Opinion: this publicity, Linux doesn’t need

[Anthony Yarusso]

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I'm sorry you got a bad impression of this effort from your initial
search engine sleuthing.  I just wanted to let you know that it's not
anywhere near as nefarious as your initial results (or your selections
from them) make it out to be.  Much of what you quoted from the
mailing list were things said in jest, which is understood in context
among the people who frequent the list, but is less apparent to an
outsider (perhaps we need <joke> tags since this is publicly
archived).  I wanted to clarify that the intent is NOT actually to
cause mayhem of any kind, nor destroy any Microsoft or other private
property, or even disrupt festivities - I think we can all agree these
would indeed be bad things, as you wrote.  The "official" plan if you
will is to educate people passing by or killing time waiting to get
into the Ice House about the dangers of Vista's licensing terms and
the advantages and availability of free open-source software
alternatives, in a completely respectful, legal manner (and I do fully
expect anyone who wanted to actually do the sorts of things you quoted
would be prevented from doing so).  It is unfortunate that you got a
bad impression of the effort from select excerpts of mailing list
posts (and also that you missed much of the related discussion on
IRC), but am confident that today's events will come off without any
problems - or at least none caused by the Ubuntu Toronto group, and
the discussion about legality and dealing with police was only in
order to be prepared if confronted about what's going on, which again,
should be kept entirely legal and orderly, and hope that you will
change your mind afterwards.

You can also read my blog post about it
(http://blog.tonyyarusso.com/planetubuntu/ubuntu-canadas-toronto-chapter-brings-the-penguin-to-the-ice-house/),
Dave Sullivan's post (http://dave-sullivan.com/entries/4/), and the
press release which was sent out
(http://www.tonyyarusso.com/files/ubuntu-to_press_release.txt)

Tony Yarusso
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