[OS:N:] Re: Ignoring Ed

["ekunin" <ekunin snet net>]

Bartram, Chris wrote:

>Anyway, I promise that I will Henceforth ignore Ed..And in fact ask others
>to do the same. (its hard)

His attitude was seconded by JT Moree who said he started ignoring me  some
time ago.

Their attitude, in my opinion, misses the point of the Internet. The
Internet empowers individuals. Chris and JT have every right to ignore me. I
have no idea why Chris finds it "hard". They even have a right to try to
persuade others to follow their lead but that seems more bother than it's
worth. Someone wrote me a lengthy letter telling me to review posting
standards on Usenet complete with links to FAQ pages. I don't know why he
bothered. He can ignore me and he certainly should, just as I can ignore
him.

Everything we do should be aimed at furthering the individual's ability to
act for himself. We should have spam filters for those who dislike spam (as
I do) and at the same time permit those who want to send money to enlarge
their penis, to do so. To those who say spam takes up bandwidth, I say the
solution is not to limit individuals, but to increase bandwidth.

Those most vocal about me take what I see as a narrow view of things. I
favor open source everyplace, but I see the reason it has not made greater
inroads in schools and on desktops as psychological, having to do with the
way we relate to each other. I don't know the ins and outs of open source
politics, but I understand someone tried to start a United Linux which I
assume was an attempt to merge the various distros into one. Red Hat didn't
join, thinking it travels further and faster alone-another common point of
view here. Red Hat may be right. Its greater brand recognition may turn it
into the de facto standard, but that's marketing, not open source.

As for anarcho-communism, you may not like the label, but open source is
closer to that than it is to free market capitalism. If you don't see it,
you strike me as pretty blind. Time will tell.

Ed Kunin
http://www.egalite.com