[geeks] are *BSD (and Linux) people "unhelpful"?

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Tuesday, April 2, 2002 at 17:55:58 (-0600), Geek wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Common IP lease?
>
> I have always wondered something that a visitor to my site told me
> once. She said she does not use BSD or Linux because of the complete
> lack of decent help.

I think the real answer is that most BSD users, and many "Linux" users,
simply help themselves -- i.e. are the self reliant kind.

Of course lots of M$ users have to be pretty self reliant too (not
everyone has an in-house "IT guy" to help them, and M$ itself sure as
heck isn't getting all the gold stars in their support department! :-)
-- and I'm betting that if the ones in that segment were shown that they
could still do all the computing they need to do with unix[*] that they
would actually find using unix to be a lot "nicer" because it's one heck
of a lot easier to be self-reliant with unix!

[*] and when I say "computing they need to do" I mean satisfying their
functional requirements -- I do not mean running "Blah(tm)" where "Blah"
is some specific commercial program that satisfies those functional
requirements!

> I mean your comments would lead any normal
> person to say 'fuck it, it's not worth it'. Why is it that the BSD
> and Linux communities are so anti user?

Then again there is the snide answer:  "We don't need no steenking
users!"  :=)

There really is an incredibly massively huge amount of "help" out there
for people wanting to use unix, but it doesn't appear out of nowhere
reaching out to hold your hand (even if you ask it to) -- you've got to
grab it by the ear and drag it into your own understanding, by yourself.

(of course once anyone shows a bit of initiative and interest in unix
there'll be all kinds of geeks come out of the woodwork foaming at the
mouth and trying to tell them how to do all kinds of cool and wonderful
things that they might not really need to do! :-)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods at acm.org>;  <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;  <woods at robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>