Common sense

Common sense

But that constant bickering and noise here are enough now.

I understand what you mean, but please appreciate that all the time I've been just responding to what others brought up, debunking Groklie after Groklie (which doesn't necessarily make the people who were misled liars -- at least some of them were undoubtedly sincere).

All I had said in my second reply far up above was that the European Commission's decision to launch investigations shows that it wasn't as pointless as some claimed. I didn't even want to address any details because that simple statement stood on its own. Certain people then raised detail after detail, and I reacted.

It is apparent to me that the involved people here are not interested in changing their point of view, why don't you all shut up for a while and go outside for a bit.

Sorry, but if you rethink this, you may notice all by yourself that this is flawed. There's a large audience that gets the chance to hear the opposing points of view and form an opinion. Some have in fact expressed appreciation for that opportunity, right here on this page. What you say would mean that there should never be a debate in any of the houses of US Congress, and it would do away with the vast majority of all TV shows. The participants in those debates won't change their points of view either, but there's value to an audience interested in the subject.

THAT argument is undue and indecent and lets you be my #2 in my plonk list. Sorry dude, I have never spoken at an industry conference either and would prefer to keep it that way, so I must have something to hide as well. Even if a person choses to remain completely anonymous and even if she were totally fictious, that doesn't make her information or analyses less interesting or credible (if backed up by facts).

OK, so please forgive me if I you are a public figure and I just didn't recognize your user name here. For now I assume that you are not. Therefore, your decision not to speak at industry conferences is a totally different thing than if you talk about a person like PJ.

PJ is the only public figure in FOSS never to have spoken at an industry conference nor to have disclosed her professional track record (former and current employers).

I will admit that for the sake of brevity I didn't add that there's no information about her biography that's available. That combined with her absence from public events is even more unique. My track record is well-documented and I think it's reasonable to expect that of people who have a certain level of exposure in such debates. It's a matter of transparency. There must be a balance between transparency and privacy, and where the balance is struck is very much related to the exposure someone gets (and utilizes to influence opinion-forming processes). In your case that may be the right one; in my case it is; in PJ's case it definitely isn't. It does raise serious questions.

What you say about whether things are less interesting or credible (if backed up by facts) is true at first sight, but too idealistic. Please take into account that there are a number of fanboys who are basically brainwashed by her, to varying degrees.

Of course I always want to focus on the facts. If you look at the things I wrote in this discussion here, you can see it's about 99% about the issues and only 1% about such credibility matters.