Elitism considered harmful (was: Debian flamewar)

[Ben Boulanger]

Yeah, that was supposed to go directly to Ben... ;)


On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 23:33, Ben Boulanger wrote:
> Rather than dilute this thread worse, I thought I'd send you a personal
> email on this letting you know that I completely agree with your
> statements here.  This was the heart of my objection to the microsoft
> security issue and here it is again, not even one week later.  I'm glad
> I'm not the only person who's encountered this reaction.  It seems like
> many of the people I've voiced this opinion to simply disregard it as
> 'typical of windows users'. 
> 
> Ben
> 
> On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 23:22, bscott at ntisys.com wrote:
> > On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, at 3:24pm, Ed Lawson wrote:
> > > It is of course with some trepidation that I respond, but upon reading my
> > > post I am unable to discern what language therein could lead a person to
> > > reasonably conclude that I have espoused or acted in a manner which
> > > suggests "Debian is God's Gift to Linux".  Or even that it is better to
> > > anything else.
> > 
> >   Well, first of all, let me say that I interpreted the phrase "Another
> > reason to like Debian" to include "... as compared to other Linux
> > distributions".  I may well have been reading too much into that; you could
> > have meant "... as compared to MS-Windows", or even without comparison.  If
> > so, I wish to apologize sincerely, for launching a rant in your general
> > direction which you in no way deserved.
> > 
> >   That being said, for people wondering what type of crack I'm smoking: I'm
> > not telling.  ;-)  However, the reason I wrote that rant was exactly the
> > reason Paul Iadonisi gave in his reply to Ed's reply.  A disproportionate
> > number of Debian users carry an air of elitism which I consider harmful.  
> > They do themselves, the Debian community, the Linux community, and everyone
> > else who might be interested in Linux, a disservice.  In my mind, elitism is
> > not much better than FUD.  I have seen what that sort of distribution
> > elitism does in other forums, and it is not pretty.
> > 
> >   Worse still, I have seen the negative reaction "general Linux elitism"
> > gets in Microsoft forums, and it is quite possibly the biggest threat to the
> > continued success of Linux in the mainstream world.  Microsoft we can
> > handle, given time.  However, if we cause people to turn away due to an
> > internal attitude problem, Microsoft has naught to worry about.
> > 
> >   "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."
> > 
> > -- 
> > Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
> > | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not |
> > | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or  |
> > | organization.  All information is provided without warranty of any kind.  |
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
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