Like others I found the headline confusing. I read it as "Researchers are predicting the use of Wikipedia as a vector for the spread of disease". This may mean that:
One of the definitions I found was:
One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.
I am sure that fits. While SpaceShip II is mainly intended for a non-exploration purpose, the program has resulted in some significant advances in rocketry and White Knight II has significant non-tourism use. These pilots have been involved in other space efforts, I remember the one who was injured from the Rotary Rocket test flights. There are lots of safer ways for these folks to make as much money as a test pilot is paid. They do what they do to advance our progress in aeronautics and space.
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.
You can mine coal fairly easily after the apocalypse, sure, but that isn't going to power an internal combustion engine, only an external one.
All of the readily available oil on the planet except for maybe the Arabian Peninsula has been drilled out. New prospecting is almost exclusively performed on oil rigs that are far offshore, which requires a lot of advanced technology to access (such as helicopters, which are powered by, er, oil).
No, if we get bombed back to the stone age then we're staying there. Maybe we can rise up to some liberterian's wet dream of a coal-powered, diseased, and poisonous world of struggling city-states where the average life expectency is 30, but no more than that.
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.
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson
