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A tiny protest makes a big noise
The pictures on TV and in the papers were on the shocking side, evoking an old, not a new culture or political ethic.
Small, chanting bands of nerdy looking people parading outside of Microsoft offices in different parts of the company were photographed on TV and in papers waving Linux Penguin banners around and demanding refunds for Microsoft's Windows OS that had been pre-installed on their computers.
There were very few demonstrators, and none were known to have gotten refunds. But there was the definite sense that something dramatic had happened, that some corner had been turned.
"It's not a lot of money," one protestor, wearing a faded Atari T-shirt and black Keds sneakers to the Manhattan demonstration told The New York Times, "it's just the idea that you're forced to buy Windows when there are better alternatives out there."
According to the Times, more than "100 self-proclaimed computer geeks" showed up at MS sales offices in several cities to make noise about their wish to reject Windows. The demos were organized by Linux advocates.
The Linux movement is definitely gaining steam and making noise. This week, Business Week wrote that Linux might turn out to be Microsoft's "Vietnam," and raised the spectre of a "guerrilla army" of OSS advocates giving the behemoth fits.
Almost the very next day, the demonstrators popped up outside of Microsoft offices in California, New York, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Japan, to ask for their money back for operating systems they don't want or need.
Whoever organized the protests understands modern journalism well. The protests were widely covered in newspapers and on TV.
Linux has grown by nearly 40 per cent a year over the past few years, and its users number more than seven million worldwide. This rapid growth has been largely ignored by media, which favors stories that burn, scream or explode.
So if you can get 100 protestors to picket some offices and yell for the TV cameras, then - miraculously -- Linux is on the way to becoming a household word.
The OSS and free software movements are among the most political technological movements in media. The collective manufacture, improvement and free distribution of information software is a radical departure from the recent sorry history of media, which has been gobbled up and homogenized by giant, soulless corporations that hate free speech and love only power, money and market share.
The Internet is becoming a battleground for what is clearly a growing political struggle between companies like Microsoft and the millions of individuals who have grown up in the freeest information culture in history.
Linux, OSS and the free software movements are quickly becoming the symbol of political opposition to the looming corporatization of the Net, under siege from some of the wealthiest companies on the planet, from Disney to Microsoft.
Monday's demonstrations were ironic in that they invoked the 60's much more than the Millenium. Chanting and placard waving are traditional symbols of old, not new, politics. But they obviously still work.
"I'm interested in the whole idea of not having any one company control the operating system market," Peter Lehrer, a 39-year-old accountant who drove into Manhattan from New Jersey to join in the demonstrations yesterday. "I just wanted to see what this was all about."
Lehrer's curiousity and enterprise are more significant than even he imagined. Essayist John Ralston Saul wrote in "The Unconscious Civilization" that the epic political battle of the 21st century will be between dehumanizing corporatization and individuals.
Finding some equilibrium in this struggle, Saul wrote, is dependent not just on criticizing, but on the individual's willingness to be a non-conformist in the public place: precisely what the Penguin stands for.
To take on the corporatization of culture, from Wal-Mart to Microsoft, the individual will need common sense, creativity, ethics, intuition, memory and reason. These can be exploited individually, says Saul. "Or they can be applied together, in some sort of equilibrium, as the filters of public action."
However tiny the demonstrations were, that's precisely what happened at a handful of Microsoft offices on Monday, exactly what Peter Lehrer was doing when he took the trouble to drive into New York City.
In our time, corporatization represents greed, exploitation, lack of knowledge and choice and loss of freedom. Movements like open source and free software signify the opposite. They are about generousity and openness. They require knowledge, offer choice, and guarantee freedom. That's why a tiny handful of demonstrators made such a big noise.
Mail-to: jonkatz@slashdot.org
Now nobody really expected MS to open up there very large wallet and start handing out cash did they?
Am I correct in assuming that they took the wrong course of attack? Shouldn't they be targetting their PC maker, not the OS maker? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the PC maker who puts the preloaded stuff on there. Don't get me wrong though, I am happy to see PC makers starting to offer alternatives to the norm. Wish I wouldn't have pirated everything so I could get a refund for my Office too :)
But let me take it a step further.
The press for the past few years has had plenty to write about to get everyone's attention riveted (OJ, JonBenet, Clinton, Iraq, Y2K). Now that most of those stories have lost or are losing steam, what's left? The trials and tribulations the company with the world's largest company (in capital anyway - yes, MS is worth more than GE).
The MS trial itself is not very TV newsworthy. Too many issues, too much that the talking heads can explain in 30 seconds or less. How do you fully explain that MS has lied on videotape three times and what the lies really were? They had a hard enough time explaining what the president was accused of!
How about instead you focus on a group of people demanding refunds for software they don't use? It explains the frustration that the press sees in the public when anyone talks about MS. Noone that I know of says "MS is a good company". It's always "damn MS software crashing". Protests are neat and tidy. They get explained well. Good quotes from ESR and the like that can be printed on the third page of the newspaper.
That is why the press followed this. That is why the press followed this protest and not the protest when Win98 was released.
Come on. Less than 100 people showed up to the Bay Area protest according to some accounts. Assuming that about the same about showed up to each MS office worldwide (a safe assumption), less than 1000 people WORLDWIDE showed up at MS officed to protest.
r ing/physically-undesirable/sunlight-avoi ding/keyboard-tapping smarty-pants know-it-all.
And not one had a cell phone to call up the OEM/vendors in front of MS reps face and dispel the MS tactic of "get the refund from the vendors".
Guarilla warfare? Get real. Even if all 1000 people got refunds of at least US$100 (a VERY generous assumption), that means MS would have given out a total of US$100,000. Gates makes more than that blinking his eyes!
My point is, don't suddenly get all snobbish and confident. Realize that there is still a LONG way to go before Linux becomes a household name in places like middle America.
In the eyes of the world, "alternative OS users" are still just the latest version of the original nerd/geek/phreaker/cracker/hacker/eye-glasses-wea
(no offense intended of course. =)
The article says that the sign waving and marching, while it identifies more with the 60's than the Millenium, still works. How exactly does it still work? It got media attention, but is that what people were after? Come on, a simple publicity stunt? I thought geeks were above that kind of thing - leave that crap to corporations. The refund was the focus, the idea of people taking Microsoft up on it's written agreements - indicating that they, as Microsoft supposedly encourages, read the entire liscensing agreement, and then disagreed. The focus should be that Microsoft won't hold up it's end of the bargain. The focus should not be to scream to the world "Look at us! Aren't we cool! We can hold signs and protest! Just like our parents did! We're original!" Come on.
So, instead of a publicity stunt - an act which says nothing good about the character of the open source community - call this an attempt at holding a major corporation to the written agreements that it has distributed so widely and held people to (for anti-piracy). If that's what it is - which it should be - then the pickets and signs and screaming at television cameras just like they did in the 60's did NOT work. What has changed? Anyone who was paying attention is either A) Microsoft and unconcerned, B) a OSS supporter and feels the same as he did before, or C) unrelated observer who now thinks Linux people are trying to make a big noise and are doing it in a rather annoying and rude and OUTDATED way. The method for getting attention these days is not to wave picket signs anymore. No one cares about demonstrations anymore, and they're a little wary of them since people started getting killed in abortion demonstrations. The way to get attention these days is stated in three words: "Class Action Lawsuit".
And that should be the next step. Hold Microsoft and the suppliers of the computers to the agreement that they distributed with the computer. THAT's the way to get respect and attention - especially from the movers and shakers with money on Wallstreet. THEN, you'd have something that would reflect well on the community. Not some few extremists shouting slogans and indignation into a camera. Please. If you can't be respectable, at least ACT like it.