Great article over at onlamp.com that talks about events at the Ottawa Linux Symposium.

“He [Doug Fisher] wrapped up his presentation to the usual polite applause and closed his slide show to reveal the message “Windows XP has locked your desktop,” resulting in the single loudest and most sustained booing by nearly everyone present I have ever heard, followed by a member of the audience rushing to the front brandishing a Linux installation CD to widespread applause.”

I was present for this incident, and vouch that the noise and emotion released was extraordinary. Wow! I felt like I was in the middle of a scene from some Hollywood epic where the soldiers raise their spears and roar their defiance to the enemy.

Graham makes a subtle but valuable comment on the incident while describing the next speaker:

“His laptop, in contrast to Fisher’s, ran Linux, but perhaps demonstrated why Fisher’s didn’t. After a lengthy battle with X to have an appropriate resolution for the overhead projector, he launched his presentation entitled “How to talk to business people about the value of open source,” which sparked the comment of an audience member sitting near me: “not like this.”"

So why was this audience of 800 hard-core Linux developers and adopters so intolerant of a speaker who uses a Window platform? What is the deep well from which such emotion comes?

They have legitimate anger, of course, at Microsoft’s illegal anticompetitive behavior, which has been well established in several courts, and the company’s continuing hounding of Linux by pressuring governments, funding SCO, and spreading biased reports. The attendees also have the same kind of familiar team spirit that breaks out (sometimes quite violently) when different sports fans come together.

But that does not add up, in my view, to the display of anger I saw that evening. Another ingredient needs to be added: insecurity.

Deep breath, relax. These are just OS. That’s all. Fandom is fine, fanatasism is crossing that line.

Open source insecurity

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