Sarcasm and making fun of other projects in loco team lists

[Aaron Toponce]

Rich Vázquez wrote:
> I think sophomoric approaches to criticism are bad, but I also find
> the community also has extreme urge to abate any criticism of
> Microsoft at all.

There's nothing wrong with criticizing corporations and ethics. What's
important is not putting the criticism into an emotional light. When you
do so, you come across as unintelligent, uninformed and ignorant. The
link I posted to didn't say to not criticize, but to be mature about it.
Most of use aren't in middle school anymore.

> A lot of time it seems to come from consultants who butter their bread
> with both sides.  Nothing wrong with that (I'm apologizing), but we
> shouldn't consistently apologize for promoting open source over closed
> source (or in addition too).

Apologists just want to be everyone's friend without hurting anyone's
feelings. There can be tact in criticism. The criticizer can be informed
and educated, and criticize an application or company without hurting
feelings or offending. Then there are those who play both sides. They
try to win over the group by walking on egg shells. Further, they make
generalizations and avoid confrontation. Generally the latter comes
across to me as ignorant and uninformed.

If an argument against a software project or corporation is founded on
facts, logic, and void of emotion, I tend to pay attention. If the
argument starts off with "Why [brand X] sucks", I lose interest quickly.
Then again, there are those who are both informed and tactful, yet argue
to argue. I usually just ignore them, if I know that's their general
disposition.

-- 
 ,-O  Aaron Toponce
O   } Ubuntu Member
 `-O  http://www.ubuntu.com

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