Hey all! Some of you might not know me. I’m one of the old timers here. My name is Wertigon, and until about a year back, I was the local Linux Guru, then real life took over and I sorta dissapeared from here. I’ve now decided that it’s time for me to officially leave y’all, but before I do that there are a few things to say… If you didn’t know me back then, don’t read any further. This does not concern you.
First off, I want to apologise overdoing it on the Linux front. Despite what anyone says, I’m not a fanatic, and I do not consider myself one. There was a time when I was blinded by the sheer brilliance of the Open Source philosophy; that is no longer the case. I’m just a regular geek that happens to enjoy talking about my interests. A lot. It was fine when my interest was RPGs/Video games in general, but once it went to something most people doesn’t have a clue about, nor care about, well…
You see, I have a sociological handicap, known as Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s pretty much a milder form of high-functional autism, and like autism the symptoms include but are not limited to things such as daily routines and a lack of understanding emotions. It’s not that I cannot feel empathy, I can, so I’m not a Psychopath. But for me, it’s hard to know when someone is being ironic, or sarcastic. Real world talk flows through me like text and internet chat; I often have trouble detecting subtile hints, and if someone tells a sublime joke, I have to go the detour of thinking “When someone says this, it means it’s funny, laugh!” rather than getting the joke instantly. I also do not instinctively know if the person I’m speaking to is serious or only joking, and I have a tendency to take quite a few things literally.
I’m not telling you all this so that you’ll feel sorry for me; I’ve known about my handicap since I was twelve. It’ll never go away, so the only thing I can do is to deal with it. Which I have. Ever since I first found out I had Aspberger’s Syndrome, I’ve been trying to master it. And, I’ve actually managed to do that quite well. There’re still situations I’ll feel uncomfortable in; most notably, big groups and crowds tend to make me feel uncomfortable. But on the whole, it’s mostly under control now.
So, why am I telling you all this? Mostly, because I feel you have a right to know. It’s not as if I’ve deceived you; it’s just that, well, noone asked, and more importantly I do not wish to be treated differently from the rest of everyone. My syndrome is a part of me; it’s one of the things that defines me as an individual. I’m proud of it, actually, since it often makes me think of things noone else would’ve. I want to be judged on my merits and my merits alone, not the merits of some invisible handicap. I can go out in the world, today, and say I have Aspberger’s Syndrome, and never having to work a single day in my life, ever again; but I want to work. I want to be useful. I don’t want to be locked up in a zoo, just because I was born with a genetic defect. AS is a part of me, and I look at it as an asset rather than a handicap.
Another thing typical for persons with Asperger’s Syndrome (and Autism in general) is that they almost always have a special interest in something. An interest that borderlines the obsessive. The fields varies, it can be everything from stamps to movies to computers to music to trains to horses to insects. If you ask them anything on their field of interest, like “This game here, is it any good?” or “Hey, what year is this train from?” you can almost count on getting a loooooooong lecture about it, because often they can not only tell you when that train was built, they could tell you how many journeys the engine itself has made, how many horsepowers it has, it’s designer, it’s constructor, where it was made and a thousand other tidbits. Once you get a person with AS started on something, it’s hard for him/her to stop.
My interest was video- and computer games, ever since my family first bought a NES. I’m saying “was”, because that is no longer the case. Now, I have an interest in Computers in general and Open Source in particular. Oh, sure, I can still enjoy the casual game and stuff. But, It’s not the center of my life, like it used to be. It happened gradually, but I went more and more into the fields of computer science rather than computer entertainment, and now I just cannot turn back.
Now, when I two years ago started to get the hang of Linux, I found it to be a refreshing experience. I’d heard many great things about Linux, and for the most part it was true; what they didn’t tell me was how much more you have to know to actually use and administrate Linux, as compared to Windows. This was the case then; in some ways, it’s still true, but the situation is no longer as extreme as it used to. Thanks to distros such as Ubuntu and Linspire, you can now run Linux without being a College Major in Computer Science.
Either way, when I struggled to learn Linux and earn my keep, a change slowly crept upon me. I started to actually play with my OS, as opposed to play with games. And I found that I started to like it. Linux is a very much play-friendly OS. It doesn’t care if you might break it. It actually shoots you in the foot if you ask it to. I dunno how many times I’ve managed to delete an important file, or break my graphical GUI in trying to tweak it to perfection, or lock myself out of my own machine. And yet, I felt that this system was right for me. As I sank deeper into the swamp, I started to reccommend it to others. That’s when the trouble started…
You see, Linux and the Open Source/Free Software movements are more than just geek-heads with long beards sitting around a LAN-party coding away at whatever is interesting at the moment. They offer an ideology, a way of life. They have their own agendas, and I found myself mostly agreeing with both the ideology, and the agendas. These are not the same as communism; in fact, Free Software is very much based on Capitalistic ideals. Free as in freedom, not as in beer. Free software is not neccessarily gratis, nor is there a single kind of free software. There are many kinds of free software, and if you don’t like one product, there are ten more that you might like better.
So, I published six threads in a very short time on different parts in the same general area - Open Source. After the fifth, people were beginning to accuse me of spamming. I got pissed, and replied saying something along the lines of “It’s NOT spamming, look, code practices got nothing to do with economics!” (it was, of course, a much longer and much more flammable reply than that simple sentence), other people got pissed off at me, and voila the flame fest was imminent.
At that same time, I had also started to delve deeper into XHTML, and what the new HTML standards looked like. I suggested that we use it for RPGClassics, but I did a poor job of convincing anyone. It was bad timing at my part, as well - The flame fest had just died down with a few smoldering remains here and there, and needless to say I was one of the most impopular guys around at the moment. However, people remained unconvinced, I asked why, they said “Too much work”, I asked why it was too much work, but I never got a straight answer. Meanwhile people teased me and goaded me in chat and on boards, so I was a bit edgy, and well, my tone got angrier and angrier and all of a sudden there was another flamefest, although this time it was on the staff boards.
So, things eventually settled down, although my until that point spot-free reputation had been severely damaged. I was now labeled a communist, a free-software loving fanatic that shun nothing as long as it furthers his goals. Can’t say I blame 'em - at that time, I thought Linux was the best thing since sliced bread and Microsoft was gonna die and that everyone should use Linux and stuff - but since then, I’ve re-thought my positions on the whole thing. And I find that I’ve behaved pretty much like any jackass would’ve done. So, for that, too, I apologise.
Looking forward, today, I realise where I have erred. I know I’ve been a bitter old gerbil. But thanks to my IRL friends I’ve started to slowly get back to what resembles a life. Don’t get me wrong; I still think Linux is the best thing since sliced bread, and I still believe Microsoft is eventually going down. It’s just a matter of time. However, I now realise Linux is not the end-all-be-all in computer OS:es. But, neither is Windows. That’s why I believe that people should get their facts straight, try both sides of the fence (Windows or Linux) and settle for whatever feels more comfortable. I believe in the freedom of choice, and that is all there is to it.
Also, I no longer hate Microsoft. In fact, I respect them. I respect them as a competitor, as a company, and I respect their views. Yet I also despise the tactics they use. Ballmer has made Microsoft to a much nicer company overall, but they still use dirty tricks at every turn in order to squish the competition. Trouble is, they can’t squish the Open Source movement; for every development house they’ll shut down, two new will pop up. And rather than competing in a fair way, to actually make their OS a secure, stable one and compete on merits rather than monopoly, they rely on dirty tactics, tactics that won’t work against the Open Source movement. The Windows hegemony is coming to an end; Microsoft just hasn’t realised it yet. And that is a Good Thing™, since it in the end will benefit the end users with better, more reliable apps, open as well as closed source.
So, why am I telling you all this? Well, I know forgiveness is too much to hope for; but still, I just wanted to tell you all that I’m sorry. I acted like a total jerk, and the harsh replies I got back, while well-deserved, wasn’t helping anything. I also wanted to tell you my side of it all; I know the past cannot be undone, and I should’ve known better than to act like I did. So, uh, yeah… Sorry.
And please, don’t try and stop me; it’d only be a waste of perfectly good keypresses. I’ve been planning on going away forever. I have a new life now, away from all this, but there have been a few final things left to do, like finishing up my Shrine. Now that I finally have, there’s nothing that holds me here anymore. So…
Goodbye.
- Wertigon
