All in the Linux Family
If you've read Iain Ferguson's latest op-ed at ZDNet, you'd get the impression that Linux enthusiasts have turned into Archie Bunker. For those readers who have just drawn a blank with that name, Archie Bunker was the main character of a TV series that ran on the CBS network in the US in the early 70's.
The show, a situation comedy called All In the Family, featured some pretty brutal social commentary and was quite controversial for its day. The episodes normally revolved around Archie and his reactions to the impact of current events on his Queens, New York neighborhood. Poor Archie, a real conservative, couldn't cope with the fast pace of change in those days and his reactions to, for example, an African-American family moving into the house next door, provided for some excellent comedic moments. The scenes where he debated politics with his left-wing, hippie son-in-law Michael "Meathead" Stivic, are now classics. Most of these debates had Michael, a liberal, progressive type, explaining to Archie such concepts as why black Americans were just as normal as anyone else and their living next to him presented no problems. The show also dealt with subjects such as Archie's failure to understand why it was perfectly acceptable for his wife Edith to seek employment outside the home. In those days of rapid social change, there were a lot of subjects to exploit for comedic purposes. Archie's reactions to things that he couldn't come to grips with provided us with some side splitting moments. Not all of the reactions were laughs, however. CBS received a multitude of complaints about the Archie character. Archie, of course, was not a proponent of civil rights, equal rights or any kind of rights that weren't the ones established for White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants like himself. Archie Bunker was always referred to as a 'bigot'. This is the same term that Iain Ferguson has used to to refer to Linux enthusiasts.
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