[ale] Misguided Linux enthusiast makes us all look bad

[John Marasco]

Geoffrey wrote:

> What is wrong with these people?  What do they expect to gain?
>
> Jonathan Rickman wrote:
>
>> http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-08-25-010-26-NW-CY-LL
>>
>
They have different values, tunnel vision and yet they have the same 
goals as most of the open source community.  Eric's whole tone all but 
ensures such action will occur.  "The confrontation between SCO and the 
open-source community has now escalated to open war.".  The open source 
community is not the US army.  It's more akin to the Arab terror 
networks in organization and control.  Open source members sometimes 
listen to leaders for guidance and direction but they are very likely to 
utilize their own initiative and devise their own solutions to what they 
percieve to be a problem.  That mode of operation is both very powerfull 
but very uncontrollable.  If SCO is litterally evil as Eric's letters 
continue to state then a DOS attack is the least SCO can expect.  Eric's 
response to the attack sounds as myopic as the anti-abortion 
priests/ministers that expressed shock after every abortion clinic 
bombing and assasination in the late 80s early 90s.  You dehumanify, 
vilify and disparage an individual or group before a large enough 
audience and somebody is going to start seeing those individuals as less 
than human and a worthy target of all sorts of immoral behavior.  
Combine this fact with a situation where you have no control over your 
audience and that audience has widespread understanding that collatoral 
damage is unavoidable in these situations and a DOS that shuts down some 
others is the least you can expect.  Words have tangible impact.  When 
strong words are wielded by people with a following they will cause 
followers to react.  When you have little control over your followers, 
some will react in uncontrollable ways.

So, given these facts, what is wrong with Eric?  Doesn't he realize he 
has a following?  He should study other leaders (Ghandi or MLK) for ways 
to peacefully motivate people to action without the fire, brimstone and 
jihad speaches that historys shows encourage the idiots.  If he 
continues with his current themes then sans a quick legal resolution 
more people will get frustrated and resort to illegal means to "punish" 
SCO with corresponding collateral damage.  Welcome to reality indeed, 
sucks don't it?

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale