The Grey Shadow

This is a sad story of how a state-owned monopoly can hinder the flow of information to the public even in a supposedly free country.

The state-owned Paraguayan Communications Company (COPACO) has a firm grip on the Internet connectivity of most Paraguayans. This is because COPACO acts at two levels: (1) at the “provider” level, COPACO has the monopoly and sole exploitation of all international fiber-optic Net connections. COPACO then sells bandwidth and connectivity to local ISPs; and (2) at the ISP level, because COPACO is one of Paraguay’s largest ISPs. It is the only one that provides decent, cheap and reliable ADSL connectivity.

Presidential elections are just around the corner, on April 20, and the election climate is hot. Yesterday, COPACO began redirecting some pages that are critical of the Paraguayan government and some officials. This redirecting was done as a DNS hijacking procedure, and all ISPs who had COPACO’s DNS servers as authority were victims.

The domains affected were:

www.partidocolorado.org
www.victorbogado.com
Both of them redirected to the official Colorado Party website.

www.bastacar*jo.com
www.patriaquerida.com
Redirected to porn websites.
(Note: I apologize for the language in one of the domains, which contains Spanish profanity)

Forensic evidence, I am told, is available here. I didn’t check the contents, yet.

Finally, some friends told me that the whole DNS hijacking was logged and notarized by a public notary, and ICANN was already notified.

As I said, as sad story, and I hope, a story that would not happen again.

I cannot believe how fast March went down the drain. One day, and we were just on the beginnings; and the other, and it’s the 31st!.

Several things happened during this month in my life. The most important change is that my dad fell suddenly ill with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. After being discharged from the hospital, Dad chose to leave the family home and move in with a woman who is the mother of a 9-year old brother of mine. I feel sad for that; but then, Dad is happy and I just want the best for him.

In other news, I managed to upgrade all my WordPress sites to version 2.5. The upgrade looks all right, although the comment moderation page looks to me as something much more cumbersome and bothersome (try to moderate in batches of 25 when you receive spam in excess of 150 comments a day). So, this upgrade is not as “recommended” as it should. Take it with the mandatory ton of salt.

I still lack an Internet connection, so posting will be more scarce than it should. But this is a temporary situation, and I hope to update this blog more often.

And, last but not least, Happy Easter! The Lord is risen!

Whoa! February was quite a month. Right now I am without stable Net access (again…) and this is slowing down my posting and Net activity, but this month was otherwise busy.

One of the highlights of this month was that I was able to play with KDE 4. I was amazed by it, and impressed by its ability to run on my seriously underpowered workstation. It’s a great promise for the future. My advice for now: Don’t use it… yet. Wait until some key components are ready (I have kdepim and the printing system especially in mind). Until then, stick with KDE 3.5.x.

See you in March!

As I was waking up this early morning (oh my goodness, how I hate mornings!) I turned the TV on to check on the weather and the morning news. Then I saw it: a TV spot for notebooks… followed by other spot from a local supermarket chain highlighting its new sale on notebooks, pencils, uniforms, and school supplies, followed by another, and so on.

February is the month where schools begin their classes here. I remember a vague, horrific sense of dread thinking that those beautiful, hot, humid and lazy summer days were doomed to an end: ugly, hot, humid, busy school days were closing fast. I hated school and I still don’t like schools; I am glad that school it’s over for me. But those ads still unnerve me…

High summer is here with us to stay. This week we had to endure highs around 38 C (100 F) and lows of 28 C (82 F). Add to this a fairly high amount of humidity and imagine what we had to endure (Louisiana residents, and perhaps those of Florida, know what I’m talking about). The walls are hot, tapwater comes out HOT, and you are drenched in sweat in no time. Thank heavens for air conditioners and swimming pools!

But what really breaks my heart in summer is mangoes. We have two mango trees in our home. They give us wonderful shade… and tons of fruit. The mango fruit is delicious; but our two trees produce fruits in industrial quantity, enough to feed an army. We enjoy them; but there’s only so much we can eat, and we must leave the rest just to rot on our yard. How sad! A delicious fruit, rich in fat, sugars, vitamins, minerals, you name it; a fruit that is considered a delicacy everywhere in the world, and Paraguay is producing it in quantities enough to carve a serious dent in the world hunger problem. Right now, Asunción is ripe with tons and tons and tons of rotting mangoes. How sad…

But this also remind me of our Lord’s blessings. Here I am, living in a place where I just must reach my hand if I need something nutritive to eat. A true cornucopia. Thank you, Lord, for your wonderful provision and blessing.

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.
Malachi 4:2a (ESV)

I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas, full of blessings, happiness, joy, and fellowship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And especially, may the Sun of Righteousness shine on your lives, filling them with His splendour and light.

(Photo: Rising sun over the Paraná River near Encarnación, Paraguay. Photo taken by Pilgrim).

From today’s Daily Office:

Lord God, King of the Universe,
you show the bright glory of your reign
in acts of mercy and enduring love:
raise the spirits of the downcast
and restore those who have fallen away,
that your Church may continually sing of your saving help;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Amen, indeed.

I closed the gate of my office building, and started to walk to my mom’s place, where I would spend my lunch hour. The day was glorious: cloudless sky of a piercing blue tonality, soft breeze, and no noises save for the usual chirping sounds of bugs and birds. There was no other person in sight.

Then it happened. A soft tune emerged from one of the homes. It was a violin, playing on its low registers, sounding amost like a viola. The player was skilled, and played some typical Paraguayan folk tunes such as «Ñemity», «Lejanía», and «Nda recói la culpa». When the player finished one of the tunes, I could hear some muffled clapping sounds of applause.

What a beautiful moment! A truly reminder that there is something deeper amidst the cachophony of our lives. Thank you, Lord, for this and other signs of Your care for us.

This has been a very stressful month. I was lost in a maze of things to do, reports to draft and translate, church administrative sessions and several meetings.

Thankfully, we were able to conclude our administrative session on November 18th, with a good spirit of fellowship and cooperation among the members. I didn’t stay for the session; I just felt that it was better to skip it. However, I couldn’t be able to escape its effects: I was selected as a member of a committee tasked with reviewing the Bylaws and our internal organizational scheme. Pretty interesting, right?

This time was also very difficult for me, personally and emotionally speaking. At times my own reality was nothing short of harrowing. But I was, and still am, being upheld in prayers by two very close friends of mine; and slowly, slowly, I am picking up my pieces. To them (they know who they are) and to everyone who offered a kind word of understanding and appreciation to me during this time: Thanks! And thanks be especially to our Lord and Father, who was always there with me.

I would also like to thank Steve and Simon, the two brethren behind Oremus, an excellent website that offers the Daily Office. There were times when I was completely unable to utter even the simplest prayer on my own; in those trying times, the structured discipline of prayers, collects and readings got me through and helped me in my personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s hope things get better on now; surely there is plenty of work to do. For starters, I have to sit on a meeting this Sunday at 6pm. Just great. But our church needs me, and I will try to do my best.

To my American readers: Have a nice Thanksgiving in the company of your loved ones!

P.S.: Pssst, I am looking at you now… just don’t be scared, I don’t bite

This prayer struck me as especially timely:

Touch and heal all those whose lives are scarred by sin
or disfigured by pain, that, raised from death to life in Christ,
their sorrow may be turned to eternal joy.
Lord, have mercy.

This is also my prayer. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Word on last Sunday’s administrative session wasn’t good. There were several incidents among disgruntled brethren and the view was not particularly edifying. Many members just forgot they were there to conduct the Lord’s business, and resorted to tactics more appropriate of old-time political bosses. Needless to say, our administrative session was interrupted, and we plan to continue it on November 18.

This last week was also hectic on the work front, but things promise to improve in the next few weeks. Let’s see what happens.

I still don’t know the outcome of my church’s administrative session that was planned for today. I went to the 8:00am service and promptly left afterwards. Rev S. told me that the session was planned for 11:00am. Let’s hope it was good. Dinner was delicious; we enjoyed some barbecued steak and salads. I spent the rest of the day surfing and reading; all in all, a great day.

I would like now to share with you some great, timely posts related to events on October 31.

Reformation Day. Tim gives us two excellent pieces on the subject, written in OfB.biz:

1. My friend and namesake Ed Hurst wrote in 2006 a drastic, but well-deserved, indictment of Evangelical Christianity: “We need a reformation.” He explains:

Within the Evangelical Protestant community today, we are very nearly in the same place which broke Luther’s heart. We have an informal hierarchy. The highest vestments are based on talents more suitable to television and marketing. It’s all about the packaging; no one seems to care much about the content, our declarations notwithstanding. We do not need another dynamic leader; we need spiritual direction which points to Jesus Himself. Forget the CDs and DVDs, the books and programs. We don’t need more information, a new explanation, or another touchy-feely experience. We need a fresh examination of the same eternal truths, a fresh commitment to what we already know. If the primary complaint is boredom, maybe we need more people actually reborn and changed by the miracle of God bringing to life a dead soul.

2. Tim himself wrote this year’s piece on Reformation Day. He speaks in an irenic note, but his advice is no less drastic: Reformation Day should be a yearly reminder to check our beliefs. He goes on to consider the meaning of Reformation Day in a Church rightly concerned with the cause of Christian unity. From Tim’s insightful piece:

The Reformers, well aware of the need to be conscious about our theology and to always realize our potential for corruption did not seek a static church, but rather the “ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda:” the church reformed, always reforming. This is the key lesson of the Reformation: the people of God should be diligent in seeking to be reformed by the will of God. Whether or not you agree with Luther’s particular grievances in their entirety, this remains the central principle that everyone ought to take to heart.

Halloween. Jared of Exultate Justi fame presents a reposts of two classic posts on Halloween. Jared writes with wisdom, charity, intellectual rigor, and he is backed by good research. His first post deals on why he was wrong about Halloween, and the second is a great piece on what’s fundamentally wrong with horror-oriented entertainment. You can read both pieces in his archive. As Jared insighfully asks: “While it may be a sick world, do we really need to wallow in the filth?”

Yes, you are allowed to bring your special comfy armchair, your beverage of choice, and your classical music playlist. Enjoy!

Things down here are hectic, which sadly it means business as usual. The unexpected passing of Rev. M., our late senior pastor, still has some fallout for us. There is just too much to consider, too much administrative stuff, it’s just mind-boggling. We have an administrative session scheduled for tomorrow where we must elect officers and consider the 2008 budget. There is tension among the brethren, but we are also confident that God will help us through these testing times. Please pray for tomorrow’s session and its outcome.

Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! (Job 19:21, ESV)

When you are up to your nose in emotional pain, the only thing that might keep you sane is the support of your friends. And this is a gift from God.

This past weekend I was recovering from some painful days, but God allowed me to meet with Mrs. B., a longtime friend from mine. She listened carefully to me, and offered me comfort and joy. To top it off, herhusband challenged me to a Halo deathmach :). I wasn’t in the best of shapes, but I laughed and forgot about my personal issues for a little while. A true display of God’s grace.

Thanks, O Lord, for our friends, for they are a mirror of Your kindness and mercy to us.

“Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.” (Proverbs 27:9, ESV)

If everything goes well, I might start swimming practices as early as tomorrow. This will be quite a challenge, since I am used to swim in pools of half the Olympic length; i.e., 25 m (27.34 yd) since the Olympic length is 50 m (54.68 yd). However, I look forward to my swim, and I am thankful for the opportunity; otherwise, exercise would mean producing liters and liters of sweat in our summer-like temperatures, with incredible levels of discomfort. Let’s make a splash!

Most of you know what I think of current worship practices in church. My disagreements on that area are mostly philosophical, aesthetic and methodological. However, sometimes it is just plain old incompetence what gets you.

Two Sundays ago, I went to our church service. The worship (or what passed for it) was directed by a certain lady. Everything was truly awful (as usual), but then things sank to a new low. She called for Hymn #370. I searched in my hymnal and thought “wow, that is great. An Old German choral by Gebhart.”

However, the music started and something was awfully wrong. The music was completely different! Searching, I found out that the music was in fact that of Hymn #217, which is the exact same lyrics but with a completely different music. Even worse, the worship group even got the melody wrong and repeatedly made mistakes!

What became evident is that not only the directing lady didn’t know anything of even basic music reading; the whole worship group didn’t know the first thing of score reading as well. Awful, just awful.

I continue experimenting with themes. This is Fluid Blue 1.5, a great theme by Srini. The big merit of this theme, in my opinion, is its resemblance to the old Blue Theme. Maybe this is a keeper

I managed to upgrade to WordPress 2.3. This is a pretty serious upgrade, and for the first time it comes with native tag support!

Because of this I also decided to change theme. After years of using the excellent and sober Blue Theme 1.0 by Alex King, I am tentatively switching to the Unnamed theme by Xu Yiyang. This is a great theme that greatly resembles the old Blue Theme while supporting the latest WordPress features such as widgets and tags.

Meanwhile, all the info you saw on my previous theme will be gradually migrated to the new, improved theme.

So far, I find the new WordPress very good. Upgrading is recommended.

Today, by the grace of God, I am officially 37 years old. The day went smoothly, but busy. I am grateful to our Lord for His care and continued protection.

“And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15, ESV)

It’s been a long time since my last post. Of course this is an uninentended condition; I really meant to post more often. However, besides the usual deluge of work that I have to deal with, my father in law (Don Victorio) was hospitalized again due to complications of his heart disease.

These weeks were really trying and tiring for all of us; and our ability to function properly in our jobs and our society was put to some serious tests. Thankfully, Don Victorio was stabilized and discharged from the hospital, and now he is recovering at home. Please keep praying for his continued recovery.

And, by the way, I upgraded to WordPress 2.2.3 in the meantime. Upgrade is recommended. Go get it!

I was awaiting the onset of last Sunday with some anxiety. As you might have known from my previous posts, our church is through changing times; and yesterday we held an administrative session to take care of things. I prepared a lot of materials for that session which, while it had a short item list on its agenda, was very important. Thankfully, the session went over rather smoothly, and so far everything looks fine. You can say I was relieved.

After that, I picked up my wife from a nearby Roman Catholic Mass, and went over to my parents. We were invited to a karu guasu (big feast) barbecue at my aunt’s place because Doña Florencia, a relative to our mothers who lives at my grandmother’s hometown, San Pedro, would visit and would like to meet us. She brought several of her children, and many of them are active in politics. One of them is a Senator, other is a Congressman, the other is the town mayor, and other, a physician, is director of the town’s hospital. A daughter lives here.

However, Dad chose not to go. I can understand him; I also dread big gatherings. We stayed at my parent’s keeping company with Dad while the others went to my aunt’s for the big barbecue. We bought some delicious pasta, and had a great time with some great conversation.

Having that administrative session behind is great. One big hurdle less, one to go…

I am about to redesign a 6-page long survey form for our church, and this is just about the beginning.

About a month ago, our senior pastor unexpectedly passed away, and this put in motion a series of events that still has me moving. Our church is planning an administrative session on Sunday to decide on the installation of a Pastoral Council to oversee matters of our church while a pastoral search is conducted. I had to prepare a lot of materials for that session.

Furthermore, a general consultation is planned for Sept. 9. In that occassion, a number of forms will be used to survey what the Church is thinking on several issues. I designed the form through several iterations and I am still incorporating changes to it. Additionally, I am retyping the Articles of Incorporation of our Church from some illegible notarized copy, and I have to be as accurate and exacting as humanly possible.

In sum: boring, tedious, repetitive, but important, work. I’ll be glad when it is over.

When I had to sit for the qualification exams for my Public Translator certification, I had to face what I would call “a translator’s worst nightmare.” You must translate some text in your native language to your second language, and the text is absolute garbage.

The language problem. Most translators in the world would turn down a job that would require them to translate from their native language to their second language. Standard translating practice calls for a translator to have his target language as his native one. However, in some countries (such as mine) this is not an option; if you are a translator, you must perform translation in both ways. In that case, translating into your second language as target is an exceedingly hard task. One must be extra careful and there are pitfalls by the dozen.

Garbage text. This is one of the worst possible situations for a translator to be in: Translating a text that is absolute garbage. Imagine an awfully written piece of text with ambiguities, inconsistencies, syntax errors, missspellings, and so on…. and then, imagine translating that! This poses a dilemma with two horns.

The first horn is to translate the source text as faithfully as possible. This might seem advisable, but there is this problem: garbage in means garbage out. A poorly written text, full of inconsistencies and mistakes, will generate a target text of equally poor quality. That would seem fair; but the problem is, that the text will carry the badge of “translated by Eduardo”. The consequence is that a lot of people will have a very poor text as the only sample of your work. So, plainly speaking: translating faithfully such pieces of text comes very close to professional suicide.

The other horn would be to avoid this problem by simultaneously “correcting” the text while translating. You lose in literalness, but you gain in coherence and in textual quality and the result is something you wouldn’t be so ashamed of showing off. The problem is that this is also undesirable; because the gains in textual quality and coherence are losses in fidelity. And the commissioner of the translation (or client) could certainly object to that.

For me, this is an unresolved dilemma. I even faced it in my Public Translation exam: I had to translate some really poor Spanish source text into English. I managed to do so after suffering a lot. After the exam, when the examination board called me to notify my passing of the exam, I told the examiners about how lousy grammar the source texts had. And one examiner said to me: “That’s precisely our point. These kinds of texts are the ones you will most probably get in your professional practice.”

“Okay, ma’am, but tell me how should I translate: Should I be faithful or should I correct the texts?”

“That wouldn’t be a problem for you. You did fine.”

Someone please give me an explanation!

We had a rather cold day today, with temperatures of 15 C (58-60 F) on the air. This might not seem cold; but we also had rain, mists, and a polar southern wind blowing continuously. I went to church to the 8am service, and it was rather well, save for the fact that our worship director got carried away and she handed the service to our preacher 20 minutes later. The sermon was very good for our situation, and the preacher spoke effectively and graciously held our attention for a little more than 30 minutes.

After that, we went to our father’s place. Mom went on a trip to San Pedro (a remote town some 200 km NE of Asunción, where we live). There she went to visit some relatives with my sister Cristina and some my mom’s brothers. Dad was here, resting in his bedroom as usual. An hour later, my sister Elena and my two lovely nieces, Paula and Sofia, joined us for Sunday dinner. We had some delicious spaghetti with beef stew (pasta is almost a tradition as a Sunday dish; the only thing that could compete for that place is barbecued meat). After enjoying our meal, with some exquisite Argentine red wine, Dad produced some chocolates, to our nieces’ great delight. It was an enjoyable occasion.

I still have lots of things to do. I have a severely difficult translation in the queue, and my office work is becoming increasingly overwhelming. I still have the two writing projects that I mentioned earlier ongoing, and I also hope to continue some of my earlier series (On Porn, On the Interpretation of Ecclesiastes). Please pray for good time management, patience, and creativity. Have a nice Sunday!

This has been a challenging week. Things are not going as well as I would have wished in the financial front; but we are holding on. But the most difficult problem is a delicate situation that must be overcome by my local church. Our senior pastor unexpectedly passed away last week, and the outlook for our congregation is delicate because of circumstances I would not like to comment right now.

On other news, I finally managed to upgrade all my WordPress sites to version 2.2.2. The upgrade was simple, and the good WordPress folks reduced the steps in the upgrade process from five to three. So far, it’s good.

Please keep praying for my local church, my family, and this writer. That will be greatly appreciated.

Paraguayans think that if you make it past August, chances are good that you will survive for one more year. Old maids say that this month is especially hard on little children and senior folks; and in a sense, they are right: The National Directorate of Statistics, Surveys and Censuses (is the plural form correct?) states that August is the month with the highest mortality rate.

Reasons for that are not hard to discover. August is the last month of winter, and in that month one is pushing at the limits of his metabolic reserves and environmental stress endurance. To complicate matters further, August is not a typical “winter” month. While it could be cold and downright chilly, there is the dreaded August drought, where you can reach highs of 38 C (100 F). The heat is dry and oppressive; clothing feels as if the were freshly ironed, all day; and the sky is brazen with dust particles.

Therefore, it is understandable that Paraguayans have made a point to have some traditional meals on August 1st to help them “overcome” this difficult month. They go from practical to silly, and paint some of the typical Paraguayan character. Let’s see them:

1. “Carrulín”. The strongest tradition prescribes the preparation and drinking of a very peculiar beverage on the First Day of August. It is called carrulín from its ingredients: sugar cane liquor (caña), rue (ruda), and lemon (limón). The beverage is made by picking rue (in this country, this denotes several plants of the Rutaceae family, preferably of the Ruta genus) and lemons, and crush them up in caña, which is a distilled beverage made from pure sugar cane. Caña is a typical liquor from Paraguay and people who know swear that it’s way, way better than rum.

   Carrulín is said to provide protection from colds, influenza, and other respiratory diseases that are common in August. Besides drinking it on the First of August, Paraguayans also drink it when they are affected by any cold or flu in August. And the beverage might very well be effective: add the vitamin C of lemon with several active principles of rue and lemon extracted by using the liquor as a solvent, and you could have a very good medicinal value.

2. Agosto Poty. I’ve already talked about the favorite beverage of Paraguayans (myself included), tereré. Well, this particular tradition prescribes that you must put in your mate or tereré some crushed leaves, stems, and flowers of the plant known as Agosto Poty (”the flower of August”, here denoting several groundsels or ragworts of the Senecio genus).

   It is widely believed that this plant could help overcome the ills of August; but the facts differ. Ragworts are highly toxic because they contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids, probably as a way to discourage feeding by herbivores by providing a bitter taste. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are metabolized into several highly toxic pyrrol derivatives in the liver, thus causing serious liver toxicity (summarized info, very long info). Doctors know that it’s hard to swim against traditions, so they just recommend to go easy on the ragworts, and not to use them in days other than August 1st. Silly, isn’t it?

3. Jopará. This is a strong, heavy stew made with beans, hard kernel corn, meat, cottage cheese, and vegetables. As I said before, this is mostly eaten on the First Day of October, but it is also present on Paraguayan tables on the First of August. Whatever the tradition might be or not, this is incredibly delicious and definitely a help against the ills of the month.

If you ever stop by my place, I will be happy to offer you a non-alcoholic version of “Carrulín” (perhaps in a herbal tea version) any day. Ready to sip a little…?

Right now I am immersed in two small writing projects for OfB.biz:

1. A review of the Unicomp Model M keyboard: This is basically an expansion of this post, with more details concerning the acquisition process. The Unicomp keyboard is really outstanding, and I think the public deserves to know the existence of such a keyboard, along with some bumps in the purchasing road they might need to be aware of.
2. A review of Slackware 12.0: I just got Slackware 12 installed on phoenix, my home system. Phoenix was incredibly stable with Slack 11, but Slack 12 brought a host of minor troubles. I managed to fix almost all of them, learned a great deal on the process, and I would like to share my experience.

So, please pray that I might get to finish those articles. It’s not that I have writer’s block; the problem is my limited availability of quality time. I also plan to write with more news soon.

I would like to wish a happy Independence Day to all my American readers. Have a nice day! Pass some of the barbecue! Watch out that cracker!

I’m in for some serious fun of the best kind. I just learned that Patrick Volkerding released Slackware 12.0 yesterday. The changes from 11.0 are deep and significant; among the ones worth mentioning are the inclusion of a kernel 2.6.x by default, X11 version 7.2, and support for HAL. These updates prompt Patrick to make a statement saying something that is the whole point of my (yet to be concluded) OfB’s Stealth Desktop series:

Just plug and play. Properly set up, Slackware’s desktop should be suitable for any level of Linux experience.

I’m already downloading the ISOs with rsync… and I can’t wait to upgrade.

Ramkumar Shankar writes on his blog: “The day when Linux will take over the desktop (or at least have a significant footprint in the market) is still not upon us. That’s because there are a number of things the Linux community still doesn’t get, slowing down adoption of the OS in the home and home office.”

read more | digg story

I posted this story because even though it contained some tired-old overgeneralizations and misconceptions, it still raises some good points.

1. Over-generalizations: Mr. Shankar still echoes the old, tired FUD about “the Linux community”, trying to caracterize Free Software advocates as elitist, snobbish religious fanatics with a zealous hatred of Microsoft. It almost looks like it was talking about Mac fanboys! (yes, Tim, I know you use a Mac, but you definitely are not a fanboy).

   When I advocate Free Software, I try not to dismiss Microsoft; I try to present the case for software freedom. And believe me, with racketeers like the BSA breathing under your neck and whispering things like “software audit”, you usually tend to appreciate that.

2. Mis-conceptions: Some of the critiques were made under the assumption that for GNU/Linux to gain some footing in the desktop arena, installation should be done by clueless end users in the most user-friendly way possible. (Please note that I am using clueless in a respectful way here. I am not dismissing newbie or clueless users in any way.)

   This assumption is wrong. The only ones installing operating are nerds, script kiddies, consumers of illegal copies of proprietary operating systems… and computer manufacturers and systems integrators. I said it once, and I will say it again: It is completely unreasonable to expect an end user to install his or her own operating system.

   OS installation-related procedures (such as determining which particular version of the OS is suitable for a particular user) should be performed by a technically savy person—the resident nerd, the ‘whiz-kid’, the tech support representative… you get my drift. If you don’t believe me, try right now to install and configure Windows XP or Vista.

3. Good points: Despite all the shortcomings, Mr. Shankar still has some good points to make. GNU/Linux has very good hardware support, but it still must be better prepared to deal with all the hardware that is out there. Sadly, this is an issue with no easy solution unless the hardware makers get convinced about the value of having their drives ported to GNU/Linux. On the other hand, this is an issue that is mostly out of the community’s reach, and he was talking about community.

   Another good point Mr. Shankar makes is that we need to keep improving the user-friendliness of our system and applications. Here he’s got a point. And I am not thinking on the command-line. I am thinking on things like the awfully cluttered KDE Control center, the extremely rigid GNOME settings, the stupid package-management tricks, and the arcane settings of many apps. We surely can do better!

Therefore, reading is recommended with a little bit of salt… or two.