Re: [Fsfe-uk] Fwd: OSS Watch inaugural conference, 11 December 2003

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Andrew,

> Thanks for illustrating my point about "aggressive open source
> evangelists" so beautifully! Don't try telling people what the point
> of the conference should be until you're sure you know why the
> conference is taking place. Try not to keep pointing that shotgun at
> your own foot, eh?

I agree with your initial rant and it's come up on the list before IIRC.

There are loud mouth idiots in all walks of life.  Some are loud about
proprietary software, and some, unfortunately, are loud about free
software.  This is fine when it's to their mates down the pub or
colleagues at work who know the person.

But it's not so great when they send off an angry email to some
newspaper journalist who's published an inaccurate article.  Instead of
politely pointing the inaccuracies out and presenting an alternative
viewpoint, they rant.  The result is the FS crowd being unfairly tainted
and one more journalist who will look at FS with more biased eyes next
time.

We've all sent off an email when annoyed instead of waiting until the
next day.  But when it's to a member of the public who's not used to
flames, etc., they're less understanding.

All we can do is try to drown the loud mouths out with polite reasoned
argument, whilst understanding someone else's viewpoint.

Cheers,


Ralph.