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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:54:12 -0500
From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>
To: Charles Cazabon <charlesc@discworld.dyndns.org>
Cc: Linux Kernel List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, Eli Carter <eli.carter@inet.com>,
        "Michael Lazarou (ETL)" <Michael.Lazarou@etl.ericsson.se>
Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)
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In-Reply-To: <20020114125508.A3358@twoflower.internal.do>; from charlesc@discworld.dyndns.org on Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 12:55:08PM -0600
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Charles Cazabon <charlesc@discworld.dyndns.org>:
> Yes, and yes.  Aunt Tillie is running Linux because someone installed a
> distribution for her.

You don't know that.  Maybe she installed it herself.
 
> She is never going to need anything out of her kernel that her vendor-shipped
> update kernels do not provide.

*You can't know that.*  

And your belief that you *can* know it is a key part of the elitist
developer psychology and implicit assumptions that keeps Linux mostly
inaccessible to the Aunt Tillies of the world.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of
the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that
only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured,
as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These
percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively
comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if
they used other means of resistance.
        -- G. Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research,"
		Law and Contemporary Problems 49, no. 1. (Winter 1986.): 35-62.
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