Is Jesux real? I suppose I could carry on for months or years and leave people guessing. But I won't, entirely.
Jesux started out as a joke (and it still is, to some degree or another), based on the silly hubbub started over the mythical "Chick Linux". That whole thing was started as a mental exercise for Linux Chicks. They were simply discussing, "if we had a Linux for girls, what would it be like?" Predictably, flamage and overreacting ensued.
So Jesux was born, as a mental exercise. There was no goal other than to explore the idea.
The most important thing to note here is that Jesux was not intended as a slam on anybody. I am a devout Christian myself. Things were included in the distribution that I imagined some people might want. And, I think, it was a productive exercise.
The first thing to note is that some people reacted far too violently to Jesux. Some of you did it because of the thing about sendmail. I personally would not exclude sendmail from a distribution because the author is a prominent homosexual, but so what if someone does? Sure, it is kinda silly, but that's life.
But worse than you homophobephobes were you anti-Christians. I got such silly responses as "what should we expect from someone who believes in the god myth?" It is your business if you believe it or not, of course. You are entitled to your opinion. But to belittle and attack those who believe differently than you is just lame. Don't be lame.
I am not sure why, but many people are scared by the fact that a distribution might be put out anonymously. I could say my name is George Jones, and that I live in Chapel Hill, NC, and that I have been a Unix SA for 6 years, focusing primarily on Solaris, HP/UX, and Linux, and no one would have a problem with it, even if it is false. I could simply call myself th3R1cK and few people would flinch, as long as I spent some time on the newsgroups. But what, you have no name? How dare you!
Of course trust is important, and knowing people who write your software is important. I just don't think it is as important as some people make it out to be. I've never met or seen most of the people whose software I use. Of course, those whom I do know receive greater levels of trust (or lower levels, in some cases). But I, and most people, seem not to have apprehension about using software by people they don't know. Just seems a bit funny to me.
The Christian Software Public License was an idea that just came to me, and I could not resist leaving it out. I don't know how novel the idea is, but I think it is a good one: force people who use your software in theirs or redistribute it to advertise whatever slogan you want. This is not different in any way to the BSD licenses, except for the text of the message. It is perfectly in line with all of the principles of the Open Source Definition. And if you don't like it, then maybe the OSD will need to change. Now that could be interesting.
But many of you think it goes against the OSD, or at least the spirit of the OSI. Well, you're wrong. The OSI has no collective spirit outside the OSD. Many of you think that the sendmail thing makes this non-Open Source because of the discrimination clause. That is simply wrong; the OSD has nothing to do with reasons for choosing which software to distribute.
Also, many people thought that the licensing of "new code" under the CSPL included modifications to existing code. So a bunch of cluebees out there thought we would change the license of the Linux kernel to CSPL. Um, no. That doesn't make any sense.
We have spent, as a community, countless hours of discussion and thought on these issues. I was surprised at the level of misunderstanding I saw. Oh well.
In any event, I see some potential fuel to add to the fire in the licensing debates. They rage on. I see no reason why a Jesux distribution should not use such a license, and in fact, I would recommend it.
I thought it ironic that some of the same people who said "abort isn't bad, it is just a word!," also followed it up with "Jesux is bad, because it connotes 'Jesus sux' for some people." I actually had no thought of "Jesus sux" when the name "Jesux" was first introduced to me. It is just "Jesus" with an "x", just like "Linux" is "Linus" with an "x". I suppose that if Linus' name were "Linsus" he might not have used the name "Linsux."
In any event, I realized the "sux" part might be inflammatory before I went live, but figured it would be interesting to see how people responded to it. In the end, it wasn't very interesting. It was mostly a distraction from the rest of the exercise.
I don't think it is interesting to anyone else what I think is useful or good, so I won't bother saying what I do and don't like about Jesux as stated on site. However, a lot of people, for one reason or another, professed a desire or need for a lot of the stuff. Of the stuff most requested, it would kinda just be (as some have said) a "micro-distribution," including stuff like the bookmarks, fortune files, etc.
Also, on a non-religious note, some people expressed a desire for the hierarchical user structure for other reasons. I think it is worth supporting.
I say, it doesn't hurt anyone, and there is an apparent need. So you people, go do it.
No one seems to want to exclude sendmail ... except for other reasons than the stated one. Few people want to change the names of system calls and utilities. No one seems to like the name.
I don't think there is any reason (apart from this text, perhaps) to assume Jesux is a hoax. Perhaps you've all not been around the Christian community as much as I. This could very well be real. Further, I caution you not to assume that just because I am not entirely serious, that Jesux is a hoax. You may think this text is a vindication of your belief all along that it was a hoax. I don't think it is. Some of you skeptics realized that even if it is a hoax, it has quite a bit of merit as a topic for discussion (certainly moreso than Yet Another Jon Katz article about ... anything).
Anyway, thanks to all for the ideas, notes, encouragement, and hate mail. Thanks to memepool for making me believe, for a moment, in memes. I will likely shut down the jesux@pobox.com address soon. If you are mad because you were fooled, tough. If you are mad because you really like Jesux, go make your own.
You might want to read my mail. I attempted to block out all the addresses and numbers of people who sent mail. Lots of people STILL are sending mail without reading this page. Hm.
Oh, and if I may, on a much more important matter: DO NOT send vcards in the mail. DO NOT send HTML-ized mail. DO NOT put a sig in your mail without putting a "\n-- \n" just above it. Be kind to the Internet.
<SADDAM>I love you!</SADDAM>
This page last updated Thursday, October 7, 1999, 14:42:42 PDT