[LUNI] Open source and a hacker monk

[Stefmit]

I hope you'll enjoy this, especially on a Friday:

http://www.evz.ro/article.php?artid=279642

NOTE: I am going to try and translate for you the most important parts. Accept 
my apologies if this is far from perfect:
 
First - Serafim (that's his name) is a sort of a monk with deacon
responsibilities (ierodiacon in Christian Orthodox terminology), living
in a monastery
---
He spends his life between altar and disassembling software.
---
He is the Network Administrator for a specific typography (religious
material, of course)
---
Serafim thinks there is no such thing as perfectly secure information,
as security is just a theoretical concept. He adds to this his own
perspective, as a deacon, of course, along the lines of: "God knows
everything, anyway, so the world should not be based on so many secrets
and closed doors" ... and he may have a point there, regardless of faith
...
---
Aside from many other pertinent comments, related to his 24 yrs of
experience in this area (started with computers when he was 8 yrs old,
and he is now 32), here is the most important thing about him: he is
passionate about Linux and Open Source, and describes the work with open
source as: ... you are [to be] thankful for someone else's work, [try
to] improve it, and give it back [or] to others. It is humane and
good/common sense. If God gave us free will and does not intervene on
our behalf, for such, then it should be the same with open source"
---
He has decided to boycott Microsoft's Hotmail systems, after having
learned about the limitations enforced via their licensing - mainly
because in some obscure part of the EULA there is (was?!?) a provision
according to which Microsoft owns all documents and emails traversing
their system.
---
He does not think that confession should take place over Instant
Messenger (! ;))
---
Serafim believes that there are only few people [intelligent enough to
be] capable of comprehending informatics - and those are the ones
responsible for making it affordable to everyone. He thinks that people
could be divided in two main categories: those who do not know, and
those who do not want to know. "Evolution is possible only by exploiting
the knowledge of those who want to know" - he says.
---
One last thing I enjoyed from that article: "Humans have the right to
[stay] stupid, if that's what they truly want! But this does not mean
that we should limit the access to knowledge to those who want to learn"
How true!

-- Stefan