Re: [Gnu-arch-users] the way forward

[Thomas Lord]

I suppose I'll dignify that with a response although there's not
much there to respond to.

I encourage the very bored to read James' essay.   The more jaded will
find nothing new: it's a mishmash of half-remembered economics and
weakly presented libertarian sentiment mixed in with some none-too-
subtle, snide, and indirect slanders against yours truly (or do I
flatter myself too much in identifying myself as the "you-know-who", the
bold-faced "any person", the desperate "individual" of whom he speaks).

Yes, James, your lack of imagination, absence of intellectualism,
willingness to cynically defame rather than speak to the issues
at hand -- these are all familiar have been long noted.  Somebody
toss that boy a dog treat.

You may not have noticed but nobody here has attacked capitalism.
Andrew's comment that "money corrupts" perhaps comes the closest
but I doubt that even he meant it that way.   We can only hope that
a gold-star has been pasted next to your name in the rolls of the
naughty and nice that the VCs and execs in your imagination maintain.

You may not have noticed that you and yours at Canonical stand
accused of the gratuitous disruption and destruction of a public
project that, prior to your assembly under the financial umbrella
of a wealthy hobbyist, was muddling through and showed considerable
promise of a bright future.   What combination of maliciousness,
ignorance, misplaced arrogance, and just plain stupidity led to 
such thuggery is a question for the ages but the consequences of
your entirely voluntary behavior is laid bare in everything from
the code itself to my circumstances.   At least we can agree
on this much: you were well funded in the effort.

Perhaps you are unaware that you and yours stand accused of
manufacturing, in effect or by intention (who can say), the perception
that I am difficult to work with.   Presumably you have forgotten
boasting to me, early on in this mess, about your personal skill
at manipulating public opinion from your keyboard.

It's telling that completely absent from your analysis is any 
response at all to accusations about the technical quality of
the work you folks have been doing, the longer term implications
of that, and the implications of the entire affair for the relationship
between volunteer labor and the FOSS industry.  In the final
analysis, you'll have a hard time justifying your approaches
as even rationally self-interested from your owner's perspective.

It's fascinating that you have a view of capitalism substantially at 
odds with that of the wealthy who modulate the bulk of major 
developments in our industry yet at the same time, a view that 
well befits a complete tool trying to sell himself to the highest
bidder and damn the consequences.

There are higher values in life, James, than a vague dedication to
the writings of Ayn Rand.

There are more lasting ways of doing business, James.

Having set out to be a destructive force to achieve a petty level
of personal gain, you and yours have succeeded today.   Let's see
what all our tomorrow's bring.

-t