uploaded 14,000-word essay: GNU/Linux, eco-activism parallels

Tue Feb 24 19:16:24 UTC 2004

Here is a self-explanatory copy of mail I just sent to FSF and Mr Raymond. 

Tom = Tom Karmo 

((COPY__FOR_TLUG))
Universal Coordinated Time (= UTC = EST+5 = EDT+4): 20040224T185428Z

Dear Free Software Foundation (gnu-mXXj517/zsQ at public.gmane.org)
(with cc to Eric S. Raymond = esr-4uCgticg2UFBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org,  
and with subsequent cc to Toronto Linux User Group listserv): 

I am a writer-editor and Debian GNU/Linux advocate, based in Toronto
and sympathetic to the Catholic Worker tradition. I run a 
Web site at http://www.metascientia.com. 

I have written a long new essay, drawing parallels between GNU/Linux
and biosphere conservation. The text incorporates hyperlinks to 
both http://www.gnu.org and http://www.catb.org/~esr. 

The essay is entitled 'No-Frills GNU/Linux: Philosophical Foundations'.
You'll find it in the 'Literary' section of my 
http://www.metascientia.com. The exact URL is
http://www.metascientia.com/PNNN____lit/SNEN____values.html. 

The content
is open, under the GNU Free Documentation Lidense. 

The essay is described as follows in my site blurb:
((BLURB))
The first section, 'Taking Inventory: Frillies in the Biosphere' and the
second,  'Taking Inventory: Frillies in Computing' together introduce
the thesis that the problems we face in our deteriorating physical
environment are paralleled by problems in the virtual space of software.
- The grim thesis is taken a step further in the next section,
'Frillies, Tainter's Spiral, and Societal Collapse': so severe are our
software problems that our situation is (not just uncomfortable, but,
more radically) unstable, as the late Roman Empire was. - A ray of hope
is first offered in a section entitled 'No-Frills GNU/Linux: A First
Look', then put into the wider history-of-computing context in a section
headed 'No-Frills GNU/Linux, Unix Permaculture, and Noosphere
Conservation'. - The long final section, 'No-Frills GNU/ Linux in the
Noosphere: Details from a Debian Implementation' explains in concrete
terms, with many a screenshot, many a real-life example, how a
permaculturist, deeply noosphere-green, computing philosophy may today
be implemented. The essence of the long story, in essence a tour of the
author's own workstation environment, is that we do well to avoid
pointless software elaboration. We should, instead, harness within the X
Window system the archaic power of the command-line interface. Robust
contemporary incarnations of the 1980s glass teletype are lauded,
notably in the context of a real-life Debian software-discovery
scenario, essentially as lived in 2003 by the delighted author himself.
The 14,000-word essay is respectfully dedicated to the Linux Users Group
of Iraq (http:// linux-iraq.org/), a community working in difficult
conditions for a worthy cause. 
((/BLURB))

The FSF at http://www.gnu.org
may conceivably wish to copy the essay in its entirety, 
to quote from it, or to link to it. It is not certain that you 
will wish to do such things, though, since the essay is 
rather more outspoken on biosphere conservation than is normal
for writings in philosophy-of-GNU space, and in its technical
parts is rather specific to Debian GNU/Linux. 

It is also mildly conceivable that Eric Raymond, at
http://www.catb.org/~esr, will have some use for the essay. 

In the (unlikely) event that FSF has reservations regarding my
philosphy, I'd be happy to hear them, so that I can do any
necessary rethinking. 

Sincerely, 

(Dr) Toomas Karmo
+1 416-971-6955
verbum-qazKcTl6WRFWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org
http://www.metascientia.com 
((/COPY__FOR_TLUG))

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