Linux Online interview Deb Richardson, founder of the Linux user group, LinuxChix, a world-wide Linux user group for women (and for men too!)

Linux Online: Could you give us a definition of a "LinuxChick"?

Deb Richardson: Well, to get this out of the way up-front, anyone can be a LinuxChick regardless of gender, sexual preferences, etc. Obviously the baseline definition is, then "anyone who has an interest in Linux and the issues/philosophies/technologies involved."

Linux Online: You mention in the group's FAQ that one of the reasons why you founded LinuxChix was because you were tired of seeing new Linux users being laughed at for asking supposedly "stupid" questions. Now that Linux is becoming incredibly popular, do you still see that occurring?

Deb Richardson: To be honest, I don't spend a lot of time reading Linux-related discussions that aren't part of the Linuxchix project. I hope that the situation has improved as more and more new people are trying Linux, but I really don't know for certain. I suspect that the main discussion forums where I initially saw the situation haven't changed much, but I'd like to think that the established Linux community is becoming more accepting of new users and the questions many of them inevitably ask.

Linux Online: LinuxChix is a world-wide organization. In how many countries are there chapters at present?

Deb Richardson: I've actually lost track since I've been far too busy to maintain the website with any sort of regularity. By my estimation, however, there are 30-odd chapters world-wide, in 10 or so countries. I could be under- or over-estimating this, however, and will know better when I finally complete and deploy the new site that I'm working on.

Linux Online: Would you like to see a LinuxChix chapter in every country? Is that a goal of the group?

Deb Richardson: Originally I didn't intend for there to be any local chapters -- this is something that the Linuxchix membership took upon themselves to start.

Would I like to see a Linuxchix chapter in every country? Sure, that'd be fantastic, but it's also highly unlikely considering that technology is pretty unevenly distributed around the world. Perhaps when we have finally established world peace and are successfully feeding/housing/clothing all the people in the world...maybe then we can start working on bringing everyone up to the same technological level. I think there are a few other things much higher on the global TODO list, however.

All that said, it should be clear that having a Linuxchix chapter in every country is not an explicit goal of the group. Maybe someday, but not today.

Linux Online: In the LinuxChix FAQ one gets the idea that you want the chapters to be a little careful with corporate sponsorship? What's the basic reason behind that?

Deb Richardson: I certainly don't mind if the various chapters manage to secure corporate sponsorship, I just want to make sure that I know who is getting sponsored by what. The reason for this is that I don't want any corporation to use the Linuxchix name in corporate advertising, PR efforts, etc. without me knowing about it. I'm interested in ensuring that Linuxchix is only associated with corporations that are actively furthering the cause of Linux and Open Source.

Mostly I want to keep Linuxchix as a project that is by the community, for the community, and that has no ties to any particular corporation, whether those ties are explicit or implicit. I will never "sell" Linuxchix. I will never form a partnership between Linuxchix and any particular corporation. I will never sell advertising on Linuxchix.

Linuxchix is a ".org" and shall remain such in fact as well as in name.

Linux Online: Now that we're on the subject of corporate sponsorship, do you think that as more brick and mortar companies adopt Linux, the original idea of Linux and Open Source might get lost in the shuffle?

Deb Richardson: It depends on how you define "the original idea". I think it's fantastic that more companies are adopting Linux, because it's undeniable proof that Linux and Open Source _work_ in some pretty fundamental ways. For me, Linux/Open Source is all about freedom (speech), and so long as the code is licensed so that it is truly Open Source, then that freedom is ensured.

If you're talking about "the original idea" in terms of the small, close-knit global community of hackers who work on Open Source stuff for free...well, I think that will change. There will always be a small community of free (speech & beer) hackers, but there will eventually be a much larger group of paid hackers who work on Open Source stuff as part of their full-time jobs. That will change the basic dynamics of the so-called "Open Source community" as it expands to include these paid hackers. The free-for-free gang who do all of this for fun will end up being a sub-culture of that larger culture.

So, change is inevitable, but I don't think that the core ideals can get lost in the shuffle. The ideals were created and are maintained by individuals, not corporations, and I think there will always be a group of individuals who continue to work towards those ideals.

Linux Online: There's a distribution under development that claims that it will be "so easy my Mom would want to use it". Would you consider starting a special section of your group called "LinuxMoms"?

Deb Richardson: Heh, maybe. LinuxMoms could be a sub-set of Linuxchix in which parents could discuss Linux in terms of K-12 education or some such. No one has made that suggestion yet, but I'd be happy to set up the mailing list(s) if someone did.

Linux Online: Do you think our Moms will really start using Linux, that is to say, will Linux be used on the same scale as Windows in the near future? Do you see LinuxChix and organizations like it as having role to play in that?

Deb Richardson: In the near future? Probably not. As Miguel de Icaza likes to say, "unix sucks" It's still largely impossible to use Linux for day-to-day tasks without having to fire up an xterm and do some command-line calisthenics. Someday Linux will have all the required apps (we are, for instance, still lacking a decent Open Source word processor), and someday the GUI desktops will be good enough that the command-line can remain as much a mystery to Linux users and it is to Windows users. Until that happens, however, Linux will not be as popular as Windows simply because it is not as easy to use.

On the other hand, we are getting there. Linux GUI apps have been advancing by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and there are a whole lot of Really Smart People working on this problem right now. Given a few years, I think Linux will begin approaching the point where it will be at least as easy to use as Windows (if not more so...I, for example, can't set up Windows networking to save my life).

It's really important for there to be a plethora of applications and tools made available for Linux. Companies need to recognize the importance of Linux and the Linux community. That's why I'm really excited that at Zero-Knowledge (www.zeroknowledge.com) we will have a Linux client out by the end of the year and will be open-sourcing the Freedom client code.

Linux will always have the advantages it has today, and its weaknesses will eventually be overcome. The end result will be an operating system that is not only secure, stable, and reliable, but that is also extremely user-friendly. But I still don't think that's going to happen in the "near future" (being within the next year or so...although if someone would like to prove me wrong, more power to you).

Linuxchix and other user-groups will always have a role to play in the spread of Linux use. Good user groups spend as much (if not more) time introducing and teaching new users about Linux and Open Source software as they do doing anything else (which usually involves dim sum, it seems). Linux has always been a "grass-roots" revolution, and I don't think that will change. Well, it will change when Linux is the most used operating system in the world, but until we collectively manage to overcome the consumer brainwashing about alternate operating systems and software, user groups will always have a place in the promotion of Linux and Open Source systems.

Linux Online: Have you ever considered developing your own LinuxChix distribution that incorporates some of the user friendliness that you advocate?

Deb Richardson: I have never considered developing a Linuxchix distribution. I think that there are more than enough distros out there right now, most of which are actively working towards improving their usability. There are also lots of Smart People (as I mentioned before) working on GUI apps and desktop systems that will improve usability in enormous ways. The best of these apps will get absorbed into the best of the distros, and it will all evolve quite naturally until we finally have a seriously kick-ass distro in terms of technology, security, reliability, and usability.

This is a problem that lots of other people are trying to address, and I'd much rather work to support them in their efforts than to wander off and start yet-another-linux-distro-project. Refining an existing wheel is almost always better than reinventing one.

Linux Online: Besides coordinating the efforts of the LinuxChix organization, what activities in the Linux community are you involved in?

Deb Richardson: I'm also the founder and coordinator of the Open Source Writers Group (http://www.oswg.org/oswg). I started that project shortly after I started Linuxchix, which actually wasn't a good idea. I mean, I think both projects are necessary, but one person coordinating two projects...well...it quickly became a bit time-consuming. I've not been spending a whole lot of time on either project recently simply because I ended up getting completely burned out. I have started working on them a bit again recently, however...mostly working to create systems that will allow me to delegate the vast majority of the work to willing and able volunteers :) We'll see how that works out.

Other than that, I work on writing free/open-source documentation when I get a chance, I'm involved with the open-source and Linux stuff at Zero-Knowledge, and I recently co-presented a talk with Dave Mason (RedHat) at the Ottawa Linux Symposium. I've also done some freelance work with one of the Linux-related magazines, which I'm hoping to start doing again in the near future.

Linux Online: That's a nice logo you've got. Is the girl meant to represent anybody in particular?

Deb Richardson: I don't know if the logo is supposed to represent anyone in particular or not...I didn't draw it. The logo was created for me by my remarkably talented friend Tom (http://www.tom-b.com) who is an illustrator/writer/dj living in Brazil. The logo sort of looks like me, but only in that I wear sunglasses sometimes and have long dark hair :>

Linux Online: Could you tell us about some of the activities that LinuxChix has planned?

Deb Richardson: Right now I'm just trying to recreate the website. At the moment it's a completely static site that is edited by hand. That's just too difficult to maintain. So I'm creating a new dynamic site using PHP and MySQL that should be finished sometime within the next month or so (depending on how much time I get to work on it).

Other than that, I really don't know what the various chapters have planned. I have no other current plans for the project as a whole, other than continuing to add more and better interactive features to the website -- perhaps a front-page weblog for news, a diary server for individual member pages, and so forth.

Linux Online: Thanks for taking time to give us this interview.

Deb Richardson: Any time.

You can visit the LinuxChix website at http://www.linuxchix.org