4 ms·

I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion for this, but as a teenager who remembers when this happened, this always struck me as the absolute dumbest idea and th

I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion for this, but as a teenager who remembers when this happened, this always struck me as the absolute dumbest idea and the most useless of performative actions. First, it was sponsored by a VC-backed company (that had hired a documentary crew to capture their success, the ill-fated VA Linux Systems (which eventually became known as Geeknet) and the pretty poor propaganda documentary “Revolution OS” that managed to just sort of forget the whole dot com collapse thing)), so although I know the LUGs were part of it, this was a marketing event by a company looking to boost their IPO. I didn’t know any of that at the time, but looking back, it’s so clear this was just yet another VA Linux publicity event. Second, to anyone who wasn’t part of the group “protesting” — that is, outsiders — all you see is a bunch of weirdos dressed up with picket signs outside a sales office (they didn’t even go to Redmond) to demand action, only to be greeted what seem to be very polite corporate people with a sign and lemonade. Third, it fundamentally changed nothing. It took the DoJ agreements to lessen the hold Microsoft had one some OEMs, but it really took the proliferation of Chromebooks (which was predicated by the short-lived netbook era) for manufacturers to get cheaper deals on Windows licenses and to offer more customizations of OS choice at purchase. That still had zero impact on Linux on the desktop adoption rates. And sure, most bigger OEMs if you buy direct will let you customize a machine with no OS and sometimes with Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu XPS 13 isn’t much cheaper than the Windows variant (max $50), you just get more of an assurance that there is some sort of driver support for your system (although usually not for stuff like fingerprint readers). So like, all I remember is that 21 years ago, some angry nerds showed up to an office park parking lot, got some free lemonade, were told politely to leave, and then went home with their cardboard signs screaming victory. When they didn’t get a refund. Didn’t change OEM terms, and had zero impact on OS adoption. OS adoption changed over the years but it wasn’t because of anything any of the people in that movement did, it was because of Apple and Google.

zeruch 6y ago
You won't get downvoted, but you make a few factually questionable statements (disclosure: I worked at VA from 1998 to 2002): 1. VA didn't sponsor the event, but a chunk of the staff of the company's Sunnyvale HQ attended (and most of us were in the LUGs). VA didn't have any need at that stage to boost the IPO, as the fever was already brewing for companies like VA and Red Hat (both IPO'd that year, RH in August and VA in December). 2. VA didn't hire a camera crew either, but a friend of one of the executive staff (Jon Hall) wanted to do a story about Open Source, so Jon brought him in for a few days to do interviews and film around the office (do I think the exec staff saw the PR upside? Sure. If they hadn't they would have been foolish. But they weren't the primary driver). And IIRC, Rev OS forgot the dot com collapse because it was edited and released right before the collapse began. 3. Do I think the event was performative nonsense? Sure. I thought it was then too, much as I thought RMS was ludicrous and various other "open source luminaries" were a tad too close to 'hubris based lifeform' but the event, in the grand scheme of things, was an amusing, if ultimately pointless exercise. Not all things need to induce a sea change or have a deeper point than getting like minded folks to make a statement for its own sake.
- filmgirlcw 6y ago
  I appreciate the corrections, though I’m not sure I agree with all of them. For the first point, I appreciate your correction. Still, the official writeup mentions that VA paid to make the shirts. And as you say, a huge number of employees were part of it. I still contend that the publicity of the event was beneficial for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have had employees there and they wouldn’t have had the community in shirts they made. Red Hat didn’t IPO until August, so I’ll still say having activities like this get press attention (be it for Linux in general or VA specifically) was good for the VA Roadshow. For number two, I’ve been told by numerous former VA people that Larry paid for the documentary to be made (at least until the collapse happened) and then the filmmaker basically ran out of money, which is why the fall of the stock was literally an on-screen card at the tail-end of the film. The film came out in 2001, though I’m sure he finished filming after the IPO, For the third, I agree with you. You’re right, it doesn’t have to induce a sea change. And for its time, I can see how some would find it amusing (at 15, I very much rolled my eyes, but I can understand how people who were there would have had fun). My only point was to push back on what I perhaps wrongly expected the narrative on HN to be, which is reflexive hagiography that doesn’t bear much resemblance to reality then or now.
  - zeruch 6y ago
    Yep, VA paid for the shirts from the Community groups petty cash fund, much as we paid for events at LUGs and other non-corporate events (my first two years at VA we gave out endless amounts of swag, distro CDs, various and sundry, but the team was almost totally an island unto itself. I just have a view that the events were too community-level to have had much of anything to do with the roadshow (and certainly from a professionalism standpoint would have been a distraction), and MS was already doing FOSS (as well as other *nix vendors, primarily SUN) a bunch of favors with its antics. I was given the "official" spiel from Hall and it was otherwise not discussed much at VA (other than deciding very shortly afterwards that we all looked largely ridiculous, a position I still agree with - thankfully I'm in it for all of 1.5 seconds), and what I recall was that it was finished shortly after IPO and then sat for a while (because of lack of funds) waiting for final edits. At that stage you can't exactly go back to re-film much if you're already scrambling for cash. "My only point was to push back on what I perhaps wrongly expected the narrative on HN to be, which is reflexive hagiography that doesn’t bear much resemblance to reality then or now." My feelings on pretty much all coverage of SV in general. But I am very biased, in that I love what I do in tech at the micro level but am ambivalent as to what the industry itself has morphed into. The beginning VA days were full of pre-HN/TechCrunch/Reddit sincere sense of wonder and opportunity to do something for the time radically different; in many ways VA succeeded given where the alumni landed (various key spots at Google, 23andMe, AWS, Samsung, Apple, AMD etc) and I still consider that period to be some of the most exciting of my career, if only for the sheer seat-of-pants ride it was. I learned a lot and made numerous lifelong friends (and maybe a few lifelong enemies), but it was a helluva ride (cheesy events held in Fry's parking lots notwithstanding).
vntok 6y ago
Fully agree with everything you wrote. > Second, to anyone who wasn’t part of the group “protesting” — that is, outsiders — all you see is a bunch of weirdos dressed up with picket signs outside a sales office (they didn’t even go to Redmond) to demand action, only to be greeted what seem to be very polite corporate people with a sign and lemonade. The photos shown on that page are very similar to that of the Magician guild on the Arrested Development show (https://i.imgur.com/eipugIu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eipugIu.jpg). It's uncanny, actually.
ncmncm 6y ago
I was there. It was a lark. It certainly wasn't "sponsored". The dot com collapse was still to come. Nobody had any expectation of it changing anything, or getting refunds. At the time there was no possibility of getting an XPS13 with no OS, never mind with Linux supported. It got some attention for Linux, which practically nobody had ever heard of before they saw the picket signs. Linux didn't own server farms. There weren't server farms, unless you count racks of Sun pizza-boxes owned by whoever had software on running on them. I guess you had to be there.
scruffyherder 6y ago
I had friends do the mail in but, I didn’t care as I used windows under OS/2.. I tried really hard to go full Linux before but compiling all the dependencies of everything got so old quick. Sadly nothing has changed there.
- trynton 6y ago
  @scruffyherder: "I had friends do the mail in but, I didn’t care as I used windows under OS/2.. I tried really hard to go full Linux before but compiling all the dependencies of everything got so old quick. Sadly nothing has changed there." :] you're a really funny guy :]
anthony_r 6y ago
VA Linux is one of those prime examples of stock market mania. Close behind in terms of scale and similar in terms of philosophy/narrative (of the good small man sticking it to the evil big machine) to what we saw recently with GameStop. It is even a featured example in recent editions of The Intelligent Investor. The more things change the more they stay the same.
- asveikau 6y ago
  As an outsider, it definitely wasn't obvious at the time. Red Hat is still around. If you look at their wikipedia article and see the photo of the rack mount servers they sold[1], that doesn't seem that ludicrous even today. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#/media/File%3AServer_Linux.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#/media/File%3AServer...
  - anthony_r 6y ago
    The "mania" is in the public perception & pricing of securities. Many "mania" companies were legitimate, or at least had legitimate parts in it (look at the example of GameStop, there's nothing wrong with the company, but it was hilariously overpriced).
    - asveikau 6y ago
      Ironically the successor entities to VA Linux eventually became part of Gamestop.
dominicjj 6y ago
The event itself was whimsical, fun and shone a large spotlight on the hypocrisy of your former employer. The license agreement was clear: if you did not agree to the terms of the Windows license, you could return the software for a full refund. This was at a time where Microsoft reigned supreme in the business world and enforced the terms of its license strictly. In my country, it caused the local office a lot of embarrassment when they were forced to admit that they had no way of coping with the entirely reasonable request of someone who didn't want to pay the Windows tax.

zeruch 6y ago

You won't get downvoted, but you make a few factually questionable statements (disclosure: I worked at VA from 1998 to 2002): 1. VA didn't sponsor the event, but a chunk of the staff of the company's Sunnyvale HQ attended (and most of us were in the LUGs). VA didn't have any need at that stage to boost the IPO, as the fever was already brewing for companies like VA and Red Hat (both IPO'd that year, RH in August and VA in December). 2. VA didn't hire a camera crew either, but a friend of one of the executive staff (Jon Hall) wanted to do a story about Open Source, so Jon brought him in for a few days to do interviews and film around the office (do I think the exec staff saw the PR upside? Sure. If they hadn't they would have been foolish. But they weren't the primary driver). And IIRC, Rev OS forgot the dot com collapse because it was edited and released right before the collapse began. 3. Do I think the event was performative nonsense? Sure. I thought it was then too, much as I thought RMS was ludicrous and various other "open source luminaries" were a tad too close to 'hubris based lifeform' but the event, in the grand scheme of things, was an amusing, if ultimately pointless exercise. Not all things need to induce a sea change or have a deeper point than getting like minded folks to make a statement for its own sake.

filmgirlcw 6y ago
I appreciate the corrections, though I’m not sure I agree with all of them. For the first point, I appreciate your correction. Still, the official writeup mentions that VA paid to make the shirts. And as you say, a huge number of employees were part of it. I still contend that the publicity of the event was beneficial for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have had employees there and they wouldn’t have had the community in shirts they made. Red Hat didn’t IPO until August, so I’ll still say having activities like this get press attention (be it for Linux in general or VA specifically) was good for the VA Roadshow. For number two, I’ve been told by numerous former VA people that Larry paid for the documentary to be made (at least until the collapse happened) and then the filmmaker basically ran out of money, which is why the fall of the stock was literally an on-screen card at the tail-end of the film. The film came out in 2001, though I’m sure he finished filming after the IPO, For the third, I agree with you. You’re right, it doesn’t have to induce a sea change. And for its time, I can see how some would find it amusing (at 15, I very much rolled my eyes, but I can understand how people who were there would have had fun). My only point was to push back on what I perhaps wrongly expected the narrative on HN to be, which is reflexive hagiography that doesn’t bear much resemblance to reality then or now.
- zeruch 6y ago
  Yep, VA paid for the shirts from the Community groups petty cash fund, much as we paid for events at LUGs and other non-corporate events (my first two years at VA we gave out endless amounts of swag, distro CDs, various and sundry, but the team was almost totally an island unto itself. I just have a view that the events were too community-level to have had much of anything to do with the roadshow (and certainly from a professionalism standpoint would have been a distraction), and MS was already doing FOSS (as well as other *nix vendors, primarily SUN) a bunch of favors with its antics. I was given the "official" spiel from Hall and it was otherwise not discussed much at VA (other than deciding very shortly afterwards that we all looked largely ridiculous, a position I still agree with - thankfully I'm in it for all of 1.5 seconds), and what I recall was that it was finished shortly after IPO and then sat for a while (because of lack of funds) waiting for final edits. At that stage you can't exactly go back to re-film much if you're already scrambling for cash. "My only point was to push back on what I perhaps wrongly expected the narrative on HN to be, which is reflexive hagiography that doesn’t bear much resemblance to reality then or now." My feelings on pretty much all coverage of SV in general. But I am very biased, in that I love what I do in tech at the micro level but am ambivalent as to what the industry itself has morphed into. The beginning VA days were full of pre-HN/TechCrunch/Reddit sincere sense of wonder and opportunity to do something for the time radically different; in many ways VA succeeded given where the alumni landed (various key spots at Google, 23andMe, AWS, Samsung, Apple, AMD etc) and I still consider that period to be some of the most exciting of my career, if only for the sheer seat-of-pants ride it was. I learned a lot and made numerous lifelong friends (and maybe a few lifelong enemies), but it was a helluva ride (cheesy events held in Fry's parking lots notwithstanding).

vntok 6y ago

Fully agree with everything you wrote. > Second, to anyone who wasn’t part of the group “protesting” — that is, outsiders — all you see is a bunch of weirdos dressed up with picket signs outside a sales office (they didn’t even go to Redmond) to demand action, only to be greeted what seem to be very polite corporate people with a sign and lemonade. The photos shown on that page are very similar to that of the Magician guild on the Arrested Development show (https://i.imgur.com/eipugIu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eipugIu.jpg). It's uncanny, actually.

ncmncm 6y ago

I was there. It was a lark. It certainly wasn't "sponsored". The dot com collapse was still to come. Nobody had any expectation of it changing anything, or getting refunds. At the time there was no possibility of getting an XPS13 with no OS, never mind with Linux supported. It got some attention for Linux, which practically nobody had ever heard of before they saw the picket signs. Linux didn't own server farms. There weren't server farms, unless you count racks of Sun pizza-boxes owned by whoever had software on running on them. I guess you had to be there.

scruffyherder 6y ago

I had friends do the mail in but, I didn’t care as I used windows under OS/2.. I tried really hard to go full Linux before but compiling all the dependencies of everything got so old quick. Sadly nothing has changed there.

trynton 6y ago
@scruffyherder: "I had friends do the mail in but, I didn’t care as I used windows under OS/2.. I tried really hard to go full Linux before but compiling all the dependencies of everything got so old quick. Sadly nothing has changed there." :] you're a really funny guy :]

anthony_r 6y ago

VA Linux is one of those prime examples of stock market mania. Close behind in terms of scale and similar in terms of philosophy/narrative (of the good small man sticking it to the evil big machine) to what we saw recently with GameStop. It is even a featured example in recent editions of The Intelligent Investor. The more things change the more they stay the same.

asveikau 6y ago
As an outsider, it definitely wasn't obvious at the time. Red Hat is still around. If you look at their wikipedia article and see the photo of the rack mount servers they sold[1], that doesn't seem that ludicrous even today. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#/media/File%3AServer_Linux.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#/media/File%3AServer...
- anthony_r 6y ago
  The "mania" is in the public perception & pricing of securities. Many "mania" companies were legitimate, or at least had legitimate parts in it (look at the example of GameStop, there's nothing wrong with the company, but it was hilariously overpriced).
  - asveikau 6y ago
    Ironically the successor entities to VA Linux eventually became part of Gamestop.

dominicjj 6y ago

The event itself was whimsical, fun and shone a large spotlight on the hypocrisy of your former employer. The license agreement was clear: if you did not agree to the terms of the Windows license, you could return the software for a full refund. This was at a time where Microsoft reigned supreme in the business world and enforced the terms of its license strictly. In my country, it caused the local office a lot of embarrassment when they were forced to admit that they had no way of coping with the entirely reasonable request of someone who didn't want to pay the Windows tax.