Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 00:43:33 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: RMS on UDI Message-ID: <17310.907659813@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 05 Oct 1998 22:55:17 MDT." <4.1.19981005224616.042d51d0@mail.lariat.org>
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> Linux is accumulating a groundswell of support that FreeBSD isn't. WHENEVER > I hear of a company developing a product for Linux and ask, "What about > FreeBSD?" they seem to say, "Free-who?" In my experience, FreeBSD doesn't > enjoy even the recognition that OS/2, dying ember that it is, commands. > > That's a rut, folks. Sigh. I evidently just don't know how to communicate the message I've been trying to get across over these last 4 or 5 exchanges, but I'll try just one more time, this time with as much of a rein on my emotions as I can manage and an honest desire to see an end to this kind of destructive spiral rather than get into yet another cycle of argument. Consider this message my response to both the above and a distillation of last week's fracas. I saw Brett on some TV talk show recently (Silicon somethingorother), a program on which it was quite clear that the principal object of discussion was going to be Linux and that he had better say some nice things about it (which he did) if he wanted any camera time at all. I thought that Brett balanced this quite well, and even though he might have gagged internally on some of the things he had to say in order to get the opportunity to even mention FreeBSD in the same context (which he also did), he said them and basically did what he had to do in order to get the chance to smile on TV with some suits. I thought it was a great example of advocacy done as best possible given the real-world constraints of the situation. This example also illustrates why it's been such a heated issue between Brett and I when he's then turned around and basically used an entirely different set of standards for us, essentially damning us all to hell for failing to achieve perfection in the face of some of those very same real-world constraints and attacking the works of those few allies we have rather than focusing his hostility on those who are genuinely against us. I'm quite sure Brett doesn't see it that way, but you can take it as god's honest truth that I and many other people cannot see it any other way and it's also an attack with no conceivable purpose, from where we're sitting, since being abused has never inspired and never is going to inspire us to achieve greater things than we would have tried to achieve anyway. As a "wake up call" or attempt at inspiration, it fails utterly. This is made all the more painful by the fact that Brett has frequently been a great help to us, yet during those times where Brett has flipped-over and gone on the attack, he becomes no different than RMS, Russell Nelson or Larry McVoy in my eyes and that's pretty sad since I also consider those folks "the enemy" in many respects and have to constantly watch my back, so to speak, while they're around. It's frankly not the kind of duality we need in our lives. A Brett one minute doing a really kick-ass job of advocating FreeBSD and the next minute kicking me and a lot of other hard-working people square in the nuts is not a Brett who can be trusted since it's just a bit too much like being raised by an alcoholic parent: You never know what kind of shit is going to come down on a given day, you just know that it's going to be random, unpredicable and very nasty. So, in the interests of stress-reduction and general harmony where I currently see a lot of very needless dischord, I ask only this (of everyone in this discussion): Even if you don't think they might be doing the best possible job, please avoid this kind of "friendly fire" at the various folks who contributing to FreeBSD, both commercially and privately. Just skip it. We have few enough of those kinds of people to go around as it is without making the situation any more difficult, and this kind of severely judgemental back-seat driving makes it very difficult indeed. Don't think this kind of talk doesn't get back to the source - it does and it causes only pain, NOT more rapid progress. If you (the generic you) also think you can do a better job, in any category, of promoting or "selling" freebsd to the masses then by all means please feel more than free to just dive in and start doing it. Leave all the worrying about schisms and such to the fates and focus purely on what you, personally, have gotta do. Do the right thing, as they say, and the right things will happen. If you aren't prepared to step into someone else's shoes, on the other hand, then at least do them the most basic courtesy of not spitting on them while under the misapprehension that you're inspiring them to run faster. It just does not work that way, and I can tell you this from ample personal experience. More than a little saddened and disillusioned by what has been going on lately, I thank you for listening to one last lamentation on my part about all of this. If it ends up making absolutely no difference at all, I guess I can live with that too. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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