[NCLUG] Trolling was: "red hat - the new redmond?" comment from mainstream online media

[John L. Bass]

Ok, Matt - since Mr Hamid would not defend his own remarks,
and you seem to have forgotten them ... we will let you defend
them since you have gone on record as strongly supporting them:

Matt Taggart <matt at lackof.org> writes:
	Idris S Hamid writes...

	> And if anyone else on the list was _personally_ offended by my assessment of
	> RH, please accept my apologies. I had no such intention.

> On the contrary, everything you've said in this thread is reasonable and 
> defensible.

	Idris S Hamid writes  [Sat Sep  7 09:32:12] ...

	"The best example is their abuse of KDE, which they
	first tried to kill, and are now butchering in a way
	which, while quite legal, is very clearly not in the
	spirit of the community.

	"Hiding behind the GPL does not make their actions
	any less odious.  It is perfectly legal to take
	GPL software, cripple or near-cripple it, and then
	release it under the same name as the original.
	This is a loophole in the GPL which allows a force
	of market dominance to push its own software agenda,
	in this case making KDE, if not unusable, then at
	least unappealing as a desktop solution."

This position - both what is directly written, and strongly
implied - is hardly reasonable, or defensible. Nor is the
closing premptive remarks in thew same post to discredit
RH supporters with:

	"What amazes me is the number of Red Hat apologists
	who can't see a spade for a spade, or the forest
	for the trees."

Which has no other meaning that this/his view is the only
correct view, and any other view is short sighted, lacking
in fundamental basis. This is also neither reasonable or
defensible. 

> You've also remained very professional, in spite of others in the thread name 
> calling, attempting to change the subject, and accusing you of saying things 
> you haven't.

Intellectuals often agree to disagree, but in the spirt of
healthy productive debate it is never considered acceptable
to use as an opening argument one that totally lacks in
established fact for the sole purpose of discrediting your
opponents. In short, his opening attacks are hardly either
professional or based in fact. Nor has he been willing to
debate this point. Mr Hamid in the above quoted text picks
up the KDE's teams battle cry that they have the right
to approve and control changes to KDE by all distribution
teams, especially RedHat. He does so with very strong words,
"hiding behinde GPL" ... "butchering", and "unusable".
If Mr Hamid's stated words have any other intent, than to
claim KDE's right of censorship after releasing a product
GPL, we would very much like to hear this rebuttal.

Dragging the kde-crapland statement into the discussion to
continue the KDE teams unethical exploitation of their
fundamental violation of RH developers privacy rights as proof
of the offical RedHat position is totally flawed. First of all,
any personal and private remarks are NEVER attributed to a
persons employer by defacto expectation - the inflamitory
remarks by Mr Hamid, and the KDE development team in regard to
this event are neither reasonable, defensible, or professional.
I can not think of many developers that have not made similar
off-hand remarks while working on company time - none of which
should ever be attributed to their employer.  We each have OUR
right to our views - even you Matt - if you want to defend Mr Hamid's
stand here, then I expect there are plenty of remarks that your
friends and co-workers can cite that you surely would not want
attributed as offical HP statements.

We can continue to pick apart other of Mr Hamid's posts which
continue to be neither reasonable, defensible, or professional.
Statements continuing the defacto assumption of undisputable
facts, such as the infamatory "Pure hypocrisy.", 

If Mr Hamid wishes others to be "Much more accurate & much less
melodramatic", I openly suggest he start with that framework in
his own posts. And reflect strongly on the advise he offers:

	"The general myopia that sees objective criticism of RH
	is "trolling" is sad.  We should be able to have a spirited
	discussion/disagreement without throwing the "troll" word around."

And avoid the the highly inflamatory words used to present his
arguments as defacto fact, and the pre-emptive discreditation of
those that hold other views as " Red Hat apologists who can't see a
spade for a spade".

So Matt and Mr. Hamid, please explain how this is reasonable,
defensible, and professional?

John Bass