[bigtomrodney]

I have to agree with you there Moe, there are a lot of people out there banging the Stallman drum and to be honest it's not a beat I'll dance to. I think some of the opinions being publicly thrown around are above and beyond the Free Software movement. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but when you are the face of a movement you should be more selective. And the anti-DRM protest last month funny as it was was only publicity imho. I think that kind of zealotry alienates the movement and in the end will hurt more than it will help.

I'll use Free software forever, but I don't want to be thrown in the bag with a bunch of career protestors, so I can't really hold some of the FSF up there on a pedestal. That said, obviously they do great work in a lot of areas, and are responsible for a hell of a lot that we see today in FOSS.

[ImNeat]

I have never used BSD - I was going to stick it on this laptop after I tried arch, but that plan was thrown out the window after I fell in love with arch.

I didn't know that OS X and Solaris are both BSD-based. That's neato.

the gist being that BSD guys are a lot like Linux guys, except they have kissed girls.

Ouuuuuch.

[bigtomrodney]

I think the BSD relevence is overblown generally. To be fair if you look most Unix has BSD code in there. Before BSD was an OS in its own right it was an add on pack for UNIX, and really defined a lot of the userland we know today. OS X has neither a BSD kernel or a GUI in there, it's just the userland. Not to understate it mind you...

[apoorv_khurasia]

Originally Posted by Kojak

The Gentoo users I know are a happy, helpful bunch of people.

It cannot be more true

[benjamin20]

i was kind of suprised to find that BSD leaders were angry with GNU/linux and its users. personaly i never found any reason to dislike bsd. it seems to be able to do everything linux can prom an OS point of view. the only problem is sometimes software made for linux isnt designed to be compatible with other unix varients. i believe that wine at one time had this problem. this is probobly one of the main reasons that linux users dont concider bsd to be adaquate. another problem with bsd is that the installation procces and learning curve is parallel to gentoo, wich is one reason people looking to the unix world dont concider it.

personaly i think that while software leaders are entitled to there oppinions just as the rest of us are, they must realize that they are different than the rest of us in that they are more political leaders than just software developers. so they really have to carry a sense of proffesionality with it. sounding jellous or slandering competators(like calling linux communism) really doesnt make you sound like you are a profffesional. the general public isnt looking to walk into a battlezone, which is what the software world is today.
also, just because you are a leader in respect to software, doesnt mean people want to hear your world politics views, you are just going to alienate part of your userbase.

[Vergil83]

I actually think that the issue of personalities in FOSS is overblown. Who cares if Theo is a jerk. That doesn't mean I am not going to use openssh anymore. I am glad there are people so crazy about security as he and openbsd seems to be, because it is necessary. I bet RMS isn't the nicest person in the world. However, we need someone that is so devoted to libre software, to make sure we don't lose touch of that as FOSS grows and gets more connected to business.

I doubt more than 50% of Linux users know who RMS is. Same goes for Theo, Linus, ESR, etc.... I doubt there are many users that heard about Linux, are thinking of switching, but aren't because RMS is head of the church of emacs.

As FOSS gets bigger, the personalities will become less important. Everyday our experience with FOSS is less determined by Linus and RMS than by developers of GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, and Suse, whom are mostly nameless to us.

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

it's one thing when users are being idiots and starting flamewars about what software is better. when the devs start doing it, things just start getting silly. linus said it best: software is only a tool. (yes, he was saying it in the context of DRM). then again, even linus can't resist a flamewar (google linus flamewar to see what i mean).

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by Vergil83

I actually think that the issue of personalities in FOSS is overblown. Who cares if Theo is a jerk. That doesn't mean I am not going to use openssh anymore.

I'm not so forgiving. If the leader of a project is an ass, I don't associate with that project, because to do so would be encouraging and putting myself in the same class as said ass. You might be okay with that association, but I am not. Nevermind the fact that I've *tried* OpenBSD and it's a worthless OS for what I need.

I am glad there are people so crazy about security as he and openbsd seems to be, because it is necessary. I bet RMS isn't the nicest person in the world. However, we need someone that is so devoted to libre software, to make sure we don't lose touch of that as FOSS grows and gets more connected to business.

I'm not. Crazy people beget more crazy people which runs off all the sane people and you end up with a nation of lunatics. Look at my country.

I doubt more than 50% of Linux users know who RMS is. Same goes for Theo, Linus, ESR, etc.... I doubt there are many users that heard about Linux, are thinking of switching, but aren't because RMS is head of the church of emacs.

I think you're quite wrong in this. I'd be willing to be more people know Stallman than know about Debian, just because he's so vociferous about his opinions. The same goes for Theo.

As FOSS gets bigger, the personalities will become less important.

I completely disagree, so much so that I think the opposite is true. As Linux and F/OSS become more popular, the public scrutiny will inevitably highlight the political in-fighting going on amongst these zealots and that will only serve to help the other side of the fence by giving them something to throw in our face. "See! They can't even have civil conversations about what desktop to use! How can you trust them to manage your server software?"

[DThor]

It's all human nature. I was involved with a lot of left-leaning organizations a while back, and despite the rhetoric about the right wing jerks who are power hungry dictators, the same thing sprang up in the left camps where different people tried to woo others to join the way *they* thought was the best. I saw some serious backstabbing going on. I just think it's in our nature.

However, I also think being cynical about it is worse. Nothing stops progress dead in it's tracks more than cynicism. Despite there being lots of people in the OS camp I would probably seriously dislike if I met, that doesn't lessen it's importance. I also tend to use what works best for the task.

DT

[ImNeat]

Originally Posted by techieMoe

Crazy people beget more crazy people which runs off all the sane people and you end up with a nation of lunatics. Look at my country.

Hah. I love it.
Not sure what your political swing is - maybe I'm one of the crazy people - but I love the comment nonetheless.