I don't know much at all about RMS, but I will agree that Linus is a jerk.
The difference of course is that Linus doesn't head a company that engages in predatory business practices, ships spyware and DRM (malware) in its operating systems, etc.
So I can overlook the fact that Linus occasionally says mean things to people over the internet. I don't think Linus has ever thrown a chair across his office when someone wanted to leave Linux. Can't say the same for Ballmer, who has very real personality issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR-P6HPZgMs
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Finally, I know that this comments+karma format encourages extreme pedantry so let me pre-empt you:
The fact that I choose not to use Microsoft products because I don't like Microsoft or Ballmer doesn't mean I am required to abstain from ALL products whose authors have engaged in behaviour I don't like.
More often than not it's a "lesser of $num evils" situation.
The claim was that you're prone to making mistakes if you judge software by the traits of the authors. How do you know that you haven't made a mistake?
Disregarding that, strictly speaking, the onus is on pg to show that you made a mistake (if this were a debate)
In general, statements and actions of the authors do seem to be extremely irrelevant components of software quality.
Err, a) you clearly cared enough to respond this far, and b) the question is how do you know that you have not made a mistake not do you care if someone else thinks you've made a mistake
> how do you know that you have not made a mistake
I guess I just don't understand the purpose of asking this.
Because my operating system choice hasn't let me down or hindered me in any significant way?
I gave the "I don't care" response because I don't know how else to answer your question. "a mistake" is so nebulously defined that in this context it has nearly no meaning to me. Can you give an example of what you mean when you say "a mistake"?
I don't know much at all about RMS, but I will agree that Linus is a jerk.
The difference of course is that Linus doesn't head a company that engages in predatory business practices, ships spyware and DRM (malware) in its operating systems, etc.
So I can overlook the fact that Linus occasionally says mean things to people over the internet. I don't think Linus has ever thrown a chair across his office when someone wanted to leave Linux. Can't say the same for Ballmer, who has very real personality issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR-P6HPZgMs
---
Finally, I know that this comments+karma format encourages extreme pedantry so let me pre-empt you:
The fact that I choose not to use Microsoft products because I don't like Microsoft or Ballmer doesn't mean I am required to abstain from ALL products whose authors have engaged in behaviour I don't like.
More often than not it's a "lesser of $num evils" situation.