I have not responded to this thread because I was angered by it and did not want to respond in anger. That has passed. But this thread is unfortunately all too typical of a pattern of ridicule and downright nastiness that occurs much too often on the OpenBSD lists. It's unfortunate that you do this, because you do good work, important work, and you demean that work by allowing people on these lists to behave like unruly 10-year-old boys. You could enforce minimum levels of civility, as many such communities do, without impeding the flow of technical information a it, but you choose not to.
There was a great Russian pianist and teacher, Mme. Rosina Lhevinne, who taught many famous pianists -- Van Cliburn, John Browning and Mischa Dichter perhaps the most prominent -- as well as other well-known musicians who didn't become pianists, such as John Williams and James Levine. I had the privilege of knowing Mme. Lhevinne just a bit, having played for her and studied with her assistant for a number of years. Mme. Lhevinne's husband, Josef, was one of the greatest pianists ever to play the instrument. He and Sergei Rachmaninoff graduated from the Moscow Conservatory at the same time, and Josef Lhevinne got the piano prize. The Lhevinnes were musical royalty. Why am I telling you all this? Because I want to share a quote from Mme. Lhevinne, when she spoke at the 20th anniversary of the Aspen Music Festival, at the age of 89: "My life at the Moscow Conservatory taught me to equip myself with knowledge and craftsmanship before going out to conquer the world. My life with Mr. Lhevinne taught me not to conquer the world by force, but to discover the world -- to discover it through study, through kindness, through the imagination; and above all, to discover the world through the integrity of your own quest ..." There is wisdom in these words from which many of you could benefit. I've not been happy about the tone of the OpenBSD lists for some time, and having it directed at me personally and unprovoked was the final straw. I will no longer use OpenBSD and will cease contributing financially to the project. Too bad, because there's a place for it in my computing needs, but it isn't the only system that can play that role, and while the system is good, it isn't good enough to compensate for the hatefulness that is too routine in this community. /Don Allen
