Today I ran across a couple of interesting posts on the theme of how criticism is received. I have a bit of real-world experience in this matter, but having worked on a farm as a youth, virtual poop flying around doesn’t bother me too much.
If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything
Perhaps it stems from a different childhood experience, the idea that only nice things should be said? In any case, Adam Gonnerman has a short article, “FOSS, FUD and Freeloaders” where he describes his experience in commenting on religous matters – both actual religious matters, and FLOSS “religious” matters:
So, my friendly criticisms of GNU/Linux make me as much a FUD-spreader in some people’s eyes as my disillusionment with Churches of Christ made me “unfaithful” in the view of others.
I’ve seen this first hand, an explicit attempt to excommunicate people from the community. It’s nasty and childish, but I suppose that’s where one must go when one has no argument. It’s strange that one can support, even enthusiatically, 99% of the entire FLOSS-o-sphere yet be portrayed as some sort of outsider for criticising 1%.
Such is the nature of irrationality. I like Mr. Gonnerman’s article (and attitude), in no small part because of the religious connection that lets him point out Pharisees. I don’t usually like to spend to much time on religously-themed metaphors in FLOSS, but that’s a good one.
Smart folks talking
A second article is Bradley M. Kuhn’s, “Denouncing vs Advocating: In Defense of the Occasional Denouncement“. In this article Mr. Kuhn identifies two situations where he feels denouncement is warranted:
The place where negative campaigns that denounce are simply necessary, in my view, is when the practice either (a) will somehow completely impeded the creation of FLOSS or (b) has become, or is becoming, widespread among people who are otherwise supportive of software freedom.
I certainly agree with these criteria – in fact, I would add a few more! – and Mr. Kuhn lays out his argument with his customary clarity. I encourage you to read his article.
Check out my cool life experiences
Once – a million years ago - in a band I started we had a songwriting process where the bass player and I went through what we called The Elimination of Weak Riffs. We would trade riffs back and forth, and toss out those we both couldn’t agree were awesome (they went into the Graveyard, incidentally, perhaps to be revisited later). The writing process was usually quite fun and rapid.
Later, I was in a band – this time as a “hired gun” to replace a departed member – where the dynamic was different and people would bring in a nearly finished song. People really didn’t want to criticize this song this dude had spent all this time on, and I didn’t want to “rock the boat” as a new member. It took a long, long time to get songs out of that band.
Now tell me, are we trying to make music here or what?
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