my response was a less a defence of Angad Singh and more a reflection of my opinion which is that this thread is a pointless discussion, however you may think that it may lead to a more fruitful outcome in the future, it may, but I see little scope of it considering both parties are quoting each other's mails and responding line by line, that in my opinion isnt a sign of agreeing or even agreeing to disagree, and that reference to the dog, was a joke, I hope it was taken in that context and not as an insult. As of yet and its been i think somewhere in the vicinity of 30 mails, still a matter of concern and defence, and my guess is its going to remain that ways, until both "parties" agree that it may have been a conflict of interests, Angad could point out the technical merits of OpenSolaris, Gora and Raj may say that it might have been a harsh rebuttal, now i am not suggesting that is what should be done but it might just be a first step towards a more mature and open discussion, like you said there are bigger issues worth fighting for. I agree to your second point as well, that being putting up a disclaimer for a product you might be paid to evangelise, I think its great that ILUD is vendor independent, and its a good thing for a FOSS community to be so, however being vendor independent does not mean that one cannot talk about any company's product, it might have been prudent for senior members to have just pointed out to Angad to put a disclimer, now as i have read the posts, in my opinion there was a bit of hostility and i think the astroturfing comment might have hit a nerve. I get your point from the uniform example, its not as entertaining as the dog one, but i get the point.
PS: was just trying to be funny again :) and the story about our college not being picked up for the satellite conference for freed.in, its a long story, one that would involve a us going into a lot of detail, i am not chcikening out of the discussion here, my opinion is that its passed, and we could make amends this time around and avoid mistakes that might have occured the last time around on both our part and ILUGD's side, again i am not making allegations, am saying just forget it, we can make a new start, and hope things turn out to be better this time around. Peace out :) Regards Aditya Kumar Sharma Fedora Ambassador , Noida. On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Sandip Bhattacharya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > +++ Aditya Kumar Sharma [17/06/08 13:32 +0530]: > >quite frankly i think its just plain stupid what all of you are doing, > >this IMHO is like a group of five year old kids bragging how strong > >their dog is, how big his teeth are, how furry his coat is, it seems > >awfully important thing to do when you are five but when you grow up one > >realizes that it was awfully stupid, because quite frankly nobody cares > >about the other guys dog, each one to his own dog, or in this case > >product, or choice of distribution, if a certain individual is being > >paid by a company does not mean that he cant love their product, or tell > >people about it, > > I disagree. I believe that this is a valid discussion that Angad, Gora, > Raju and Kenneth had, and if anything, it underlines the drive in the > people behind this list to keep the list free of any kind of commercial > influence. We have had these kind of discussions quite a few times in > the last few years, and however negative the feeling was in the few days > surrounding it, it has generally been good in the long term. And the > list hasn't died in the process. > > Gora and Raj had concerns, Angad had his defense. People can draw their > own conclusions. Let us move on. There are bigger issues to fight for. > > > now in this case i highly doubt angad is nothing but a > >spokesperson for sun, who joins all possible mailing lists and then > >brags about Solaris or OpenSolaris or a million other things that Sun > > There is no issue being evangelical about such product offering, but > when you are being paid for evangelise a company's product, it is common > courtesy(not just in FOSS lists) to put in a disclaimer that you are > commercially associated with it. It is just like stock advisors putting > in disclaimers that they own certain stock themselves. > > >system, i also love fedora, am a fedora ambassador, but lets say five > >years down the line i am hired by either Apple or Red hat should i > >suddenly stop talking about either of those amazing Operating systems, > >it would probably by then would be my second nature to talk about such > >things, if it already isn't! , > > As soon as you are hired by any of these companies, you should be aware > of your changed role in this list. The ILUGD list is proud to be a > vendor independent, non-commercial, grassroots FOSS community. > Possibility of bias while offering suggestions, takes the shine off such > an identity. > > It is just like talking face to face with people. If you talk while > wearing the uniform of the company, people would have no objection to > whatever suggestions you make, because they can evaluate possibilities > of bias in their mind. But if you do the same thing without wearing the > uniform,.... that is sneaky behavior. :) > > > >of us here haven't let pass an opportunity to target him, and yes i am > >not a regular contributor to the mailing list, and the reason to that is > >quite simple, ILUG-D rarely welcomes new people, rarely approves of new > >initiatives, when we , i was the one who sent in the proposal for a > >FREED.in or even a satellite conference being hosted at our college > >JIIT, sent in a proposal it was met with only skepticism , i accept that > >we were new members, but someone could have said no worries we'll try > >and integrate you, but nothing of that sort happened, Freed.in or any > >such conference must be held at JNU is what i gather, the reasons for > > I don't think you completely understand how such FOSS lists work. There > are no issues with new people coming in. There is just a bit of mild > skepticism in new people turning in and trying to change things. If > anything that this list has learnt over the last ~10 years is that > it is easy to start things but more difficult to sustain things in the > long run. The basic unwritten expectation that the list has from new > people is for them to build some kind of credibility in the list first > by regularly contributing to it. Your voice counts more and more as your > contributions go up into the community. > > BTW, did you jump to all these conclusions about the nature of the list > just because the ILUGD folks didn't warm up to your idea about hosting > freed.in at your college? Do you believe in democratic opinion? What if > most people involved in the discussion genuinely believed that JNU was a > better venue? Were you open to that possibility? > > My advise is to warm up > the list to your college by holding several monthly LUG meetings, etc. > first, > and then go ahead and proposing to have such conferences there. > > - Sandip > > > -- > Sandip Bhattacharya > http://blog.sandipb.net > > _______________________________________________ > ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org > http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd > Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi > http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/ > -- Aditya Kumar Sharma _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
