Re: [tlug] Free versus open: a rant [was some thread about VoIP/GnomeMeeting]

[Josh Glover <tlug@example.com>]

Quoth Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon (Wed 2004-07-07 07:53:54PM +0900):

> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> 
> >>>>>>"Botond" == Botond Botyanszki <tlug@example.com> writes:
> >
> >   >> Tell me it ain't so.  The whole point of _GNU_NOME was to hold
> >   >> the line against such backsliding by KDE and Qt!  Surely there
> >   >> are alternative codecs?
> >
> >   Botond> Just because you couldn't come up with a
> >   Botond> M-X-make-voip-call you should not start bashing gnome.
> >
> >Who bashed?  Somebody implied such a dependency, I asked a question
> >which if answered positively would settle the issue, it was answered
> >(after the post you're quoting, may I point out) in the negative.
> >Read what you quote, for heaven's sake!
>
> I think that SJT has his mail set to filter me out,

And he is not the only one, which implies something. Exactly what it
implies is left as an exercise to the reader.

> I swore I would never respond to any of his e-mail again

A wise decision, since all he does is flame-bait and troll.

> but the situation as I see it now is this:
> 
> This group is composed of many network administrator types who post 
> heavily, and who knows how many idiot users such as myself who mainly 
> just read what the experts are saying.

Steve is no network administrator. He probably has the knowledge to
*become* one, if that interested him. I doubt he will, though, since
he cannot "M-x cisco-simulator". ;)

I think what you meant to say is something more like, "This group is
composed of a few people with lots of Unix / network / programming
experience, and many who are not. The latter typically just read what
the former are saying."

This is closer to the truth, though I do not think it is so binary.
There are the gurus, the ones struggling along the path to enlight-
enment, and the total n00bs. We hope there are more of the middle
types.

> My last post was completely ignored here and - at this point - that
> doesn't bother me, because know I understand that active participants
> to this list are basically expected to be network administrator types
> and idiot questions such as my one about not being able to get my NEC
> laptop on-line again after a new install might as well be ignored for
> their idiocy.

I don't think that is quite fair. *I* saw your question, but did not
answer because I had 200 other emails to deal with, since I could not
check my email over the week-end. (Aside: I finally met Scott Robbins
in meat-space, up in NYC, and had a blast.) This is fairly typical of
many of us. We are quite willing to help with many questions such as
yours, as long as they are asked in the proper fashion (yours was, from
the skimming I did) *and* we are not busy. Out of the three people on
this list who are most likely to bend over backwards to answer such
questions, Scott is very busy with work these days, and Jonathan and
Steve have you kill-filed. (Again, if one guy plonks you, *he* could be
the jerk; if two guys plonk you, better look at yourself and see what
people are finding irritating about your behaviour.)

So it is no wonder your question went unanswered, even though the
question itself was quite valid and not at all idiotic.

> That said, I often find the postings of SJT to be extremely rude and 
> offensive.  I dare say I'm not the only one.

In the time that I have known Steve, I have found that the people who
consider him rude are the people who do not have enough knowledge /
context to understand him (AKA n00bs and people such as yourself, who
seem to be genuinely trying, but have not quite achieved Unix satori).

> What prompts me to write now, is in support of Botond. I strongly feel
> that he is entirely in the right regarding civilized behavior.  SJT
> may be a man that people fall at the feet of and eagerly licks his
> shoes, I don't know, but however exalted and god-like he may be, I am
> quite sure he must be human, and thus it would be nice if he could be a
> little less abrasive in his writing.

I am not sure you read the whole thread, but I am sure that you cannot
know the context from which this discussion lept. B0ti is quite the
GTK+ / GNOME programmer, having written both Gjiten and im-ja (sorry if
I am forgetting anything, B0ti). Steve is the release manager for XEmacs
and has issues with some of the Free Software Foundation's "lunatics on
the fringe", as he puts it.

His comment (as *I* read it) was somewhere between genuine concern that
the GNU brand will be diluted if a piece of GNU software *depends* on a
proprietary codec, and bemusement.

B0ti could not let this attack (his perception, not mine, but I can
certainly understand how he could see it that way) on GNOME stand. He
thought that Steve was mis-informed (Steve was, and freely admitted it;
he was asking for confirmation, sort of a "say it ain't so!"), and said
so, albeit taking a clever jab at Steve's position in The Church of
Emacs (I imagine Steve himself chuckled at the way B0ti put it) along
the way.

Steve and B0ti are both valued contributors to this list, and both nice
guys, if their postings to this list over the last four years (that is
how long *I* have been on TLUG; they both pre-date me) are any indic-
ation. Even smart guys have disagreements and misunderstandings. I
seriously doubt that either B0ti or Steve are irritated about this
particular one.

In fact, Steve's response to B0ti's post was far from a flame. Read it
if you don't believe me:

http://www.tlug.jp/ML/0407/msg00092.html

> Sorry to say anything at all, but it makes me angry to see him attack 
> Botond when he - SJT - is the uncivil one.  Technical genius and God-of 
> the universe SJT, I tip my hat to you, but with all due respect, you 
> really could try to be a little bit nicer to your fellow man!

Lyle, I honestly think that you mean well, but I think you have this one
wrong. Let me tell you a story that I have heard at least 100 times from
Scott Robbins:

Scott had a page about telnet, and when a question was asked on this
list, he referred someone to his page. Jonathan Byrne ripped him a new
one, saying that telnet is insecure and that Scott should not be ad-
vocating its use. According to Scott, he was really steamed for about
24 hours, but then he slowly started to see Jonathan's point. He sent
an email to Jonathan saying as much. Not only were there no hard feel-
ings between the two, but Jonathan became one of Scott's Unix mentors
(Scott's words here, not mine). Now, Scott and Jonathan are good
friends, and both have learned a lot from the other.

Now let me tell you another story, this one about me. When I first sub-
scribed to TLUG, sometime late in 2000, I was probably about the same
level as you are now. I was relatively new to Unix, and had lots of low-
level questions. I thought that the gods of the list, who at that time
were such chaps as Steve, Jonathan, the Brothers Doughty, Uva Coder,
and of course, Chris Sekiya (a moment of silence for our dearly de-
parted), were a little rude at times. It was a classic case of me not
understanding the hacker culture. See our mailing list policy doc:

http://www.tlug.jp/listpolicy.php#conflict

And also ESR's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way":

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Especially these sections:

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losing

Luckily for me, I had an epiphany, somewhere right around the time of the
Great Exodus,[1] that *I* was the reason I though the other chaps rude
from time to time.

All I am saying is, learn about us and our culture before you write us
all off as uncivil.

Cheers,
Josh

[1] Which was when almost all of the gurus left the list, sometime in
    midsummer of 2002. (I cannot find any of the pertaining threads right
    now, can anyone else?) Luckily a few of them came back.

-- 
Josh Glover

Gentoo Developer (http://dev.gentoo.org/~jmglov/)
Tokyo Linux Users Group Listmaster (http://www.tlug.jp/)

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