That should be "SCO and MS arguments".

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.

That happens to me when fixing bugs in a particularly old piece of code (usually the stuff done by overseas consultants... friends don't let friends outsource programming)... once getting the thing fixed, I often fail to understand how it could have ever worked in the first place.

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.

It's sort of a chicken-and-egg issue. Debian doesn't get the help because Debian doesn't make itself worthy of getting the help. There have previously been paid developers working on Debian, they simply weren't paid by Debian.

I am beginning to be wary of systemd, but no. I am talking about anal-retentive policy wonks who believe they only make the distribution for themselves and have (perhaps without intending to) systematically marginalized Debiian and made the project a whore to Ubuntu.

There is a certain contingent in Debian that is not good for the project, IMO. I would like to see which side of a fork they are on, and pick tthe other.

I don't often use OSX, but I'm a little mortified that the system font is dictated by the whims of Apple, instead of being selectable by the user. When I install Windows, one of the first things I do is to change the system fonts. In KDE I used to, but now I'm happy with the defaults. But it never occurred to me that there might be a modern OS that doesn't give you this option!

Not all of them are unwilling to respond to such requests, but those who are willing to show everything that is going on usually don't make fantastic claims either. For them, it is just another interesting physics experiment that may show some additional insights as to how the universe is made. Anybody who tells you that it is anything else is likely a fraud or just wrapped up in conspiracy theories.

The only way they are going to go to a patent clerk is with a functioning device... and there is no point for a patent if it doesn't have net energy production or at least produces more neutrons than a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor (which is used BTW for some medical therapy and research purposes where a neutron source is needed).

No, that is what I tell the 6 digit UIDs to do.

Only when reading Slashdot on a Tesla Model S.

Yes, that is possible. So is watching porn videos...not that it would be distracting or anything for the driver.

But you can buy a 100 year old Baker Electric..... with original batteries that still work!

The problem is all of the money that is thrown about with fusion, and the presumed idea that you can use it to figuratively print money with unlimited amounts of energy and (claimed) low capital costs. These are folks who think that the Mr. Fusion device in "Back to the Future" was real and not just some Hollywood prop.

There is a whole bunch of interesting things that could be investigated with cold fusion theories even if it wasn't producing commercially viable levels of energy. Unfortunately, that thirst for the money and inflating numbers or even simply making stuff up to justify their research seems to be the name of the game at the moment.

It is also driven into the hinterlands of science where peer review is discouraged and further taints the topic when total frauds can't be distinguished.

Not all cold fusion people hide from the neutrons. Some of them even claim detected neutrons, at least in small quantities. Those who are more practical about such issues, however, don't claim to have a commercially viable device and only assert it is a passing curiosity to play with perhaps an interesting physical phenomena to study and a place to sink huge amounts of money with almost nothing in return. Since physics journals won't even take papers on the topic any more, throwing money at the concept won't even produce PhDs as a by-product.