[ale] I am so tired of Linux Fanatics

[Larry Johnson]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:29 PM, jrtroberts <jrtroberts at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> My time as a salesman should have taught me more about swimming with
> sharks.  If you can't keep up, don't worry about staying on the porch, the
> sharks will eat you up anyway.
>

I think very few serious linux users or developers want to see linux as
waters infested with sharks.  But interest groups and clubs often include a
petty streak whether the interest is an operating system, amateur radio, or
woodworking (you might be astonished at the arcane and factionalized
nonsense which went on in woodworking organizations I became involved in
some years back).

I think part of the problem you've experienced might be more representative
of the culture of IRC and chat rooms than with the linux community as a
whole.  I've never functioned well in that world because I don't enjoy
communicating in broken sentences and acronyms, and much of the discussion
seems somewhat infantile.

There is one thing you mentioned as a problem that I don't necessarily see
as insulting though.  If someone suggests a document to read I wouldn't
necessarily take it as avoiding the question or the equivalent of screaming
"RTFM!".  They may assume you haven't encountered that document, and might
be trying to be genuinely helpful.

At one time  I thought the rudeness on much of the internet arose from the
legacy of Unix geek culture.  Since then the  internet has become flooded
with non-geeks, and nothing much has changed in terms of overall civility, I
think it has a lot more to do with the psychology of sitting and typing at a
keyboard.  Even if you are not anonymous it's easy to "let your fingers do
the walking" (and thinking), and blurt things out without considering the
effect at the other end.  Believe me I know, because I blurt half considered
nonsense out across the forums at least once per week.

Larry



-- 
"I see design standards that don't tell you how to come up with a good
design (only how to write it down), employee evaluation standards that don't
help you build meaningful long-term relationships with staff, testing
standards that don't tell you how to invent a test that is worth running."

                                    Tom DeMarco
                                     Slack
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