The-Source.com

So, Benjamin Humphrey of OMG! Ubuntu! and Ubuntu Manual team lead has a blog post he considers so brilliant he made sure it went out twice: “Dude, you’re a 35 year old with a neck beard“.

Mr. Humphrey’s particular post is so chock-full of ignorance that it deserves a proper dissection.

Let’s begin!

[Edited to Add: Mr. Humphrey has since posted an apology.]

Step One: Mischaracterize and dehumanize the opposition

Mr. Humphrey leads off with the old tried-and-true one-two punch of the anti-Free Software crowd: first, stereotype your opposition and second, blame them alone for all failings.

Stereotype. “Extremist diehard Linux geeks” - according to Mr. Humphries – refer to Linux as “GNU/Linux”, use the terminal window, and only exercise once a year by walking their dog.

So we have – in reverse order:

• attacking people based on their physical habits and/or appearance (anti-Free Software people simply adore pointing out flaws that are in no way whatsoever relevant to the subject at hand),
• attacking the way people work (despite of the fact that if you know how to use the command line it is vastly more efficient than a gui in many, if not most, situations)
• attacking the way people speak (note that Mr. Humphrey doesn’t even raise the canard about people “forcing” other to say “GNU/Linux”, he won’t even stand for those who say it at all)

Here’s the important point – and it must be important because it’s right there at the start: these are not “normal” people:

The simple fact is that everyone on the “other” side of the chasm, you know, normal people, don’t care about freedom so much.

People that care about freedom are not “normal”. What are they then? Abnormal? Deviants? Zealots? It matters not, because the important thing to remember is they are not normal – and since they aren’t you can lie about them, you can misrepresent them, and you can ridicule them. Because you are “normal”, and they are not.

This is Step One.

Step Two: Blame them for “the problem”

These people are ruining free software’s chance to ever become mainstream and they’re annoying as hell.

It is “these people” that are “the problem”.

• It is not proprietary software companies that have massive resources to lie about Free Software.
• It is not legitimate difficulty in breaking into an already saturated market.
• It is not inherent challenges with marshalling diverse and largely volunteer resources.
• It is not a difference of opinion on what the actual “goal” or “problem” is.
• It is not a combination of all these things and many many more…

No, it is these people, these abnormal people – not like you or I! - that are the problem.

This is Step Two.

Step Three: Blather on about anything you like because any one still taking you seriously must be a total moron and so will accept literally anything you say

If you’ve made it this far, anything you say will be alright. If your target audience is willing to overlook (or even embrace) steps one and two, they are all yours!

This is where you can get some good stuff going!

You could explain that since it’s popular, slave labor is A-OK and quite similar to genetically enhancing fruit as well!

 Check out this reasoning by Mr. Humphrey:

1. The “worst kind” of people are those “who refuse to use Twitter, Facebook, or even any Google product due to privacy concerns”.
2. But! “Look at how many people use Facebook or Twitter”.  That’s because “their friends use it” and “it’s cheap”.
3. Which is “exactly the same thing” as “clothing manufacturers who utilize slave labor”.
4. “or companies that genetically enhance vegetables and fruit”

Nonsense. Absolute drivel. What the hell sort of argument is that?

Is it a defense of slave labor to justify it because it’s popular and cheap? That’s the argument made here. Inane drivel.

Step Four: Dig deeper

Listen if you’re going to let it all hang out, then let it all hang out! Now is the time to release every fallacious argument you can. Remember, if someone is still taking you seriously, you can literally say anything and they will support it.

For example, you can further misrepresent the opposition:

I also dual boot with Windows 7 because I use Photoshop for design. Does that make me a bad person?

Of course, you won’t need to show that anyone has actually called you a “bad person” – and you can misrepresent the point that perhaps designers should be dogfooding as a personal attack! It’s two for the price of one!

Or, you could be (deliberately?) obtuse:

Do you really, really believe that Android is in widespread use because it was marketed as being free as in speech?! No, of course not! It’s mainstream because it works, looks good, and offers consumers a choice other than what Apple has on offer at a cheaper price.

This way you can ignore the point that it is because large portions of Android are free as in speech that Android works, looks good, and offers consumers a choice other than what Apple has on offer at a cheaper price.

You can also further misrepresent the opposition by pretending they are going around saying “Android is winning because it is marketed as free as in speech!” Who is making that argument?

Just because marketing doesn’t think “free as in speech” makes an effective selling point doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Companies use all sorts of hoo-doo to market products. Sometimes they “pull the curtain back” a bit and talk about manufacturing details to impress customers, sometimes they don’t.

It depends on how they want to market things, but it doesn’t change how important the manufacturing process is. Judging the manufacturing process by the marketing message is truly ignorant.

Step Five: Keep digging

Don’t stop now!

You could flip the entire community on its head:

If the product benefits as an end result, who’s complaining other than this small vocal minority who put off the rest of us? The worst thing is that this minority is usually the same people who are in a position of responsibility or decision-making.

One of the major, major, points in Open Source development is that of a meritocracy. In fact, a favorite tactic of Open Source proponents is to immediately shut down any criticism by asking something like “Well, what exactly have you contributed?”

But here, Mr. Humphrey is upset that “the opposition” is in a position of responsibility or decision-making!

If they are so damn harmful to the project’s success, then how did they get there? How do they stay there? How did the project become successful at all in the first place with such bad people at the helm?

Step Six: Don’t acknowledge the elephant in the room

If you read about these wide internets, you might see some comments along the lines of “Mr. Humphrey has a point, he just made it poorly”.

I agree, there is an underlying point, but it has nothing to do with the philosophical differences of Free Software and Open Source, or even finding the best way to promote a project.

Here’s Mr. Humphrey’s point: I don’t like people that think differently.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

It’s not surprising because no one likes hearing a conflicting opinion – feels like we are being told we are wrong, and no one likes to be wrong. (God forbid if someone comes out and actually tells you “You’re wrong!”).

That’s human emotion, natural and understandable.

The thing is, intellectually we should be able to suppress that annoyance, listen to an argument and re-evaluate our opinions. That happens sometimes, but more often than not, a person will tie themselves into knots to ignore a contrary opinion.

Step Seven: Reader participation

Out of mercy and the length of this post, I’ll stop here – but there are several other fallacious and irrational threads I didn’t pick out. (xkcd comics, vegetarians and religious folks lumped in with “extreme views”, Ubuntu being Free Software is “nothing but a bonus”, “fail to see free software taking off on principle alone”, and so so much more)

Add some in the comments if you like!

Something worth discussing?

Listen, there is a valuable and needed discussion to be made on how to best promote Free Software, Open Source, GNU/Linux and all that to different targets.

There’s also interesting ground to plow in how much marketing should influence development.

And, there’s the always nifty question of what “winning” means.

All of the above will have different answers depending on whose asking: a project like KDE has different concerns than a project like Ardour.

Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’d argue that suggesting there is one set of “right answers” for everyone – and the inverse of identifying the “worst kind” - show a lack of understanding of difference and nuance; suggesting the One True Way or the One Worst Thing is the exact sort of black-and-white thinking one might accuse zealots of engaging in.

I hope that these questions are what Mr. Humphrey was trying to raise, and I really hope that those who “agree with much of it” are reading between the lines to find.

They must be reading between the lines, because there is no rational argument from Mr. Humphrey.