I CAN HAS FREEZOFTWARE?

Forgive me for my ignorance. But I cannot fathom how a site like this garners the amount of eyeballs it gets, meaning millions. “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER” — for those of you who have been living in a cave until now — takes pictures of cats, puts nearly undecipherable “English” onto the photos with cutesy sayings, and passes itself off as modern culture.

Okay, he says, taking steps backwards cautiously . . . .

I bring this up because in the realm of GNU/Linux, there is an effort afoot to promote the operating system — a few actually — and they seem to be gaining some solid footing. One is the Tux Project, in which I am involved, which will be gaining nonprofit status soon. This project acts as a vehicle to promote GNU/Linux where the larger corporate distros can’t — or won’t — promote the operating system, generally speaking.

The Tux Project joins other efforts already in place from the likes of  The *Nixed Report, which is trying to get air time on the radio for GNU/Linux, and GetGNULinux.com, which is flying the FOSS flag in Europe (which, incidentally, is responsible for pointing me to the source of most of the buttons below).

These are only a couple of examples of how some groups are getting GNU/Linux out there. There are others, and while they are taking more conventional routes, perhaps having a site with cute kitty photos with bizarre English, and calling it I CAN HAS FREEZOFTWARE might do better.

Or not.

(Larry Cafiero, editor/publisher of Open Source Reporter, is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)