Advocacy sometimes reminds me of gardening, you sow the seeds, tend the garden and eventually the crop comes in. The past few weeks have been like harvest time, I've burned more Linux CDs for people in the last three weeks then I have in the past year. Of course success is a double edged sword at times, more friends and co-workers switching to Linux means doing more free tech support. This something I don't mid so much with Linux usually, hold the new users hand through initial install, show them how to add repositories, install software and do updates and walk away, no call next weekend cause they got a virus or spyware infestation, no blue screen of death, life is good. That said this latest rush to Linux is stretching even my vast patience, imagine working tech support in a call center for 9 hours a day and then, when your day in hell is finally over and you want to fall down somewhere and not think about anything going to a friend house for 3 or 4 more hours of tech support. I'm either going to have to find a better way to do this stuff or start charging more for my after work tech support then my usual fee of beer. That said, and all whining aside the recent uptake of linux is awesome, I'm watching the world change around me and in some small way I feel I helped make that happen, it's a good feeling.

Of course the open source community can't take all the credit for our recent successes, some of that credit has to go to our cmpetition for completely screwing the pooch, speculation on yet further delays of Microsofts nearly feature free Windows Vista and reviews like Computerworlds 20 things you won't like about Windows Vista certainly aren't helping them, it's always fun watching your enemies self destruct.

If you haven't yet heard about the FSFs fantastic new anti-DRM campaign defective by design head on over to defectivebydesign.org to sign up to help out with this heroic effort to liberate our culture from the cartels and monopolies. Following the hugely successful protest outside a Microsoft conference in Seattle their next planned action will be a June 10th protest of Applestores worldwide, stay tuned for more info.