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Writing

RedHat: Rocky Times with its Alma Mater

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Intellectually, I understand the importance of Open Source licenses. The nuances of GPLv2 and GPLv3 can change the entire way a piece of software is used, developed, and shared.

But I don’t really care all that much.

Sure, I lose a lot of “cred” when I dismiss licensing so offhandedly. How can I call myself an Open Source evangelist, or even an enthusiast, if I don’t have thoughts on licensing? Honestly? It’s because I’m not passionate about Open Source Software due to its legal allowances and limitations. Heck, I didn’t even build my career around Linux because of software at all. I’m an Open Source advocate because of people. Period. End of sentence.

Does that make me anti capitalism? Against monetization? A GNU/Linux zealot? Nope. But it also doesn’t me pro-capitalism, entrepreneurial, or a Microsoft fanboi. It basically means I don’t care a whole lot about the non-people-parts of the entire movement, or community, or vertical marketplace. I don’t even really know what a vertical marketplace is, or if I made that up. I love Open Source because it changed my life, and never asked anything in return. And the “it” that changed my life, really means people.

In 1999, when I had my car accident, the aftermath was pretty grim. I’ve told the story countless times, but the headline version is, “Woman in 5th month of pregnancy forced to bus tables in order to support family of 3 as main breadwinner battles against head injury, no longer able to leave the house, much less work.”

When I tell the story, whether on a podcast, to a news reporter, or in the posts on this very blog, I jokingly say that I learned Linux because it was all I could afford. But if I wanted to learn other products, I could have found a way to “get” those software packages. And while I wish I could say it was my pristine moral standards that made me settle on Linux instead of pirating commercial products — that would be a lie. It was because Linux, and by extension Open Source Software, was purposefully designed to give me everything I might need, for free. And then when I needed help, provide that help whether I could afford to pay for it or not.

I could have pirated Microsoft Windows Server, but I couldn’t call Microsoft to ask questions about setting up an Active Directory! Yet, if I wanted to know how to make two Linux machines share user data, I could reach out to folks for help on NIS/ypserv/ypbind, and if I said I was just trying to figure it out, they’d be MORE excited to help me. And perhaps it is the licensing that created that sort of community, but legalese doesn’t garner my gratitude and respect. Kindness does. Kind people do. And that’s why for the past several decades, I’ve built my career around Open Source Software.

RedHat recently made news by deftly tiptoeing through the GPL (I don’t even know or care what version), and legally restricting people from taking their source code and compiling clones of their commercial, flagship version of Linux. Their rationale is that groups like Rocky Linux and Alma Linux were simply taking RedHat’s hard work, repackaging it, and giving it away free. Which… is true. For many Linux users, that’s simply what Open Source meant. RedHat took the work of others and created their commercial product, but since they used other people’s work, they had to release their work as well. In fact, RedHat has been one of the few companies to make incredible amounts of money selling a product that companies could get for free. Their support, both in making the distro and in integrating after the fact meant they could add value beyond their code itself.

But it seems they weren’t making the amount of money they thought they should be making, and so using legally-allowable restrictions, have stopped the proliferation of clones. Some giants in the community think they’ve violated at the very least the spirit of Open Source. Others (several of whom I respect) have taken a more corporate-sided stance on the issue.

Me? It just makes me sad. And before anyone responds with, “If it weren’t for corporate money, Linux and the Open Source community wouldn’t even exist!” — I’m not sad about RedHat protecting their financial interests. I’m sad because the kindness of Open Source has been tossed out in order to… make it successful? Have Rocky and/or Alma been taking advantage of RedHat? I have no idea. Really. But it was the community of people working together in order to make sure everyone could play that takes a hit.

I can already hear the response that RedHat allows people to use their commercial product for up to 16 servers without paying for a license! And yep, that’s true. But the joy of Open Source used to be not worrying about licenses in order to participate in the global, shared experience of working together. I didn’t fall in love with Shareware, I fell in love with freedom.

Our community has been built around people contributing in whatever ways they can, and at times, by only participating. I’ve never contributed code to any project, but I’ve written and edited for Linux Journal. I’ve never done a pull request on a kernel module, but I have spent the bulk of my career teaching people how to use Open Source to make the world a better place, one person at a time.

My contributions to Open Source, and the world in general, doesn’t have a clear business plan. While I’ve been paid for many of the things I’ve taught and created, monetization has never been the reason. If making money motivated me more, perhaps I’d have more of it, and my voice would be heard in more places. But a rationale isn’t the same as a motivation. My YouTube channel is monetized, and that’s my rationale for investing the time into making videos to help people. But I assure you, I haven’t spent every spare moment this past two years making videos so I could bring in $150/month in YouTube ad revenue. That revenue is nice, but it’s not what keeps me excited. When someone leaves a comment that they finally understand octal notation and sticky bits after watching my video — that is what motivates me.

It’s the people. It always has been.

So am I on RedHat’s side? Am I on Rocky Linux’s side? Not really. I’m on the side of working together to make the world a better place. I’m on the side of kindness for no reason other than a kind world is a world I want to be part of. Maybe RedHat’s contributions have made my particular livelihood possible. Maybe not. But we have different motivations, and gauge success by different metrics. That’s OK. But it still makes me sad.

If You Can’t Do Something Perfect…

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Just don’t do anything at all? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not a healthy motto to live by, but it sure does resonate with me. I’ve always struggled with perfectionism, and it sorta ambushed me this week. It’s been a while since I’ve been paralyzed by it. That’s mostly because my creative efforts of late have all been on my own dime, burning my own time.

But that changed this past week.

After literally months of stalling, last week I opened a Patreon page. Within moments, I had multiple supporters, or “Patrons”, and it was both humbling and flattering at the same time. People actually supporting me with their money smacks a little different than people being supportive in general. It’s a sacrifice real human beings are making in order to facilitate my creative endeavors.

So, of course the things I create need to be absolutely perfect. Because they deserve that, don’t they? They’re PAYING for me to create things both for them, and for others. With that additional income, it means I can invest more time into making even better content. And you see where this is going, right?

It’s currently Thursday. I’ve created exactly zero things this week. And yes, it’s been a particularly challenging week at DayJob, which required writing new code and inventing solutions to very specific problems with our very unique set of needs. So I could soothe my ego by claiming it’s been a super busy week, which of course is why I haven’t been able to let my creative juices flow.

But that would be at most partially true.

Like I said earlier, my perfectionism sorta ambushed me. I’d forgotten how crippling it can be to feel the pressure of expectation. It was a problem when I made training videos commercially, and apparently it’s a problem when I’m being supported by individual patrons too. The good news is I recognize it this time. It took years of poor performance and constant anxiety before I realized what was wrong with me in the past.

So what I’m say is, please don’t stop supporting me, those incredible people who do so financially and verbally/commentarily. I will get back on track in short order, and produce the same inconsistent mediocrity you’ve come to expect from me. (That self-deprecation? Yep, it’s still a feature as well, lol) I’m continually amazed and humbled by people desiring the same sorts of things I do. Luckily for me, those things include empathy and patience. I’ve really picked the best group of folks with which to bond.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to publish this before I decide it’s not quite good enough to share…

Shame

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Before I start, it’s important to know that I’m not writing this to convince anyone to send money. We’ll be OK, truly. I’m writing this because much like depression, shame withers in the light. I don’t want the specter of “what if someone finds out” to live in my brain, rent free. And perhaps hearing our misfortune will help someone else avoid a similar one.

In order to understand how someone could have $12,518.42 stolen from them without noticing, it’s important to explain our situation over the past 18 months or so. Because on the surface, the notion of losing that much money and not noticing seems like wealth and privilege at an incomprehensible level. If exposing financial information makes you uncomfortable, you might want to click away, because I’ll be using some real numbers.

In the middle of the pandemic, my job changed. Part of that change included no longer receiving employer-sponsored healthcare. I receive a generous stipend, but it doesn’t come close to covering a solo plan. So we added some out of pocket money to the stipend, and started paying for COBRA. (That allows us to keep the healthcare from my last job, paying the full premium plus administrative fees for up to 18 months)

We also have adult children in their early 20s. They were underemployed thanks to the pandemic, and we have been helping them make ends meet. Plus, Donna’s part-time teaching position was even more part time this past school year. Add to that a massive repair bill on my aging pickup truck, existing debt from our barn experience — and the stage is set for a pretty rough financial gauntlet.

With our new expenses and decreased income, it was clear that we would be making less than we spend every month. We had about $17,000 in the bank, and about $20,000 of credit available across our 5 credit cards. Knowing that would only keep us afloat temporarily, we started doing everything we could to add income while decreasing expenses. Sadly, most of our expenses are fixed, and while we could have canceled Netflix, that small savings in the middle of a pandemic didn’t seem worth it. Anyway, we were going deeper into debt every month, but surviving.

Donna took as many sub positions as she could on the days she wasn’t teaching. I worked my DayJob as a sysadmin, and then started cartooning, writing, and creating training videos for YouTube. While my efforts might smack a bit of mid-life crisis, the bulk of my previous career was making training videos, and I’d been a professional writer for years at Linux Journal. The only oddball item was my daily comic, but since I found the process relaxing, it was almost a daily therapy session for me.

So for the past year plus, we’ve been using credit cards for everything possible, and paying the minimum balance due, with additional payments as more money came in. We knew our credit card debt would rise, and our bank account would dwindle, but the hope was to slow the bleeding until I started to bring in some serious revenue from my after work endeavors. It would certainly take a while, but the clock we were trying to beat was a combination of “not running out of money and credit” plus “we have 18 months of COBRA”.

I’d like to say we had a clearer plan, or even a more succinct goal. Unfortunately, we just had stress, chaos, and a faint hope that “something” would give. Perhaps I’d get a job offer that included benefits. Perhaps the school where Donna worked would offer a medical plan. Maybe my YouTube channel would take off, or my comic would go viral. But what it actually meant was many, many credit card charges, and many, many payments to credit cards coming out of our shrinking checking account.

And that’s how it happened.

Back in September of 2021, lost in our myriad of credit card payments, a new credit card payment posted. “Credit One Bank” took an ACH payment for $182.95 out of our account. That’s about the size of other credit card payments that constantly come out of our account, and at first glace I assumed it was our Meijer credit card, which is a branded card from one of the countless credit companies.

As the months went on, there were more and more payments from “Credit One Bank”, all varying from the $100-$300 range, which again, matched our other credit card payments surprisingly close. Looking back, I should have seen it. Of COURSE I should have seen it. There were 4 days in a row where $182.75 was taken out. And while I don’t remember seeing those payments, I probably saw them and assumed I was looking at the same payment. But I didn’t notice.

See, our account balances were changing in just the way we expected them to change. Our credit card debt was rising, and our bank account was shrinking. That’s not ideal, but it wasn’t unexpected. And so we weren’t suspicious that something was wrong. We saw that our money was going away faster than we hoped, and so we focused harder on making more money, not picking apart our bank statements. Heck, we probably subconsciously avoided looking at our bank statements, because we knew it would only add stress to an almost unbearably stressful situation!

And then this month, August 2022, 11 months after that first “Credit One Bank” payment snuck into our life, we ran out of money. Our mortgage payment bounced because its auto-withdrawal happened a couple days before my paycheck was deposited. I had already moved the posting date, because I saw the writing on the wall, but even that only kicked the can down the road a month. Our checking account was in the red, we’d gotten multiple overdraft fees applied on top (because other smaller payments were trying to clear after the account went negative). And only a couple of our credit cards had credit available at all.

It’s embarrassing. And it sucks. But things like Twitter verification, a Wikipedia page, and a well-known-in-certain-circles name does not always equal the underlying financial success it hints at.

So anyway, my paycheck posted, and our account was limping along in the black again. Since our credit was about dried up, we’d been strategically deciding what to pay and when to pay it. So our credit card payments, even the minimum amount due, had to be timed to our paychecks. And that brings us to this week. Yesterday, in fact. My paycheck wasn’t due to post until today (the 18th), and I was watching our account balance like a hawk, making sure nothing tried to clear before my paycheck was in there. And wouldn’t you know it, Credit One Bank was posting a payment for $168.64.

I KNEW I hadn’t made a payment, because after the mortgage fiasco, our balance was too low for that. And so when I logged in to all our various credit card accounts, trying to figure out why one of them automatically made a payment, I couldn’t find a payment for that amount. Anywhere.

And of course then I started looking at our account history, and quickly realized what I should have realized 11 months ago. Someone was making a credit card payment with our account, but it wasn’t us. Or at least, it wasn’t only us. As I searched the transaction history, I found that over the past 11 months, there have been 54 payments taken out. The dates and amounts are fairly random, but vary from $100-$350 or so. And added together, they equal $12,518.42. It turns out that initial $17,000 we had in our account wasn’t dwindling as quickly as we thought, or at least we weren’t “dwindling” it.

I spent most of yesterday talking to the bank, and to the police. Today I have to drive back to the bank (and hour drive, one way, ugh) to finish closing our compromised account and set up a new one so we can continue making our mortgage payments, car payment, and credit card payments. And now, I need to fight to get money back from “Credit One Bank”, even though in my communications with them yesterday have proven to be anything but helpful.

Our bank, Straits Area Federal Credit Union, has shifted a bit. At first, they told me all they could do was stop further withdrawals by charging me a $25 stop payment fee. But after talking to the police officer as I filed a report, he encouraged me to go physically to the main office, and talk to someone a bit higher up the food chain. I’m glad I did, because now they’re going to reimburse me for the previous 60 days, and for some reason the first 60 days of fraudulent charges. Assuming that happens (I’m signing paperwork today), it will put $4,595 back into my new account. The remaining $7,923.37 will likely never get recovered. But I will be sending all the information to “Credit One Bank”, and hoping they do the right thing. Regardless of the outcome, it will take months before I know anything.

I’m not gonna lie, while that $4,595 will be incredibly helpful in the short term, we’re clearly still teetering on the edge of disaster. Thankfully, there’s a bit of good news in this bleak story.

When summer started, Donna clearly couldn’t get anymore subbing jobs, so she applied for a part time position at one of our favorite places on earth. McLean & Eakin Booksellers. She got the job, and I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen her love what she does more than when she’s working at the bookstore. The owners must recognize how much she was made for the job, and without prompting, called Donna in to offer her a full time, year round position. And believe it or not, this small town, independent bookstore provides health insurance for their full time employees.

Health. Care. Insurance.

Our COBRA eligibility runs out in November, and we did not have a plan for what we were going to do after that. The middling insurance plan I was quoted to buy on our own was over $30,000/yr, and that was without dental or optical. Donna getting a job that provided healthcare was unexpected, and the most amazing news we’d gotten in a very long time. I don’t even know what the plan will look like, but it honestly doesn’t matter, because whatever the benefits include will be more than that nothing we could afford once November hits.

I cried like a blubbering idiot. And that, I’m not ashamed of.

Look, we’re far from being financially stable. My napkin math shows that we have about $65,000 in credit card debt, one mortgage with $60,000 remaining, another with $100,000 remaining, and a car loan with $13,000 still outstanding. My DayJob isn’t in immediate jeopardy, but I maintain datacenters for servers that operate in the cryptocurrency world, so longevity and stability are not guaranteed. But in spite of this current financial setback with Credit One Bank, we actually have a bit more hope than we’ve had in a while.

Donna will be working full time, starting some time before November. My YouTube channel was recently monetized, and while it’s only bringing it $100 or so a month, it’s a start. I’ve been working with an editor about a potential book deal, and while my comic hasn’t taken off — I still really enjoy it, and perhaps someday others will enjoy it too. I’ve even built up enough content on YouTube, that I don’t feel bad starting a Patreon page for people who want to support my creative endeavors. (It’s not live yet, but once I get the patron benefits sorted this week, it might be one more trickle of income)

So yeah. It’s been a rough month. But it’s also been a good month. We really will be OK, and my intent is certainly not to make anyone worry about us. We didn’t fall for a scam, and yet we ended up losing the bulk of our “cushion” in arguably the worst time ever. My hope is that everyone looks a bit closer at their checking account after reading this, and if you do end up a victim of bank fraud — know that someone else’s evil is not a character flaw of yours. Be kind, maybe especially to yourself. It’s easy to be like Blue, and since I draw him, I know it first hand.

How THIS Keeps Happening

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It occurred to me today that I’m not really sure if the things I publish are the things I allow to get out of my think-meat, or if they’re things I can’t keep inside it. It probably doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but my brain (jerk that it is) thinks a lot. A LOT.

Now, I’ve always assumed that I objectively look at all the thinky thinks, and then determine, “ah yes, this kernel of insight is worthy of the masses.” But, yeah, no. I’m rarely, if ever, proud of the stuff I write. I might be proud of myself for sharing things, but never do I think, “This. This is what people need to hear.” Other people say things much better than I do, and they’re almost always more qualified to say things betterer than me. (Apart from a very, VERY narrow area of expertise. I’m pretty confident with my Kool-Aid making skillz…)

So what I write, like this for instance, is almost certainly not because I think it will make the world a better place. And I know I don’t do it for praise, because for my spheroid-jiggly-ponder-box, praise is a double-edged sword.

(Short explanation: “Shawn, that was incredible” makes me very much assume that whatever I just created is now the low bar for all future creations, and if it really WAS good, then I might as well not bother, because I’ll never create something that good again, and if I make something worse, I’ll let down everyone.)

I guess that means whatever I end up publishing is just think-juice I couldn’t quite keep inside. I suppose writing is my emotional outlet. But even that doesn’t explain why I click “Publish”, because there are plenty of drafts here on my bloggity-blog that will never see the light of day. So it’s more than just a need to write, because writing doesn’t need publishing to be an outlet for emotion. (See also: Diaries. But no, I don’t have a diary. OMG, is *this* my diary?) So why do I publish anything, ever?

Maybe narcissism? Maybe I seek the self-destructive praise of others? Maybe I hope that one person will read my escaped thoughts and realize they’re not alone in this weird, judgmental world? I honestly don’t know. But for some reason, I often feel compelled to share my thoughts, even when they’re weird, or personal, or scary, or all of the above. Apparently creating and sharing are very different endeavors. A lot of what I create isn’t shared — but a surprisingly large percentage of it is.

I was talking to a friend today about the “highlight reel” aspect of most social media. Many, or maybe most folks share the best and happiest parts of their day, or they make sure the part of their persona that lives “in frame” is squeaky clean and perfect. There’s the other side of that coin, when people post about how bad things are, looking for either help, or pity, or even just attention. But the mundane seldom makes it on Instagram. Or blog posts. Yet, here we are.

SO my fellow creators, I have two questions:
1) Why do you create?
2) How do you decide what to share?

Just Do the Next Thing

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I often think about Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. If you aren’t familiar with the married comedy duo, it’s not surprising. They were the act who followed the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964. How could you possibly follow that?!? Thankfully, Justin Bieber didn’t recently make Linux training videos that I have to follow. But the thing is, this past week has been a surprisingly good week with regard to the things I’m creating being appreciated by other humans. (And maybe robots, I’m ok with that. Meep morp, y’all. How ’bout those electrons, am I right?)

The problem is, one success feels like setting the bar for the next thing. And a big success makes for a really high bar.

After this blog was shared by a super popular friend of mine on Twitter (the same friend who often shares my comic… he’s basically my ex-naval fairy godmother), and then one of my youtube videos was showcased in a Hackaday article by another friend, the traffic and popularity of my stuff has stepped up a bit. No, I’m not an influencer, or a YouTube celebrity, or parking a Tesla in my garage… (or, you know, having a garage) — but I crossed the monetization threshold on YouTube (the process of which apparently takes about a month, and then I could make DOZENS of cents a day!) I was sent a tech product to review without me asking or buying it, and there are actual conversations happening in the comment sections of my stuff.

OMG, I’m Too Good Looking, and My Wallet is Too Fat…

I know, I know. Complaining about a modicum of success is pretty douchey. I mean, isn’t being successful exactly what I’m intending to do with all this writing and newslettering and podcasting and videoing and cartooning and… everything? And Shawn, if you can’t handle a video getting 1000 views without feeling overwhelmed, you’d better hope you never actually make it big.

And yeah, I get all that. And I do hope the success continues. Heck, my lofty aspirations include the need and ability to actually hire people to join me in my endeavors. The problem I’m mulling over now is that I find it difficult to do the next thing when the last thing was deemed “worthy and good” by the masses. I think as humans (or robots, still love you guys) we tend to look at a very narrow slice of time. Heck, we practice “living in the present” as a way to stay healthy in mind and body. But the road to success is long. For some of us, very long. And while intellectually I understand a video that gets 10,000 views isn’t 100 times better than a video that gets 100 views, it sure feels that way. Let me get very specific. I’ll use my YouTube channel as the example, because this week has some prime examples of what I’m talking about.

The Hackaday Debacle of Awesomeness

One of the many things I do, is to occasionally co-host on FLOSS Weekly over at TWiT.tv. One of the OTHER occasional co-hosts is Jonathan Bennett. We don’t know each other in meat-space, but I consider him a friend, and if we were at a tech conference, we’d totally hang out and be nerdy. Anyway, he’s a writer at Hackaday.com — and last week he included my SSH Tunnels video in an article he wrote. It sent a flood of users to my tiny YouTube channel, and quickly elevated that video to like 7,000 views in the first week. Most of my videos get about 100 views in that timeframe. It also brought in lots of new eyeballs, who subscribed to my channel, which increased the views on my other videos, and there was a snowball effect that gave my tiny channel a boost.

Again, my channel is small. We’re not talking fame and fortune, we’re talking a cool growth acceleration. Like I mentioned above, it even bumped me over the monetization threshold, so that approval process started.

But HERE is the crux of the situation. My brain tells me that SSH Tunnelling video must have been the cream of my video crop. THAT VIDEO is what will breed more success. Whatever I did there is what I need to do every time, and improve on. Because for some reason, my brain says, “This is a video of a creator that has 3,000 subscribers. If you want to increase to 5,000 subscribers, you clearly need a video that’s about twice as good.”

Now I KNOW that’s not how it actually works. Heck, even my observation of older videos getting more views proves that it’s not a single video that raises the bar of adequacy. But as I often point out, brains are not logical. They’re emotional, fickle, jiggly think-meats which assume the worst and never appreciate the best. And so, I didn’t make another video that whole week. The week where I was getting more and more people interested in my channel and my content. I was crippled with fear that I’d release a video that wasn’t better than the SSH Tunnel video. And people would know that the apparent “star quality content” was a fluke.

Brains suck. (I actually accidentally typed “Brians suck”, and autocorrect was just going to let me insult innocent Brians everywhere. C’mon robots, I thought we were friends?!?)

The week went by, and the popularity boom waned. I still garnered quite a few new subscribers, which was incredible, but instead of riding that incoming wave, I floundered and released no new content. On Friday, I felt so terrible about not releasing anything, that I threw together a video on Linux Certifications, and posted it. I figured it would flop, but at least I was trying. (That video is honestly doing really well, which is weird, because it hasn’t been boosted by anything external. So who knows.)

So What Have You Learned, Shawn?

Honestly? I have no idea. Here’s the thing though — it’s pretty common with anyone who gets a bump of success, that they struggle with their next endeavor. One-hit wonders, authors who write a successful book, middle-aged men who get a compliment on how their hair looks… we all flounder with how to meet or exceed whatever we did that was deemed “good”.

The only advice I really have is that maybe we shouldn’t try to outdo ourselves. Just like it’s unhealthy to compare our success to other people, comparing ourselves to the most successful thing we’ve done is just silly. I’m just as good as that guy who made the SSH Tunnel video, because I’m that guy. I wasn’t trying to specifically make a stand-out creation, I was just doing what I love. Greatness isn’t a thing we do, it’s the way we do the things we do. Trying hard to be a more perfect self seems silly. We’re already exactly ourselves.

So just do the next thing. And in the words of Paul McCartney, Let it Be.