Re: Propaganda and web site

[JF Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

> From: Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:58:25 -0400 (EDT)
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> > Before releasing the web site must get aface lift with the new logo,
> > the new themes (Indy being people's distribution and revolt) and new
> > pointers to the dsitrib.
> > 
> > About Indy's themes I can formulate them but someone will have to
> > proofread them and another person to put them in the site.
>  
> I volunteer to turn a "pile of themes" into a nice document.
> (Somebody else will have to deal with the web aspect.)
> 
> --Roger
> 


Well we are supposed to be a "rebel" distribution: the voice of those
people who are never heard and who no longer accept passively
solutions coming from above.  Of course I count on those who don't
feel represnted by present distributions so tone must be of contained
anger and indignation but in case you ask this is not a marketing
trick: I am sincerely angry.  So here we go (I will indent comments).

=====================   BEGIN   ==============================

Year after year we have seen with increasing frustration Linux
distributions ignoring the needs of vast categories of Linux users.
If you are using Linux at home then despair and die because
distribution people abandon you at the end of installtion unable to
access the Net and thus unable to ask for help, that your computer is
supposed to run all night or that you are not supposed to have a check
book.  If you are trying to install Linux in a small organization then
despair and die because the servers shipped are an overkill for your
needs.  If you use Linux as a workstation then despair and die because
you will have to mount and unmount CDROMS ten times a day, that SMB
printing will be slooow because your distribution assumes the NT
server will be configured to be nice to Unix clients instead of being
nice to Windows clients.  And in case you have to administer from
minute one and zero Unic knowledge then despair and die because you
will read in docs the ineffable "consult your system administrator"
and you will be left with VI as the only editor available in critical
situations, woe to you if disaster is not kind enough to wait until
you learn it.

   "Despair and die" can seem a bit violent but I love Shakespeare and
   this is in Richard III :-)

As users we feel offended for our needs being ignored, as linux
activists we feel angered because this is slowing Linux expansion.
Unlike Unix Linux is not restricted to a server role: cost does not
keep it out of the desktop and of the household like Unix was, nor out
of the hands of people who own of the box and have to learn by
themselves.  But sticking to Unix tradition will not help because Unix
never had to adapt to those situations.  This is the main failure in
present distributions to understand that Linux can go where Unix was
unable to go.

Independence is not another one of those distribs made by people
willing to surf on the Linux wave.  It is made by volunteers.  It is a
revolt of the users who no longer accept solutions coming from high
above their heads and who have little relation with their needs.  It
is a revolt of those who believe that the Linux user is different from
the Unix user,  has different needs and that we have to learn to think
outside Unix trodden paths.

    Well that is it.  Perhaps it is too agressive but Ithink we have
    to keep the idea of a revolt and of a distribution made for usrs
    by paople like them who have lived the same experiences than them.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org