18 Aug 2003 ncm   » (Master)

diablod3 and chipx86: Persistently rude users are easily handled: "Please send a patch." Users of free software are not worse than people at large; you now have more contact with the people at large. You are learning about humanity, or anyway westerners. The rude ones are not representative, though. They self-select: polite or otherwise engaged people only write if they have something to say, or to offer.

Often what people say, anyway, isn't what they think they're saying, and what they're really saying is more useful. "Your program can't do X" might mean "It's not very clear how to get your program to do X". Telling them how, or telling them to zark off, misses the point. Fixing the real problem helps a lot more polite people (whom you don't know) than rude people. Some of former wrote the software you depend on every day. They deserve far more than you or I will ever achieve by our little efforts. E.g. ...

The redoubtable Paolo Carlini is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for nine more days. He will be doing free-software work for Suse starting next month. Anybody willing to get together, or offer advice on what he should take in? He favors Guinness and seafood.

I posted a screed on security & bug fixes, in response to the Postfix hole, on LWN. It's the first-posted (:-) comment.

Saw "Dirty Pretty Things" last night with Paolo. Recommended. Audrey Tautou has a much harder role than in Amelie, and carries it off well.

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