Isnt calling someone names suppose to wear off by the end of your first year in primary school?
Then why do people in the Ubuntu Community and the Linux Community ( without calling any names out ) insist on refering to Microsoft as M$ or Microshaft or a plenthora of other mostly derogitory names. [ see just a quick search of only Ubuntu Resources I made to cite here ]
This only makes us look childish IMHO, what d you think? Personally I have met a few Microsoft Employees and read through some MS Dev Blogs at blogs.msdn.com and never seen Linux or Ubuntu refered to in such a manner, in fact some even make a point to refer to it as GNU/Linux etc. Maybe I’m way off base here and you all will leave comments telling me so, but I just had to get this off my chest.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Not only does it make us look childish, it IS childish.
If you dislike Microsoft, just don’t use its products. And if you see Microsoft as your adversary you should be (at least) respectful (even if you disagree with Microsoft way of doing things).
“Be respectful” is one of the rules of Ubuntu’s Code of Conduct:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct
Just my 2 cents
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:16 am
Probably because Microsoft piss them off, are unethical, and they want people to know that.
I’ll grant you, it’s not the best way to go about things, if they want to be taken seriously and convey a message. However, to suggest that Microsoft is more noble because they don’t use the same tactic is naive in the extreme. In fact, Microsoft’s tactics are much more underhanded and disrespectful than “name-calling” as you put it. They have bribed governments, and cost good, honest citizens their jobs.
Go read groklaw, and you’ll see that Microsoft are RIGHT NOW involved in lies and deception designed to undermine over tens years of hard, honest work by thousands of people. That hard work was partly just for fun, but mostly a noble effort to help others. Microsoft is a threat to decent society, and a threat to the optimal evolution of the IT industry. If our society was sane, it would not allow Microsoft to exist. If Microsoft weren’t so corrupt, they would have already been broken up by government decree, after they WERE found guilty in multiple courts. Yet, they have wriggled out of that, too.
A few well-meaning MS developers does not change the fact they they work for a corporate criminal which harms us all. Those devs made choices in who to work for, and what to invest their efforts in — just like some scientists made choices to work on weapons of mass destruction, whilst they would otherwise seem like good people. You should never confuse the fact that individuals are basically good, with the fact that they are part of an evil machine. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.
As for “GNU/Linux”… it’s simply a term designed to give respect to both of the major groups involved in the creation of Linux. What’s the big deal? It’s not like “Linux” ever rolled off the tongue anyway.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:17 am
Very good point, Brandon!
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Well, I’ve often referred to Microsoft as M$ for two reasons:
1) It’s an entirely appropriate abbreviation
2) While there are many MS’s (like Multiple Sclerosis), there is unmistakably only one M$
Yes, you are right, it makes the community look childish, and we should refrain.
But hey, if the’y're going to call us *GNU*/Linux, then I think our butchering of their name is justified! :-D
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:24 am
I agree with you about the namecalling, it’s immature, and it only discredits those who do it.
I don’t, however, agree with you about the Ubuntu (and even Linux community) having a culture of namecalling. It’s only a small, although loud, minority that only do the namecalling. It’s unfair to label the Ubuntu community especially as a community that generally does namecalling. I’ve found that the vast majority of Ubuntu contributors are professionals who treat everyone with due respect, even those they do not like.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Generally, people who use such derogatory terms aren’t worth listening to. It’s a perfect reason to take everything else they say with a big grain of salt until they prove they are worthy of your attention.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 3:43 am
@Jonathan
You’re right, those that don’t practice namecalling are busy ignoring it … thereby imposing a level of guilt on themselves.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Brandon, I totally agree. Well said.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 4:44 am
Microsoft is a duplicitous, mendacious organisation, run by a thug intent on little more than a protection racket. It will deserve respect when it earns it. At the moment, it falls outside of the realm of civilised discourse.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I agree with name calling being immature because it is plain and simple. For a while, I called Microsoft “M$”, when I first starting using Ubuntu but it quickly lost it’s appeal to me.
The real problem, I think it authoritative sources such as Plant Ubuntu members using it. You guys using it is essentially saying it’s accepted and okay to do so. I follow Planet Ubuntu via RSS and right after this post in my reader was another Planet post with “M$” in the second sentence.
It was kind of a ironic, the change starts with the people in the spotlight, it will trickle down to your average user sooner or later. :)
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Is this your personal position or the Ubuntu Planet position?
I understand your point and you should say whatever pops into your mind but who appointed you to speak for the community?
I have no idea what this has to do with Ubuntu, the new release, bringing new users into the community or anything else to do with Ubuntu.
Although this is no where near egregious as the nitwit post to draft Al Bore for President, it falls into the same category of someone expressing a personal opinion about something that does not relate to Ubuntu.
You want to post something to help people understand and use Ubuntu, post away in the Planet. You have some non-relevant gibberish, keep it on your blog. If anyone is interested, they will find it.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 8:11 am
I agree.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Oh, it’s just because the Linux keyboard drivers aren’t compatible with the ’s’ key yet ;)
(Not serious - I run several Ubuntu machines and avoid non-free software where I can)
There was a good Penny Arcade comic about this a few years back which I can’t find the URL for, and I do agree it makes it harder to take authors seriously when they use ‘M$’.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 8:34 am
It’s all about zealotry. The Mac crowd has them. The Windows crowd does too. In my mind zealots need to be ignored as they really bring nothing of value to discourse.
Use your brain. Contribute something worthwhile. Be mature. Use the scientific method.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 9:49 am
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1543
Read that post and tell us what you think?
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Couldn’t agree more. There really is no need for it and it doesn’t reflect well on the community.
I attended a LUG meeting not long ago and I was surprised by the amount of anti-Microsoft ranting. I wouldn’t have minded so much but it was distracting and most of what was spouted was total rubbish. I was tempted to correct the offenders statements, but it was a large group and I didn’t want to embarrass anyone - besides, I think they were doing a good enough job by themselves.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 10:56 am
@ #10 Mike
For what its worth planet.ubuntu.com ( and other planets ) are “Planet Ubuntu is a window into the world, work and lives of Ubuntu developers and contributors.” ( Direct quote from the website [ top right ] ) not necessarily about Ubuntu at all, it has been like this since the very start. If you feel my feed ( or anyones for that matter ) impedes your ability to ready Ubuntu Blogs please feel free to bring your point to the Community Council.
And as for if its my opinion or Ubuntu’s another quote directly from the page ( very bottom ) “Blog entries aggregated on this page are owned by, and represent the opinion of the author.”
Thanks for your feedback though :)
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
/agree
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 11:35 am
HEY! I used to work for Microshaft! The funny thing, the employees actually called it Microshaft. But ya, it is very childish. the M$ one annoys me the most though for some reason. I think you are starting to see less and less of it though, or at least that is how I feel. The only thing I dislike more than the shaft or the $ is blog cops! Piece out homeskillet!
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
No, Brandon, I think this is a brilliant post to make, and one quite important to have on the Planet.
Though I don’t particularly care for Microsoft — and mostly, this comes from bad experience, rather than reading polemically-charged blog entries, I do think that the Ubuntu community has a responsibility to be professional in their dealings in the community. That means that Planet Ubuntu posts, and wiki entries, and all the other things that are preserved for posterity should be kept very clean. Though some, I’m sure, would say that Microsoft has earned every foul word spoken against them, you’ll happily note that even when politicians are screaming at each other, they make a point of referring to their opponents as ‘the honourable…’, &c..
In private, that’s a whole other matter. There’s nothing wrong with referring to Microsoft as ‘Microshaft’, because it’s — well, frankly, it’s funny, in the same way that referring to G/L zealots as ‘geeks’ is. It’s no different than calling Superstore ‘Stupid Store’ or McDonald’s ‘Rotten Ronnie’s’. Just… for posterity’s sake, we have to be careful what we say, no matter who it is, because something small will affect the whole community.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Here is some good reading on the subject of linux advocacy. It is old, but still applies I think.
http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/advocating-linux.html
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I agree! I don’t see a need for such namecalling from either side (and as the developers of Microsoft may not be party to such things, I have ran into many die hard Microsoft users that don’t have a single kind word for any one that doesn’t use Microsoft).
I must say having a recent Microsoft XP Home SP2 crash to the point of no recovery didn’t make me happy - but I still didn’t go namecalling of the employees of Microsoft… I did get rather upset that I lost a large amount of Digital Artwork (as I do a weekly DVD back up of my files and it was on the 6th day of that cycle.)
No, calling names isn’t needed…
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Actually, Brandon, the name calling isn’t just childish, it’s a danger to the promotion to Linux. Look at it from this perspective: If you were someone with very little computer experience, would you rather have your OS from a professional company that charges large amounts of money for their product, but are “nice” to their competition (nice as in no name calling), or would you take it from a community that’s giving the software away for free, but resorts childish name calling whenever a competitor is mentioned?
The name calling is going to turn a lot of people away from Linux and right to Apple and MS. Many people want a civilized community where they can get help without fear of being bashed, and when they see childish antics and constant attacks on another company, they tend to leave.
You’re right, it is childish, it can cause bad opinions of the community, and it really needs to be stopped.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I so totally agree it isn’t even funny. Honestly, the childishness of using M$, etc. constantly so put me off the Linux community that for pretty much that reason alone I skipped out on trying Linux for years.
And today, as a happy full-time Linux user, it is still one of the most annoying things to me about our community. If I see a post that has uses such childish phrases while asking for help or anything of that sort, I simply refuse to answer. I’d rather those people get driven away from Linux than to ruin the community as much as they already are.
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Thank you! I’m glad I am not the only one getting annoyed (especially when blogs on the Planet are using M$ and such).
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Well, I’ve always been under the impression that the $ in M$ is a dollar sign and not an abbreviation for what I think you mean. Hardly can call that “calling names”.
Is “Wintendo” then also too harsh?
Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I made this point a long time ago.. as well.. but I mean, even look upstream.
Debian, for the longest time, did not include KDE due to the license. During discussions about that, very VERY key debian developers referred to TrollTech with very derogatory names as well. You have to remember, it seems like this OS was built by college students who were desiring a counter-culture.
Now we’re a subculture, and we’re coming to grips with the fact that jerks who program for us are still jerks.
Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 4:55 am
I entirely agree; I have long thought that this sort of behaviour is most unprofessional and does nobody any good. Like most attempts at comedy by repetition, it loses even that after about the dozenth time, too.
People who constantly refer to other people’s work in this way (be it Microsoft or anyone else) go down a notch or two in my estimation.
Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I don’t agree. Sorry, but there needs to be a counterpoint to this. Certainly, some of the references are immature and do not reflect well on the community. I’m not advocating the public display of such actions but there are limits to how we can express our beliefs in text (not words, just text). I, for example, refuse to capitalize microsoft because only proper nouns should be capitalized and I don’t consider microsoft “proper”. Childish? Maybe. But it’s a form of quiet protest. Others protest a bit more loudly.
Can you blame them? Regardless of what you think of their software, their business practices are simply despicable. Anyone claiming to be a proponent of any form or flavor of free software has to be outraged at microsoft’s current stance on Linux. It is pure and simple racketeering to say you have to pay us or we might sue you. Consider the reaction if Ford said GM had to pay them for some patent or they might sue the drivers. And Ford might have an actual claim since automobiles DO have legitimate patents.
So while I agree that we should try to be as professional as we can in public, we must also be very public about our outrage. It’s a fine line and sometimes we don’t walk it very gracefully.
Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
You don’t capitalize Microsoft because you don’t think they are ‘proper’. Sorry, but that’s just stupid and immature. I think regardless of who or what your protesting against, it is imperative to remain civilized and be as respectful as possible. If the other side is childish, we look better than them. If the other side is respectful too, we can only look good if we’re respectful.
I think that the free software movement is a wonderful thing, and completely agree that software patents aren’t good. I do not condone many of Microsoft’s practices. However, I believe that a truly free society needs economic freedoms as well. Is Microsoft’s practice of strong-arming OEMs into only selling Windows bad? Yes. Should they be legally prevented from doing it? No. The pressure for change needs to come from consumers (and, by extension, computer manufacturers), not from the government, if only because any legal restriction will almost inevitably have loopholes.
One of my biggest problems with the Linux community (the Apple community is often guilty of this as well, but I really don’t care about Apple) is that they are constantly complaining about Microsoft and pointing out its shortcomings/failures. What we really should be doing is pointing out how great Linux (and free software) can be. By focusing on why Windows is bad, we’re really only saying “use Linux because it isn’t as bad as the other guy”
Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I agree, thanks for sharing this with everyone. We don’t need rely on name-calling to show the advantages that Ubuntu has over Microsoft products. In fact, it only has the reverse affect of making open source look less respectable.
Says:
October 15th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
In response to N. Mailer’s
“It will deserve respect when it earns it. At the moment, it falls outside of the realm of civilised discourse.”
The problem is that *you* should not be outside the realm of civilized discourse, whether you consider the opposition civil or not. When you are contributing to someone else’s image of the Linux community, you should always do so with civil discourse. If there’s a topic or company you don’t personally feel you can discuss with civility, then you should not discuss it.
Says:
October 16th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I concur. I don’t like the M$, etc. name calling either.
Says:
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 am
I have to say I agree with Lee. I just can’t respect a company that’s done what “Microsoft” has done.