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The blog post is as authentic as a big pile of rubber dog shit. The faux-folksy patina does nothing to hide the utter contempt Oracle has for their customers.


Is this so different than the accusations of contempt often levied at several large personalities in the open source world?

I'm honestly curious about this.


Depends on which "several large personalities" you're referring to. Perhaps if you specify, your curiosity will be sated.


I am curious in general, as it is often noted that there is a trend in open source development communities to be hostile to end-users.

If pressed for specifics, Linus Torvalds and Theo de Raadt come to mind as a couple that are often called out for their abusive behavior.


In those cases, the difference is that the end result of the projects they command - Linux and OpenBSD, respectively - are free software, and therefore ultimately respect the user by providing said user with the various essential freedoms. This is in stark contrast with Oracle's software products, which are not only proprietary, but repressively so.

The hostility is also usually confined to those on the development mailing lists of those respective projects (which are implied to be meant for developers, not end-users). It's also with full understanding that - if someone doesn't like how Torvalds or de Raadt run their respective projects - they're welcome to fork (even if said forking rarely happens in practice).

The reason why I pressed for specifics is because there are some personalities in the FOSS world who - while still not in Oracle realm of dickery - probably would come close if given the ability to. Mark Shuttleworth comes to mind, being outright hostile to user feedback on things like Unity, Mir, the Amazon Shopping Lens, etc. (as opposed to the interdeveloper harshness characteristic of Torvalds and de Raadt).


I very much don't agree, the only time I've seen writing like this is when someone is deeply frustrated about something.

I don't think it's an unreasonable fairy tail to say this is a person who is frustrated, who has drunk the corporate kool-aid in a big way, who is dealing with the detritus of a rather nasty security confidence scam industry, and is putting their views out there. Even if you or I don't like the message, I believe she meant it. I believe it. Maybe I'm gullible.


Opening up with the gambit about inventing unique ways of killing people was a genius way to set the tone for the piece.




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