Bruce Byfield, the guy who told you to "grow up" last November, is beating up strawmen again. If we listen to him we will censor ourselves and our friends.
In a three page rant, he tells us to be happy for what we have (good) and leave M$ alone (bad). He derides anyone who does bothers to utter more than an "occasional curse" is a scary, obsessed, self important, childish miscreant that will somehow destroy the free software community. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3738341_1 It would be easy to ignore this person it were not for how common and destructive such insults are. M$'s recent abuse of the ISO shows us that the "Evangalism is war" attitude is alive and well and there will be no peaceful co-existence. While we happily use and produce world class software, Microsoft is making it as hard as possible for us to run: OGG: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/27/accidental_music_monopoly_bid/ ACPI: http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf OOXML: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008040212120873 The OOXML fiasco will have us all reliving the 90s if governments are dumb enough to embrace the xml version of M$'s infamous formats. You would think the "grin and bear it" attitude would be rare, especially after such a fresh attack, but it's impossible to get away from. I found his article on the first page of a Google News search for "'free software' Linux". There was plenty more like it but not much real free software news to be found. Slashdot, of course, is flooded with more of the same. Recently, I was kicked off the CCCC general list for "politics" and daring to say anything negative about "any company" so this kind of propaganda was effective, at least on Roger Carlyle and a few others with the power to act against members. Microsoft deserves frequent ridicule and criticism because they frequently do things which are wrong. They are either too stupid to understand the social harm they do or are too greedy to care and they should be called to task each time they are caught saying or doing the wrong things. This is an impossible task for any single person, of course, but it's easy for the community if we cooperate and share what we know. _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://mail.brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
