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[humorix] Interview: Tux Penguin
Interview: Tux Penguin
October 5, 1999
Tux Penguin is a very elusive creature to contact. When
he's not attending Linux conventions or visiting relatives
in zoos, he's taking a vacation in sunny Antarctica.
Nevertheless, thanks to the diligent efforts of Humorix's
Vast Spy Network(tm) and (of course) a truckload of fresh
herring, we were able to convince Tux to spend a few hours
chatting with us at Humorix's new European Headquarters in
Helsinki.
HUMORIX: So, Tux, how have things been going?
TUX: [munching on fish] Yum, herring. I can't eat just
one... Things have been going very well for me. I've just
been informed that the .GIF image of me is present on more
webpages worldwide than the "Best Experienced With IE" and
"This Page Under Construction" icons combined. The
penguinization of the Net continues at a healthy pace, I
must say.
HUMORIX: Cool. Does this mean Linux is starting to achieve
World Domination?
TUX: Huh? It already has! The WORLD Organization (WORLD
Organizes Rapid Linux Domination) has already infiltrated
95% of the world's govern... oh, wait. You know, I
probably shouldn't talk about that. Go ask Jon Splatz
about it, he's a member.
Don't publish that last paragraph. My official answer to
your question is: Yes, it is.
HUMORIX: Um, yeah. What I'd really like to discuss is
Microsoft's latest FUD barrage[1] entitled "Linux Myths".
What is your response to this?
TUX: You act as if you're taking that article seriously! I
got quite a belly-laugh when reading it. Come to think of
it, in some ways, it was funnier than anything Humorix has
ever published.
HUMORIX: What?!?! I'm offended. No more herring for you!
TUX: Sorry. Just gimme my herring and I'll be good.
HUMORIX: Well, there's still some things worth debunking.
The article states, "Linux fundamentally relies on
30-year-old operating system technology and architecture."
What's your take?
TUX: So? Windows is based on technology that's a century
old... electricity, for example. I don't see anybody
running Windows on their abacus or pedal-powered adding
machine. (I hear there's a Linux port for slide-rules on
the way, though.)
Come to think of it... Windows is even more ancient than
that. The Windows Calculator fundamentally relies on
mathematical principles devised millenia ago. If Windows
really contained "New Technology", it should feature it's
own number system and laws of mathematics. Nobody in their
right mind should trust their mission-critical systems to a
system that uses archaic technology like Arabic numerals.
HUMORIX: What about the proposition that "Free Operating
System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership"?
TUX: Let me tell you a little story. My brother, Necktie
Penguin, wanted to buy a cheap PC so he could sell his "101
Herring Recipes" book on eBay. I was able to buy an old
486 at government auction, slap Penguinix (my own distro
optimized for penguins who have difficulty using a
keyboard) on it, configure Netscape and PPP, and turn it
over to my brother, who's had only minor problems with it
(he keeps wanting to reboot it, which sends fsck into a
fit).
The total cost? $75 for the computer, $0 for Linux, and a
few hours of my time.
If Necktie had insisted on a PC running Windows 98, I would
have had to buy an expensive Pentium-grade box, which would
come with a bunch of unnecessary crapware (Microsoft Office
For Flightless Birds 98(tm), for instance)
The total cost? $1,000 for the computer, $100 for Windows,
and several weeks of my time futzing with the system so it
doesn't crash every time Netscape loads.
Penguins will fly before a $1,100 "Total Cost of Ownership"
is better than $75.
HUMORIX: Well, that's enough fudraking for now. What kind
of projects are you working on now?
TUX: Well, I've just been hired by Transmeta. I haven't
been told much about my new job, other than the fact that
my climate-controlled office has a built-in snowmaker. Oh,
and I get a "herring account". My new email is
tux@transmeta.com; however, it's not operational yet, if
you send a message you'll get a response saying "This email
account is not here yet."
HUMORIX: Anything else?
TUX: [munching on a piece of raw fish again] I've filed the
paperwork to have my own Nasdaq IPO under the name Penguin
PORTAL Power, Inc. I maintain a Linux portal for penguins,
along with the Penguinix distro I mentioned, so I should do
quite well. If Red Hat can be worth billions, so can I. I
_am_ the official mascot of Linux, dammit!
HUMORIX: Well, now that you mention that, how did you
become the official mascot?
TUX: Well, as we all known, Larry Ewing[2] originally
wanted to the mascot to be a fire-breathing dragon,
representing the flame wars that Linux zealots ignite on
Usenet. As this was too similar to Mozilla, he eventually
decided on a penguin. As flightless birds, we penguins
(unlike airplanes and Windows 98) never have the
opportunity to crash.
I heard through the grapevine that Larry was searching for
a penguin model, so I faxed him my picture, and the rest is
history.
HUMORIX: One last question... what do you think are the
toughest challenges facing the Linux community?
TUX: I'm not worried about Y2K, but I am concerned about
the S2K problem... you know, the Slashdot Effect with 2000
hits per second. Just look what happened in the US
Congress... some aide sends a spam message[3], and now a
bunch of Congressmen want to ban spam. What will happen if
the S2K disaster strikes Congress after Taco Boy posts an
article about the latest anti-geek bill to pass? I know:
they'll want to ban Linux portal websites!
HUMORIX: Any other obstacles?
TUX: I worry about all of the wasted time porting programs
to different languages. For instance, a group of hackers
announced recently that they were going to port Perl to
C++. This was quickly followed by an announcement that C++
would be ported to Perl. (I've heard that Larry Wall wants
to port Perl to Perl.)
It gets worse. A group of backwards, rogue hackers want to
port Microsoft QuickBASIC to Linux so they can rewrite the
Linux kernel in BASIC! And then there's a crazy project to
rewrite Emacs as a bash shell script, using only standard
Unix command line utilities.
All of this is bad. Instead of hacking on useful projects
(like games) the Linux community is stuck rewriting
software to satisfy language holy wars.
HUMORIX: Well, that pretty much wraps things up. Any
parting words?
TUX: Linux rules!
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/news/msnw/LinuxMyths.asp
[2] http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/
[3] http://slashdot.org/articles/99/10/04/2330200.shtml
---
James S. Baughn
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/
-
Humorix: Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive: http://humbolt.nl.linux.org/lists/
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