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List:       kde-look
Subject:    RE: The Ctrl-A controversy
From:       "Santiago Burbano" <santib () mtservicios ! com>
Date:       1999-12-17 12:01:09
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>
> Imagine France would want to attract people from the USA
> to come to France (to enjoy holidays there or to make them
> stay there for a lifetime). To do this they create a mailinglist
> france-look@kde.org and discuss how to prepare france for the
> new visitors.

> [cute jesuitic story stripped]

There goes another little story (read nonsense)...

Once upon a time, there were two tribes of Homo Erectus living in Africa.
One called themselves 'Gurus' (meaning in their language
'UnixIsAlwaysTheRightWayRestIsBullshit'). The other 'BillGaters' (meaning
'IJustWantMyJobDoneDontMindHow'). They were neighbours, sharing the same
piece of savannah. They were peaceful and friendly, because there was enough
food for everybody: zebras, mammouths (in Africa???), ...

The most powerful man in each tribe was the Shaman, whose main task was to
keep a small piece of wood burning. Fire was the most precious thing for
them; it provided heat in the cold nights; they cooked the meat with it. But
they didn't know how to light it up. They got it long ago, when a lightning
had struck a big tree and set it on fire.

One day, a little boy found a foreigner in the middle of the savannah. He
was barely alive, after a lion had attacked him for approaching to much to
its family. The 'BillGaters' took him in charge, miraculously cured him and
save his life. In exchange, he tought them his most powerful magic: the
power to light a fire in 5 minutes with the only help of two little
woodsticks.

When the BillGaters' Shaman first saw this miracle, he felt on his knees,
praying to the animal spirits for this gift. After that, he run to the other
tribe to show them. It took him 20 minutes to get the fire up, but when he
finally got it, he looked up to see their faces. He was struck in deception
when they replied:
- So what?
- How that, so what? Don't you see that this way we don't have to worry
about the fire?
- Yes, may be... But, we don't like changing things just because they are
more convenient. Tradition is tradiction. And so it shall be...

Some centuries later, the glaciar era ended. Animals went north and the
permanent food supply those tribes had for years began to fail. The
'BillGaters' began to attract people wanting to learn this powerful magic.
The tribe grew and expanded, but, with so many hunters, it was easy to get
enough food for everybody. Many, many years later, they went to the stars,
the invented Linux, fought II World War, ...

The 'Gurus' stayed original, traditional, always different to everybody,
reluctant to change. Unable to adapt to changes, they eventually disappeared
except in the museums, where they are remembered as Neanderthals.

Two comments to this stupid little story:

1) Guess why I studied Computer Science instead of Archaeology ;-)

2) The problem with jesuitic arguments is that they can ALWAYS be 'returned
to sender' with another jesuitic argument, because they have no real
foundation, although they seem to. Here, in Spain, we call it 'building
castles in the air', meaning that bells-and-whistles do not turn a bad
reasoning into a good one, just make it look like a good one.

Turning back on topic, nobody wants to make a copycat of Windows. But, EVEN
Windows has some good things, and there is no shame in copying them, neither
it will make KDE less original, powerful, innovative,... Waving the flag of
tradition leads to extinction in the long run, and is as fundamentalistic as
Microsoft usually is.

Santiago

PD: I swear not to send long mails like this one anymore. Please, don't put
me in your kill list :)

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