Civility in the Marketplace of Ideas [was: Public Domain Python]

[Pat McCann]

cbbrowne at news.hex.net (Christopher Browne) writes:

> RMS doesn't always say particularly agreeable things; he's pretty
> honest when he _doesn't agree_.

> ...

> But "uncivil" does not seem to be a civil comment.

I guess the key word above is "pretty".  Please read the following post
for clear evidence of uncivility.  If you cannot find it there, I probably
won't be able to convince you of it, but I have no doubt that most
people who read it carefully will understand it as a call for an action
justified by a claim of an expected good end result to be brought about
by the deception.  It's uncivil in my book.

http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=berlin-design&m=93118897023514&w=2


> I rather think that many of
> those that consider him uncivil have more than a little bit of a chip
> on their shoulders themselves.

Quite right.  It's similar to the chips put on their shoulders by Bill
Gates or Bill Clinton.  It's a form of jealousy in which people get
emotionally upset when other people have great success by engaging in
unfair (and uncivil) tactics while other people who've not used those
tactics and may be pushing a better "product" are not nearly so
successful.  It's similar to the chip RMS has had on his shoulder for
twenty years.  It's not always a bad thing if it has a beneficial
influence on other people's ideas.  (But I'll admit there are better
ways to do so than than responding to chip flippers on Internet forums.)