Robert Clayton wrote:
> This little blog post exposes the truth about Roy Schestowitz and the
> immoral tricks he's been up to.
>
> http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/06/when-zeal-becomes-zealotry-
tawdry-tale.html
>
> I thought this news group would find this interesting. Enjoy.
I think that Roy has good intentions, but his methods are less than useful.
He has a definite bias, and I suppose what might be called hate for opposing
views.
He attacks (according to boycottnovell.com): Novell, Linspire, Xandros,
"possibly" Xen, and others.
He talks about "the reality," but he presents what is clearly a myopic view.
Most of the men that he attacks also do some good in the world.
So, why does this concern me? The propaganda that Roy distributes, that
people base their opinions on, which leads to a spread of the hate, does not
help solve the problem. The problem is that people are often unaware of the
software world or just don't care. If you can create perceptions that lead
to interest, and respectful discourse that lead to understanding, then I
suspect it would be far more effective than spreading hate.
At the top of some of these companies the high level executives will
posture, and portray their rivals as weak. This is nothing new throughout
history. Linus Torvalds has done this type of action with several groups
that I am aware of, but often with a less tactful approach such as calling
some developers "masturbating monkeys." Linus tends to goad people as well
in public. He does presentations where he insults Subversion developers,
OpenBSD developers, NetBSD developers, ... He's the grand know-it-all, but
he doesn't try to understand opposing views, and learn why others consider
them valid. This is a weakness of Linus. He thinks with his gut, and
believes that his views are right, but our vision of right is only as wide
as our experience when it comes to software.
So, if Linus is the model, and Linus is rewarded and praised for his narrow
vision, and sense or righteousness, then I guess it's no wonder that people
like Roy, and others fall victim to this type of thinking.
Here is an early quote from Linus:
"Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good
excuse for some of the brain-damages of Minix." -- Linus
Notice how he doesn't address a technical issue, or seek to understand and
present his views in a respectful way. It's essentially: "I'm right.
You're wrong." Andrew Tanenbaum explained respectfully why he had made the
decisions he did with the file system and other areas. Linus acted in a way
that did not lead to progress. His way lead to infighting, and personal
attacks.
"If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know
better than you do." -- Linus
No attempt to address a technical issue. Politics, and an emphasis of the
hierarchy of power.
"My personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, it's a piece of
crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and even managed to
make up a few of its own."
No attempt to address technical issue(s), or provide a constructive
argument. The Mach developers had good reasons for their decisions, and
they have written papers about some of those, but it's far easier to use a
label of "crap" to explain and justify his belief.
"Personally, I'm _not_ interested in making device drivers look like user-
level. They aren't, they shouldn't be, and microkernels are just stupid."
No attempt to clarify why he believes this. Again, he doesn't address
technical issues, or try to come to an understanding. He insults people,
and spreads hate.
source: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/706950
"Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't
stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in
that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the
point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them." --
Linus
Linus has little to no understanding of other systems, based on what I have
seen, because he has made incorrect statements about other systems. He goes
with his gut, based on his experience. So, here you see that he insults
another group in public, without addressing anything specific really. It's
very vague and immature.
Linus later apologized (privately), according to an OpenBSD developer, but
that hardly became news. Most people weren't aware of the apology.
He has attacked CPU manufacturers. I recall when he worked for Transmeta
many were saying he would help bring the fastest processor to light. That
didn't materialize.
source: http://lwn.net/Articles/249460/
"*YOU* are full of bullshit.
C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot
of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much
easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if
the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,
that in itself would be a huge reason to use C." -- Linus
So, here you can see the reactionary Linus Torvalds attacking many open
source programmers (hint: KDE and Firefox use C++). He later addresses some
technical aspects, but in a rather vague, and incoherent way.
So, in essence I think that Roy is following Linus, whether he realizes it
or not.
Linus can only go on for so long with his insulting ways. He has driven
people away from him, and he drives away good developers to other systems.
I expect he will posture, and continue to present a perception that he
probably doesn't need or want those developers. In the end it will be Linus
that hurts Linus. There are systems with better designs that are making
progress.
I would like to understand more of the technical reasons why Linus believes
what he does, but I suspect it's more of an intuitive and emotional belief
on his part, rather than a rational and educated decision. I do believe
that intuition has its place, but there should be a balance.
-George
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