Sorry, but that sounds like an excuse.

Humans are thoroughly reprehensible creatures. There's a reason the living world is dying around us: that's because humans ARE assholes that generally destroy everything they touch. In some cases, that wicked Shiva energy is channeled in directions that benefit others ("open source", or what many profiteers say the "lunatic fringe" rightly calls "free software", is an example.) But in most cases, that energy is expended in (temporarily) fluffing the arrogant and greedy who, coincidentally or not, often seem to hover like vultures around those small eddying pools of curiosity and itch-scratching, eyeing their opportunity to profit from the collective labors. In other words, when something good happens, it's almost always an accident, and if that accident is profound enough, it needs righteous assholes to defend or protect it (like Linus does with Linux.)

So, that leaves you with a simple choice: create something for the whole with assholes that might benefit more than your local group, or not--and try on your own to profit from the assholes you manage to convince your wares are gold.

Of course, we're not addressing the concern of talent or competency here--that's a whole other layer that ALSO gets determined by assholes, the ones usually up or downstream of your project/work, either as user or developer or anything in between. And that is the area Poettering laments in his piece--which, lets be honest, has a whining tone--and seems unable to reconcile with how he sees his software (hi, Lennart!) and a great many others do (practically everyone on the "wrong" side of the systemd thing.) As many have noted, if there's significant pushback, maybe some re-thinking is involved, but that seems in short supply, particularly given the lofty position he finds himself in. With great power comes great responsibility, and one hopes humility, and that's where things seem to break down for him and the systemd posse.

In the end, he and you can just walk away if that isn't your cup of tea. There's no shame in saying "Enough! I'm outta here!" Just don't hide behind the idea the "open source" community is worse than working in a commercial firm because assholes are contained by culture--that's disingenuous bullshit. Ask anyone who's worked at a big firm and I'm sure they can name LOTS of assholes they've been forced to deal with during their time there. If you're lucky, you can do work that interests you and work around and with the assholes with the work driving you forward. Since most aren't, they just deal. Only a few play the victim card, thank the Dieties, but this gosh-darned Internet gives them a platform to vent their spleen.

Like I just did....

I love F/OSS, but the Stallmans of the world are simply living in a wishywashy black and white fantasy land.

Any legitimacy you might have had, poof! Gone in one sentence so internally contradictory is sounds as if it was spewed by the Palintroid.

There's NOTHING "wishy-washy" about Richard Stallman. It seems on some dim level you already know this as you ratchet the words "black and white fantasy land" immediately, if obliviously, after the words that preceded them. Here's a clue: when trying to be cute, cut down on the doublethink unless irony and sarcasm is OBVIOUS.

Your knob-polishing of GNOME (Miguel's Microsoft project) has buried your reason so deeply under the ideology of convenience that it appears you'll love just about anything. Your pronouncement of love doesn't sound like a passion for F/OSS, or even a remotely basic understanding of what it actually *is*; it comes comes across as an overture to work in Redmond with Miguel.

Be about it, then; as others have noted, GNOME has sucked for a long time, and derivatives of Silverlight won't lift it out of Suckville in any case. Go your own way; just don't pretend the result will truly be FOSS because we certainly won't.

Whoa. Marvel is not, nor has it *ever* been, a source of "alternative media". If you want "alternate" comics, find some Slow Death, Love and Rockets, hell, even Cerebus (or perhaps The Boys, if you're into superhero meta-commentary/farce.)

I don't know what is more depressing: that you seem to think Marvel produces "alternative" comics or that they are alternative "media". Marvel is NEITHER; they are about PRODUCT, as is Disney. The two corporation were made for each other.

That being said, I'm dropping any Marvel titles I might have been following--I truly loathe Disney, and won't have any part of their "Disneyification" of culture. That's not a great loss, though: since Garth Ennis left Punisher, what does Marvel have to offer, anyway?

I believe the majority of what you say is bullshit. You're thinking of the department of Homeland Security, specifically the ICE. But modern cops do tend to be clueless about electronic crime.

Umm, are you even remotely aware of A Clockwork Orange? The idea explicated there, and seemingly jumping from the page into our little gravity well every moment, is nearly fifty years old now, so the original poster's contention that many stupid thugs find their way into law enforcement is not even a new or original observation of emerging social trends. If anything, ACO didn't go far enough in its speculation of how near-term "law enforcement" might look. It's a sad thing when fictional near-future-dystopias are outstripped by "reality".

But, more to the point, how many smart, or even reasonable intelligent cops have you ran across? If you've enough experience with Johnny Law to state how "clueless" they are when concerned with computer crime, surely you have some experiential anecdote that would validate that view, as well as invalidate the contention that street cops are one step removed from knuckle-dragging stormtroopers? And, sorry, articles posted on /. don't count.