[lug] courtesy, sarcasm, and Free Software

[Rob Nagler]

Davide,

In no way was I commenting on what you said.  I have a bumper sticker:
My other MUA is Gmail. ;-)   In fact, I'm replying via Gmail now.

My comments about discourtesy (and fear) are about "generic
programmers", not about specific programmers.  I believe blanket
generalizations are the least offensive. ;-)

Seriously, I am a "concerned programmer", and I fear the way we
develop software.  True fear as more and more dangerous software is
being written.   The recent financial meltdown was due to extremely
bad software -- and I do mean the value judgement of "bad".  Having
worked on financial modeling, trading, and accounting software for
many years, I can tell you that the programmers (and traders) are
extremely cavalier.  Don't let people fool you into thinking that it
was the "bad mortgages sold".  It was bad software which multiplied
these "tiny" errors into a catastrophe.

Having been a foreigner for 12 years, I relate to your comments about
non-native speakers.  Kudos to you for writing in a form that gave me
the impression you were a native speaker.   The people on this list
are extremely opinionated so it's not a surprise they picked apart
your words.  I don't think it has anything to do with your writing
(again, which is simply excellent). IMIHO, your post(s) are just fine,
perfectly reasonable, and something I personally adhere to.

Thank you for working for the FSF.  It's something I thought about
once upon a time, but simply couldn't handle the idea of working with
rms.  We had a pretty interesting "interview", and we immediately
disagreed on just about everything. :)

Rob