Re: Re: Accusations

[Atul Chitnis <achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Raju Mathur wrote:

> Thaths, please kick both these idiots off the list until they've had
> it out in person.

And why?

This isn't exactly cooking-pot where one gets kicked off for protesting
when one was accused of currying favour with an ISP to get a free dialup
account instead of paying for it (which *was* the truth). [Yes, elephansts
do have long memories].

The rules of this list are  - general discussions about Linux. You have
had license wars and RMS wars here, which had little to do with Linux or
Linux in India, yet they were both encouraged and sustained.

This discussion (which is beginning to bear fruits, BTW) is about people
getting falsely accused just because they try to do something and are a
little bit more visible in the Linux world.

Suresh chose to make these accusations (without a shred of evidence) for
purely personal reasons and hasn't even bothered to deny it. He chose to
make them in public, on this list.  Had he been censured for this, it
would have been over and done with. He wasn't, which means his accusations
stand. The same applies to Rag00.

Raju - despite the idealistic principles one would like to live by, you
cannot have it both ways. If you don't like seeing me defending my name,
be part of the process that controls such shabby treatment for anyone who
tries to do something for the community.

Today it is me, but I am not the only one. There are others being
"Borg'd" - people and organisations who do something for Linux, yet
get slam-dunked by the Linux community who choose to highlight faults
or even manufacture them (as is the case with Suresh's and Rag00's
accusations).

This list includes PCQ ("RedHat salesmen", "marketing gimmicks"), CHIP
("Can't even get Star Office right"), PC World and IT ("Bad Linux CD, bad
mags"), NIIT & Aptech ("Linux courses from bad companies"), Raj Mathur
("Security updates waste of bandwidth"), Gopi Garge ("Solaris Y2K issue
[that also applied to Linux] offtopic for this list"), Nikhil Datta
("Participate in commercial exhibitions - yuck!"), FreeOS.com ("making
money off Linux by selling CDs"), me ("politicising", "hijacker, because
he is visible through action", "profiteer", "building personality cult"),
and so many more.

There will be others accused this way, or hurt this way. Some will fade
away, some will recede into the background, some will lose interest
altogether. In all three scenarios, it is a loss to the community.

And it is this attitude that will destroy all that we *can* achieve.

Is that not worth discussing? Or is this topic tainted *only* because it
involves me (which could then be added to the above list)?

Atul


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