Dear fellow gnu/linners
I'm a faithful reader of this list, and an avid user of gnu/linux. In the past this forum has helped me solve my doubts, given me the feeling of community, and even landed me an assignment or two, as I am a freelance journalist. That is partly why I usually go over each and every post regardless of what it says. I say this as someone who cares. Do we want to be remembered for vituperation, inconsiderate ranting, at times even name-calling? An honourable forum member had mentioned, rightly, a while ago, that everything we write is archived away (doubtlessly cleared too, eventually). What example are we setting, then? Aren't we representatives of a misunderstood community with few active ambassadors? Should we be quarrelling among ourselves? Don't we (or, some of us) have a mission, defined adversaries, allies? Should there be quibbling between allies then? Aren't we evangelists? Doesn't that put the obligation of decent behaviour on us? What ambassador acts out of petulance? What sage calls his congregation dolts, or idiots? What example should we be setting? Should we call others stupid, lazy, unthinking, when we were such ourselves when we started out, and perhaps still are? A champion of free speech, Salman Rushdie, once wrote to the effect that what we despise in ourselves we hate in others. Should we funnel our fury into a name-calling binge directed at our fellow users? I hope you will appreciate this communication for what it is-- an appeal to the better sensibilities within all of us, to end the hateful heated repartee we've been seeing over the past few months. Thank you. Regards Suhit Kelkar. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
