Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 3 May 2000 10:41:48 -0700
From:      Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>
To:        Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
Cc:        "Daniel J. Zaccariello" <marisombra@mindspring.com>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>, John Papalia <john@jpepconsulting.com>, Jeremiah Gowdy <jgowdy@home.com>, smkelly@slashnet.org, insane@lunatic.oneinsane.net, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD and IRC
Message-ID:  <20000503104148.D13668@fw.wintelcom.net>
In-Reply-To: <20000503221042.A550@physics.iisc.ernet.in>; from rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in on Wed, May 03, 2000 at 10:10:43PM %2B0530
References:  <Your <4.3.2.20000503012424.00d214e0@pop.mindspring.com> <20554.957345701@localhost> <4.3.2.20000503114015.00c0abd0@pop.mindspring.com> <20000503221042.A550@physics.iisc.ernet.in>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
* Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> [000503 10:12] wrote:
> > I have two religions, FreeBSD, and my work.  I must say my faith is being 
> > tested by all of this.  What is causing your myopia?  What is so difficult 
> > to understand that a channel bearing the project's name has an impact on 
> > public perception of the project?  That is, after all, part of advocacy, is 
> > it not?  The type of behavior you're condoning is one of the most 
> > compelling reasons I will not use Linux or recommend Linux to new users I 
> > meet (save for Debian, I've found the people on #debian on irc.debian.org 
> > to be very friendly).
> 
> FWIW: I've never seen this sort of attitude in the linux world.  Sure,
> there are the flamers on Slashdot and so on, but they are mostly kids
> who have no clue and have never actually contributed to linux in the
> first place.  And even they don't often flame "clueless newbies", only
> windows lovers and people like that.  The big difference here is that
> some of the most obnoxious-sounding people on this thread are listed
> as core members, developers and so on.  Hearing such opinions from JKH
> is like hearing them from Linus Torvalds or Alan Cox, not from some
> anonymous troller.  The knowledgeable Linux people never try to
> alienate the user community in this way. 
> 
> Which is exactly why the whole topic *does* belong on advocacy.  Much
> of the linux users' loyalty to their system is because of the pleasant
> experience they get from the "community".  Whereas a lurker on this
> list reading this thread would come away with a very bad impression.  

Afaik you'll never see Linux's Alan Cox or Linus on efnet-#linux,
they have thier own private server where it's generally understood
that it's a tech-kern and chat channel, not some newbie hand-holding
resource.

I think it's great that jkh is on IRC, I'm pretty sure it's one of
things that attracted me to FreeBSD was the casual nature of mingling
with "the masses" and occasionally ban-kicking them when they got
too uppty. 

Had #freebsd and the ops been up for handholding I don't think I
would have had the need to explore so much on my own which really
still is a positive experiance.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org]
"I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000503104148.D13668>