Pseudonyms (was Re: [TriLUG] SCO Conference Call)

[Tanner Lovelace]

Mike Johnson wrote:
> Ed Hill [ed at eh3.com] wrote:
> 
> 
>>ps - And Tanner has an excellent point.  Isn't it curious that 
>>     you who are trying to make some (ill-defined?) point about 
>>     code ownership and copyright attribution fail to provide 
>>     an identity?
> 
> 
> No, he doesn't have an excellent point.  How does his identity have
> anything to do with his arguments?  One does not need to include
> their phone number, address, and social security number to be permitted
> to offer their opinion on some random topic.  There are plenty of people
> on this list (and plenty of other lists) who don't paste their real name
> all over the place.  Does that make their opinion somehow less valuable?
> No.  It doesn't.
> 
> So please, if you have a beef with the content, cool.  There's no need
> to attack the fact that they haven't presented their drivers license to
> you.

In general, I have no problem with anonymity.  However, if someone
comes on an Open Source list (which I will argue this is) and states
something like "Open Source Software's future does not look very good",
then if they want to be taken at all seriously they'd better be prepared
to back that statement up with their full reputation.  I have no idea
who "Gnu Man" is, but because of that post you can bet that I will hold
all his future posts suspect, assuming I read them at all and don't just
delete them on sight.  Gnu Man, if you want anonymity, fine.  If you
want respect, fine.  Just don't expect the two to go hand in hand.
To Mike, yes, identity has a lot to do with arguments.  The way it
looked to me Gnu Man could have been someone at SCO who came to our
list to spread FUD.  If I knew who he was, I might not have come to
that conclusion.

Cheers,
Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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  This would be a very good time to hang out with the Open Source
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