[nycbug-talk] Fw: Extreme mobile BSD

[Alex Pilosov]

On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, [utf-8] Trish Lynch wrote:

> Its always been an understanding that rants that essentially were just
> plain nasty and offensive (as Miles was, calling out people who used
> current technology as no better than high school girls and toy train
> collectors - even if they were clueful enough to use it in ways they
> found inifintely useful to better their own lives), were frowned upon
> here.
I've seen far worse. 

To quote Fido Policy: You should not be excessively annoying, but you also 
should not be easily annoyed. 

perhaps you misread his comment "AFAICT most of this new wave of tools is
geek-proof, in that it's so locked down you won't get more out of the
device than any teenage girl or retired model train hobbyist.". I fail to 
see how you could read it by calling *people* worse than highschool girls.

> As far as replying to the original author - ok - maybe - but the offense
> was posted to the list - so the response shoulld generally be posted to
> the same place - especially since IMO - my opinion happened to be
> relative to the topic.
> 
> Once upon a time - the BSD community was a mostly polite, if
> curmudgeonly group of people with advanced technical knowledge who
> didn't mind capitalism, closed intellectual property (in fact tried to
> work within those strictures - I remeber when the Aeronet cards were
> used at USENIX and I arranged for Aeronet to give specs to Bill Paul -
> within the system), or people making some cash. Opinions were respected
> and people who came across as you and Miles to were looked upon normally
> as total and complete jerks - and only got any respect if they had
> advanced technical knowledge (like Theo. D.) - and still people didn't
> *like* them or like working with them.
Funny you brought up Theo. I think his case pretty much proves my point.  
Theo can be rude (and often is, to people who deserve it, and sometimes to
those who don't). He was thrown out of netbsd for being rude. netbsd is
currently far more dead than openbsd is. I think in retrospect, everyone
realizes that netbsdcoreteam was wrong and Theo was right.

It is more preferably to be both correct and polite, but if you have to 
choose, I'm going to choose to hang out with guys who know what they are 
doing. Otherwise, I'd be on nylug.

> It seems as it gets "cooler" to run a BSD - the community suurrounding
> it has become not much better than the linux kiddies.
I think otherwise.

Linux always catered to everyone. *bsd catered to cluebies, and generally 
was not all that welcoming of outsiders who can't prove they deserve to 
belong. 

> Maybe its *me* who wants the good old days back, not Miles. Or maybe my
> point is that times change and everyone misses what they miss - its how
> you state it that matters, and Miles came off as a spoiled brat - rather
> than someone with a relevant technical point (and I still can't find one
> in that post)
See above for comments about good old days.