Infrastructures
Infrastructures
2003: [Cueball approaches a bearded fellow.] Cueball: Did you get my essay? Bearded Fellow: Yeah, it was good! But it was a .doc; You should really use a more open- Cueball: Give it a rest already. Maybe we just want to live our lives and use software that works , not get wrapped up in your stupid nerd turf wars.
Bearded Fellow: I just want people to care about the infrastructures we're building and who- Cueball: No, you just want to feel smugly superior. You have no sense of perspective and are probably autistic.
2010: Cueball: Oh my God! We handed control of our social world to Facebook and they're DOING EVIL STUFF!
Bearded Fellow: Do you see this?
[Inset, the bearded fellow rubs his index and middle fingers against his thumb.] Bearded Fellow: It's the world's tiniest open-source violin.

Cueball has sent an essay to his bearded friend (possibly a caricature of Richard Stallman ) who is an advocate of free and open-source software. While the essay itself was good, his friend was worried because the essay was in the .doc format, the proprietary format that old versions of Microsoft Word used. The friend advises Cueball to use a format based on an open standard, possibly a format like ODF, ODT, ODS, ODP, or OpenOffice XML.
Cueball, who does not appreciate his friend criticizing the file format over the actual contents of the file, accuses his friend of pedantically stirring up trouble instead of simply caring that the software works (which is what most regular users would be concerned about). Given that it can be a challenge to move from a familiar proprietary application to an open-source rival which may lack compatibility, features, support and popularity, Cueball's stance is not entirely unjustified.
The bearded guy tries to explain that he is just concerned about the current proprietary software infrastructure that forces users to use software in a specific way, penalizing them for sharing the software or even preventing looking at the source code in order to learn what the program actually does or how it works. Cueball, however, isn't buying it, and accuses his friend of having an arrogance that crowds out his perspective , while also claiming that he is autistic — an epithet often aimed, particularly by denizens of online forums and imageboards, at people who have an intense fixation on seemingly trivial things.
Seven years later, Cueball runs to the friend, having become alarmed at Facebook's immense control and dubious policies about the personal information it collects. Since this is exactly the kind of situation the bearded guy was warning against, he sarcastically retorts by producing "the world's tiniest open-source violin". This is a twist on " playing the world's smallest violin ", a gesture used to convey sarcastic pity at someone else's misfortune. Interestingly, the guy does actually appear to possess the physical instrument itself, which is uncommon; usually it's just a quip or gesture. This implies that the bearded guy has been carrying around the violin for this eventuality (not unlike what Black Hat does in 757: Toot ), or perhaps he uses this sarcastic expression often enough to warrant it.
The title text references the following pieces of infrastructure that are compatible with the "free software" ideology:
The problem with the lack of open source and Facebook is also the subject of 1390: Research Ethics .
2003: [Cueball approaches a bearded fellow.] Cueball: Did you get my essay? Bearded Fellow: Yeah, it was good! But it was a .doc; You should really use a more open- Cueball: Give it a rest already. Maybe we just want to live our lives and use software that works , not get wrapped up in your stupid nerd turf wars.
Bearded Fellow: I just want people to care about the infrastructures we're building and who- Cueball: No, you just want to feel smugly superior. You have no sense of perspective and are probably autistic.
2010: Cueball: Oh my God! We handed control of our social world to Facebook and they're DOING EVIL STUFF!
Bearded Fellow: Do you see this?
[Inset, the bearded fellow rubs his index and middle fingers against his thumb.] Bearded Fellow: It's the world's tiniest open-source violin.
