Re: Dealing gently with our peers (was: confusion about non-free)
On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 04:56:00PM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:17:20 +0200
> Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
> > Just to make it clear, please don't take it as if I were recriminating
> > something to you. My understanding is that this problem is about general
> > perception and I don't think it's your fault in any way.
>
> I understand that it wasn't personal. But neither did you consider the
> personal factors in any way.
I did. It's obvious I didn't consider them well enough, but I assure you
when I added 'Friendly' there (which is not part of my usual signature) I was
considering the personal factors.
My message goes straight to the point and sounds harsh. I realized this, but
I didn't think it would hurt your feelings. It's my fault if it did, so in
general I'll try to be more careful in the future.
> No, it was not the kindest way you could. A private email to me would
> have sufficed to correct the problem in my statement. As you can see,
> I was prompt to issue a correction once I saw my error.
I thank you for that, but my concern was _not_ specificaly about your
statement. Rather, I'm worried about this perception being the norm in
our community today.
> > But you have to see both sides of
> > things. When I saw that mail, the first thing I think is the press will
> > pick it and announce to everyone that Lenny supports this hardware, with
> > the implicit assumption that we have dropped our ideals and joined the
> > non-free bandwagon (actually, this is still likely despite my reaction).
>
> So it was far more important to drag this out before the project as
> soon as possible than it was to consider your peer's feelings and
> privately contact him first to give him a chance to correct himself?
TBH, I didn't think about this option. Now I see that it is what I should have
done. Do you accept my apologise?
> The ideals you were defending here justified your means?
Maybe you won't believe this, but whereas I believe my ideals justify being
exposed _myself_ to public bashing, I don't think they justify exposing
bystanders.
--
Robert Millan
The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
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