Mr. Stockman stood at his office’s wall-sized window. It looked onto the sea of cubicles that was his charge. His fiefdom, which he ran for the welfare of all. His program chiefs were again arguing – shouting at each other. They were gesticulating wildly, trying to burn off the energy of unthrown punches. Each had allies – and they too were drawn in. Nobody was listening. Each was convinced that if they could just make their point loudly enough, the rightness of it would be undeniable.

They weren’t fighting over right and wrong. They were fighting over Red Hat and FreeBSD. They bitterly fought, creating hate and fracturing relationships, over differences in operating environment. He’d seen this debate often – always on the edge of violence.

He turned away, now disheartened. If people could not reconcile their differences on whether Red Hat was an OS or merely OS-like – could humans ever tolerate differences on what was good or who made the world?

He disgustedly fell back into his plush chair.