Entries in Life

“I think that the Congress has more important things to discuss,” — Michael Schiavo on government involvement in end-of-life decisions for his wife. “A fork to satisfy an ideology seems… well, there are better things to do, no?” — Louis Suarez-Pottz, OpenOffice.org Community Manager on rms‘s move to fork OpenOffice.org (OOo) because of its dependence on Java. When other people put a high priority on things that we consider important, but surely not that significant, we’re left puzzling over their decisions. Doesn’t Stallman see what a great thing OOo is? Can’t congress see that taking my brain-damaged wife off life-support should be my private decision? Even though most people thought that congress should keep out, even though most people aren’t committed to Free Software (most people still run Microsoft Windows), activists are still successfully bringing their issues to the public by redirecting attention to their cause. Twenty years ago, rms was a lone wacko who lived in MIT office space. Today, he’s a wacko who travels the world talking to free software converts and managing the FSF. He’s made a career of championing “forked” code for ideology. Mr. Suarez-Pottz seems to have missed that. In the same way, Michael Schiavo has pretty obviously missed how much so many people value “life” above all else.

Simon Cozen’s quit working as a programmer to train as a missionary — and he hates going to church! This was one of the things that drove me into Orthodoxy — wanting something more out of every Sunday — but, you know, even the Orthodox church doesn’t make a heck of a lot of difference when, sometimes, you just don’t want to go. Or rather, I always feel compelled to go. But there are periods in my life where I don’t get anything out of it. (Granted, when I’m not “getting anything out of it,” I tend to be feeling extra-rebellious.) So, what keeps you going when you don’t feel like it?