Journal: Leet-ism could kill Linux

Slowping had a great response to the issue of contractual employees at MS, and the reply by MsGeek was even better.

This is something I've thought a lot about, because this happened to me before. The level of hautiness, smugness, self-importance, and downright stupidity of many online 'fans' of Doctor Who is one reason I never associate with them. That means I avoid the reasonable ones as well -- I admit that, but most of the time it's an acceptable sacrifice. And my level of involvement wasn't cursory -- I made this decision after creating the Doctor Who Ratings Guide and maintaining it for years. And if that can drive me out, well, let's just say that if things haven't changed, then I worry for new fans who wander into that snake-pit.

Same sort of thing happened again on a FreeBSD Newbie mailing list. I got flamed for asking why spam was getting through. The person who responded made it clear that my opinion was considered less than infantile in his all-encompassing estimation. Well, fine. All that means is that it will take me a little longer to learn FreeBSD. But I have to wonder how many people he's driven away, probably to MS rather than Linux.

Point being: I don't care who in the F/OSS world likes or doesn't like me. That means that I will learn what I need to learn given time, despite those who might otherwise drive me away. 90% of the other newbies out there aren't so thick-skinned. Drive them away, and the best case scenario is that a few of the richer ones go to Mac. The rest will try to live with WinXP, desite the sick feeling it leaves them.

If this sort of thing were to sink Linux, it would be a bad, bad thing.