Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:11:36 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: nbm@mithrandr.moria.org (Neil Blakey-Milner), rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in (Rahul Siddharthan), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Brett "attacks" Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010119165745.04994810@localhost> In-Reply-To: <200101191940.MAA13791@usr08.primenet.com> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010119092259.048d6100@localhost>
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At 12:40 PM 1/19/2001, Terry Lambert wrote: >It does brand you as disfunctional, in the context of the FreeBSD >social organization, but, in fact, as you must admit, it's true >that you do not function as a member of that society in a way that >the society would have you function. I don't know.... While the "society" may have something to do with it too, I think that most of the animosity I encounter seems to happen on a personal level. Folks who feel that their personal "territory" has been invaded react by trying to persuade the group to turn on the "intruder." (The usual way in which this is done is to start an e-mail flame war which creates annoyance by clogging folks' inboxes; the blame for the flood of messages is then laid upon that person.) If anything, it seems as if the "societal" mechanisms which serve to keep order on the lists are being harnessed in more personal vendettas. It may be true that I violate some unwritten rules of the "society" as well, but I don't think that I do this much more than, say, you do. In fact, I suspect that if you were not one of the acknowledged "fathers" of FreeBSD (and, in fact, all of the collaboratively developed BSDs), you might be subject to similar ill treatment. After all, we do seem to agree a great deal of the time on a wide variety of issues. This could be (probably is!) an example of the benefits of "contributing in the coin of the realm" as you suggest below. >That's not a criticism, and it's not a bad thing to be so branded, >in my opinion. People forget their heros and cannonize their >misfits, when histories are written. So I'm doomed to be a legendary misfit sometime after I'm long gone? I guess that's a minor consolation after all the venom I seem to be seeing here. >IMO, the "and delusional" part was you using the jingoistic technique >of "tarring with the same brush", also called "guilt by association" >or "sympathetic magic". > >Also IMO, the parting shot you made was accusatory, and really >uncalled for in context, unless it was intended as a rhetorical >technique to ensure that only the "heavies" stayed involved in the >dialogue; in any case, it's really not a success strategy: it >made you appear unnecessarily spiteful. I'm not spiteful.... If anything, I'm perplexed at the spite that seems to be shown by others. If I came across as spiteful, it certainly wasn't intentional. >The point is that any society is based on economic principles; >even forests or coral reefs are based on economies, even if you >can't see them without years of study. > >Any society will require that you pay in the coin of the realm for >what you propose to expend in the way of its resources. > >I suggest you find something the society values, and offer it as >a "package deal", along with the other stuff which it doesn't >value (even if you think it should, or even if you are proven >epistimologically correct, and there is a quintisenntial and >elemental value to the other stuff that it truly _should_ value >as a matter of enlightened self-interest). I'm actually working on something like that right now -- I can tell you exactly what in private e-mail. I was hoping to have it ready for LinuxWorld, but due to unexpected events that are consuming a fair portion of my time and energy, I'm now shooting for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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