Official: Linux is Art

Linux has won an award - for electronic art. The operating system came top in the .net category of the Prix Ars Electronica, an annual electronic arts competition run by the Austrian Broadcasting Company. The choice of Linux here, according to the jury, was intended to demonstrate that the prize wasn't, as you might have expected, about finding the world's grooviest home page. "It is also intended to spark a discussion about whether source code can be an artwork." This will be good news for overweight, dysfunctional geeks in beanies. Source code can be art, so when you look in the mirror (you own a mirror, don't you?) just remember you're fashionable. But having art juries assessing the artistic merits of code could be ominous news for some companies. Microsoft, for example, may have to give up on its half-hearted attempts to partially open source its code, given that people might then start judging it, and concluding that it's complete Jackson Pollocks. ®