Re: Practicality of GNU project and libre movement

[Miles Fidelman]

On 7/24/20 1:26 PM, Roberto Beltran wrote:

> > > I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. You can say the most
> > > correct and right things in the world.
> > > But if you don't make the person that hears you inspired or happy you
> > > won't go anywhere.
> > I'm not sure this is really true.
> >
> > One doesn't generally come out of a (good & thorough) design review
> > happy - at least not if there are gaps/flaws in your design.  If you're
> > lucky, you might come out ticked at yourself for your own oversight (or
> > stupidity), and inspired to go "back to the drawing board."
> >
> > History suggests that fear is a far more effective motivator than
> > happiness.  Where inspiration fits in depends on the situation &
> > inspiration (and both survival & fear are great sources of inspiration -
> > you know, necessity and all that).  Paying people, or giving them free
> > stuff, also works pretty well.
> >
> > By contrast, it sure seems like pandering & wishful thinking, are
> > recipes for disaster (unless you're a politician, in which case, they're
> > recipes for election).
> >
> > Miles Fidelman
> Not pointing this only at you Miles, just happened to get you last, but I think 
> we've all more or less said our peace on how to treat people. It's basically 
> just drowning out on-topic discussion at this point. You can all just as easily 
> talk about whether it's better to be nice or scary and when off list

Hi Roberto,

On that I'll agree wholeheartedly - speaking as the listmanager of 
one-too-many lists that have fallen apart over demands for niceness, 
kindness, and/or politically correct language - crowding out actual 
substantive discussion.

Call me a bit sensitive on this one - I deal with calls for censorship & 
expulsion on several local political lists, and I'm watching my church 
(Unitarian Universalism) being destroyed by intolerance, groupthink, and 
thought policing - all in the name of "anti-oppression," "welcoming & 
inclusion," "respect," and "accountability."  And, one of the lessons 
that I've learned as a list admin, is that the price of standing for 
free speech, is that one has to wade in and counter-punch, lest the 
smoke blowers just crowd out everything substantive.  (Yes, I could be 
accused of doing that here.  Mea Culpa, and my apologies.)

I promise, my last meta-post on this thread.

But.. just so that I contribute something on-topic & constructive:

- It strikes me that FOSS is doing just fine - people have found lots of 
business models for supporting the work.  The facts on the ground speak 
for themselves.

- On the other hand, it strikes me that both money, and calls for 
behavior codes, are killing the Internet as a place to collaborate & get 
work done.  We have all together too many proprietary protocols & walled 
gardens cropping up, as well as all too many prickly people demanding 
"respectful speech" or "accountability" - basically getting in the way 
of people actually being able to exchange information & opinions.  (Not 
like the old days, when it was all telnet, email, and ftp - and folks 
were rude to each other with impunity.)

- As I type this, it strikes me that the key selling points of FOSS are 
interoperability, and avoiding vendor lock-in.  As a someone who works 
in the tools & protocols space, an early lesson learned is that it's 
very hard to get people to adopt a new technology that doesn't 
interoperate with existing tools.  Yes, some people will buy in out of 
FUD (all the folks who use secure email, of various stripes, for medical 
records - wouldn't it be nice if our doctors used PEM, instead of each 
using a different, private, email system)?  But, for the most part, 
support for legacy data types & protocols is a must - and folks will 
generally favor open protocols & software over closed stuff from shaky 
vendors (though... the success of Slack continues to astound me - do we 
really need yet another version of IM, AIM, and texting?).

Overall, it strikes me that in both technology, and netiquette, Postel's 
law applies quite nicely - "be conservative in what you do, be liberal 
in what you accept from others." (Nice, kind, respectful - all well and 
good, but not at the price of substance & accuracy.  IMO.)

Miles Fidelman

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown