds however, this piece is not
written to argue against Open Source. Instead, this piece is meant
to consider something much more critical.
One year ago today, we
were reminded how short life can be. In essence, we were reminded
how unimportant Free Software - or any software, for that matter -
truly is. Suddenly whether Red Hat Linux was better then SuSE Linux
became a small detail compared to the loss of life that had just
occurred. As thousands of people from around the world perished that
fateful day, something much more important was fixed in our
consciousness as a community and a world.
A year
later, things have pretty much returned to normal; the tone in the
GNU/Linux community is again focused on issues such as the
distributions, patents, and Microsoft. Clearly these are all very
important things, and they should not be ignored, yet I wonder if we
might take them a bit too seriously. Are these issues really as big
as we make them out to be?
Does it
really
matter whether GNOME or KDE is more popular? Looking into the
future, in twenty years that issue will probably be all but
forgotten. Yet right now, many people spend countless hours
defending the "honor" of their desktop, or distribution, or whatever
else it may be. I'll admit that yours truly is as guilty of this as
anyone else.
Reflecting on it however, I wonder why
anyone -
why I - waste time on such trivial things. Who cares
if I get the last word on why I think one distribution is better
than another one? If I knew I was going to collide into a
Pennsylvania plain tomorrow, would I spend my time doing that still?
Most likely not.
At the cost of waxing
philosophical, I think we should take this opportunity to look at
ourselves as a community and consider this point. I am not
suggesting that we spend our days wondering when something bad might
happen to us, no just the opposite! Next time there is a flamewar
raging on, perhaps we should stop and just realize we are fortunate
to be here and
able to discuss and debate. Perhaps it is time
we
carpe diem - seize the day - that God has given us.
In closing, we at
Open for Business would like to
say our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and friends of
the victims from last year's attack. Further more, we thank the
many brave and heroic firefighters, police officers, and other
people who lost their lives last September trying to help others. We
will not forget you.
UPDATE (2002/9/11 23:16
EDT): Some have
questioned this article over the last day,
suggesting that I thought there was nothing beyond software and
computers before last year. This was not what I was trying to
suggest, nor what I thought. Rather I was suggesting that I, like
others, simply get wrapped up in the community at times. That was
the point I was aiming at - just a small reminder of what pretty
much everyone already knows, but sometimes
forgets.
Timothy R. Butler is Editor-in-Chief of Open
for Business. You can reach him at tbutler@uninetsolutions.
com.