The case of the unwelcome attribution [LWN.net]

The case of the unwelcome attribution

Posted Sep 20, 2007 10:18 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
Parent article: The case of the unwelcome attribution

I have never heard of this Jason Dixon, J.C. Roberts and Can E. Acar before this incident. Perhaps they are famous in BSD circles for their enormous contributions to the codebase.

More likely though they're just fanboys. Everyone famous has fanboys, there's no reason Theo should be any different. So it wouldn't really matter if Theo had just blindly asserted that Linus had been rude to his mother, or that Linux users smell bad. These fanboys would be out in force assuring everyone that Theo is right.

When a teenage idol singer releases a mediocre pop song that is panned by critics, her fanboys flood forums with praise for it. When a basketball player is arrested for drink driving his fanboys aren't going to wait for a trial, they "know" he's innocent right from the start.

We can't completely ignore Theo, his contributions are significant, his ability to shape the future considerable - but we can ignore his fanboys. Their opinions are the very definition of irrelevant. Let's have no more articles about this unless there's something worth reporting on.

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The case of the unwelcome attribution

Posted Sep 20, 2007 11:15 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I'll admit that I thought for a moment that Can E. Acar was a pseudonymous troll, but a bit of googling revealed that he's been active in Turkish BSD circles for years.

(I wonder how much of this is culture clash? I have quite a few Turkish friends, and I've noticed they have a propensity towards argument-as-sport, including making enormous rhetorical flourishes for the sake of spurring on a good argument. I have this tendency too, so we get on quite well... but if you're not expecting it and think they're stating things they actually believe rather than playing perpetual devil's advocate, you can get thoroughly confused and annoyed.)