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Who is "we"???Who is "we"???Posted Apr 14, 2005 4:22 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1)In reply to: Who is "we"??? by b7j0c Parent article: On polite Linux advocacy The only "we" in the article is the line saying "we'll still be here". I didn't intend to hold anybody responsible other than the people actually behaving that way. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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Who is "we"??? Posted Apr 14, 2005 15:03 UTC (Thu) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] I kinda have to agree with the parent poster... You also say, "let's try tobehave in a way that we'll be proud of in the future", which sort of implies that "we" are NOT currently behaving in such a way... This sort of language buys into the same silly nonsense which allows such people to paint the whole "Linux community" (whoever that is, exactly) as childish and immature, just due the actions of a few loud-mouths... There is no "we"... There is no group-mind... "We" are all individuals... And, some of "us" are just plain obnoxious... ;-) There's nothing anyone can ever do to change that, I don't think... But, the point is that a few loud-mouths should NOT be allowed to represent the "Linux community" as a whole, anymore than the crazy loud-mouth shouting at people downtown should be allowed to represent your entire city... Do we have crazy loud-mouths in our "community"? Sure, what community DOESN'T?? But, that in no way implies they speak for us all... And, that's exactly what people like Laura Didio want people to believe... And, I'm sorry to say, the language like in the above story only serves to help such people's causes, because you are essentially taking responsibility for the actions, and implicitly associating them with the "community" as a whole... I'm not saying what you wrote was wrong or bad advice in any way; it's simply utterly unnecessary stuff to tell most of us, because we already know better than to do such things... The fact that you take the time to tell us all such stuff, which only childish loud-mouths should need to be told, sort of implicitly paints us all as childish loud-mouths, which is exactly what they want... ;-(
Who is "we"??? Posted Apr 14, 2005 15:22 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] Recall Niven's Law -- actually, Larry Niven has published a whole bunch of laws, but this is the one that Jerry Pournelle is fond of quoting in similar contexts -- "there is no cause so noble that it will not attract fugheads".
On the other hand, I don't think it really hurts to issue a general reminder in case there are newbies out there who don't realize they are being fugheads. (What's the expression that means something like "there's no zealot like the recent convert"?)
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