[mythtv-users] "get the sources and fix it yourself"
Jay R. Ashworth
jra at baylink.com
Fri Sep 28 14:34:20 UTC 2007
On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 09:11:14PM -0600, Bearcat M. Sandor wrote:
> >Happily, Eric Raymond and Rick Moen have taken their valuable time to
> >explain this to you and everyone else at almost nauseating length:
> >
> > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
> >
> >I commend it to the attention of everyone here *who did not pay a dime
> >for the thousands of dollars of software running their mythbox*.
>
> That misses my point entirely. Actually, i agree with the ideals of almost
> everything in that link which i have read over and over. It's full of great
> advise. However i wish Ramond had never written it. It's unkind, snide,
> sarcastic and if i showed one of my clients this, they'd go screaming back to
> Windows
"client."
You've put your finger on it, right there.
Clients are *people who have paid you for the right to ask you stupid
questions impatiently.
> My problem is that i feel i have to say to my clients "Look, please go to XYZ
> place for help but be aware that there are assholes out there who will call
> you stupid and tell you to RTFM, even if you have to say 'i don't remember
> what the manual is, or "Step off. I just started using Linux yesterday. and i
> just wanted help rather then search aimlessly through the tangle of google."
See above about "money".
For almost *any* open source project, there is *someone* out there who
will be glad to take your money to let you be an asshole.
Cause that's what the people who are violating ESR and RM's precepts
are doing: they're being lazy, stupid, sloppy assholes.
If you think that's an overreaction, then may *you* someday be the
lead developer on a sizeable project used by *hundreds of thousands of
people*. :-)
> Most people are not able to do some of the things in this smart-questions
> document. I have clients who call me for Windows problems because they can't
> figure out how to change the font size in their email or they don't realize
> some other thing that we find trivial and can do in 2 seconds. These are
> average people who are smart in other areas, but my wife were i not around,
> would never use Linux.
Sure. And they pay you. And you tolerate it.
So do I.
I don't tolerate it from people who don't want to pay for it.
Ass, gas, or grass, as the old dashboard sticker says, nobody rides for
free.
> As far as your comment about the thousands of dollars worth of software, no
> one is entitled to help, but does the fact that the help is free mean that a
> slap in the face is acceptable along with it?
You didn't read the part where they were careful to make clear that
hackers are a different cultuer from civilians, and like all
intercultural interactions -- say, a Texan and a New Yorker? -- people
are likely to misinterpret as hostile behaviours which are not intended
that way... did you?
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
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