I think it's completely pointless.

At the latitude where I live, the sun sets after 2100 PDT in the summer. That would still be 2000 PST, with an hour and a half of twilight after that. What more do people want?

In the winter the sun sets at 1600 PST. Even 1700 PDT wouldn't buy much, particularly since that would mean sunrise at 0900 PDT.

...laura

Martyrs? Who killed them for their beliefs?

Go away, troll. They certainly died while pursuing something intensely important that they were willing to risk their lives for. The fact that you weren't around to pull the trigger makes them no less martyrs.

I looked carefully at my viewing habits, concluded I was paying a fortune for the two or three channels I actually watched, and decided there had to be a better way. The major drop in the quality of the content didn't help.

I now have over-the-air TV for local news, iTunes, Netflix and Acorn, DVDs, and stream stuff. This includes a U.K. VPN account to circumvent BBC and ITV geoblocking. It all works fine.

...laura

Yup.

There are often limits on authenticity, either due to parts availability (e.g. TTL ICs), or for convenience (modern monitors, keyboards).

...laura

Anyway, I have better uses of my time than to waste another minute with you.

We knew what was going on when you ran your anti-IBM campaign, sometimes even positioning yourself as arguing on behalf of our community. It was a way to lend credence to IBM and MS arguments during the SCO issue. To state otherwise is deceptive, perhaps even self-deceptive.

Florian, you would not be devoting all of this text to explaining yourself if you didn't feel the need to paint your actions in a positive light. That comes from guilt, whether you admit it to yourself or not.

Go write your app, and if you actually get to make any money with it you can give thanks, because it will happen despite what you worked for previously. Keep a low profile otherwise because your credibility is well and truly blown and you can only make things worse. And maybe someday you can really move past this part of your life. But I am not holding out much hope.

So, I see this as rationalization.

The fact is, you took a leadership position, and later turned your coat for reasons that perhaps made sense to you. But they don't really make sense to anyone else. So, yes, everyone who supported you then is going to feel burned.

You also made yourself a paid voice that was often hostile to Free Software, all the way back to the SCO issue. Anyone could have told you that was bound to be a losing side and you would be forever tarred with their brush.

So nobody is going to believe you had any reason but cash, whatever rationalization you cook up after the fact. So, the bottom line is that you joined a list of people who we're never going to be able to trust or put the slightest amount of credibility in.

And ultimately it was for nothing. I've consistently tried to take the high road and it's led to a pretty good income, I would hazard a guess better than yours, not just being able to feel good about myself.

Meh, it's easy to find people with skill. With values, OTOH...

You have a point.