MichaelKotsarinis
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And some thoughts: This year (2010) marks the 2500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon (490BC) which is the main event that signaled the beginning of the period known as the Persian Wars. Thinking about this event and the period that followed I was able to find some similarities between that period and the Linux (and generally FLOSS) community of today. On one hand there was a great empire of the era, the Persian empire, rich, vast and populous, run in a typically totalitarian/autarchic way. On the other hand there were the Greek city-states, numerous, some smaller, some larger, with conflicting interests most of the time and more often than not hostile to each other. They also had many things in common. The amazing thing is that this amalgam of cities managed to face and eventually prevail over this well organized and strong empire, debating all along the way of achieving this. And they fought (of course) to defend their right to exist (their homeland) but also for their right to manage themselves in the way each seemed fit and not to enforce one's state of affairs to others as better or most effective. I will not put a modern name to the great Persian empire but the Greek cities of the era strongly remind me of the various distros and projects. I don't want to force any conclusions to anyone but I think that all members of the greater FLOSS community should take a momment to think upon today's significance of events that happened 2500 years ago. Thanks for bearing with me! |
Michael Kotsarinis
E-mail: mk73628 at gmail dot com
Freenode IRC: michael_k (usually at #ubuntu-gr)
Identi.ca: michaelk73
Skype: mike.k628 (not very often online)
Member of Ubuntu Greece LoCo team
I started using Ubuntu about two years ago. Hardy Heron was the first release to win a permanent place in my computer. What won me over was the very active and friendly community and I am proud to belong to it! It was not long before it felt right to contribute to the community and I became a translator albeit not very active community-wise. Recently, I decided (and found the time) to become more active and visible, so when the greek community called for a new LoCo team contact, I responded and here I am. I just hope I will not dissapoint the people that count on me!
And some thoughts: This year (2010) marks the 2500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon (490BC) which is the main event that signaled the beginning of the period known as the Persian Wars. Thinking about this event and the period that followed I was able to find some similarities between that period and the Linux (and generally FLOSS) community of today. On one hand there was a great empire of the era, the Persian empire, rich, vast and populous, run in a typically totalitarian/autarchic way. On the other hand there were the Greek city-states, numerous, some smaller, some larger, with conflicting interests most of the time and more often than not hostile to each other. They also had many things in common. The amazing thing is that this amalgam of cities managed to face and eventually prevail over this well organized and strong empire, debating all along the way of achieving this. And they fought (of course) to defend their right to exist (their homeland) but also for their right to manage themselves in the way each seemed fit and not to enforce one's state of affairs to others as better or most effective. I will not put a modern name to the great Persian empire but the Greek cities of the era strongly remind me of the various distros and projects. I don't want to force any conclusions to anyone but I think that all members of the greater FLOSS community should take a momment to think upon today's significance of events that happened 2500 years ago. Thanks for bearing with me!
MichaelKotsarinis (last edited 2010-10-31 14:08:15 by 77)