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I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion for this, but as a teenager who remembers when this happened, this always struck me as the absolute dumbest idea and the most useless of performative actions. First, it was sponsored by a VC-backed company (that had hired a documentary crew to capture their success, the ill-fated VA Linux Systems (which eventually became known as Geeknet) and the pretty poor propaganda documentary “Revolution OS” that managed to just sort of forget the whole dot com collapse thing)), so although I know the LUGs were part of it, this was a marketing event by a company looking to boost their IPO. I didn’t know any of that at the time, but looking back, it’s so clear this was just yet another VA Linux publicity event. Second, to anyone who wasn’t part of the group “protesting” — that is, outsiders — all you see is a bunch of weirdos dressed up with picket signs outside a sales office (they didn’t even go to Redmond) to demand action, only to be greeted what seem to be very polite corporate people with a sign and lemonade. Third, it fundamentally changed nothing. It took the DoJ agreements to lessen the hold Microsoft had one some OEMs, but it really took the proliferation of Chromebooks (which was predicated by the short-lived netbook era) for manufacturers to get cheaper deals on Windows licenses and to offer more customizations of OS choice at purchase. That still had zero impact on Linux on the desktop adoption rates. And sure, most bigger OEMs if you buy direct will let you customize a machine with no OS and sometimes with Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu XPS 13 isn’t much cheaper than the Windows variant (max $50), you just get more of an assurance that there is some sort of driver support for your system (although usually not for stuff like fingerprint readers). So like, all I remember is that 21 years ago, some angry nerds showed up to an office park parking lot, got some free lemonade, were told politely to leave, and then went home with their cardboard signs screaming victory. When they didn’t get a refund. Didn’t change OEM terms, and had zero impact on OS adoption. OS adoption changed over the years but it wasn’t because of anything any of the people in that movement did, it was because of Apple and Google. |
1. VA didn't sponsor the event, but a chunk of the staff of the company's Sunnyvale HQ attended (and most of us were in the LUGs). VA didn't have any need at that stage to boost the IPO, as the fever was already brewing for companies like VA and Red Hat (both IPO'd that year, RH in August and VA in December).
2. VA didn't hire a camera crew either, but a friend of one of the executive staff (Jon Hall) wanted to do a story about Open Source, so Jon brought him in for a few days to do interviews and film around the office (do I think the exec staff saw the PR upside? Sure. If they hadn't they would have been foolish. But they weren't the primary driver). And IIRC, Rev OS forgot the dot com collapse because it was edited and released right before the collapse began.
3. Do I think the event was performative nonsense? Sure. I thought it was then too, much as I thought RMS was ludicrous and various other "open source luminaries" were a tad too close to 'hubris based lifeform' but the event, in the grand scheme of things, was an amusing, if ultimately pointless exercise. Not all things need to induce a sea change or have a deeper point than getting like minded folks to make a statement for its own sake.