[plug] [OT] - anybody read this interesting take on OFOS?

[Richard Meyer]

On Sun, 2005-10-02 at 23:35 +0800, Alex Nordstrom wrote:
> Sunday, 2 October 2005 21:36 skrev Richard Meyer:
> > http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/index.shtml
> >
> > Wierd interpretation of Linux and Linus .....
> 
> Fair enough if one wants to caution of the dangers of personality cults, 
> but how bitter would one have to be to produce an ad hominem attack the 
> length (if not the quality) of an academic thesis so rank that it 
> contributes little other substance to the collective wisdom than a new 
> definition for vindictiveness?
> 
> And it turns out that this is not the only strike of his genius. Another 
> one of Dr. Bezroukov's attacks was aimed at ESR, who rebuked it thusly: 
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/response-to-bezroukov.html
> 
> For someone who titles himself a doctor (though it is unclear what his 
> actual degree is; his supposed employer, Fairleigh Dickinson University 
> in New Jersey, USA, does not return any hits when searching their Web 
> site for his name), I found Bezroukov's ramblings rather incoherent, 
> lacking in both presentation and research.
> 
> Maybe it's just that I, like Torvalds, come from a home of two 
> journalists (and therefore, as Bezroukov writes of him and his alleged 
> conspiracy to gain "superhero" status, "...inherited a journalistic 
> talent..." and an understanding of "...how important is (sic) to 
> project the right public image..."), but I find myself wondering about 
> the author's intentions.
> 
> If the motive is sincerely to evoke sympathy for the opinions put forth, 
> why adopt such a denigrating and unsympathetic tone? If the desire is 
> to provide a convincing argument, why present it in such a sloppy 
> manner? Could it be that Dr. Bezroukov simply needs to take a high 
> school level course in academic writing?
> 
> Jerome Loisel writes a rather well-phrased response to the good doctor's 
> tirades, which I think sums up the overall feeling invoked by 
> Bezroukov's "paper": http://lwn.net/2000/0120/backpage.php3 (fifth 
> down)
> 
> __
Thanks for the detailed rebuttal - I just reached a point in the article
when "OFFS - what an a??*hole" seemed to express what I felt.

I have absolutely no animus against Linus - 
-- 
Richard Meyer <meyerri at westnet.com.au>
Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation.
                -- Johnny Hart

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