My fault, I guess, people resort to it far too often, I should not have been so presumptuous.

(and I’m running out of Full House characters >_<)

Actually, I wasn’t pouncing on a typo, I wasn’t sure exactly what you meant there, so that’s why I quoted it.

I see how it could be taken as me jumping on a typo – but I hope you consider that playing grammar/typo nazi is not a debate tactic I have ever used.

I try very hard to argue without such childish actions, and although I do fail on occasion, I hope you will accept this was not on of them.

Thank you.

Oh yes, I’m liking the “gratuitous this and gratuitous that” and the pouncing on the typo. You knew very well what was meant, that wasn’t necessary.

Thank you for illustrating the point, though.

Not that I take these things as personal attacks, or over dramatize them (like, oh I dunno, going all “ZOMG SLAM!”).

Yes. It would be as equally fallacious from any source.

Good. That’s all I wanted to know. Thanks.
(though I am still perplexed at the FUD/non-FUD double standard, at least it doesn’t apply to everything).

I am not willing to accept that someone honestly thinks Miguel wasn’t taking a petty shot at the FSF/rms,

I think you’re over reacting, just a tad. But that is your prerogative. Weather or not you find it acceptable really isn’t my concern.

in each of these points you are clearly and unambigiously wrong. For example, I think you are incorrect

Perhaps it wasn’t intended as “a shot” against Mr Stallman, but it does seem a careless, if not entirely disingenuous, misrepresentation of the “facts” involved.

Honestly, It doesn’t look like it was intended to be a shot, or an insult or in any way malicious (I’ve seen Miguel get nasty (with just cause, mind you), and this isn’t it).

I think saying that Miguel “slammed” RMS here is an overreaction, and that’s all I was getting at. I appreciate your not acting all condescending like Jason there (it’s an observation, but you can take it as a personal insult if you’d like). A poke, maybe, since mentioning that we has in FSF at all was an aside that wasn’t necessary, anyone who cares already knows he was a member, and already knows that he isn’t anymore.

And yet, they weren’t doing anything wrong – Emacs and GCC used to employ the cathedral model as well.

Yes, and I stated as such. (And to be fair, early Emacs/GCC development was basically limited to UUCPNET and e-mail — sometimes even sneakernet and snail-mail — to coordinate patches, which is not particularly conducive to ‘bazaar’ development).

GCC provides a particularly good example of “not doing anything wrong” being less desirable than “doing things right”. When the EGCS project forked from GCC over issues mainly attributed to bazaar- versus cathedral-style development, the FSF had no compunction in endorsing it over GCC (the two projects later merged back together).

its officers should certainly be expected to support that agenda.

Agreed, and as such Miguel was removed. That being said,
how is stating that he was removed a shot against the FSF?

It’s a statement of fact, (and it happened 7 years ago, ffs).

Stating that he was removed may be “fact”, and thus not necessarily problematic; however, attributing that removal to a personal disagreement with Mr Stallman over usage of the term “GNU/Linux” seems, at minimum, a misdirection. Perhaps it wasn’t intended as “a shot” against Mr Stallman, but it does seem a careless, if not entirely disingenuous, misrepresentation of the “facts” involved.

Agreed, and as such Miguel was removed. That being said, how is stating that he was removed a shot against the FSF?

It is a “shot” because it is not relevant. Because it is gratuitous, it is a “shot”.

It’s a statement of fact, (and it happened 7 years ago, ffs). Is stating that RMS eats his own toe jam a shit against RMS as well (even though there is video evidence of it)?

Yes, that would be a “shit”, because again it would be gratuitous. If the topic under discussion was something like personal hygiene or something, then such references might be appropriate.

This is, in fact, the very definition of an ad hominem attack:

Ad hominem abusive
Ad hominem abusive (also called argumentum ad personam) usually and most notoriously involves insulting or belittling one’s opponent, but can also involve pointing out factual but ostensible character flaws or actions which are irrelevant to the opponent’s argument.

The “factual-ness” is not the only important factor. The relevancy is also important.

And would it be construed as a shot against RMS if anyone but Miguel did it?

Yes. It would be as equally fallacious from any source.

The thing that bothers me about this particular aspect of your comments is that each in each of these points you are clearly and unambigiously wrong. For example, I think you are incorrect in drawing the equivalence between the FSF and Microsoft “campaigns”, but I am willling to accept that someone might argue that honestly, and I am willing to entertain the posibility they have a point.

I am not willing to accept that someone honestly thinks Miguel wasn’t taking a petty shot at the FSF/rms, that bringing up “toe jam” is not an ad hominem, and that “if someone else did it it would be alright”. (Well, actually I am willing to accept one other factor than dishonesty, but it’s not very flattering, either.)

Which begs for the question, why is it FUD when MS does it, but not when the FSF does it? Also, when there is campaign after campaign, it qualifies as relentless.

And since both sides are doing it, why is it not a “misunderstanding on both sides” It’s clear that the respective “non-FUD” is in response to the other side’s “non-FUD”.

Reading your comment, do honestly, really believe in it yourself?

I believe that the FSF is no better than anyone else in terms of double-talk and clever marketing. I also observe that they get a free pass that nobody else does.

Clever wording isn’t an excuse, it’s clever wording. There’s nothing dishonest about saying, for example, that platform A supports application Y, while platform B does not.

There were complaints at the time about Ximian not permitting outside access to their development source trees, instead periodically providing binary packages and releasing source tarballs

And yet, they weren’t doing anything wrong – Emacs and GCC used to employ the cathedral model as well.

his behavior isn’t necessarily going against the ideals of Free Software, it does not particularly promote the message for which the Foundation exists to promote.

Mono is free software. Gnome is free software. Building free software on top of free software doesn’t go against free software. Or is the issue that Mono is based on non-free tech, in which case, what about dotGNU?

its officers should certainly be expected to support that agenda.

Agreed, and as such Miguel was removed. That being said, how is stating that he was removed a shot against the FSF?

It’s a statement of fact, (and it happened 7 years ago, ffs). Is stating that RMS eats his own toe jam a shit against RMS as well (even though there is video evidence of it)?

And would it be construed as a shot against RMS if anyone but Miguel did it?

Could it have anything to do with FOSS constantly badgering Microsoft, constantly vilifying them, making the root of all evil and behind all conspiracy theories, or the relentless “FUD” campaigns directed by the FSF – defective by design, badvista and 7sins come to mind. How about the lunatics over at boycott novell?

You call Defective by design, BadVista and Windows 7sins a relentless FUD campaign?! When it’s neither relentless nor FUD…
They have very strong factual data and they do not make excuses on what is a careful wording and what is a lie, like you do.

Reading your comment, do honestly, really believe in it yourself? It sure does not look like it. I mean, you don’t seem like a mentally challenged person, it requires some level on intelligence to come up with these excuses. The mystery is why you think that everyone else is stupid enough to buy it.

He’s merely stating that RMS removed him from the FSF on the count of not participating in what is honestly, a trivial non-sequitur or a campaign.

Did RMS remove him or not? If he did, how is it taking a shot at RMS?

I would assume that the FSF’s bylaws would require a vote of the directors/members to remove someone from the Board of Directors.

And one might also consider some of the other activities of Mr de Icaza at that time — circa February 2002 — when evaluating potential reasoning behind his removal.

He was the founder and CTO of the for-profit company Ximian company, which was handling development, and commercially marketing their own distribution of, GNOME. There were complaints at the time about Ximian not permitting outside access to their development source trees, instead periodically providing binary packages and releasing source tarballs. There were also complaints about a campaign which took place in 2001 where Ximian bought Google ads targeted specifically at people using KDE, QT, and Trolltech as search terms. These may not be horrendous or egregious, but there was some question as to a conflict of interest in having corporate officers serving on the FSF Board (all other Directors were academics except for rms, whom I’m not really sure how to categorize ).

Mr de Icaza was a rather enthusiastic participant in Tim O’Reilly’s OSCON and in the promotion of “open source”, as opposed to “free software”. Now the distinction between Free Software and Open Source Software may not be of interest to Mr de Icaza, but it IS something that lies at the heart of the Free Software Foundation’s philosophy; and it is entirely reasonable that someone sitting on their Board of Directors should support the ideals that are at the very core of the Foundation’s existence.

There was also the GNOME mailing list discussion over Mr de Icaza’s statements about “GNOME should be built on Mono” and the re-licensing of Mono classes under the X11 license (events to which Mr de Icaza provided the “long response” email), and while, again, this behavior isn’t necessarily going against the ideals of Free Software, it does not particularly promote the message for which the Foundation exists to promote.

Regardless of which side one wishes to consider more correct — Free Software or Open Source — it seems obvious to me that Mr de Icaza was ill-suited as a candidate for the FSF’s Board of Directors. Like it or not, the FSF’ raison d’etre is to aggressively promote software freedom — its officers should certainly be expected to support that agenda.