The Penguinista FAQ

Penguinista.org Answers A Few Questions

Whence cometh the cool name?

Short answer: It just occurred to us one day. Of course, there's also a long answer.

What is Penguinista.org all about?

Well, start by reading our manifesto, and continue reading here... these plus a few of the links interspersed ought to give you a pretty good idea of what's going on and why.

"Penguinista" sounds menacing. Do you advocate violence?

The evil empire generally self-destructs at a rate which renders violence unnecessary... except perhaps in the courtroom. Other than that, The Penguin takes the fifth. Or he would if he were an American Penguin.

How do I join?

Come one, come all; the more, the merrier; we will add your distinctiveness to our own. Whatever. The are several ways to join the Penguinistas. Here are a few:

Subscribe to the Email version of The Penguinista News;
Submit Newsbytes regularly to The Penguinista News;
Contribute feature articles to The Penguinista News;
Outfit yourself with official Penguinista Gear!
...and of course,
Get yourself an @penguinista email address;
Help others to become Penguinistas themselves; and
Visit Penguinista.org at least daily.

Oh - and running Linux really helps!

As you can see, we've said nothing about membership dues (though we're accepting donations!). Becoming a Penguinista is little more than affirming our manifesto and calling yourself a Penguinista. This doesn't give you huge Penguinista status, but since Penguinistas are a community, you will gain status within it when you become a regular contributor to the community through some of the means noted above, which is validated when other people begin calling you a Penguinista (kinda like becoming a hacker) based on your contributions to the community rather than because you told them you were a Penguinista.

Whassup wi' yer spellin'? An' dincher muther lern you no grammer?

Articles are only "lightly edited" for grammar and spelling (and we make no guarantees there, either) and often to add additional relevant hyperlinks. Wherever grammar or spelling is incorrectly used but is done so for effect with a stylistic flair, it is generally left alone. Spelling conventions of the country from which the article's author writes are used (as determined by each author), so different articles may use spelling rules which reflect U.K., U.S., or Canadian spelling conventions.

Why do some links look different, like this: Linux?

These links represent terms for which you can get a quick definition in a popup window, so in this example, clicking the link is the equivalent of asking, "What is Linux?" (Or "Who is", as other cases may be.)

Most of the definitions come from Whatis.com or from Eric Raymond's Jargon File, which we serve locally in order to be able to add some additional formatting and cross-links. We've also had to write a few definitions of our own to suppliment the available ones, sometimes because we didn't like the others which were available, but also on occasion where no definition was available elsewhere or we've coined a few terms of our own ;-). Each definition indicates where it has come from when you read it - it's rather obvious. Inside the Whatis.com definition windows, some words will look like "normal" blue hyperlinks: these can also be clicked for a definition. (Whatis.com doesn't differentiate definition links from other links like we have done - we like our way better since it rates higher on the "neat" scale and is clearer.)

If your browser supports the CSS "hover" attribute (i.e., unlike Netscape 4.x), you will also see the "help" cursor when you draw your mouse pointer over these links. Why do we bother? One of the goals of the Penguinista website is not to bowl people over with technical jargon... not that we don't use it, but wherever we do we try to provide an explanation in an unobtrusive yet simple fashion, and we think we've found the means to do so. If you find a term for which you'd like a definition but we haven't given it, the Whatis.com database is searchable. You may also find help at such places as AcronymFinder.com, PC Webopedia, TechWeb Encyclopedia, FOLDOC, or OneLook Dictionaries, among others. Penguinista.org also uses definitions from some of these sites on occasion. You can also search several of these sites right here.

How Penguinista's website content copyrighted? Is it?

Most of our content appears under one of the open licenses. While content from other sources may use different licenses, Penguinista.org's material appears under our own Open Content Licence, the POCL. We have tried to note all pertinant copyright information in context, whether it appears under the POCL, GPL, GDL, OpenContent, or some other licence. If you wish to use any our content but are not sure if the applicable copyright license permits your use, please drop us a note and we'll be happy to clarify. Note as well that Penguinista.org does not hold copyright to all of the material on the site, but the footer for each page attempts to make whatever notation is appropriate in these cases.

Does Penguinista.org replace the existing documentation projects?

No. There are several good projects already dedicated to Linux education and assistance, and in many cases, the Penguinista Documentation Project mirrors thier content. The present difficulty we see with most documentation projects is that they are often written at too high a level of technical understanding to be useful to many Linux users, especially "newbies." Further, there is at present no one site that contains all of the Linux answers that may be necessary to users from time to time, and no simple way to search multiple documentation projects simultaneously... at least, not until Penguinista.org officially launched their website.

The Penguinista Documentation Project endeavors to draw together as much of the available documentation as is readily available, and to hyperlink and crosslink it to make it as useful as possible, adding term definitions throughout to enable use of technical documentation by novice users. Fundimentally, the PDP does not at this time do what the primary documentation projects do - that is, we do not write and edit Linux help documentation. We aim to gather it and make it as accessible, helpful, and useable as possible, augmenting as necessary, but our primary purpose is not to write a new manual, but to simplify the usage of existing ones. To advance the state of Linux documentation, we encourage participation in the primary projects, like the Linux Documentation Project (LDP), the Open Book Project, to provide but two examples. When Penguinista.org picks up content from the primary sources, your contributions will appear on this site automatically.

Why another Linux news site?

Firstly, Linux news is exciting stuff, and although there are a number of Linux-related news sites already available, we simply felt there was room for one more. Most of the existing sites cohabitate amicably, and this is our intention as well. What makes our news any different is that we generally give it our own flavour, which is a fairly editorial one. We tend to give you not only the news but more often than not, our opinion on it - and we don't claim to be objective! You may agree or disagree, but each news story will have hyperlinks provided so you can read further and make up your own mind. In addition to reporting news we find elsewhere on the Internet, we will provide feature articles written by both regular and occasional contributors. Penguinista.org's feature articles will ususally maintain the editorial style, and will normally endeavour to be more thoroughly hyperlinked than what you may find elsewhere.

About all those hyperlinks... have you guys gone nuts?

Pretty much - we'll link almost anybody, whether we agree with their agenda or not. The short answer is that we're simply trying to make the most of hypertext media. Of course, there's also a longer answer available for your reading pleasure, which includes a brief philosophy of hypermedia.

Why did you publish article "X" or story "Y"?

Even we don't always agree with items we publish, but one has to allow for differences of opinion, although we may filter items which are outlandish or excessive. Each of our contributors has opinions of their own, and they may not "jive" completely with one another - but that just keeps things interresting. In addition, some of the items we publish from time to time may have nothing to do with Linux or Open Source. Sometimes we may just have thought it was interresting, and hey, it's our bandwidth, after all. Seriously, sometimes we need to be less than serious, and will publish the odd item in the interest of levity (a.k.a. HDT) or of reminding ourselves there's life on the planet that doesn't have to do with computing... at least, that's what our wives tell us.

Do I have to run Linux to join the Penguinistas?

No. We're a pretty welcoming bunch, and we recognize that some people may need to delay migration to Linux for one of a variety of valid reasons (though the list is getting shorter!). But make no mistake - sooner or later, you will be un-assimilated.

How do I share my wealth of knowledge with the Penguinistas?

If you have a news item, relevant comment or update, or something you found on the web that would be of interest to Penguinistas everywhere, please see our submissions page for more information on how to share your vast command of the obscure.

Awww.... how come no message boards? I wanna comment!

We've never ruled out message boards, but they have not been a high priority in the initial phases of the Penguinista website. Once we are content that things are functioning as intended, if there is a popular demand for message boards, we will most certainly add them. In the meantime, if your comment is rather more substantial than "Me too!" or "Oh yeah? Says who?", then please feel free to submit it as a story or story update by visiting our submissions page.