[lug] courtesy, sarcasm, and Free Software

[David Morris]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 10:50, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Davide Del Vento
> > First, Tom and others (David and Rob, I believe) seem to imply that I
> > am "bad" because I use this evil non-free email system called gmail,
> > and I recommend using it to others. I agree that's doing so is a
> > fault, but consider what follows:
>
> Well, I and many other members of most of the lists I subscribe to
> (poor grammar I know) have used and love that wonderful evil product
> for years. Most of these folks are FSF advocates like you, so the
> purists can just stuff it. When an FSF advocate comes up with a free
> (to me) service based on totally FSF approved software that provides
> even half what gmail does, I'll consider switching.

Personally, I've never understood why non-free software is considered
"bad" by FSF purists.  I enjoy using free software and have spent many
hours writing open source code on a wide variety of "FSF approved"
projects..  I'm a strong supporter of the FSF.  But work with the word
"free" in it typically has a hard time paying the bills.

> >
> > 7) about my "lack of courtesy" ...
>
> >
> > (e.g. bottom-posting instead of top-posting)
>
> I, too, am in the group of responders that despise top posting. Many
> top posters never bother to look below the level where they are
> typing, and thus they stream mounds of garbage that should have been
> clipped. But, you can never convince top posters.

Regarding top/bottom posting, something to think about:

I used to be in the group that despises top posting, but my view has
changed in recent years now that I work as a contractor and am
involved in many different types of environments.

If you top post in an environment that prefers bottom posting (or
inline-posting) people will get pissed off.  If you bottom post in an
environment that prefers top posting, your emails may not even get
read at all.  It really isn't worth fighting this because either way
if you use the wrong method, you will annoy people, likely not get
your questions answered, and probably become frustrated (or worse).

So now I simply use "When in Rome" posting:

The culture here is to bottom-post, so I do that here.

The culture at my current contract is to top post, so I use that at work.

It saves a lot of time and frustration all around.

Just a thought.

--David