On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:02:12 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

..snipped for brevity
> It's easy to just ignore issues that you don't want to know about and
> don't want to care about. But just ignoring it won't make it disappear.
>
> By the way, as Brian Proffitt (LinuxToday executive editor) stated some
> months ago, the Linux community was /never/ a 'happy family'. There was
> always friction like this, so to accuse people or individual groups is
> the wrong way to approach it.

Thanks for the explanation, Roy.

The bit about the Linux community never being a 'happy family' is because
of what exactly? I am a member of the Mint, Ubuntu, and Pardus forums,
and subscribe to debian, COLA, a.o.l.ubuntu, and pclinuxos newsgroups as
well as researching quite extensively the Internet regarding Linux. I do
this to learn the whole picture. In all areas I seem to look, Linux users
range from tolerant to hostile regarding newcomers and each other, and in
this newsgroup, almost all regular posters range from humorous to deep
psychological problems. In some cases, Linux is treated in a derisory
fashion.

I stand by my accusations, as I do not understand how a group of
individuals, some with great knowledge, can damage others commitment,
personalities and enthusiasm to the extent that some wish others death,
or post personal information about people's family. I simply do not
understand them, and to say it has always been like this, so it will
never change, is, to me, very wrong. Which way should someone like me
approach it?

I know I am not alone in this. A community is made up from many different
persons, facets, but all with a common goal. That goal I feel, is to
damage Linux beyond repair, then blame someone else for it's demise.

Tell me otherwise.

Tony(UK)

Tony(UK) wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:02:12 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
> .snipped for brevity
>> It's easy to just ignore issues that you don't want to know about and
>> don't want to care about. But just ignoring it won't make it disappear.
>>
>> By the way, as Brian Proffitt (LinuxToday executive editor) stated some
>> months ago, the Linux community was /never/ a 'happy family'. There was
>> always friction like this, so to accuse people or individual groups is
>> the wrong way to approach it.
>
> Thanks for the explanation, Roy.
>
> The bit about the Linux community never being a 'happy family' is because
> of what exactly? I am a member of the Mint, Ubuntu, and Pardus forums,
> and subscribe to debian, COLA, a.o.l.ubuntu, and pclinuxos newsgroups as
> well as researching quite extensively the Internet regarding Linux. I do
> this to learn the whole picture. In all areas I seem to look, Linux users
> range from tolerant to hostile regarding newcomers and each other, and in
> this newsgroup, almost all regular posters range from humorous to deep
> psychological problems. In some cases, Linux is treated in a derisory
> fashion.
>
> I stand by my accusations, as I do not understand how a group of
> individuals, some with great knowledge, can damage others commitment,
> personalities and enthusiasm to the extent that some wish others death,
> or post personal information about people's family. I simply do not
> understand them, and to say it has always been like this, so it will
> never change, is, to me, very wrong. Which way should someone like me
> approach it?
>
> I know I am not alone in this. A community is made up from many different
> persons, facets, but all with a common goal. That goal I feel, is to
> damage Linux beyond repair, then blame someone else for it's demise.
>
> Tell me otherwise.
>
> Tony(UK)

Alas, Tony, I fear that you are referring to our common fallible human
nature.

To expect those of us who advocate Linux to be any different from the
general run of mankind is about as unrealistic as to expect, say, the
members of a church congregation to be less sinful than people in general.

Each man kills the thing he loves, wrote Oscar Wilde, and I fear that he was
right.

--
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

After takin' a swig o' grog, Tony(UK) belched out
this bit o' wisdom:

> I know I am not alone in this. A community is made up from many different
> persons, facets, but all with a common goal. That goal I feel, is to
> damage Linux beyond repair, then blame someone else for it's demise.
>
> Tell me otherwise.

COLA is not a community, so much as a bar or pub.

--
Successophobia: The fear that if one is successful, then one's personal
needs will be forgotten and one will no longer have one's childish needs
catered to. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an
Accelerated Culture"

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____/ Tony(UK) on Saturday 25 October 2008 16:12 : \____

> On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:02:12 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
> .snipped for brevity
>> It's easy to just ignore issues that you don't want to know about and
>> don't want to care about. But just ignoring it won't make it disappear.
>>
>> By the way, as Brian Proffitt (LinuxToday executive editor) stated some
>> months ago, the Linux community was /never/ a 'happy family'. There was
>> always friction like this, so to accuse people or individual groups is
>> the wrong way to approach it.
>
> Thanks for the explanation, Roy.

Watch the new comment there from Bruce, the writer:

"Yes, in the past I have attacked Boycott Novell because of what I perceived as
attempts to attack me.

"However, if you can point to anything in the article that misrepresents
Boycott Novell or shows my prejudice against it (and reporting other peoples'
dislike doesn't count), then I would be interested to see it.

"Anyway, at the risk of upsetting your world view, in the course of doing this
article, I exchanged a couple of emails with Roy, and I believe that we are
now on friendlier terms."

This was said in response to someone who knows the history of the dispute and
pointed this out. It's mainly about OOXML, which Bruce thought Groklaw and BN
were wrong to discredit on the grounds that it would not help (defeeatism).


> The bit about the Linux community never being a 'happy family' is because
> of what exactly?


Brian explained this very well back in May:

http://www.linuxtoday.com/mailprint....19-26-OP-BZ-CY

"Ever since I crashed a 451 Group event at the Open Source Business Conference
last year in their San Francisco offices, I have kept more than half an eye
their 451 CAOS Theory blog. I figure if someone's provided me with a really
good cheese plate at a meeting I wasn't invited to, the least I could do is
read their stuff. It's just good karma."

"Normally I find the missives from the 451 crew pretty insightful. But in
Matthew Aslett's recent post, "Trouble in Paradise?" I find I have to take
some exception. Matt. Dude. It was never paradise.

"Aslett raises the alarm that lately there has been a significant rise in
animosity between the open source community the open source business vendors.
The Sun/MySQL kerfuffle and Matt Asay's recent misconstrued "free-riding"
remarks were the examples Aslett specifically pointed to as real problems
between the community and the commercial interests. I can cite other instances
that could be lent to Aslett's thesis: the ongoing vitriol between the
community and... Sun, Novell, and (depending on the day of the week)
Canonical."

Further down the reasons are explained. A lot of it is constructive criticism.
Watch how Canonical were pressured into contributing back their changes. It
came through a dispute with Greg K-H.

Think of it as open-source decision-making where people correct one another.
There is no one company deciding on a direction without getting flak.


> I am a member of the Mint, Ubuntu, and Pardus forums,
> and subscribe to debian, COLA, a.o.l.ubuntu, and pclinuxos newsgroups as
> well as researching quite extensively the Internet regarding Linux. I do
> this to learn the whole picture. In all areas I seem to look, Linux users
> range from tolerant to hostile regarding newcomers and each other, and in
> this newsgroup, almost all regular posters range from humorous to deep
> psychological problems. In some cases, Linux is treated in a derisory
> fashion.


That's true when it comes to Mac and Windows users too. A choice of an
operating system has little to do with personal things. The 'opposing sides'
love to paint a different picture though (just as they do in the elections as
a form of smear). Here is how Microsoft put it (leaked memo):

"Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental
deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2."
Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make
the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of
the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies
and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies, to
make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over
time."

--Microsoft, internal documen


> I stand by my accusations, as I do not understand how a group of
> individuals, some with great knowledge, can damage others commitment,
> personalities and enthusiasm to the extent that some wish others death,
> or post personal information about people's family. I simply do not
> understand them, and to say it has always been like this, so it will
> never change, is, to me, very wrong. Which way should someone like me
> approach it?


Physical threats sound like the type of tactics Microsoft munchkins employed
back in OS/2 days. The aggravation from the trolls in this newsgroup is
intended to have a similar effect. Disclosure of people's address, for
example, is a form of intimidation.


> I know I am not alone in this. A community is made up from many different
> persons, facets, but all with a common goal. That goal I feel, is to
> damage Linux beyond repair, then blame someone else for it's demise.


The code is shared by all and the umbrella is probably the licence. When
patents were introduced into the equation (Novell-type deals), then GPLv3 came
along to resolved this. Without vigilance, our sharing of code can be
imperiled. A lot of top lawyers in Microsoft would do anything to spoil our
code. Watch what SCO did...

- --
~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz | while (!0==1) echo 'Bill Gates' > /dev/null
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 140 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine
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iEYEARECAAYFAkkDT6kACgkQU4xAY3RXLo7QXwCgj29CxcVIxs c7YoNG6yd4mqa5
hIMAn2zW3iY0+pyFEj3CSa1ywUTBgPz1
=tCVv
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On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:00:10 GMT, Tony(UK) wrote:

> This has just appeared on my RSS feed from Linux.com:
> http://www.linux.com/feature/151215
>
> Entitled Boycott Novell: Champion of freedom or den of paranoia?

Another article with the same or similar name was posted on a different
website.
It think this article makes referecnce to it.

Bottom line, your opinions of BN are pretty much on the mark. Schestowitz
and his gang of loonies are extreme radicals and like a light switch they
are either on or off.
There is very little middle ground with these people.

The site is basically a thinly veiled hate site for anything commercial and
while it has Linux as a basis it has pretty much migrated toward patents,
the hate of the patent system and so forth.

You don't have to take my word for it Tony, visit the site and read for
yourself.
Pay particular attention to the IRC logs that Roy posts there and see the
extreme paranoia and hate from the people who post there.

This is not doing Linux and the Linux community any good press.
It just isn't.

In fact, much like the negative campaigning going on in the US elections,
it is turning people off.

Personally, I feel the author was fair to Roy and his gang though.

One final thought, if anyone still believes that Schestowitz is doing all
this gratis, they should seriously sit down and think about it for a while.
He is being compensated just like the so called munchkins he so often makes
reference to and their is a hell of a lot more evidence to back up him
being paid then the munchkins.


--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/
Please Visit www.linsux.org

Verily I say unto thee, that Tony(UK) spake thusly:

> The bit about the Linux community never being a 'happy family' is
> because of what exactly?

You should read the LKML some time to get a taste of some real flame
wars. Historically, do some research on Vi vs Emacs issue, or KDE vs Gnome.

These days the biggest divide seems to be between those who'd rather
compromise their freedom, than lose certain short-term conveniences,
and those who still remember the goals of Free Software.

You seem outraged by this in-fighting, but quite oblivious to crimes
committed by Microsoft, which is what actually started this fighting
in the first place WRT the Novell and "Intellectual Property" issues
at least.

Please tell me you understand the severity of the problem a criminal
organisation like Microsoft poses to the software industry, and Free
Software in particular. Surely you can understand my outrage against
their bribery; smear campaigns and FUD. They (and their partners in
crime Intel) even sabotaged a *charity*, for Christ's sake - how can
you possibly not be outraged against that but be more outraged about
those who speak out against these gangsters and their supporters?

I appreciate that you're just a guy trying to enjoy life and use the
best tools for the job, and you probably don't give a damn about the
politics.

I do.

Please don't deny me that privilege.

Your disinterest in Microsoft's crimes won't stop those crimes, and
maybe my cries of outrage won't either, but doing something has got
to be better than doing nothing, right?

What else am I supposed to do, STFU and be happy that my Freedom is
being compromised by a bunch of gangsters and FOSS turncoats?

I don't think so.

--
K.
http://slated.org

..----
| "At the time, I thought C was the most elegant language and Java
| the most practical one. That point of view lasted for maybe two
| weeks after initial exposure to Lisp." ~ Constantine Vetoshev
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
23:49:12 up 16 days, 9:45, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00

On Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:49:37 +0000, Homer wrote:

> Verily I say unto thee, that Tony(UK) spake thusly:
>
>> The bit about the Linux community never being a 'happy family' is
>> because of what exactly?
>
> You should read the LKML some time to get a taste of some real flame
> wars. Historically, do some research on Vi vs Emacs issue, or KDE vs Gnome.
>
> These days the biggest divide seems to be between those who'd rather
> compromise their freedom, than lose certain short-term conveniences,
> and those who still remember the goals of Free Software.
>
> You seem outraged by this in-fighting, but quite oblivious to crimes
> committed by Microsoft, which is what actually started this fighting
> in the first place WRT the Novell and "Intellectual Property" issues
> at least.
>
> Please tell me you understand the severity of the problem a criminal
> organisation like Microsoft poses to the software industry, and Free
> Software in particular. Surely you can understand my outrage against
> their bribery; smear campaigns and FUD. They (and their partners in
> crime Intel) even sabotaged a *charity*, for Christ's sake - how can
> you possibly not be outraged against that but be more outraged about
> those who speak out against these gangsters and their supporters?
>
> I appreciate that you're just a guy trying to enjoy life and use the
> best tools for the job, and you probably don't give a damn about the
> politics.
>
> I do.
>
> Please don't deny me that privilege.
>
> Your disinterest in Microsoft's crimes won't stop those crimes, and
> maybe my cries of outrage won't either, but doing something has got
> to be better than doing nothing, right?
>
> What else am I supposed to do, STFU and be happy that my Freedom is
> being compromised by a bunch of gangsters and FOSS turncoats?
>
> I don't think so.

You could start by not acting like a raving lunatic.


--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/
Please Visit www.linsux.org