"By the way, the number 1 requirement for someone to be suitable as an executive is that their character and conduct are beyond reproach"

Sounds good on paper, not so good in reality. You may know the name of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Once he said: "What, don't you have any enemies? Don't you ever say the truth?" ...but I suppose it can be rewritten as "...beyond reproach -to those that matter", which introduces a subtle nuance.

"RMS' past behavior has caused him to become a liability for the FSF"

Whom to? He used to be "just" an obnoxius character with the uncomfortable tendency of being right more times than not and who tended to say exactly what he said, word by word, not whatever people wanted to understand out of his words, up to more or less a year ago.

It doesn't help that a character like that tends to create enemies, usually among lessen people, that will take advantage of any situation to get their revenge. Of course, it can also be the case that he *is* a reproachable character that happened to get out with his way for too much longer than appropriate.

"more and more partners and numerous people are cutting off support to the FSF"

Because of him, or because those who accuse him? In a capitalistic corporation this may pose no difference, but on one aimed not only by results (running code) and legalese (licenses) but also ideals (the whole concept of free software as described by FSF) it can be of utmost importance.

"You should just drop the word "woke" from that sentence - It is prejudicial. It does not matter if they are "woke""

In fact, it does, since those referred to as "woke" may or may not be part of the "those that matter" set.

So exactly my point.

Quite "cheaper" to counter-act than prevent, as you had to resort to something happening 15 years ago that was "reverted soon afterwards" and, if you don't like how things go on FreeBSD and you think you can do it better, you always can fork and demonstrate it.

1. FreeBSD is like a quarter century old. How many times have a problem like this arisen? Gates -of any kind, don't come for free (not even in free... bsd) so maybe the cost/benefit of current situation is still positive. Now they discovered a lousy developer? They retire his "commit bit" a life just goes on. On the other side of the equation, I don't think the core team gives that "commit bit" to the first passer-by. Remember: "almost" is not anything like "there".
2. If you don't like it, and still prefer putting further load over shoulders that ain't yours, well, you are free to return your copies of FreeBSD and you'll certainly be reimbursed of all the money you paid for them.

"Part of the problem I think are Agile purists. They may feel that all plans and waterfalls and whatnot should be thrown away."

Those *can't* be "Agile purists". And, no, this is not a matter of "no true scotsman". All Manifesto's points are layed out the same way: "this over that". See? It nowhere says "this INSTEAD of that" and it doesn't say that because they never meant to say that.

"People OVER processes" is not "People INSTEAD OF processes".

"Working software OVER comprehensive documentation" is not "Working software INSTEAD OF comprehensive documentation".

"Customer collaboration OVER contract negotiation" is not "Customer collaboration INSTEAD OF contract negotiation".

"Responding to change OVER following a plan" is not "Responding to change INSTEAD OF following a plan".

It's not that difficult, I think. Now, let's go munch the implications, and then we'll go for lesson 2.

"the "people over process" part is the very first thing they dropped"

Who's "they"?

Someone already said something to mean more or less "Agile is a bottom-up effort on orgs that don't really want to change a iota"... or better said, not "orgs", since they don't have free will but some very real people within the organizations, usually at the top.

But then, there *is* a criticism that can be done to very foundations of the Agile Manifesto: it was written by high level professionals that, be it unconsciously or very consciously, understood that productive teams more times than not get results despite of the framework, not because of it. It naturally rises the notion of let knowledgeable people interact and please get out of the way.

So that's, "people over processes" but then... which people? I very much prefer a properly laid down process to the crazy ideas of unsuitable people. That's, in fact, the basis of Taylorism: let "the clever people" analyze, understand, and plan, and then let them tell everybody else what to do. And it happens that most teams: developers, managers, top leadership... are very ill prepared, both technically and intellectually, for the task at hand. No wonder the more freedom and decision power we bive them, the worse the results and no wonder either, that they eventually return to the cozzy warm feeling of familiarity: top down command and process over people... and even most of those in the "down" part agree with that.

"but with the agile process..."

"People over processes". It's the first fine point!

With such an understandment about what "Agile" is or isn't, no wonder there're problems to success with it.

"There is no such thing as a "speed limit too low". There is just a speed limit."

Yes, there is. We are not unjudicious machines, much less in a democracy. Both for practical and theoretical reasons, unsensible rules *will* be unattended.

"That said there is a "speed limit too high" if a car can't safely navigate."

Wrong too. There's no obligation to drive at the allowed speed limit. So it shouldn't be about "a car" being unable to safely go at such speed but "no car-driver team" being able to safely run at that speed.

So it's one thing limiting speed on a corner to, say, whatever allows visibility two seconds ahead and another limiting speed because you are entering a county that wants to extort foreign drivers. An abundance of the second case will necessarily make drivers pay less attention to the first one.

My own view is speed limits are not only too low sometimes but usually too unreliable.

I'd say the implied utility of speed limits from driver's perception is to make driving conditions safe enough. But then, there are times when this is in fact the case, other times they are for the authorities to cover their asses, others for being cash cows... and then there's the 1~2% of drivers that are just plain sociopaths (just because 1~2% of people overall are plain sociopaths).

End result is drivers paying little attention to the speed limits as hints for driving conditions and just for the part that really align to our interests: our wallet in the form of speeding tickets, so road speeds end up not being related to safety as much as they are about our perception on chances of being fined. Quite a pity.

On the issue of cruise control, I have to say I haven't used adaptative ones, but just the "standard" fixed speed. With one of those my average speed is most possibly a few Km/h higher than without but also more constant -and safer. As per paragraph above, I usually go by the speed limits and then a few Km/h above it whenever road conditions allow, taking advantage of speeding radars' margins so I go, say, 126Km/h on a 120Km/h limited road, which I know it won't end up in fines. With cruise control, I just set it to 126Km/h, forget about speed and focus on driving by road conditions. Without it, I have to pay as much attention to the speedometer to avoid speed tickets as to the road itself: it makes my driving more irregular with regards to speed and unsafer as I'm losing road awareness if even for a few tens of a second each time I focus on the speedo instead of the road.

"I spent the next 3 months following speed limits religiously. I've never been in so many near-misses or pissed off so many other drivers. Of particular concern are exits from highways. If it said 25MPH, I slowed to 25MPH by the time I reached the sign. More than once I heard the squeal of brakes behind me as someone nearly rear-ended me. "

I suppose you are from USA. I'm not, so I can't say for sure this applies to your roads. But I can say this about EU roads: speed limits for exits are indications for the exit itself, not the part of road leading to it.

So, the correct and legal procedure is for you to stay at your speed on the main road, then you take your exit, then you quickly but safely brake to be under the new speed limit -in that order.

You are not the only one braking before being on the exit and you are not the only one braking so much as for reaching unsafely low speed on the main road... because you are not the only one dangerously ignoring the driving codes of the land (for the most part, based on common sense rationales).

So, in brief: you don't know how to drive. You didn't know how to before, and you don't know how to now. You are not alone.

So

"The best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems"

Came here to say the same. No, sir, best protection is not to apply updates on Microsoft software but abandon Microsoft software ASAP.

In fact, your efforts on abandoning Microsoft software are like 20 years behind schedule.

"Selfishness like that which they exhibit is an evolutionary strategy that made sense when we were still fighting over scraps to survive, but being a CEO is about as far from that as it's possible to be. As such, selfishness in such a situation makes zero sense; ergo it's idiotic."

And, yet, it's the idiotic CEO the one with access to all the perks modern life can offer, not you.

"I see you're hellbent on transforming the US into a socialist utopia, just like France"

HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

You made my day, mate, you made my day.

"The any analogy is incredibly flawed. We study ants, extensively."

I came here to say exactly that.

And then, there's this other: "When weighing the risks involved in interactions with less-developed cultures such as ours, these advanced civilizations may choose to refrain from contact."

Yeah, well... that explains why we are so careful to stay unnoticed to ants: it would involve a lot of risks.

"I don't know if religion breeds special snowflakes that can't fathom the thought of life not being the "special" result of an intelligent entity or if those special snowflakes gravitate towards religion. Either way, I'm of the mind that the concept of gods is the result of an ancient visitation,"

You haven't seen a child asking "why, why, why, why, why...?"

"I would wager that our Solar system is one of the earliest to have enough metallicity for Life, and all the billions of White Dwarfs around us were just not rich enough."

Not necessarily one of the earliest but, yes, your general argument holds water.

But even then, for all that we know, live started almost as soon as it was possible, about 4 billion years ago, which is another hint that live can be a usual even, given the proper circumstances. Then, basically nothing till the Cambrian explosion 600 million years ago, modern humans about 100000 years ago, and civilization starts a mere 10000 years ago.

Provided there is a physical possibility to "conquer" the Universe (a possibility still to be seen), and the speed of human civilization evolution up to now, what if the Cambrian explosion was 2 billion years ago? what if, in the end, civilization was 100000 years old instead of 10000, or even a million years old? Even if the Universe had to wait till Sun's generation of stars, that's a lot of stars, even if only a bunch of them had 1M y.o. intelligent species, what would that mean?