Spake Bryan J. Smith on Monday, December 25, 2006 at 01:13PM -0400:
> I have no idea where this started, but lately, I've adopted an attitude.
>
> There are a few cautious, responsible, professional Linux professionals and advocates.
> They combine business contract law with extensive research so they are well-informed.
> That way they can best counsel companies on avoiding vendor lock-in, Hostageware and protect their IP, while still sharing it with the public.
>
> And then there are Linux advocates who practice, in essence, McCarthism.
> They are ignorant, fear, and endless uncertainty, and always express doubt on everything.
> It's one thing to be cautious, but it's another thing to be wholly ignorant to suggest thing slike Novell forking OpenOffice.org
> (e.g., shows utter ignorance of OpenOffice.org's copyright holder, their 3+ year cross-license with MS, etc...).
>
> Yes, Communism was a threat in McCartharies day, and some (of us more Libertarian) Americans would argue socialism remains a threat, some externally funded.
> But that doesn't mean you drag down the overwhelming majority of pro-Community, pro-GPL entities in a holy war.
> And the sad thing is, sometimes the people screaming the loudest are just like McCarthy, people less than honorable, with their own agenda.
>
> I think Ubuntu's Shuttleworth is a perfect example of this.
>
I do not believe a comparison of Mark Shuttleworth to McCarthy is
appropriate for the main SLUG list.
Let's disarm this bird with some good ol' fashion free-association,
Dylan-style.
Hmm. McCarthy is an Irish surname, and today is Stephen's Day ("The
wren, the wren was the king of all birds...").
Okay, let's say Mark Shuttlework is Sir William of Orange.
This is preposterous, because one would have to conclude that Debian is
England. But Microsoft is evil. And England is evil (Well, historicaly.
Eight hundred years of persecution and slavery is not something my
people forget!).
So, Microsoft == England.
Novel == Northern Ireland. They're not evil, just terribly confused about
who they are.
Now, this leaves Debian == Ireland. That's right dandy.
(While we're at it, Slackware == Scotland and Gentoo == Wales).
Of course, what about the Debian diaspora? Simple, really. Ubuntu is like Newfoundland.
Now, drawing to a close, RedHat is sort of like the Wiemer Republic and
Fedora is like Nazi Germany, and all these "Fedora Cores" are like nazi
concentration camps.
There. This thread is now destroyed by the power of Godwin's Law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
--
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
-- Mark Twain
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