[ILUG] Guess who got a job offer?

[Braun Brelin]

You're right in that it has nothing directly to do with the exchange in 
question, however, ESR misses no opportunity, even in areas where it isn't 
relevant to bring this up, to insert quotes about how wonderful guns are and 
why anyone who opposes them is an "enemy of democracy, etc.". 

So, it isn't about his policies per se, but more about how strident he is in 
advocating them. This stridency is what i was alluding to and it's what you 
see when you read his response to Microsoft. 

Perhaps I should have made that point clearer...

Braun Brelin


On 9/13/05, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> 
> Quoting Braun Brelin (bbrelin at gmail.com):
> 
> > Well, ESR's always been kind of strange. He's one of those gun type who
> > believes that gun ownership is the root of democracy.
> 
> Interesting that you brought gun-advocacy up, since it had _nothing_ to
> do with the exchange in question. I notice that this non-sequitur
> quality is common in the flamage that follows Eric around, on the Net.
> 
> If Eric had asked my opinion about his draft, before sending, I'd have
> told him:
> 
> 1. It'd be much better without crude language and imagery.
> 2. While it's true that you personally lead the effort to gain
> big-business acceptance of open source, and did much more than
> anyone else in that department, and though any reasonable
> observer would follow your inference that you've been Microsoft
> Corp.'s worst nightmare in that critical area, it comes across
> as boasting and will draw flamage.
> 
> But I'd not have dragged in irrelevancies -- certainly not any
> difference I believed I had with him on politics. That'd be just rude,
> not to mention a distraction from the subject.
> 
> The flamers miss few chances to decry egotism and arrogance[1], as if
> that had any relevance to the merits of his actions, and as if their
> armchair opinion of the man personally were automatically of public
> interest.
> 
> [1] The many who use _both_ of these terms (not you, Colm) often seem to
> think, in error, that they're synonymous -- further evidence that
> they're not bothering to leave their brains switched on. I remember
> myself as a teenager, and I was utterly arrogant but not at all
> egotistical. That is, I'd approach topics with others in a fashion
> showing extreme effrontery, but not out of any conviction of personal
> importance; rather the reverse, in fact: I didn't matter, my
> interlocutor didn't matter; the subject did. That's arrogance.
> --
> Irish Linux Users' Group
> http://www.linux.ie/mailman/listinfo/ilug/
> 
>