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The Rise and Fall of the Geek
chilled writes "Tom Steinberg has posted this guest editorial on The Register bemoaning the decline of the Geek. He suggests that geeks in their alignment against for example RIP and Microsoft are losing their voice. I think he's right but the emergence of a common set of goals should be recognised as a very good thing. The geeks amongst us should use this commonality to rise up and use our voice for progress and not petty squabbling."
The article is faux. I am in the extreme minority of geeks that rely totally on open source/free software. I scream from the rafters the glory that is Linux. I whisper it in the ears of every corporate customer that my job affords me to speak with. Yet, I realize that in this building filled with geeks (about 300, actually), I am all but alone in my ideals. There is perhaps two others that share my passion, and even they are half hearted about it. This is how it always been - when I was a sys admin at a local college or now that I find myself in a vast corporate setting.
The plain truth us this: most "geeks" use mostly closed software, and at the end of the day could care less if the FBI is using Windows 2000 on their desktops.