Re: Brett Glass's postings to mailing.freebsd.chat

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Brett Glass wrote:

> Jamie:
>
> What's "slimy" here is, in fact, to take my posting utterly out
> of context. What I was discussing, in fact, was the advocacy
> strategies already being used by promoters of Linux and their
> applicability to other OSes.
>
> --Brett Glass
>
> At 01:08 PM 3/8/99 -0500, Wandered Inn wrote:
>
> >James Love wrote:
> >>
> >> I was forwarded a pointer the dejanews's collection of
> >> Brett Glass's recent posting to mailing.freebsd.chat.
> >> It seems appropriate to ask Brett to explain what he
> >> means here.  Jamie
> >
> >Well we certainly can see that Brett falls in category #1.  Pretty slimy
> >as far as I'm concerned.  Damn, Brett, Microsoft would love you..

Sorry, Brett, but I just don't buy it.  I know how to do a search in DejaNews
and did one (Jamie's URL did not work for me).  What I found there was pretty
much exactly what Jamie described.  There isn't a smidgin of discussion of
how Linux got to be so popular.  What I saw was the outlining of a dishonest
strategy for promoting FreeBSD and to me, it's sick.  It's apparently equally
sick to some of your friends on the FreeBSD list, who have more scruples than
you do about engaging in such tactics.

Furthermore, I have never seen tactics anything like these employed by Linux
users.  Oh, to be sure, there are some obnoxious young twits who like to hang
out on slashdot.org and seem to delight in preening about how "kewl" linux is
and how hopelessly reactionary everyone else is, but that form of youthfully
exuberant obnoxiousness is a far cry from the kind of organized nastiness
you're trying to promote.

Rather what I see in the Linux community is a spirit of helpfulness, and of
sharing.  The help I've received from Linux users and occasionally given
myself in return.  Perhaps we're all being naive, it wouldn't be the first
time something like that has happened.  Linux users may even be dead wrong
about the dangers of GPL, but if they are, their mistakes are honest ones.

But organized nastiness of the type you're proposing has, IMHO, nothing to do
with the success of Linux.  To the extent it exists at all, it's probably
been counterproductive.  Such tactics ARE worthy of Microsoft as Geoffrey
points out.  And here's another similarity : when caught red-handed, both you
and Microsoft insist your writings have been "taken out of context." How can
Brett possibly weather such persecutions?  You revel in them!  You are so
geared up for this battle, so convinced of your infallibility, so willing to
let ends justify means, that you've lost all perspective.  I'm sure there are
Microsofties who also believe in what they're doing.

Give it a rest, Brett.  I've tried to argue with you in a principled fashion,
but I see now that I haven't a ghost of a chance.  Good night.