Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo Badges

[Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl>]

Ryan Viljoen schreef:
> You guys and gals  are all so proud of it but want to keep it to yourselves.

And what is pride, and when does one feel proud?

When one has done something that is hard for oneself to accomplish,
successfully.

You felt proud when you first tied your own shoes, after weeks/months of
trying (and failing). Your parents felt proud of you when you spoke your
first understandable word, after months/years of trying (and failing). I
felt proud when I got five Linux distros and two versions of Windows
multibooting on the same box, because when I 'decided' that's what I
needed/wanted to do, I had no idea how to do it and make it work to the
specifications needed to solve the problem I perceived at the time.

Now I'm proud that I have enough Linux knowledge (and patience) to
compute totally without Windows (the OS; I still use several Windows
programs and have no ethical issue with that, as the Windows OS and
applications designed to run under that OS are separate entities, imo,
and therefore separately judged), and enough Linux confidence that there
is no currently-known impetus that will 'force' me to install it (though
I recognize that there are still areas that I don't know enough about
that could compel me to do so in an 'emergency'). I am also proud to
have enough confidence in my knowledge of Gentoo to say that this is
"my" distro, which I will stick with, and even when I break it, I can
fix it (or I will reinstall it if necessary); I no longer feel that
breakages are unsolveable, or that the possible necessity for a
reinstall means that it's Gentoo's "fault", that Gentoo is really
"shit", or that I'm a failure at Linux in general, or Gentoo in
particular (and I should get Ubuntu or something, which btw, I really
didn't like at all).

You're damn right I'm proud of myself-- it's taken me some 3 years to
build this confidence, and some 1.5 to build this trust in Gentoo (and
myself using Gentoo).

The point is:

1. Linux itself is "hard" (especially for migrators from Windows)

2. Gentoo is a "hard" version of Linux (especially for Linspire-type users).

I have nothing against "promoting" Gentoo, per se (though I don't
particularly see why it's necessary to "promote" anything)-- I certainly
have no particular desire to "keep it to myself" in some 'elitist
chowderhead' sense.

But I have kindness in my heart, and I am not going to randomly
"encourage" complete strangers to do something double-difficult just
because I like it a lot and think they might too, any more than I would
drag someone I was dating out bungee-jumping on our second date. They
might like it, but most people have a lot of fears that they would need
to overcome in order to do so, and I don't know them well enough to
judge whether they are in a position to begin that process.

Kindness in my heart, because pride is something one earns, earning
takes work, and kind people don't ask others to do extra work to earn a
reward that the other may not value (and without knowledge of the
individual, I cannot know if the other will value the pride earned by
learning Gentoo, as opposed to a Linux that doesn't require so much work
to reward one in a lesser way).

Anyway, that's my two Eurocents; this isn't worth actually "fighting"
about, as if one wants to use the logos, one can, if not, one won't.

Holly
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list