The Bubble: Microsoft Social Land
I was curious enough to day to have a look at a link-back to yesterday’s blog post. It was at Neowin. The article was about the FSF’s claims for Windows 7 to be shunned and while I don’t fully support their methods or their solely negative event organisation (they never seem to do anything in Boston except complain). So I have my beef with the FSF, I’m going to focus on the comments section to the linked news page.
The reason I was linked-back was because someone had posted my Understanding FOSS pdf and yesterdays blog post about balancing FOSS philosophies. The responses he got were not only insulting and degenerate, but they made me damn glad I work and communicate in a much better community with more manners. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with my politics, but I expect people to have some decorum.
Now the neowin news site does seem to be a bubble of Microsoft lovers and fanatics that seem to put all rational discourse to one side while they savage the “opponent”. Their main argument seems to be: “Well if you can serve me with the exact this I want, then I’ll be your friend”.
I’m sorry but the world doesn’t work like that. There is no free lunch in FOSS and If you don’t agree with the principles, methods and economics then stay away. We have no need for users who only think about their own short term contentment and never of what they can do for others. You’re welcome to use what we have written, it’s already paid for after all.
But I don’t really want these people making up a part of the community until they can reform into decent balanced human beings. I don’t want these people ranting and raving wasting our time and money while contributing nothing of value.
Most of these people are probably just misinformed. But with the egging on that they get from being in a social pro-windows bubble without any code of conduct… they seem to cultivate hatred and an over confidence of the mis-information. I’d attempt to post this message to their community but I don’t think it’s worth it.
As I was explaining to someone yesterday; It’s no our job to save people from their own foolishness, if people are content to ignore our warnings and give away their control of their technology so cheaply, then we can’t really stop them.
Although I was surprised at myself at how much their trashing of ubuntu’s bug #1 got up my nose.
Update: This is just a clarification note, I wanted to highlight the face that I enjoy being in the Ubuntu community because it seems to reduce (but not eradicate) some of the more nasty elements of social echo chambers (bubbles). But we could learn a lot from other communities inability to cope with these things.
I have frequented Neowin in the past, and that post you linked to is only the tip of the iceberg. The type of community that it perpetuates is cold, close minded and immature. I commend you for taking the high road and not stooping to their level.
I was recently on the Heroes of Newerth beta forum (great linux game) and there was a guy ranting about a bug he did not file/understand how it occurred and which (from the other posts in the thread) was unreproducible. He went on insulting the developer’s work (which he paid nothing for) and the whole thing made me feel sick even though this is a proprietary product.
Likewise, when a Mac/Linux update did not launch at the same time as the Windows update, there were hundreds of posts/threads reporting the lack of Mac update in a totally useless way (many being insulting to developers). The amount of Linux posts were small by comparison (Mac support thread: 15000 posts, Linux support: 23000) and most had something constructive to say.
Martin, I was the one that linked your article and the Understanding FOSS PDF guide/tutorial and I’m quite used to all the hate and negligence towards FLOSS.
Check for instance this thread: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=739320
Meh.
Cheers.
I think the name “neowin” says it all. It’s a windows niche forum and advertising linux/oss there doesn’t make sense at all. I would actually call it impolite.
Think about it. There were several situations in the past, where a microsoft-official discredited linux in some way. As soon as those news make it to the ubuntu-forums, people will start getting angry and I have seen people being insulted because they tried to play the amacus for microsoft.
Windows-forums might be a lot harder, but still you have idiots in about every community and sometimes one little bastard can destroy all the fun about a whole community.
I have given up advertising linux, it won’t do anyone any good. But I found a very very good way to spread linux: I admin the linux-computers of about 10 absolutely untalented computer users. Those that would be hardly abled to install a setup.exe on windows. When they talk to someone and say that they use linux for years without any problems, that can change some “windows-pro”’s mind. I know that most of the people who’s computer i administer have made up to dozens of other people adopting linux and noone of them needs anyone to admin their computers.
It’s funny how paranoid we can get. I’d never heard of Neowin.net, so I jumped over to have a look, knowing that it’s apparently a hot-bed of Microsoft fanboys. The first headline I saw was “Bill could give Obama control of Internet during emergencies”
Only after reading it did I realise it was not a reference to a famous resident of Seattle.
@Tim – HAHAHAHAHAA, OMG!! I just laughed so darn hard about “Bill could give Obama control of the Internet during emergencies.”
This bubble you referred to, it can also be said about the Linux community, the GNOME community, the KDE community, and the Ubuntu community. Pretty much everyone is guilty of the childish behaviour that is witnessed on NeoWin, and in some of the comments, I agree with the person on NeoWin. When we can get the Linux and Ubuntu fanbois to stop doing the same thing when one of them attack us, then I think we have room to speak. Until then we are being nothing more than a hypocrite.
Interesting post Martin. Yet again you cannot help yourself when writing about FOSS superiority and simply have to put all combined or proprietary software users into one bin, slap them a badge of “radical practicalists” or “fools” and be done with it.
I use both software, and as a CS guy, there’s plenty of people around me (academia professors included) who do so as well. Now, most of these people wouldn’t give a damn about your comments, because they often reek of radical idealism, but I (as a FOSS and proprietary software user) do – I do find this insulting. You are clearly insulting everyone who dares use proprietary software by stating they are foolish and “not worth it in the end”, putting them below your god-like enlightened FOSS self.
I demand you stop doing so, if you want others to “have some decorum” as well.
Oh, I do have such an urge to tell you to start listening to people and stop pushing your worldview without listening at all, but I guess it’s just a waste of time.
The neowin thread is a real eye-opener. I mean, when I read your “Closed source isn’t immoral if…” post it seemed pretty logical and useful to me. But now look at the statements that were quoted from it:
>> It’s not wrong to use Closed Source (non-free) software, if…
>> You understand the consequences and nature of closed software AND
>> You make a reasonable attempt to find a free speech alternative AND
>> You fund or put time into a free project, whilst using the closed version OR
>> You put money into a bounty to start a replacement project whilst using the closed version.
>
> On behalf of all users , Ill use whatever the hell i like.
What can I say… Probably I’d have reacted in a similar way. When looking at your original post from far away, I see quite some arrogance or “small-mindedness” in your statements… It’s _immoral_ or _wrong_ to use closed-source software? What’s next – Axis of Evil, or maybe “Closed-source users worship Satan”?
I think many of us Open Source users/advocates (me included) live in a bubble ourselves. To outsiders, it must appear that we have very skewed and senseless values. And it’s true: our values are at least very different from “mainstream”, and they probably don’t make much sense to many people.
I don’t know how to explain these values and ideals (like not using closed software) to other people, because the results of these values are often subtle or difficult to see. But I know that unless I can explain those values, others will (rightfully even) regard me as stupid.
Of course, but think of how many people in our community bubble I’ve made realise that they’re in one.
It could be. I would be the first to claim to be a self righteous, arrogant bastard of the third kind. And I do come from the radical idealism camp. I’m a damned socialist libertarian, also known as an unrealistic idealist. So my default is that I believe people should look after others first, so I believe in cooperation over competition.
It’s your arrogance that assumes I write from a typical background. And while I understand your point quite well, I don’t really feel too personally offended by it’s political dogma.
Besides, this post was a lot more about attitude and treating others with respect no matter how they disagree. And in that regard I’m happy with my behaviour.
We do indeed. Looking at the wall of the bubble can be quite enlightening too. For instance when I talk about ‘immorality’ I’m really putting things into FSF terms, and it uses a different scope from that which we would normally look at personal reward.
It’s not talking about personally morality (like killing someone), it’s talking about social morality (like polluting or over fishing) You can argue that as individuals we all have choices and rights, and you’d be right. And at the same time you can claim that we all have responsibilities to our community by proxy ourselves because we are dependant and a part of the community.
I am because of my Community. But no one said you had to kill your individualism in order to recognise the idea of Ubuntu.
So at first our bubble may be more concerned with the whole community, long term effects looked at through long term ideas. What do you get when scope shifts? a garbled, misunderstanding of rationale.
Hmmm… FLOSS community at least talks about this… CS guys talk about making money and capitalistic stuff… Not all, but majority… I myself find FLOSS community more open minded, and more polite than the others… Just think about it… Maybe the FLOSS community picks up more intelligent and less selfish individuals… Think… Sorry about bad english…
But I don’t really want these people making up a part of the community until they can reform into decent selfless human beings.
I like to think that, as one of the Mesa Radeon developers, I am a valuable contributor to the community.
However, I take offense at being told that the community can only consist of _selfless_ human beings. Okay, I don’t really take offense, but I do think you should reevaluate your choice of words. I certainly contribute for selfish reasons (though some altruism does play a role as well).
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I believe you simply got carried away: Those Windows people with whom you came in contact were certainly acting selfishly, but what we should strive for is not some arbitrary opposite selflessness. We should strive for a better kind of selfishness, and a sane balance of selfishness and altruism.
In fact, that’s the strength of the open source method: a lot of people can come together and build an awesome piece of software, where everybody has his or her own selfish reasons for contributing. These reasons may vary quite a bit, but in the end the open source method allows large-scale cooperation from which everybody can benefit.
Also, remember that being helpful can be a successful selfish strategy: if I am helpful today, then it is more likely that I will be helped by somebody tomorrow, when I need help.
I have to agree with Sirrus. I understand your position regarding FOSS and why you advocate its uses over proprietary software. I respect your right to do so. What software you decide to use and what projects you contribute back are really no concern of mine — I’m happy to respect your choices.
What I don’t understand is how you can call for the detractors to respect your choices, while in the very same breath, denigrate anyone who makes the decision to use proprietary software by insinuating that we’re not heading warning of evil and needlessly giving over power and control to the evil empire.
Why can’t you just respect that many of us use proprietary software and free software with complete agnosticism of any ideological agenda. I use free and proprietary software. My basis for using software is not political or ideological in nature — I use what works best for me. For an OS, that’s Mac OS X, for web development, it is Apache, PHP and Python. I do understand that individuals care about software freedom on an ideological and political basis — I fully respect their right to do so. I just wish that some of those individuals could equally respect my right NOT to have those same ideals without resorting to name calling, derogatory statements about intelligence or backhanded comments.
I agree with you. Carried away would be an excuse though, what I mean to say is that there are two elements of humanism. Selfless and Selfish. You don’t really have to give up one for the other, but imbalance is probably a better way to describe it.
I don’t dismiss your practicalism. It’s not wrong, it’s unfortunate in the reading that my recent posts have been aimed at the Free Software idealists and not the practicalists as such. (although both camps could do with some due consideration) Your practical choices now, no matter how you sqaure it, have implications for you and the rest of computer users through various networking effects and social normalisations. You personally can use what you like, but I will continue to point out how some of those choices are damaging in the long run.
You think I should not criticise at all? I’d rather take the heat from Sirrus and the like, while attempting to show that there is a bigger scope out here than just our own personal needs right at this moment. I will try to avoid fighting, but conflicts breed ideas and these conflicts are not derogatory and the ideas that come out of them are worth expressing. Even if they turn out to be wrong.
So far, I’m not totally convinced I should not say anything.
The Neowin forums used to be more Linux friendly, it’s been radicalized more lately. It’s always been primarily a Windows community, but there was never any major hate towards Linux until recently. It’s interesting because I’ve noticed over time Linux fanboy has been getting less “radical”, and the Windows fanboy has been getting more “radical”. Maybe they feel threatened?
I would actually argue a little bit different.
Contributions to an open-source project are inherently selfless. Yes, you may benefit from it… benefit from it quite a lot even, but the fact that you released this benefit to others is selfless.
We talk about selfish motivations, but really, this isn’t our complaint about closed source software. Our complaint is that companies are never selfless*.
But you are right, at extremes, a community can consist of only one selfless person, and a ton of selfish people (selfish = makes no contribution to the society, NOT makes no contribution to the software program btw)… but the higher percentage of selfless people you get, the better the community feeling.
* Yes, this is a sweeping statement
I use Free Software.
I use GNU/Linux.
It works for me.
I’ll sit back and watch everyone battle it out and wonder if humankind will ever wake up. This whole Free vs. Non-Free is just more of the same thing where people are polarized to and personally vested in their opinions. Coupled along with expectations, this leads to more division than community. Humankind for whatever reason feels the need to file, organize, categorize, structure, label and box in everything and everyone.
Why?
As Gandhi stated in one of his many quotes, “We must become the change that we wish to see”. This profound and clear, yet simple statement is one which is which he is advocating free will, personal-choice and personal-responsibility to choose whether or not we change ourselves as individuals and change our own worldview. Sadly, it seems that so many do not see the truly basic message within these words, so the message goes not only unheard, but unacted upon by many people. Some do hear it and act upon it, from what I have seen from some of the people I have met and seen in life; while many more people I have seen choose not to.
When we choose to change ourselves and our own worldview, we change ourselves and our own World; but when a group of like-minded people get together who have all done the same inner-work towards personal change; and they join together with a larger, focused intent to continue that process on a larger scale, they do so by showing others what they have done as individuals first, and then as a group of individuals working together to inspire others by not only their actions and deeds, but more importantly, how they have changed their own lives and who they are. They are who they wish to become because they create their own reality and live in the now, the present moment, in present mind, with focus on all that they are and desire to be.
By doing this on an individual basis, they send forth that energy which will hopefully inspire others to do the same. By joining together in a group, they hope to work together to continue that process on a larger scale. In the end, it still comes down to the one. It all comes down to the individual. It all comes down to YOU.
A community is a group of individuals who gather for a variety of reasons, be in political, religious, career-based, a hobby, ethnicity, or any number of one or more reasons; but in the end, it again all comes down to each individual, regardless of community or anything else but themselves, their own free-will, choices, and personal-responsibility
There is no “out there” or “them” to change. There is no one to blame but ourselves, if we choose to affix blame at all. Personally I see blame as pointless and would rather use that energy towards change and inner work than to focus it in some non-productive way; but that is all part of the learning process. We all must choose to walk our own paths.
The things above of which I wrote are not confined to anything, any group, any community, but rather to humanity as a whole. Humankind, for whatever reason, gets sidetracked by become personally-vested in and polarized to thinking and acting in many ways, all with expectations that others do the same, or expect certain results. All of this combined with linear thinking, the ego and the illusion of individuality, along with the perceived human need to apparently file, organize, categorize and label everything and everyone, all leads to separation vs. unity of the whole. Intellectually, maybe people know they are part of one whole, yet unless they feel it, unless they live it, unless they do the inner work and not only intellectually know but also feel that they are part of the All, nothing will change because they have not changed.
We have all read many articles and had many conversations regarding what needs to happen in our community due to the many issues with it; but I ascertain that the issues are again, not “out there”, but instead are within each of us, lying within each individual; and it is there that we must affect the most change first and foremost, which will then in turn affect the larger communities and humanity as a whole. Until we are ready to face our individual selves, until we are ready to change within, nothing will change until we do.
Humankind, Never before have you wrecked such havoc on yourselves or the Mother one which we all live. It is only too late to save yourselves if you choose it to be.
The time is now.
The choice is yours
Martin, I am not aware of every giving you a “heat”, and find your categorization of my self pretty amusing, again putting me in one bag with “the others”.
I am sorry, but it is really difficult to lead a sensible dialog with you, not because you made up your mind on the software licensing matter, but because you continue to see only what you want to see. I may disagree with you on your view of the software landscape, but my ultimate gripe is not this disagreement, but the way you treat people who do not share your beliefs. It’s been two posts now and you still fail to comprehend this.
I am not aware of any unwritten moral code that would explicitly bind a social libertarian (which I am not) to treat someone with a different worldview nicely, but as someone who puts people first and ideology second, I would never label others, tell them what is right or what is wrong, or contempt them. Apparently, you put ideology first, and this is the result of it; seeing how unwilling you are to change your tone, this conversation is pointless.
As a free person, I value freedom of choice most highly. I am surprised that as a libertarian, you fail to acknowledge this most basic right.
Christina, thank you. You got my point perfectly, and offered Martin a different interpretation of our standpoint, which was well needed.
That’s odd. You seem to see in me something which no one else has. just to make sure I peer reviewed the article with a couple of people to make sure I wasn’t going off the deep end. No, turns out I’m understandable and being very nice about it all to everyone. Considerate even.
I’m not sure, but I think your also confusing my agreeing with your point of views, with conduct. If you think I’ve labeled you, then please list them. I think I’ve called you out of bringing about conflict, I don’t think I’ve really brought you into contempt. Since I’m not that against conflict as a whole, are you against conflict?
Of course if you think your world view is the only one worth considering and then use conversational psychology to force it on anyone who doesn’t agree. Then I most strongly disagree with your methods. I won’t suddenly start thinking that use of proprietary software is good for society as a whole, just because you think that each individual should have choices which relieve them of their responsibilities as a member of a social group to think about all the consequences of their actions and how they effect everyone. Of course, that part of responsibility in combination with liberty isn’t always an attractive philosophy. Your free to do as you do, and I’m free to point out how I think that hurts everyone, deal? (your also free to point out how my pointing out hurts everyone, but I don’t think there is a strong enough case for censorship)
Since I put society first and ideology second and personal freedom, we should have a great deal in common. Of course personal conduct critique isn’t helping. It’s still possible I don’t understand (although from what others have said this isn’t the case), it’s more likely we just don’t agree on a world view.
Nice article. You have some errors that you might want to fix.
Now the neowin news site does seem to be a bubble of Microsoft lovers. fanatics that seem to put all rational discourse to one side while they savage the “opponent”.
That is the first error. You ended the first sentence with a PERIOD (.) You then began the second sentence with a lower cased letter, that should be fixed.
Your welcome to use what we have written, it’s already paid for after all.
That is the second error, you used the wrong YOUR. Should be You’re, as in YOU ARE WELCOME.
Other than that, nice read.
Fixed, thanks!
Whoever comes out ‘on top’, Ron has made the comments which impressed me the most. For all that, a certain amount of confrontation and apparent vitriol is normal for anyone vested in presenting a viewpoint. Martin has merely requested feedback that he hasn’t been violating sensibilities in doing so.
I can’t speak ‘for the audience’ : but I’m fine.