Terry Jones

Over on the Python Dev mailing list, discussion has been raging about home directories, hidden dotfiles, user interface, etc. See this recent posting for the latest in a debate that was kicked off in November under the innocuous-sounding subject Python and the Linux Standard Base (LSB).

In the meantime, I have been forwarded a confidential Apple email from CEO Steve Jobs laying out his “roadmap for the Desktop”. In it, Jobs says he “saw the Desktop light” after former Disney CEO Michael Eisner called him a Shiite Muslim for his refusal to support efforts to root out subversive use of dotfiles and home directories in general.

Highlights from the memo:

• Campaign branding: “A man’s home is his Desktop”.
• Plan to completely phase out $HOME. Terminal will start in /Users/USER/Desktop. Use of cd .. to be monitored.
• Henceforth Apple developers are to refrain from directly mentioning user’s home directories in public, in blogs, etc. Internally, when mention of a home directory cannot be avoided, the approved phrasing is “Desktop/..“.
• There is a plan to put a small Supporter of Computational Liberty and Freedom flag icon on users’ Desktops. This flag cannot be removed, but automatically disappears if a user does ever access $HOME directly.
• There is a “four-part plan to undermine $HOME”:
  1. Jobs expresses admiration for the Microsoft warning dialog that appears when users try to access C:\WINDOWS and plans a similar feature for OS X.
  2. Once $HOME has been completely “annexed”, user related program activities will be moved into system-owned and managed 0700-mode /usr/sys/users/USER/home directories.
  3. User interaction will then be moved into /Users/USER/Desktop/MySpace where users can do anything they want. The parent /Users/USER/Desktop directory will then transition to being primarily managed by the system, and users will be discouraged from putting any actual files in there.
  4. Support for $HOME will be removed from bash, to be replaced with $HOMELAND (a synonym for $DESKTOP). $DESKTOP will be default destination for the cd command. ~ will also map to $DESKTOP.
• Perhaps most disturbing of all, there is an explicit plan to use PR and the media to fuel anti-$HOME sentiment. Use of $HOME is to be portrayed as un-American, subversive, terrorist, and effeminate. Only terrorists and insurgents use $HOME. Deliberate use of dotfiles to hide things is to be tied to terrorist use of stenography.

Folks, this is a clarion call to action. We cannot stand idly by as mute witnesses to the slow-drip erosion of personal liberties. Next we’ll be hearing that they’re taking away $HOME because we weren’t using it anyway.

Make no mistake, Big Government is behind this, egged on by the Disney lobby. I suspect they’re pushing for the infantilization of user interface, though I’m not entirely sure why (I have my suspicions). Jobs is clearly the go-to man they’re using to get it done and the route is ?? -> Disney -> Pixar -> Jobs -> Apple -> Consumer, with probable use of cut-outs. I wonder how they got to Steve.

These bastards know how to use the media better than anyone. Apple are clearly backed all the way by Hollywood and the MSM. All you ever read about these days in the media is the Desktop and how Web 2.0 is the new Desktop. Gone are the days when you could catch a glimpse in a movie of someone using a keyboard, or even ftp’ing into to someone else’s $HOME.

It’s all Desktop now, all the time.

This may all sound highly improbable. But that’s exactly what they want you to think! They want to spread doubt. They want to ridicule us, to divide us, weaken us, and to scoff at us. We must band together, with one voice, with the voice of freedom and of liberty, and collectively support our home directories. Don’t let them take it away. There’s no time like the present – we must act before it is too late.

As a UNIX command-line user, you have an inalienable right to a home directory. It’s part of our history, our tradition, our identity. Let us not forget who we are!

Just remember friends, it’s not a conspiracy theory when you’re right.

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