FreeBSD Kernel Internals Documentation

[Chad Perrin]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 08:31:14AM -0500, Jerry wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Jan 2012 23:55:26 -0700 Chad Perrin articulated:
> > On Sun, Jan 01, 2012 at 09:14:20AM -0500, Jerry wrote:
> > > On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:56:45 +1000 Da Rock articulated:
> > > >
> > > > If you want to verify, then by all means parouse this list and
> > > > others (even in the linux community) over the past _five_ (thats
> > > > 5) years.
> > > 
> > > I am not sure what "parouse" means. There are a Shane, Dawn and
> > > Nicole Parouse. Are you referring to them? Perhaps you meant
> > > "peruse".
> > 
> > I think you had no doubt at all that "Da Rock" meant "peruse" here,
> > and you should check whether the walls of your house are made of
> > durable material before you start throwing stones.  Check, for
> > instance, you habitual inability to properly use apostrophes to
> > indicate the possessive form of a word, or your error in using the
> > plural form "phenomena" where the singular "phenomenon" is
> > appropriate.  These observations of your relative illiteracy come
> > from a single paragraph, by the way, but until I saw your "play dumb
> > to call someone dumb" approach to discussion, I felt it appropriate
> > to point out your own failings along the same lines -- not because
> > these specific failings invalidate anything else you say, but because
> > you're kind of a mean-spirited little hypocrite.
> 
> I specifically asked "Da Rock" in regards to "parouse" since I am not
> familiar with what country he is from or what he considers his native
> language. It is very possible that the word he used is native to his
> region and therefore I wanted to inquire further.

I don't believe you.  That's about the most cockamamie "oh innocent me"
defense I've seen in a long time, especially given your history of
trolling on this mailing list.


> 
> Furthermore, before you make a complete ass of yourself, please check
> out this URL: <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phenomena>

    http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/phenomena

. . . or, from your own choice of dictionary:

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phenomenon

Did you see the word "nonstandard" on the page whose URI you provided?
I'm not making an ass of myself.  I'm pointing out where you have done so
by using nonstandard or incorrect formulations (such as lack of
apostrophes as indicia of possessiveness, thus once again using plural
forms to mean something other than plurality) while jumping all over
someone else's case for a misspelling.


> >
> > In short, trying to paint people who disagree with you in the colors
> > of stupidity for a single spelling error when your errors are fairly
> > numerous is not a winning strategy.
> 
> Win what, I was not aware it was a game. Maybe that is the problem; you
> are too busy playing games rather than actually completing bona fide
> projects.

I'm pretty sure even you are capable of understanding what I said, and
are not literally confused about whether I'm referring to some kind of
"game".  It's also kinda interesting you're talking about me wasting time
on this "game" you've invented that I must be playing rather than
completing projects when you've just recently admitted you are wasting
copious quantities of time trolling Polytropon, to the extent that you
are mining years of mailing list archives in some kind of crusade to
assassinate his character.  I have zero interest in wasting anywhere near
that much time on you, the way you are wasting so much time on him, and
while I'm at it that looks a bit like someone obsessed with "winning"
some kind of imagined contest.


> > > 
> > > Ah, there we are. That good old socialist/fascist call to arms,
> > > "You're either with us, or against us."
> > 
> > I think the statement was more like "Someone who calls it 'open sore'
> > is clearly a mean-spirited jackass who likes making trouble," rather
> > than "Down with the bourgeoisie!"  I just figured I'd help clarify.
> 
> Now you have really peaked my interest. On any given day, on a Windows
> based forum, the terms: "FreePiss", open-sore", "Lsuck" etcetera are
> freely thrown around. On Linux based forums, terms like: "Winblows",
> "Microsucks", etcetera are freely used. Would you please be so kind as
> to explain to me why it is morally correct to use one set of terms but
> not the other? It is either right or it is wrong. You cannot be
> slightly pregnant. I personally find such terms morally repugnant;
> however, since they are commonly used on this forum it appears that they
> are socially acceptable. Would you not concur or are you going to try
> and bullshit your way out of this one?

1. I didn't say it was "morally correct" to use one set of derogatory
forms and "morally incorrect" to use the other.  You are attributing
arguments to me I never made.

2. I don't even use terms like "winblows" and "Microsucks".  I don't even
say "M$".  I refer to Microsoft Windows OSes as "Microsoft Windows OSes",
or sometimes "MS Windows OSes", or something along those lines.  Trying
to make me out to be a bad person for things other people have done is no
way to do your arguments any favors.

3. While I don't condone "winblows" and "Microsucks" per se, at least
such statements are directed at technology and a vendor that produces
that technology, whereas your use of terms like "open sore" is clearly a
direct attack on the people with whom you are speaking by referring to
what you imagine to be their feelings and attitudes -- a move that seems
like it could only reasonably arise by design, in a mean-spirited attempt
to personally offend the people to whom you are speaking.  It would be
akin to someone saying not "people who use winblows like you", but
"winblowers like you", implying unsavory things about your relationship
to MS Windows and bypassing any potential for gainful discussion.  It
proves nothing about the person to whom you are speaking, but seems to
pretty strongly indicate your own motivations have nothing to do with
reasonability or rational discussion.

. . . and I don't see anyone else calling you "socialist" or "fascist" or
"mercantilist" or "capitalist swine" or anything like that, either.
What's your excuse for the "socialist/fascist" canard?


> 
> I have a morbid hatred of those who suffer from decidophobia. However,
> after restudying the matter, I think it more likely that the real
> problem is an irrational fear of success. If only Microsoft was able to
> accomplish things like easily getting a printer fully functional under
> its environment, making sound or video or wireless cards work without
> in all too many cases resorting to draconian measures, and the list
> goes on, I would agree with you. However, we (and by we I am assuming
> that you haven't got your head buried so far up your ass that you are
> not aware of what is transpiring on other Operating Systems) are both
> aware that, that is not the case. Linux in general and Ubuntu in
> particular have made huge strides in making computers easier to use and
> opening up the path for better, easier and more advanced software to be
> installed.

Ubuntu, actually, has thrown out the baby with the bathwater.  In its
zeal to make things "just work" in a particular manner, it seems
hell-bent on ignoring all but one way to do things, even as it tries to
dominate its entire market niche to the extent that it eclipses and
marginalizes alternatives.  In this respect, it is very much emulating
the MS Windows you seem to admire so much (at least in contrast to
FreeBSD).  While this makes Ubuntu more useful for specific subsets of
the user base, it also makes it much less useful for many, many others.
It only gets worse when it makes dramatic changes before the software is
ready not just for prime time, but for beta testing -- thus taking up
Microsoft's tactic of doing testing on people who expect a finished,
polished product with its core offering.  On the plus side, Ubuntu at
least is not costing people license fees for the privilege of testing.

The real hell of it is that by leading a charge toward adopting the
policies of MS Windows development in the open source Unix-like operating
system world, it is not marginalizing other ways of doing things in
service to providing something that does not already exist.  It is
increasingly trying to be a better Microsoft Windows, while pretending to
be a better Unix.

I understand the value of a "just works" system, and if Ubuntu and MS
Windows both lived up to that standard as well as they and their loyal
users pretend, I would be happy for them (as far as that goes), but
things are not quite as rosy as they all pretend -- just as things are
not quite as rosy with FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Slackware, Debian, and
Arch Linux as their communities pretend at times (though they are
presented as "rosy", and fail to be so "rosy", in very different ways
from Ubuntu and MS Windows).  I am willing to put in a couple extra
minutes making configuration decisions to get a system where I tell it
how I want to work instead of it telling me how I'm going to work; I am
willing to do some of my own automation in exchange for a system that is
more stable; I am willing to learn about my options in order to have
options.  Others take the opposite approach: they are willing to let the
vendor dictate how they will use a system so they can go directly to
using it rather than customizing it at all; they are willing to deal with
periodic instability so they can have more stuff pre-automated; they are
willing to give up options to avoid having to make decisions they regard
as irrelevant to their lives (which I find odd, given how increasingly
much of our lives we spend in front of computers, but they're welcome to
that choice if that's what they want).

In short, it's a trade-off, and it's why I prefer FreeBSD over Ubuntu.

It's also why I regard your trolling this FreeBSD mailing list to spread
such bile about FreeBSD, claiming that Ubuntu is the Right Way for all
open source software as a disciple of the Microsoft way of doing things,
utterly inappropriate and wrong-headed.


> 
> There is a commonly held truism, "If you are not the lead dog of the
> pack, the view never changes." Now if you are happy playing "follow the
> leader" and watch their balls dangle in your face, then fine.
> Personally, I want to be in the lead. As soon as anyone steps up and
> remarks about FreeBSD's standing in the desktop market, they are
> immediately met with the "Blame the {fill in the blank}" choir. I am
> now officially renaming that the "Sour Grapes Posse".

You seem to think everyone is traveling in the same direction, but to the
extent FreeBSD travels in a direction that suits my needs rather than
those of Technologically Uninclined Ubuntu User #7, it appears to be
beating its own path rather than following anothers.  Greater popularity
is not, after all, an indicator that something is leading something else.
It's just an indicator that the direction it's going is a popular
direction.  You don't have to be the most popular to serve a niche, a
need, that has a valid place in the world -- and you don't have to refer
to crude metaphors in explicit and offensive terms to make a well
reasoned point.

You can "rename" a community however you like, but if you cannot see how
that contributes to the general perception that you are nothing but an
offensive troll out to force-feed your own sour grapes to the rest of us,
you're stupider than I expected.

. . . and that's definitely the biggest case of me taking a troll's bait
that has come up in quite a while.  I expect to regret the wasted time I
could have been spending on tidying up some gaming software enough to
make it look nice for others' use.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]